[Illustration: Fig. 56.--Convex Armour of the Fifteenth Century, said to be that of Maximilian. (Museum of Artillery, Paris.)] The annals of Florence contain a statute of 1315, requiring every horseman serving in a campaign to have a helmet, a breastplate, gauntlets, cuishes, and leg-pieces, all of iron; but in France and England the whole of these pieces were not adopted until somewhat later. In the reigns of Philip V. and Charles IV. we see the ventail of the helmet with a grating, and the vizor opening with a hinge. The bassinet, lighter than the helmet, was at first worn by the knight when no hostile encounter was anticipated; but subsequently, and at an early date, the vizor was added to the bassinet, as well as to the casque; and then it became as much used as the helmet, which, towards the end of the fourteenth century, was abandoned. About the same period some portions of iron horse-armour began to make their appearance. We find entered in the inventory of the armour of Louis X., a _chanfrein_ (a plate of iron fastened on the horse’s forehead). [Illustration: Fig. 57.--Crossbow Men protected by Shield-bearers. Fifteenth Century. After a Miniature from the Chronicles of Froissart. (MS. Bibl. Imp. de Paris.)] The crossbow, for some time prohibited by ecclesiastical authority, was the weapon most in use at the period spoken of; as having the double advantage of being drawn with more power than the ordinary bow, and of throwing its arrows to a longer distance with greater precision. Historians say that at Crécy, in 1346, there were fifteen thousand crossbow men in the French army. The Genoese were considered the most skilful in Europe; and next, those of Paris. A manuscript in the British Museum shows them wearing iron helmets, _brassières_,[6] and leg-pieces; and for body-covering, jackets with long, hanging sleeves. While the bowmen had both hands occupied in discharging their arrows, shield-bearers were employed to protect them by means of large bucklers (Fig. 57). In the year 1338 the use of firearms is for the first time noted in France. But we think it right to reserve all we have to say of these modern offensive weapons until our history of the ancient system of armour is finished. Considering the early imperfections of firearms, the old system must have long continued, especially among combatants of noble degree--for they affected contempt for the new warlike equipments, by means of which personal valour became in a manner useless and could no longer ensure victory in battle.