From the conquest of the Normans to the Crusades, we scarcely find anything worth notice, except the adoption of a very murderous implement of war, which acquired the name of the flail, or armed whip (_fléau_, or _fouet d’armes_); it was formed of iron balls studded with points, and was attached to the end of a strong staff by small chains. But we come to a period when the events which occurred in Asia had a considerable influence on the arms and the military costume of Europe. The first and principal of the importations due to those distant expeditions was that of the coat of mail, then in common use among the Arabs, and which has since been discovered in the sculptures of the period of the Sassanidæ, a royal race that ruled over Persia from the third to the seventh century. It is not affirmed that prior to the first crusade we had no knowledge of iron chain-work, of which the Orientals made defensive helmets; but we imitated it only in a heavy and clumsy manner. This armour, which was of ponderous weight, and, besides, was far from rendering invulnerable those who were burdened with it, had not displaced the _haubergeons_, the _jacques de fer_, the _brigandines_, the _armures à macles_ (Fig. 49), (such were the names given to the cuirasses of leather and of cloth covered with metal plates); but when such defensive armour came to be better known, with all its original good qualities; and when we had learned to make it according to the Oriental method, there was no further delay in adopting that network of iron (_tricot_) at once flexible, light, and, in some degree, impenetrable. However, since the manufacture of ancient armour was more simple, and consequently less costly, it was not altogether abandoned. It is only so late as the time of Philip Augustus and Louis IX. (the thirteenth century) that the use of coats of mail became general; to this some knights attached mail hose, to protect the thighs, legs, and feet (Fig. 50). In the reign of Louis le Gros (twelfth century) we see the first attempt at a movable vizor adapted to the conical helmet of the Normans; and to the same period must be referred the invention of the crossbow: or, it may rather be said that a stock, or _arbrier_, was added to the bow, which afforded greater facility for stretching the string, and also aided in directing the arrow. This new weapon, after being exclusively used in the chase, appeared in warfare; but, in 1139, Pope Innocent II., confirming the decisions of the Council of Lateran, which had condemned it as too destructive, prohibited its use. The crossbow was not restored to military equipments until the third crusade, under Richard Cœur de Lion, who, having permitted his men to resume the weapon, was subsequently assumed to have invented it. [Illustration: Fig. 49.--Norman Archer.] [Illustration: Fig. 50.--Jean Sansterre, as represented on his Seal. Reproduced by Meyrick.]