[104] In a masterly dissertation upon Ancient Armour, in the sixtieth number of the Quarterly Review, it is said, that “though chain-mail was impervious to a sword-cut, yet it afforded no defence against the bruising stroke of the ponderous battle-axe and martel; it did not always resist the shaft of the long or cross bow, and still less could it repel the thrust of the lance or the long-pointed sword.”—There is a slight mistake here. All good coats of mail were formed of duplicated rings, and their impenetrability to a lance thrust was an essential quality. “Induitur lorica incomparabili, quæ maculis duplicibus intexta, nullius lanceæ ictibus transforabilis haberetur.” Mon. l. 1. ann. 1127.
[105] Froissart describes Sir John Chandos as dressed in a long robe, which fell to the ground, blazoned with his arms on white sarcenet, argent a field gules, one on his breast, and another on his back.
[106] Du Cange, Dissert. the first on Joinville. The extravagance of people in the middle ages on the subject of furs is the theme of perpetual complaint with contemporary authors. By two statutes of the English parliament, holden at London in 1334 and 1363, all persons who could not expend one hundred pounds a-year were forbidden to wear furs.
[107] Du Cange, ubi supra.
[108] Montfaucon, Pl. 2. xiv. 7. and Gough i. 137.
[109] Fairy Queen, Book i. canto vii. st. 31, 32.
[110] Shakspeare, Henry V. Act iii. sc. 7.
[111] Fairy Queen, Book i. c. 7. st. 29.
[112] Lay of the Knight and the Sword.
[113] Froissart, livre i. c. 342.