These goads were used by the Romans, and the gilded spur was one of the badges of the knight of mediæval times. The earlier are of the “goad” type, and fastened by a single strap; they were probably first used singly, and were called “prick spurs.” An example of the goad prick may be seen in the Daubernoun brass (1277). We get the rowel prick late in the thirteenth century. The D’Argentine brass (1382) furnishes an example of a spur of the fourteenth century. The number of points or pricks in specimens of the middle ages approximate the date. Early in the fourteenth century there are usually eight, but in the fifteenth as many as twelve points to the rowel, and spurs were long-necked. Later, the fashion in style and form was “legion.” In heraldry the knightly spur was a “goad” up to 1320, and called a “pryck-spur,” later the “rouelle-spur.” The tournament spur of the sixteenth century was straight and long in the neck. In the case of a knight’s degradation his spurs were hacked off by the king’s master-cook. During the fourteenth century it was usual, when orders were given to men-at-arms to fight on foot, for their spurs to be taken off, so as not to impede their movements; and these were then often used as caltrops. This was notably the case at the battles of Courtray and Poitiers. PART IX. “GOTHIC” ARMOUR, 1440–1500; AND SOME ARMOUR-SMITHS OF THE PERIOD. The “Gothic”[31] school, as it is termed, exhibits the highest embodiment of artistic beauty as applied to defensive armour; and it inaugurated a new epoch in warlike panoply. The armour-smith’s best efforts were directed not only to give increased protection to the limbs and make the armour light, flexible, and impenetrable; but the flutings and escalloped edges were designed to produce beauty of form and outline, as well as with a view to deflecting the weapon of attack from vital points; and the armour was equally mobile for fighting on foot or on horseback. We owe its initiation doubtless to Italy, in which country, together with Germany, it reached its highest pitch of excellence; but the style itself is really a reproduction of the mediæval Florentine dress. Gothic armour is greatly associated with the sallad, large mentonnière, tuilles, and sollerets “à la poulaine.” The cuirass is decorative; the earlier form being somewhat short with many taces, and the later with a longer breastplate and fewer taces, thus exhibiting the evolution from the still earlier fashion. It has been fully described under the heading devoted to this piece. There is an English example of this style of armour shown on a brass in St. Mary’s Church, Thame, Oxfordshire, about 1460; and another in the effigy already mentioned of Sir Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in St. Mary’s Church, Warwick. There are only very few Gothic suits preserved in this country, our practical people having used up so many as old iron, just as they let the weather into our fine abbeys and churches by