was considered the greatest shame and foulest scorn that could happen to a knight. The shape of the shield was oblong or triangular, wide at the top for the protection of the body, and tapering to the bottom.[101] Other shapes were given to it agreeably to the fancy of the knight, and it was plain or adorned with emblazonry of arms and other ornaments of gold and silver, according to his estate, and the simplicity or comparative refinement of his age. Some knights, as gentle as brave, adorned their shields with a portrait of their lady-love[102], or stamped on them impresses quaint, with a device emblematical of their passion. Knights formed of sterner stuff retained their heraldic insignia, and their mottoes breathed war and homicide; but gallant cavaliers shewed the gentleness of their minds, and their impressed sentences were sometimes plain of meaning, but oftener dark to all, except the knight himself, and the damsel whose playful wit had invented them. We can readily imagine that those amorous devices and impresses were not so frequently used in the battle field as in the tournament, and that they were sometimes worn together with gentilitial distinctions. [Sidenote: Various sorts of mail.] The casing of the body is a very curious subject of enquiry. The simplicity of ancient times, in using the skins of beasts, is marked in the word _loricum_, from the word _lorum_, a thong, and the word _cuirasse_ is traceable to _cuir_, leather. Body harness has three general divisions; mail; plate and mail mixed; plate mail entirely. Rows of iron rings, sown on the dress, were the first defences, and then, for additional defence, a row of larger rings was laid over the first. These rings gave way to small iron plates which lapped over each other, and this variety of mail is interesting, for armour now resembled the _lorica squammata_ of the Romans, and hence ancient mail of this description has generally been called scale-mail, while the ordinary appearance of armour being like the meshes of a net, gained it the title of mail from the _macula_ of the Latins, and the _maglia_ of the Italians. Sometimes the plates were square, and sometimes of a lozenge form: but it would be considering the matter much too curiously to divide armour into as many species as the shapes and forms which a small piece of iron or steel was capable of being divided into.[103]