Let us now examine, as far as we are enabled to do so, what was the Teutonic warrior's defensive equipment. The structure of the Body-armour can only be inferred from indirect evidences; for the vague terms of the writers, such as _lorica_ and _byrnie_, and the rudely conventional forms of the painters, who indicated a tree by a cluster of three or four leaves, and a coat-of-fence by a few circles penned on the parchment or punched on the bronze, afford us little help in determining with exactness how the armour-smith achieved his task. It is curious that the best testimony we obtain is that of the poets. A simile or an epithet lets in more light than all the limners and all the historians. It seems clear that in the earlier days of Northern rule, none but leaders wore body-armour; but, as years rolled on, and prosperity increased, the subaltern ranks affected this distinction. As we have already shewn (page 38), the Ceorl vied with the Eorl in the richness and completeness of his equipment; and at length, under the rule of Charlemagne, the troops of the Count, as we have seen, are _all_ required to have defensive armour: "Omnis homo de duodecim mansis, bruniam habeat." Those who had not this amount of land, clubbed together and furnished amongst them the panoply in which one of their number went forth to the host. Was this _byrnie_ of interlinked chain-mail? The Anglo-Saxon poem of "Beowulf" may throw some light on the question:-- "The war-byrnie shone, hard (and) hand-locked (_heard hond-locen_); the bright ring-iron sang in their trappings when they proceeded to go forward to the hall, in their terrible armour."--_Canto_ i. _line_ 640. "Beowulf prepared himself, the warrior in his weeds, he cared not for life: the war-byrnie, twisted with hands (_hondum ge-broden_), wide and variegated with colours, was now to try the deep," &c. _Canto_ xxi. _line_ 2882. In Canto xxii. we have,--"the war-dress, the locked battle-shirt." ... "On his shoulder lay the twisted breast-net (_breost-net broden_) which protected his life against point and edge." ... "his war-byrnie, his hard battle-net (_here-net hearde_)."