[Illustration: FIG. 102.--Interlinked chain mail showing method of construction.] [Illustration: FIG. 103.--Sir John de Bitton, Bitton Church, Somersetshire, 1227.] Whatever doubts may exist respecting the presence of true chain mail in the early Norman period in conjunction with mascled, scale, leather, horn, and jazeraint work generally, no misconception can arise with respect to the epoch under consideration, where, together with the heaume and the plastron-de-fer, it formed the sole defence of the knight. Chain mail has existed from very remote antiquity, but owing to its nature is of such a perishable quality, exposing the maximum of surface to atmospheric oxidation, that practically no examples have come down to us of all the vast quantity fabricated in remote ages. There are in the British Museum some aggregations of iron rust brought from the excavations at Nineveh, which experts assert have once been hauberks of chain mail of the true pattern (so far as interlocking is concerned), and hence are credited with being the earliest examples in existence. That the Romans used rings, together with discs and plates, as defensive covering, backed by a substratum of a tough textile fabric, is well known; but whether these rings were so interlinked as to form a true chain mail has been much questioned. Discoveries have, however, been made from time to time which tend to prove that they were not unacquainted with it, and taking into consideration the extent of territory they possessed, and the number of nations owning their sway, it would be a matter for wonder if they were ignorant of its existence. Sculptures may be referred to which appear to indicate true chain mail, but so many conventional styles and methods were used by artists to indicate defensive equipment, that it is difficult to arrive at a definite settlement of the question. That this means of protection originated in the East is undoubted, where its coolness would be a great advantage; that it spread in some mysterious way to the Teutonic nations of the West is also certain, and we must look for its introduction there to an age long prior to the time of the Crusades. It was imitated, however, by the unskilful western artificers in such a manner that immense weight occurred and became an inseparable condition, and in this manner during the early Crusades it came into contact with the light chain mail, characteristic of Oriental workmanship, covering the nomadic cavalry of the East. These horsemen were enabled in consequence to move with a swiftness and freedom quite impossible to the crusading knights, thus being forcibly reminiscent of the ponderous Spanish galleons of the Armada, and the small but handy English vessels. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the cost of true chain mail was prohibitory to all but the very wealthy, in spite of great quantities which fell to the lot of the victors in Palestine. The manufacture varies under the conditions of time, place,