Charles W. Oman.

History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages from the Fourth to the Fourteenth Century, pp. 353-377; 510-565.

CHAPTER

VI

ARMSAND ARMOUR(HOO-I3OO)1

IN development the fifth chapter ofour Third we describ of knightly armourBook down to the endth of

the eleventh century, when it consisted of the conical helmet furnished with a nasal,of a long mail-shirt with or without a coif to cover the head and neck, and occasionally of guards for the legs (ocreae,bainbergae)? \Ve must now make clear the stages by which this comparatively simple equipment gradually passed into the heavy and complicated plate armour of the fourteenth century. For some time after the Norman Conquest the improvement of armour progressed very slowly. Before the end of the
eleventh century the short broad sleeves of the mail-shirt had

been lengthened so as to reach the wrist, and made more closely-fitting. The Great Seal of William II. displays the change very clearly when compared with that of his father.3 But, with the exception of this single alteration, there is practically no variation in armour till the third quarter of the twelfth century. In the time of Henry II. the fully-equipped knight was armed exactly as had been his great-grandfather who served under the Red King. It is astonishing to find that sixty years of contact with the East had affected European arms so little, but it is not till the end of the century that modifications in equipment to which we can ascribe a crusading origin make much progress. The long warfare with the Turks and Byzantines did, as we have shown on an earlier page,
1 In this chapter I must acknowledge that I am deeply indebted to Mr. John
Hewitt's admirable Ancient Armour (Oxford, 1860).

2 Only a very few of the personages in the BayeuxTapestry wear leg armour. Duke William, however,generally shows it: probably only chiefs and wealthy
barons were so equipped.
3 Cf. the two Great Seals of the two Williams
510

in Plate xvn.