Military Costume.
There was but little difference between the civil and military costume of the men. In MSS., soldiers are often represented with no other weapon than a shield or spear, or an axe or a bow with arrows, and attired in ordinary costume. Occasionally, one is represented wearing a kind of cuirass formed of scales, made of overlapping slices of horn sewn upon coarse linen.
During the reigns of Edward the Confessor and Harold II., owing to the constant intercourse between the English and the Norman Courts, the English adopted many of the customs and much of the costume of the Normans, so that, among the upper and military classes, at any rate, when William of Normandy invaded England, the members of the two opposing armies were armed and attired in a very similar manner.
PLATE 10.
(Fig. 1): A Saxon rustic, wearing only a solitary garment, with a pointed cap which has a comb, and shoes. (Cott. MS., Claudius B. iv.) (Fig. 2): A Saxon lady, attired in (1) the gunna, (2) the tunica, (3) the mantle, (4) the head-rail. (Harl. MS., 2,908.) (Fig. 3): A Saxon, dressed in (1) the tunica, (2) the mantle, (3) breeches, with cross-gartered stockings, and shoes, and (4) a banded Phrygian cap. (After Mrs. Ashdown.) (Fig. 4): Saxon, showing the bifid beard and the arrangement of the hair. (Cott. MS., Claudius B. iv.) (Fig. 5): An English Freeman, wearing a tunica, with short stockings and shoes, and armed with sword, spear, helmet, and shield. (From a MS.) (Fig. 6): A Saxon soldier, wearing a tunica covered with a mantle, stockings, and shoes, with spurs. (Note the manner in which 31the mantle is fastened on the right shoulder.) He is armed with a spear, and has his head covered with a conical helmet. As is pointed out above, the military costume did not differ from the civil costume, except as regards the helmet and the arms. (Figs. 7 to 12): Saxon head-dresses. (Fig. 7): A form of the square helmet. (Fig. 8): A Phrygian-shaped cap of leather, bound with metal; the bifid beard is also shown again. (Fig. 9): Another form of the square helmet, with a kind of crest or comb. (Fig. 10): A pointed helmet of simple form. (Fig. 11): A pointed hat serrated along the back like a cock’s comb. (Fig. 12): The commonest form of helmet, a conical cap with a rim, probably of metal. (The other form of beard is shown in this figure.) (Figs. 13, 14 and 15): Saxon shoes, from MSS. (Figs. 16 and 17): Saxon crowns, from MSS.
PLATE 11.