The defence made of iron rings, of which Varro attributes the invention to the Gauls, appears to be no other than the hauberk of chain-mail:--"Lorica a loris, quod de corio crudo pectoralia faciebant, postea succuderunt Galli e ferro sub id vocabulum, ex annulis, ferream tunicam." Whoever may have been the inventors of this armour, the probability seems to be that it came into use gradually: from its costliness and rarity, leaders only could at first obtain it; that, as handicraft improved, and the efficiency of the defence became acknowledged, its adoption was extended, and its costliness diminished. The notion, that in the thirteenth century the hauberk of chain-mail came suddenly and generally into use, is against all known precedent, and contrary to the natural course of human inventions. Other kinds of body-armour were worn at this time. Charlemagne, as we have seen, was defended by a kind of jazerant-work. Ingulphus tells us that Harold, finding the heavy armour of his troops an incumbrance in their mountain warfare with the Welsh, clothed them in a defence of leather only. Something similar is seen in this figure from Cotton MS., Cleop., C. viii. The coat here seems to be of hide, with the fur left upon it; a dress still in use among some of the Cossack soldiers of Russia. Wace appears to describe this garment, where, recounting the death of Duke Guillaume Longue-Espée by the traitorous Fauces, he says:-- "Fauces leva l'espée ke soz sez _peaux_ porta, Tel l'en dona en chief ke tot l'escervela."--_Rou_, i. 138. [Illustration: No. 14.] Armour of padded-work, a defence of a very high antiquity, and of a very wide adoption, was also probably in vogue; and also coats covered with scale-work; but these are difficult to be identified in the monuments of the time. The hauberks of the Anglo-Saxons at the battle of Hastings are remarked to have been both short and small:-- "Corz haubers orent è petis, E helmes de sor lor vestis."--_Wace._ [Illustration: No. 15.]