[Illustration: FIG. 117.--Crest of John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey (_d._ 1344). (From his seal, 1329.)] _Ailettes._--This period might almost be termed the “ailette period,” but for the fact that this extraordinary adjunct only prevailed during a portion of the time. They were small shields or defences fastened at right angles across the shoulders, designed to lessen the effect of a sweeping cut from a sword or battle-axe, and were prototypes of the passe-gardes of the late fifteenth century, and of the epaulettes of the present day. The fact that a brass has necessarily a plane surface prevents these being seen in their proper place; a perspective representation would afford a vertical line only upon each shoulder, and in order to display the surfaces and avoid any foreshortening, the artist has turned them at right angles to their real positions. The usual mode of their adjustment may be plainly perceived from a representation of the seal of Henry de Beaumont, Earl of Buchan, 1322 (Fig. 116), where the stiff lower portion is bent upwards and downwards to prevent a lateral fall; at the same time it is shaped to the shoulder, and probably fixed tightly to the hauberk, or the coif-de-mailles, by rings or rivets. Another example from a seal is that of John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, 1329 (Fig. 117). Here the ailettes are apparently fastened only by one of the points and the half of one of the sides, but undoubtedly the whole of it was concave to the helmet; if so delineated by the artist the remote point would have been invisible, and not proper for heraldic representation as required upon a seal. Ailettes are rarely shown upon brasses and effigies; possibly the Buslingthorpe, Chartham, Gorleston, and Clehongre examples are the only ones in addition to the Trumpington. Upon seals they occur fairly often, but not with any frequency until the commencement of the fourteenth century. An early notice of ailettes occurs in the Roll of Purchases for the great tournament held at Windsor in 1278, where they are stated to have been made of leather covered with a kind of cloth. Silk laces were supplied to fasten them, and it is remarkable, to say the least, that the brass of Sir Roger de Trumpington, who was one of the thirty-eight knights taking part in the tournament, should furnish one of the earliest and best examples which has come down to modern times. In the curious painted window at Tewkesbury representing Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, who perished upon the field of Bannockburn in 1314, we have the best illustration of ailettes contributed by stained glass. Probably the windows were made not long after the event, judging from the armour, which would be designed of contemporary pattern. Hewitt engraves a figure of a knight in Ash-by-Sandwich Church in which the ailettes appear as square projections behind the shoulders. In illuminated MSS. of this period the ailettes are very frequently shown, and are figured with combatants