These very minute regulations show that the “jack” was considered a most serviceable defence in the fifteenth century. At the same time it must have been a hot and uncomfortable garment, for twenty-nine or thirty thicknesses of linen with a deerskin on the top, or worse still thirty-one thicknesses of deerskin, would make a thick, unventilated defence which would be almost as insupportable as plate armour. The last item may be a clerical error, and indeed from the context it would appear to be thirty thicknesses of linen with one of deerskin, for the leather would be far more costly to work up than the linen. The extract has been given in full because it is so rare to come across practical details of construction of this nature. 1470. _Harl. MS. 4780. Inventory of Edward IV._ Item a doublet of crimson velvet lined with Hollande cloth and interlined with busk. This may be only an ordinary doublet, or it may be some kind of “coat of fence” or “privy coat” lined with plates of steel, horn, or whale-bone. These “busks” of steel are found as late as the seventeenth century, for Gustavus Adolphus had a coat lined with them (Lifrustkammer, Stockholm) and Bradshaw’s hat (Ashmolean Mus., Oxford) is strengthened with steel strips. (Fig. 50.) 1450 (_circ._). _Traité d’un Tournoi_, King René. ... que ledit harnoys soit si large et si ample que on puisse vestir et mettre dessoulz ung porpoint ou courset; et fault que le porpoint soit faultre de trys dois d’espez sur les espaules, et au long des bras jusques au col. * * * * * En Brabant, Flandre et Haynault et en ce pays-la vers les Almaignes, ont acoustome d’eulx armer de la personne autrement au tournoy: car ils prennent ung demy porpoint de deux toilles ... de quatre dois d’espez et remplis de couton. It would seem from the above that in France the garment worn under the tourney-armour was folded till it was three fingers thick on the shoulders. In the Low Countries, however, the pourpoint was of a different fashion, for there they made the garment of two thicknesses and stuffed this with cotton-waste to the thickness of four fingers. The difference of thickness can be accounted for by the fact that folded linen would not compress so much as cotton-waste. It should be noted in the extract from the Ordinances of Louis XI that old material is advised as being more pliable and softer. At the same time we may be sure that it was carefully chosen. It is interesting to note that in 1322 the material is ordered to be new, but in 1450 old linen is recommended. [Illustration: _PLATE XXII_ GAUNTLETS AND GORGET