Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe / From the Iron Period of the Northern Nations to the End of the Thirteenth Century

Of the Standards in use at this period, the notices that have reached us are neither numerous nor clear. In Asser's "Life of King Alfred" we read, that the Christian English gained a signal victory over the pagan Danes in Devon, slaying their king, and capturing "among other things, the standard called Raven; and they say that the three sisters of Hingwar and Hubba, daughters of Lodobroch, wove that flag and got it ready in one day[145]. They say, moreover, that in every battle, wherever that flag went before them, if they were to gain the victory, a live crow would appear flying on the middle of the flag; but if they were doomed to be defeated, it would hang down motionless. And this was often proved to be so." (Sub an. 878.) The Danish chronicles and sagas, however, make no mention of this Raven standard. Mr. Worsaae ("Danes in England") gives the engraving of a coin of Anlaf, on which he recognises the national device, and finds it again in that figure of a bird on one of the flags of the Bayeux tapestry; "for it is very natural," he says, "that the Scandinavian vikings, or Normans, who had achieved such famous conquests under Odin's Raven, should continue to preserve this sign," &c.

Ancient evidences are not agreed as to the Anglo-Saxon standard used at the battle of Hastings. William of Poitiers describes it as "memorabile vexillum Heraldi, hominis armati imaginem intextam habens ex auro purissimo." Malmesbury follows him: "vexillum—quod erat in hominis pugnantis figura, auro et lapidibus arte sumptuosa contextum."

In the Bayeux tapestry this design does not appear, but the old Dragon Standard, derived by the Northern nations from the Romans. And it will be observed that the dragon of Harold is not a picture painted on a flag; but, like the Roman draco, a figure fixed by the head to a staff, with its body and tail floating away into the air. Compare the representations on the Trajan and Antonine columns, and in the Bayeux tapestry. The dragon is found also among the continental Saxons. Of Witikind we are told: "Hic arripiens Signum, quod apud eo habebatur sacrum, leonis atque draconis et desuper aquilæ volantis insignitum effigie[146]," &c. And this device of a dragon appears to have been in use till at length displaced by the more exact distinctions of hereditary heraldry.

The well-known custom mentioned by Plot, of the inhabitants of Burford, in Oxfordshire, carrying the figure of a dragon yearly "up and down the town in great Jollity, to which they added the Picture of a Giant," in memory of a victory over Ethelbald, king of Mercia, in which this prince lost his "Banner, whereon was depicted a Golden Dragon;" seems entitled to greater consideration than most of the customs of old times. The Dragon Standard of the Anglo-Saxons is a fact substantiated by many monuments; and the portraying a vanquished enemy under the lineaments of a hideous giant, is a practice which has had the sanction of all times and all nations.

A very curious kind of flag occurs in the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of Prudentius in the Tenison Library. It is suspended from a horizontal bar near the spear-head, after the manner of a sail looped up to its yard, and from the side hangs a kind of fringe. It decreases below, presenting altogether a triangular form, and seems to be the same object as that figured by Mr. Worsaae, from a coin of Anlaf, in his "Danes in England."

The celebrated Carrocio or Car Standard of the Italians appears to have been invented during the war between the Milanese and the Emperor Conrad, about 1035, by Heribert, the archbishop of Milan. This car had four wheels, and was drawn by four yoke of oxen, caparisoned in red. The chariot itself was red: in the midst of it was a tall red mast, surmounted by a golden globe, and bearing the banner of the city: beneath the banner was a large crucifix, of which "the extended arms appeared to bless the troops." A kind of platform in front of the carrocium was occupied by a company of chosen heroes, elected for its especial defence; while, on a similar platform behind, the trumpets of the army contributed by their inspiriting strains to give confidence to all around. Before leaving the city, mass was solemnised upon the platform of the chariot, and not unfrequently a chaplain was assigned to accompany it into the field of battle, and to give absolution to the wounded. This device of the Milanese was soon imitated by others of the Italian cities, and with all it was held to be in the last degree humiliating to abandon the carrocio to the enemy[147]. Other origins have, however, been given to the Car Standard. It has been attributed to the Saracens; and the monk Egidius ascribes its invention to the Duke of Louvain, who caused the banner which had been embroidered by the Queen of England to be placed in a superb chariot drawn by four oxen. The Italians have a large balance of evidence on their side.

Of the various kinds of "gyns" in use, the notices are not very distinct. And a chief source of the vagueness arises from the circumstance that, as the earliest chroniclers wrote in Latin, they applied the names of Roman engines to instruments which probably differed both in form and principle from their ancient prototypes. Tacitus, indeed, tells us that the barbarians borrowed these engines from those of the Romans; deserters or prisoners from whose ranks taught to the Northmen the art of their construction. But there seems good reason to believe that the motive principle of the classic periers, torsion, was no longer in use among the middle-age engineers: their instruments consisting of a lever furnished at one extremity with a sling and at the other with a heavy weight; the sudden liberation of the latter contributing the force necessary to propel the stone from the sling. See this subject fully discussed in the second volume of the Études sur l'Artillerie of the Emperor of the French; and compare the evidences furnished by monuments of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, given in later pages of this work.

In 585, we learn from Gregory of Tours, that the Battering Ram and the Testudo were employed by the Burgundians in the siege of Comminges[148]. This Tortoise, or screen for the propellers of the Ram, is described by the translator of Vegecius in 1408 under the name of the "Snayle or Welke[149]:" "For, righte as the snaile hath his hous over hym where he walkethe or resteth, and oute of his hous he shetethe his hede whan he wolle, and draweth hym inne a-yene, so doth this gynne." In the ninth century we obtain considerable light on this subject from the curious description of the Siege of Paris, written in Latin verse by Abbo, a monk of St. Germain-des-Prez, who was an eye-witness of the events he records. He names the Musculus and the Pluteus, both of which were contrivances to shelter the besiegers while at work; the Balista and Mangana, machines for casting large stones; the Catapulta, which cast both stones and darts; the Terebra, a spiked beam for boring into the walls; and the Falarica, a gyn throwing darts to which burning substances were affixed; a terrible instrument in those days, when the roofs of houses were almost invariably covered with thatch.

The Moveable Towers formed of wood, in imitation of those of the Romans, and placed by the walls of city or castle in order to bring the assailants to a level with the defenders, are first mentioned in medieval annals under the eleventh century; but they play no conspicuous part in the military history of these days till the succeeding century, when their employment appears to have been frequent. In 1025, Eudes, comte de Chartres, is said to have used the Moveable Tower in besieging the Castle of Montbrol, near Tours; and so high was it, that it overtopped the keep-tower of the fortress[150].

In the east of Europe, the Greek Fire had been known as early as the year 673; when, according to the historians of the Lower Empire, Callinicus, the philosopher, taught the use of it to the Greeks. He himself had probably derived the knowledge of this composition from the Arabians; for, though powder acting by detonation (and consequently cannon) appears to have been first produced in Europe, and that not earlier than the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Asiatics had the use of powder that would fuse at a very early date. The Greek Fire was discharged from tubes, which could be turned in any direction. The Princess Anna Comnena, in the Alexiad, describes its use, as it was employed by the Emperor Alexis against the Pisans, from tubes fixed at the prow of his vessels:—"They (the Pisans) were astonished to see fire, which by its nature ascends, directed against them, at the will of their enemy, downwards and on each side." The receipt for the composition of the Greek Fire may be found in the Treatise of Marcus Grecus. The terrors of these early fire-mixtures were enhanced by the belief that not only they, but the flames kindled by them, were inextinguishable by water: "de quibus fit incendarium quod ab aqua non extinguitur[151]." The Greek Fire did not, however, reach the west of Europe till a much later period. It was objected against its use, that such an agent was contrary to the spirit of religion and the nobleness of chivalry: it was felt that a weapon which could be used alike by the weak and the strong, by the humble and the powerful, might become a dangerous rival to the knightly lance and panoply.

PART II.

FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND TO THE END OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

For the period now to be examined, namely, from about the year 1066 to the close of the twelfth century, our chief evidences are still the illuminations of manuscripts, the writings of chroniclers and poets, tapestry-pictures, ivory carvings and metal chasings. The valuable testimonies of the graves are lost to us; but a new source of information is opened to our inquiries in the royal and baronial seals, which from the second half of the eleventh century appear in great abundance wherever the feudal system is in vogue. Among these various evidences, there are two which, for our particular purpose, are especially valuable,—the Bayeux tapestry and the Chronicle of Robert Wace. There seems to be no reasonable doubt of this tapestry having been embroidered at the close of the eleventh century; and whoever has carefully examined it, will be at once convinced that it was wrought, not by courtly ladies, but by the ruder hands of the ordinary tapestry-workers. Curious analogy is found in the decorations of subsellæ of a somewhat later date[152]. The especial value of the Chronicle of the Dukes of Normandy is in the minuteness with which Wace delights to describe the incidents of knightly achievement. Taking his crude facts from William of Jumièges and Dudo of St. Quentin, he fills up their outlines with unwearying elaboration. Not content with drily noting the gathering of a host or the issue of an onslaught, he tells us how the levies came into the camp "by twos, and by threes, and by fours, and by fives," and with what weapons they contended, the material of their staves, and the length and breadth of their blades. He himself lived so near the time of which he writes, and the changes in the interval were so few, that his descriptions have, in most instances, the exactness of those of an eye-witness. The incidents of Duke William's Conquest of England he learns from the lips of his own father, who lived probably in the eleventh century:—

We must still, however, keep in view that Wace, like all writers and illuminators of the middle-ages, does not hesitate to fill up his pictures from the scenes around him; so that, while we concede him a large measure of authority, especially for the events near his own time, we must on some occasions withhold our confidence, when his testimony is not in accordance with evidence which is strictly cotemporary.

With the feudal system was introduced a scheme of military rank which was altogether distinct from social position. Esquire, knight, and banneret had no necessary connection with prince, baron, or private person. The heir of a crown might be but an esquire; a fortunate soldier often became a knight. The esquire was the aspirant to knightly honours, and patiently served his apprenticeship to arms in the court of his prince or the hall of some neighbouring baron. At the age of twenty-one he was eligible to knighthood: he became, if he had property enough to support the dignity, a knight-bachelor: "s'il a bien de quoi maintenir l'estat de chevalerie; car aultrement ne lui est honneur, et vault mieulx estre bon escuyer que ung poure chevalier[153]." In the field, the knight's contingent was led under a Pennon, a flag that differed from the square Banner of the banneret in being pointed at the fly. The dignity of the Knight Banneret required a retinue of at least fifty men-at-arms with their followers, so that it could only be enjoyed by the rich. The chronicles of the middle-ages are full of examples in which the knight who has distinguished himself on the field of battle declines this dignity on the plea of inadequate funds. When accepted, the Pennon of the knight was often at once converted on the spot into a Banner; as in the instance recorded by Olivier de la Marche:—"Si bailla le Roi d'Armes (de la Toison d'Or) un couteau au Duc (de Bourgogne), et prit le pennon en ses mains, et le bon Duc, sans oster le gantelet de la main senestre, fit un tour autour de sa main de la queue du pennon, et de l'autre main coupa ledit pennon et demeura quarré; et la Banniere faite[154]." Froissart offers several similar instances.

The feudal Levy was conducted on the very simple principle, that they who held the land should defend the land, and contribute to the king's army in proportion to the extent of their holdings. Those who could not serve in person, as clerics and ladies, were bound to furnish substitutes. The various contingents due from the vassals were carefully recorded in rolls; and in the Milice Française of Père Daniel is preserved a curious note of such a roll, of the time of Philippe Auguste, in which the contributors to the host are arranged in the following order: archbishops, bishops, abbots, dukes, earls, barons, castellans, vavassors, knights-banneret, and knights[155]. The usual time of service at this period was forty days: any further attendance was voluntary, and was probably much dependent on the prospect of booty.

That knight and esquire were not necessarily of gentle blood, might be proved by numerous ancient evidences: one or two may suffice. Matthew Paris, under the year 1250, tells us that the king "gave a charter of the liberty of warren in the land of Saint Alban's to a certain knight named Geoffry, although not descended from noble or knightly ancestors." This knight had obtained the privilege "from having married the sister of the king's clerk, John Maunsell." The "lady's name was Clarissa, and she was the daughter of a country priest, but exalted herself in her pride above her station, to the derision of all." Froissart, in the fourteenth century, gives us the history of Jacques le Gris, the bosom-friend of the Earl of Alençon,—"qui n'étoit pas de trop haute affaire, mais un écuyer de basse lignée qui s'étoit avancé, ainsi que fortune en avance plusieurs; et quand ils sont tous élevés et ils cuident être au plus sûr, fortune les retourne en la boue et les met plus has que elle ne les a eus de commencement[156]."

In fact, numerous exceptional cases might be adduced on almost every point of knightly usage, and to chronicle the whole would be a labour of many pages. A detail of such usages (the education of the varlets, the probation of the knights, the ceremonies of investiture, and the institutions of the various brotherhoods) is by no means within the province of this work. A large amount of information on these points will be found in the Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie of St. Palaye, and in the various works of Ducange; from whose pages numerous references will lead the more critical investigator to a wide range of valuable authorities. An able sketch of the Feudal System, as it existed in Italy, appears in the first volume of Sismondi's Républiques Italiennes au Moyen-âge, p. 80, sq.

Besides the feudal troops already noticed, there was a more general levy, when any pressing danger menaced the state. Thus, in 1124, Louis le Gros met the threatened invasion of the Emperor Henry V. by raising an army of more than 200,000 men[157]. And under Philippe le Bel, we have an ordinance calling upon all his subjects, "noble and non-noble, of whatsoever condition they be, between the ages of eighteen and sixty," to be ready to take the field. A similar provision was found in England. The Posse Comitatûs, which was under the command of the sheriffs of the various counties, included every freeman capable of bearing arms between the ages of fifteen and sixty. In 1181, Henry II. fixed an assize of arms, by which all his subjects, being freemen, were bound to be in readiness for the defence of the realm, "Whosoever holds one knight's fee shall have a coat-of-fence (loricam), a helmet (cassidem), a shield, and a lance; and every knight as many coats, helmets, shields, and lances, as he shall have knights' fees in his domain. Every free layman, having in rent or chattels the value of sixteen marks, shall have a coat-of-fence, helmet, shield and lance. Every free layman having in chattels ten marks, shall have a haubergeon (halbergellum), iron cap and lance (capelet ferri et lanceam). All burgesses and the whole community of freemen shall have each a 'wambais,' iron cap, and lance. On the death of any one having these arms, they shall remain to his heir. Any one having more arms than required by this assize, shall sell or give them, or so alienate them, that they may be employed in the king's service. No Jew shall have in his custody any coat-of-fence or haubergeon (loricam vel halbergellum), but shall sell it or give it, or in other manner so dispose of it that it shall remain to the king's use. No man shall carry arms out of the kingdom, or sell arms to be so carried. None but a freeman to be admitted to take the oath of arms (et præcepit rex, quod nullus reciperetur ad sacramentum armorum nisi liber homo[158])." In this curious document it will be remarked that the old national weapon, the axe, is altogether omitted; and the bow, which afterwards became so effective an arm among the infantry of this country, is equally unnoticed. The extensive levy indicated in these passages was clearly that of the so-called Arrière-ban, the Milice des Communes, or Communitates Parochiarum; troops who marched under the banners of their respective parishes. For in an ordinance of Charles VI. of France, in 1411, we find the ban and arrière-ban very exactly defined:—"Mandons et convoquons par devant nous, tous noz hommes et vassaulx tenant de nous, tant en fiefs qu'en arrière-fiefs: et aussi des gens des bonnes villes de notre royaume qui out accoustumé d'eulx armer par forme et manière de arrière-ban[159]."

As the vassals were not always disposed to exchange hawk and hound for lance and destrier, and as kings found themselves but ill-served by barons who had become almost as powerful as themselves, a plan was devised, by which both were relieved from this embarrassment of feudal relations. The vassal compounded by a money-payment called Scutage for the service due to his lord; and the lord, with the proceeds of this shield-tax, obtained the aid of foreign soldiery. Henry II. in England, and Philip Augustus in France, employed these mercenaries, who were called Coterelli, Rutarii, Bascli, and Brabantiones, names derived from their condition or country[160]. William the Conqueror, Wace tells us, had mercenary troops mixed with his feudal followers:—

Again:—

Besides the troops enumerated above, the King's Body-guard became a corps of some celebrity at the close of the twelfth century. Philip Augustus is said to have instituted this corps in the Holy Land, to protect his person from the machinations of the Old Man of the Mountain; and in imitation of his ally, Richard of England embodied a similar force. The Servientes armorum, Sergens d'armes, or Sergens à maces, were armed cap-à-pie, and besides their distinctive weapon, the mace, carried a bow and arrows[161], and of course a sword. In the fourteenth century they had a lance[162]. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, as we learn from the curious incised stones[163] formerly placed in the church of their brotherhood, St. Catherine-du-val, at Paris, and now preserved in the Church of St. Denis, the sergens d'armes were still clad in complete armour, their weapons being a mace and sword. The number of these guards at their first institution is not clear, but in the time of Louis VI. of France they were reduced to a hundred. It must be borne in mind that the name of serviens or sergent, as applied to military persons, had a much wider signification than this of a body-guard. It often included all beneath the dignity of a knight.

The Archers in the army of William the Conqueror fulfilled those duties of preliminary fight which at a later period fell to the lot of the musquetiers, and in our own day have passed to the cannonier. The Norman bowmen are the first of the invading troops to set foot on English soil:—

These shaven and shorn, short-coated archers, with their quivers hung at their side, are exactly reproduced in the Bayeux tapestry (Plates xiii., xv., and xvi.):—

From this curious passage it appears that the archers of William were not a particular and distinctly organized corps, but that all the foot were armed with the bow. The caps and boots are clearly portrayed in the Bayeux tapestry; and from this valuable monument we obtain an exact confirmation of the statement of Wace, that some of the archers were clad in armour. See Plate xiii. We must observe also, that the advantage of a close formation was thoroughly appreciated at this day. The serried order of the foot noted above was also adopted by the cavalry:—

In Plate xiii. of the Bayeux tapestry, we find an archer who carries his quiver, not "el lez pendu," but slung at his back, so that the arrows present themselves at the right shoulder. In Plate xvi. we have a mounted archer joining a group of knights in the chase of the discomfited Saxons; from which we may venture to infer, that on the rout of an enemy it was the practice of such bowmen as could obtain horses, to act with the cavalry in the pursuit of the flying foe.

If the Norman archers were for the most part clad in "cors dras," the horsemen were fully furnished in the choicest military equipment of the day:—

In the south, military science was already so far advanced that a Code for the discipline of troops had been established. The rules laid down by the Emperor Frederic for the control of his army in Italy in 1158, have been preserved by Radevicus of Frisinga[166], and are given by Sismondi[167].

Wherever the feudal system had taken root, a similar arming and similar tactics prevailed. The military

But in the border-nations of Europe, where the old liberties of Celt and Teuton still lingered, the fashions of war were very different. In Ireland, in Scotland, in Wales, and in the Scandinavian North, the heroes were by no means clad in the pattern of the Bayeux tapestry. From Giraldus Cambrensis we learn that the Irish in the twelfth century wore no body-armour. In riding they used neither saddle nor spur. Their shields were circular, and painted red. Helmets they had none. Their weapons were a short spear, javelins, and an axe. The axes, which they had derived from the Norwegians and Ostmen, were excellently well steeled. "They make use of but one hand when they strike with the axe, extending the thumb along the handle to direct the blow; from which neither the helmet can defend the head, nor the iron folds of the armour the body; whence it has happened in our time that the whole thigh of a soldier, though cased in well-tempered armour, hath been lopped off by a single blow, the limb falling on one side of the horse, and the expiring body on the other. They are also expert beyond all other nations in casting stones in battle, when other weapons fail them, to the great detriment of their enemies[168]." The bow not being in use among the Irish of this time, and consequently there being nothing to oppose to the distant attack of the Norman archers, the havoc made by these latter troops was terrific; so that Giraldus, in his chapter, "Qualiter Hibernica gens sit expugnanda," recommends that in all attacks upon them, bowmen should be mixed with the heavy-armed force.

The Welsh also retained their old mode of warfare:—

says Guillaume le Breton. "They are lightly armed," writes Giraldus Cambrensis, "so that their agility may not be impeded; they are clad in haubergeons (loricis minoribus), have a handful of arrows, long lances, helmets, and shields, but rarely appear with iron greaves (ocreis ferreis). Fleet and generous steeds, which their country produces, bear their leaders to battle, but the greater part of the people are obliged to march on foot over marshes and uneven ground. Those who are mounted, according to opportunity of time and place, both for the retreat and advance, easily become infantry. Those of the foot-soldiers who have not bare feet, wear shoes made of raw hide, sewn up in a barbarous fashion. The people of Gwentland are more accustomed to war, more famous for valour, and more expert in archery, than those of any other part of Wales. The following examples prove the truth of this assertion. In the last assault of Abergavenny Castle, which happened in our days, two soldiers passing over a bridge to a tower built on a mound of earth, in order to take the Welsh in the rear, their archers, who perceived them, discharged their arrows, penetrating an oaken gate which was four fingers thick: in memory of which deed, the arrows are still preserved sticking in the gate, with their iron piles seen on the other side.... Their bows are made of wild elm, unpolished, rude, and uncouth, but strong; not calculated to shoot an arrow to a great distance, but to inflict very severe wounds in closer fight[169]." Guillaume le Breton, in describing the Welsh troops who accompanied Richard Cœur-de-Lion into France, deprives them of defensive armour altogether:—

But he allows them a greater variety of weapons on this occasion than is found in the account of Giraldus:—

The gesa of this passage is the often-mentioned guisarme. The nodosa tela is not so clear, but may have been a dart with a ball at the end; the object of which ball was to arrest the javelin when, sliding through the hand, it had inflicted its wound, so that it might be employed afresh. Such weapons were used by the ancient Egyptians[171], and are still employed in the manner mentioned above by the Nubians and Ababdeh.

Hoveden, describing the battle of Lincoln in 1141, and the disposition of the Earl of Chester's army, says: "On the flank, there was a great multitude of Welshmen, better provided with daring than with arms."

In Scotland, two leading influences were at work. The highlanders adhered to their old habits and their old arms with a pertinacity which has not been extinguished even in our own day. The round shield ornamented with knot-work subsisted to the field of Culloden, and the dagger with its hilt of the same pattern, is still in vogue. But in the south of Scotland the fashions of France and of England had made great inroads; especially advanced by the crowds of discontented nobles of Saxon and of Norman blood, who sought in the court of the Scottish king solace for their misfortunes, or revenge for their wrongs. Thus in the seal of Alexander I. (1107-1124,) we find that monarch wearing the hauberk with tunic and the nasal helmet, and armed with lance and kite-shield, exactly as seen in the monuments of his more southern cotemporaries. This equipment, however, was only found among the leaders of their hosts, and even they did not always think fit to adopt the new fashion. Thus, at the battle of the Standard, in 1138, the Earl of Strathearne exclaims:—"I wear no armour, yet they who do will not advance beyond me this day."

This Battle of the Standard, so called from the Carrocium, or Car-standard, which was brought into the field by the English, affords us a good insight into the warfare of the Scots of this day. Let us remember, however, that it is an English chronicler who records the fight. Roger of Hoveden tells us that the bishop[172] who accompanied the English army, addressing the troops previous to the engagement, said of the Scots: "They know not how to arm themselves for battle; whereas you, during the time of peace, prepare yourselves for war, in order that in battle you may not experience the doubtful contingencies of warfare.... But now, the enemy advancing in disorder, warns me to close my address, and rushing on with a straggling front, gives me great reason for gladness." At the end of his speech, "all the troops of the English answered, 'Amen, Amen.'"

"At the same instant the Scots raised the shout of their country, and the cries of 'Albany, Albany!' ascended to the heavens. But the cries were soon drowned in the dreadful crash and the loud din of the blows. When the ranks of the Men of Lothian, who had obtained from the king of Scotland, though reluctantly on his part, the glory of striking the first blow, hurling their darts and presenting their lances of extraordinary length, bore down upon the English knights encased in armour, striking, as it were, against a wall of iron, they found them impenetrable. The archers of King Stephen, mingling among the cavalry, poured their arrows like a cloud upon them, piercing those who were not protected by armour. Meanwhile the whole of the Normans and English stood in one dense phalanx around the standard, perfectly immoveable. The chief commander of the Men of Lothian fell slain, on which the whole of his men took to flight. On seeing this, the main body of the Scots, which was contending with the greatest valour in another part of the field, was alarmed and fled. Next, the king's troop, which King David had formed of several clans, as soon as it perceived this, began to drop off: at first, man by man, afterwards in bodies; the king standing firm, and being at last left almost alone. The king's friends seeing this, forced him to mount his horse and take to flight. But Henry, his valiant son, not heeding the example of his men, but solely intent on glory and valour, bravely charged the enemy's line, and shook it by the wondrous vigour of his onset. For his troop was the only one mounted on horseback, and consisted of English and Normans who formed a part of his father's household. His horsemen, however, were not long able to continue their attacks against soldiers on foot, cased in armour, and standing immoveable in close and dense ranks; but, with their lances broken, and their horses wounded, were compelled to fly. Rumour says that many thousands of the Scots were slain on that field, besides those who, being taken in the woods and standing corn, were put to death. Accordingly, the English and Normans happily gained the victory, and with a very small effusion of blood." The standard which gave to this battle of Cuton Moor its popular name, was formed of a mast placed on a car, having at its summit a silver pix containing the Host, and beneath, three banners, those of St. Peter, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon.

The equipment of the Scandinavian heroes in the twelfth century has come down to us in several cotemporary writings. The author of the Speculum Regale, an Icelandic chronicle of this period, instructs his son in his military duties: when combating on foot, he is to wear his heavy armour, namely, a byrnie, or thick panzar[173] (thungann pannzara), a strong shield (skiold) or buckler (buklara), and a heavy sword. For naval actions the best weapons are long spears, and for defence, panzars made of soft and well-dyed linen cloth, together with good helmets (hialmar), pendant steel caps (hangandi stálhufur), and broad shields[174]. The directions for a knight's equipment are more minute: Let the horseman use this dress: first, hose made of soft and well-prepared linen cloth, which should reach to the breeches-belt (broka-belltis); then, above them, good mail-hose (bryn-hosur), of such a height that they may be fastened with a double string. Next, let him put on a good pair of breeches (bryn-brækur), made of strong linen; on which must be fastened knee-caps made of thick iron and fixed with strong nails. The upper part of the body should first be clothed in a soft linen panzar (blautann panzara), which should reach to the middle of the thigh; over this a good breast-defence (briost biorg), of iron, extending from the bosom to the breeches belt; above that a good byrnie, and over all a good panzar of the same length as the tunic, but without sleeves. Let him have two swords,—one girded round him, the other hung at his saddle-bow; and a good dagger (bryn-knif). He must have a good helm, made of tried steel, and provided with all defence for the face (met allri andlitz biaurg); and a good and thick shield suspended from his neck, especially furnished with a strong handle. Lastly, let him have a good and sharp spear of tried steel furnished with a strong shaft[175]. It will be remarked that the body is here clothed in four different garments, one over the other; which appear to be the tunic, reaching to mid-thigh; the breast-defence of iron (whether formed in a single piece, or of several smaller plates, does not appear); the hauberk of the chain-mail, and the gambeson, a quilted coat, made in this instance without sleeves. Besides the weapons named above, the axe was still in favour among the Northern warriors. By the ancient laws of Helsingia, every youth on attaining the age of eighteen, was bound to furnish himself with five kinds of warlike equipment: a sword, an axe, a helmet (jernhatt), a shield, and a byrnie or a gambeson. A spirited passage of Giraldus Cambrensis brings the Norwegian troops vividly before us. Describing their attack upon Dublin, about 1172, he has: "A navibus igitur certatim erumpentibus, duce Johanne, agnomine the wode, quod Latine sonat insano vel vehementi, viri bellicosi Danico more undique ferro vestiti, alii loricis longis, alii laminis ferreis arte consutis, clipeis quoque rotundis et rubris, circulariter ferro munitis, homines tam animis ferrei quàm armis, ordinatis turmis, ad portam orientalem muros invadunt." The round painted shields edged with metal will bring to remembrance the similar defences of the Anglo-Saxons; and in the laminated cuirass we see another instance of the jazerant armour worn by Charlemagne. In King Sverrer's Saga, written towards the close of the twelfth century, by the abbot of Thingore in Iceland, and others, from the narrative of the king himself, we have a curious passage: "Sverrer was habited in a good byrnie, above it a strong gambeson (panzara), and over all a red surcote (raudan hiup[176]). With these he had a wide steel hat (vida stálhufu), similar to those worn by the Germans; and beneath it a mail cap (brynkollu), and a 'panzara-hufu.' By his side hung a sword, and a spear was in his hand[177]." From this description it seems clear that those singular broad-rimmed helmets found occasionally in monuments of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, and more frequently in later times; of which examples occur among the sculptures of the tomb of Aymer de Valence, in Westminster Abbey, and on the great seal of Henry III., king of Spain; were introduced into the north and west of Europe through Germany; the Germans, on their part, probably deriving them from the Italians; to whom this form of headpiece had come down from the well-known petasus of classic times. The panzara-hufu was probably a quilted coif worn under the steel hat. Compare Willemin, vol. i., Plate cxliii.; and see our woodcut, No. 56.

The Prussians in the twelfth century differ but little in their appearance from the Anglo-Saxon warrior of the preceding age. They wear the tunic, reaching to the knees, and belted at the waist; but, in lieu of leg-bands, have tight hose. They have spears little exceeding their own height, and the shield they carry is a mean between the kite and the pear-shape. We derive these particulars from the curious figures of the bronze doors of Gnesen Cathedral, given by Mr. Nesbitt in the ninth volume of the Archæological Journal, (p. 345); the subject represented being the Legend of Saint Adalbert. Hartknoch (De Rebus Prussicis) tells us that the arms of the Prussians were clubs, swords, arrows, spears and shields, and their dress consisted of a short tunic of linen or undyed woollen cloth, tight linen chausses reaching to the heels, and shoes of raw hide or bark.

Throughout the period which we are now investigating, the Clergy not unfrequently appear in knightly equipment at siege and battle. But in order to avoid an infringement of the letter of the canons, which forbade them to stain their hands with human blood, they armed themselves with the mace or bâton. At the battle of Hastings, Odo, bishop of Bayeux,—