The staples mentioned in the Hastings MS. are often very elaborate contrivances, especially in jousting-armour, and the foremost fastening was called the “charnel.” Fig. 59 shows the methods of attaching jousting-helms to the cuirass. No. 1 shows the adjustable plate which fixes the front of the helm of the suit of Philip II (Madrid, A, 16). A similar contrivance was used with the “Brocas” helm (Fig. 12). No. 2 is the front of a helm (Mus. d’Art, Paris, G, 163) in which the lower plate is bolted to the breast and can be released from the helm by withdrawing the hinge-pin. No. 3 shows the back of the same helm. Fig. 60 is a larger sketch of the fixing-hook of this helm. A is the back-plate of the helm, E the pillar hinged at D and hooked into a lug on the back of the cuirass. B is a solid block of steel of circular section pierced with holes and connected to a screw in E. B can be turned by inserting a pin in the holes and the screw tightened or loosened. Minute details as to the fastenings of the helm will be found in Appendix D, page 178. [Illustration: FIG. 59. Attachment of jousting-helms to the cuirass.] It can therefore be easily imagined that the work of arming a man was a serious business, and it was necessary that the armourer or an expert assistant should be present in case some portion of the suit or its fastenings gave way. [Illustration: FIG. 60. Side view of attachment on Fig. 59, 3.] Details of the different parts that went to make up the complete suit, with the thickness of each plate, the laces or points, and various fastenings and methods of attachment, will be found in the fifteenth-century Treatise on Military Costume of which a portion is given in Appendix D. The Marquis de Belleval published an interesting monograph on this manuscript in 1866, which is now scarce and difficult to obtain. In the illustration on Plate XVII the squires are shown arming their masters from horseback, which appears to involve some gymnastic exercises. That such agility of the armed man was by no means an artistic licence we may gather from the fact that Froissart[126] mentions Sir John Assueton leaping fully armed behind his page on to his war-horse. Again, Shakespeare makes Henry V (Act V, Sc. 2) say, “If I could win a lady at leapfrog or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour on my back,” and Oliver de la Marche states that Galliot de Balthasin in 1446 leaped fully armed out of the saddle as though he had on a pourpoint only. That this was no mere figure of speech we may judge from a little book entitled _The Vaulting Master_, written by W. Stokes, an Oxford riding-master, in 1641. [Illustration: _PLATE XXX_ ARMOUR OF THE MIDDLE XV CENT. ARMOUR OF FRIEDRICH DES SIEGREICHEN, BY TOMASO DA MISSAGLIA, 1460] [Illustration: FIG. 61. Armourer in the lists (Heralds’ Coll., MS. M, 6, f. 56).]