The argument is that a man with a large shield needs no body armour, or uses the shield because he has no body armour. But the possession and use of a large shield did not in the Middle Ages, or among the Iroquois and Algonquins, make men dispense with corslets, even when the shield was worn, as in Homer, slung round the neck by a _telamon_ (_guige_ in Old French), belt, or baldric. We turn to a French _Chanson de Geste--La Chancun de Willem_--of the twelfth century A.D., to judge by the handwriting. One of the heroes, Girard, having failed to rescue Vivien in battle, throws down his weapons and armour, blaming each piece for having failed him. Down goes the heavy lance; down goes the ponderous shield, suspended by a _telamon: "Ohitarge grant cume peises al col_!" down goes the plated byrnie, "_Ohi grant broine cum me vas apesant_" [Footnote: _La Chancun de Willame_, lines 716-726.] The mediaeval warrior has a heavy byrnie as well as a great shield suspended from his neck. It will be remarked also that the Algonquins and Iroquois of the beginning of the seventeenth century, as described by Champlain, give us the whole line of Mycenaean evolution of armour up to a certain point. Not only had they arrow-proof, body-covering shields of buffalo hide, but, when Champlain used his arquebus against the Iroquois in battle, "they were struck amazed that two of their number should have been killed so promptly, seeing that they wore a sort of armour, woven of cotton thread, and carried arrow-proof shields." We have already alluded to this passage, but must add that Parkman, describing from French archives a battle of Illinois against Iroquois in 1680, speaks of "corslets of tough twigs interwoven with cordage." [Footnote: _Discovery of the Great IV_, [misprint] 1869.] Golden, in his _Five Nations_, writes of the Red Indians as wearing "a kind of cuirass made of pieces of wood joined together." [Footnote: Dix, _Champlion_ [misprint]]