Broadly, the period of full plate body armour is reached in England early in the fifteenth century, when the mentonnière, rondelles, cuirass, taces and tuilles, garde de reine, épaulières, gauntlets, cuisse, genouillières, jambs and sollerets were all of plate. The ingenious application of overlapping or lobster-tail plates, first applied to the solleret and rerebrace, had now extended to the shoulders and taces, and we find this system gradually developing towards the fine ridged and escalloped armour, which originated in Italy in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. Effigies of the first quarter of the fifteenth century are characterised by the bassinet, standard of mail, and beautiful fan-shaped coudières pointed over the elbow-joint. The skirt of mail shows itself beneath the taces, with an escalloped fringing. Articulated épaulières prevailed until towards the middle of the century, when pauldrons began to displace rondelles over the armpits; an early example of which may be seen on a brass in Arkesdon Church, Essex. Pauldrons are, however, exceptional until the “Maximilian” period. Examples of most of the features of the period may be seen in the series of plates published by Stothard, Hollis, Creeny, and others. We pass now out of the period during which we have been mainly indebted to effigies, brasses, and pictorial representations for our knowledge of armour, and enter on much surer ground, when there are actual and contemporaneous specimens to deal with. Still there is but too frequently ground for doubt and perplexity, as comparatively few suits are quite homogeneous; in many cases some of the parts are often restorations, faulty enough, as most restorations are. Pieces sometimes belonged to other suits, and not unfrequently to widely different periods. New tactics in battle had to be parried by the armour-smith with changes and modifications in armour; for instance, at the battle of Creçy the English men-at-arms fought for the first time in foot formation, and they adopted the same tactics at the battle of Poitiers on the 19th September, 1356. This innovation having been copied by the French, the armourer had to meet the occasion, and different harnesses began to be made for foot-fighting and horseback; and somewhat later additional pieces were added to screw on to the other armour, for further protection in tilting and in battle. These pieces were devised for the protection of the more vulnerable places, on the principle that energy always takes the line of the least resistance. Besides this, at various periods when defence was stronger than attack, improvements in the arms then in use took place; and new weapons were devised with a view to the attack of weak points in armour. Before the battle of Poitiers the French men-at-arms were ordered to shorten their lances to five feet, and to take off their spurs; and the lances were similarly shortened at the battle of Auray in 1364. The great helm was now rarely used,