The reason for this dearth of examples of leather armour in collections at the present day is twofold. Much of the discarded armour of this nature would be used for various domestic purposes, such as jugs, horse-furniture, and such-like uses, and also much would be thrown away as useless, for leather unless carefully kept and oiled tends to crack and warp out of shape. The above-mentioned bards for horses appear frequently in paintings of the early sixteenth century. The picture of the battle of Pavia in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford,[115] shows many of these brilliantly painted with armorial and fancy designs, and the absence of rivet-heads points to the fact that they are not of metal. The painting of bards seems to have been a distinct trade, for we find in the Statuto de’ pittori Fiorentini rubr. 79 (_Carteggio ined. d’artisti_, T. II, p. 40) regulations forbidding any but the registered bard-painters to undertake such work. That cuir-bouilli was not proof against firearms we learn from Jean de Troyes (page 260), who writes: “Si y eut un cheval tout barde de cuir bouilli qui fut tue d’un coup de coulverine.” This refers to the date 1465, when firearms were but primitive weapons. Dressed leather, however, in the form of the buff coat was used up to the middle of the seventeenth century, when the penetrating power of the bullet was greater. At the same time we should remember, as Marshal Saxe very truly points out in his advocacy of plate armour (_Rêveries_, p. 58), that many wounds at this time were caused by sword, lance, and spent bullet, all of which might have been avoided by the use of some thick material. The Marshal suggests sheet-iron sewn upon a buff coat, but the buff coat itself, ⅜ in. thick, would be a very adequate, though hot and heavy, protection without the addition of metal. The leather guns of Gustavus Adolphus will be found mentioned in the following pages, but these were only covered with leather, presumably to protect them from wet, and were not made entirely of this material. We have no record of cuir-bouilli being employed to make artillery, and of course the chief reason against its use would be the weakness of the seam or join. [Illustration: FIG. 50. Hat of Bradshaw the regicide, of leather and steel. Ashmolean Mus., Oxford.] The only use of leather or cuir-bouilli for defensive armour found at the present day is found in the small bucklers of the hill tribes of India. These are often so skilfully treated that the leather is transparent and is almost impervious to a sword-cut, forming a very fair defence against the bullet from the primitive flintlocks in use among those tribes. The leather hat reinforced with steel plates given at Fig. 50 was worn by the regicide Bradshaw at the trial of Charles I.[116] REFERENCES TO LEATHER AND CUIR-BOUILLI FROM CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS 1185. _Chanson d’Antioche._ Moult fu riches qu’il li a chief mi Son poitrail lui laca qui fu de cuir bolis.