The jupon is loose and plain to the waist, below which
appears studded work. The half-noble is the same, except that the chain
mail hauberk reaches to the wrist. In 1360, the noble presents the
same characteristics with regard to the camail and jupon, but a loose
sleeve, fringed at the wrist, is apparently attached to the jupon. The
half-noble of the same date has a rough indication of a coudière, with
mail brassarts or hauberk sleeve, and a gauntlet.
[Illustration: FIG. 200.--Man-at-arms, _c._ 1350.]
[Illustration: FIG. 201.--Knight, _c._ 1350.]
Richard II. nobles have the camail with a tippet of material reaching
nearly to the waist, below which appear the studs; the arm is encased
in the short sleeve of the jupon, and a long sleeve of material beneath
it; but on the half-noble a hauberk sleeve of mail is depicted to the
elbow. Henry IV. is represented in his first coinage habited almost
the same as his predecessor, but in 1412 a gold noble was issued
showing the arm in a brassart, coudière, and vambrace, but with the
same unaccountable studs below the waist. The gold coins of Henry
V. continued to be of the same pattern as those of Henry IV. In
Henry VI.’s first coinage the arm is encased in laminated brassarts,
coudière, and a scoop-shaped piece of chain mail emerging from the
coudière and reaching nearly to the wrist, where a gauntlet or glove
with a flexible cuff is shown. Otherwise the coin is the same as in
Henry IV.’s time. The rose-noble of Edward IV. exhibits the same
characteristics, as does also the angelet. With this reign the type
of the king standing in a ship ceases, but is revived again in the
time of Henry VIII., whose first coinage comprehended a regal on
which the peculiar scoop-shaped piece of mail upon the arm is shown,
an indefinite kind of cape serves for the upper part of the person,
and the inevitable studs appear below the belt. On the George noble,
issued between 1526 and 1533, we get, for the first time in more than
a hundred years, an approximation to contemporary armour in the figure
of the Saint, who is clothed in Maximilian plate from head to heel,
with large pike-guards appropriate to the time. On subsequent coins of
Edward VI., James I., and Charles I. the armour is correct. Summarising
the above respecting the persevering studs we find them represented
on coins a century and a half after they ceased to be worn; camail is
shown sixty years after it was disused; plate does not appear until a
hundred years after it came in vogue, and the drooping sleeve of mail,
though used on the Continent, was not seen in England after the Cyclas
Period. Speaking generally, Richard II. and the monarchs immediately
succeeding had the pleasure of seeing themselves represented upon the
coinage in the same equipment as the ordinary soldier of the time,
with the sole exception of the crown. Upon the silver coinage the head
only of the monarch is represented until we come to the reign of Edward
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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