GREAT SEAL OF KING HENRY III.

No. 79.

The shank of the spur is curved, each end being formed into a loop to receive the strap. The strap itself is single, buckling over the instep. See Stothard's Plates xvii. and xxii. Some exceptions occur to this usual arrangement. In the effigy of a De L'Isle, figured by Stothard, Plate xx., the outer shank is flattened into a trefoil and rivetted upon the leather. In the figure at Norton, Durham, (woodcut, No. [70],) the shanks terminate in rings, and two straps are employed to fix the spur to the foot. Both straps and spurs are occasionally shewn of an enriched character. On folio 27 of Harl. MS. 3,244, the spur is ornamented with a row of studs or bosses. In the brass at Acton, Suffolk, 1302 (Waller, Pt. ii.), the pattern consists of rosettes.

The gilded spurs of the knights occasionally became the trophy of a victory; as in the case of the battle of Courtray, in 1302. More than five hundred pairs, Froissart tells us, were suspended in a chapel of the church of Our Lady of Courtray: "Et ces éperons avoient jadis été des seigneurs de France, qui avoient été morts en la dite bataille; et en faisoient ceux de Courtray tous les ans, pour le triomphe, très grand solemnité[360]."

The Beard during this century appears to have been usually worn by the aged only. The young knight has commonly neither beard nor moustache: indeed, this imberbed state of the Western cavaliers is made a reproach to them by the Saracens. The Sultan, we are told by Matthew Paris, under 1250, addressing his chiefs, in arms against the forces of St. Louis, exclaimed: "What rash madness excites these men to attack us and endeavour to deprive us of our inheritance, who have inhabited this noble country since the Flood? A certain motive, however slight, urges the Christians to covet the land which they call Holy: but what have they to do with Egypt? Unfit indeed are they to lord it over a land which is watered and enriched by the river sent from Paradise: beardless, shorn men, unwarlike and imbecile, more like women than men, what rash daring is this[361]!"

For the arrangement of the beard of this time, see the effigies of King John and Henry III. (Stothard, Plates xi. and xxxi.), and Plate xxxix. of the Painted Chamber.

The fashion of the Hair differs considerably in the first and second portions of the century. In both it was cut short at the forehead: but in the first half it was allowed to fall in its natural flow to some length at the sides of the head and behind; while, in the second, it was most carefully arranged in large curls, which cover the ears, and give a strongly marked character to the monuments of this time. In the effigy of King John at Worcester, the side hair is cut sheer off just below the ear. In the figure of Prince John, the son of St. Louis, in the Abbey Church of St. Denis, the hair falls in a natural ringlet to the neck[362]. The large and formal curl of the later period is well shewn in the knightly sculpture from Norton Church, Durham (woodcut, No. [70]). See also the statue of Henry III. (Stothard, Pl. xxxi.), and the series of monumental figures sculptured in 1263-4 by order of St. Louis, to perpetuate the memory of his ancestors entombed at St. Denis. (Guilhermy, pp. 218, 223, 225 and 228.)