Plate LXXX.

The Spear for war of the thirteenth century offers no change from that of the preceding age. The shaft of it is still uniform from end to end, not yet being hollowed out for the grip, as in the lance of a later date. The head is of three forms: the lozenge, the leaf, and the barbed. The lozenge spear-head is the most usual, and appears in the accompanying group from the Lives of the Two Offas, Cott. MS., Nero, D. i. fol. 7. See also our woodcuts, No. [62] and [75]. The leaf-shaped head occurs on fol. 4 of Nero, D. i.; on fol. 27 of Harl. MS. 3,244; and on the Shurland monument (Stothard, Pl. xli.) The barbed spear was probably not considered a knightly weapon, but carried by soldiers of an inferior grade. At all events, we occasionally find men-at-arms furnished with it, as in Roy. MS. 20, D. i., a book of about the close of this century. And earlier in the period, at the battle of Bovines in 1214, we have the curious account of Rigord, shewing the jeopardy in which the life of King Philip was placed through the attack of a soldier armed with a spear of this description. This soldier of the emperor's host struck at the neck of the king, the usual point of attack, and though the gorget of the monarch prevented the weapon from inflicting any wound, the barbs of the spear became so firmly fixed between the hauberk and the head-defence, that the sturdy German was enabled to pull Philippe Auguste from his horse and lay him prone at his feet. The king managed to raise himself again, but the soldier held firm. The emperor, who was near at hand, rushed forward to terminate the strife by the death of his rival, and all seemed over. Galon de Montigny meanwhile, the Bannerer of the king, proclaimed the danger of his master by incessantly raising and lowering the Standard over the spot where this contest was taking place. The French were animated to new exertions: a band of seigneurs and gentlemen cut their way to the spot where the king was struggling in unequal conflict with his foes: the spearman, struck down or slain, let go his hold: the fight continued, furiously as ever, but in numbers less disproportionate than before: Etienne de Longchamp, one of the bravest of the French nobles, is slain by the side of the king: Pierre Tristan, another distinguished knight, leaps from his steed, and gives it to his monarch: Guillaume des Barres at this moment comes up with reinforcements, charges the German host with impetuous bravery, and turns their triumph into a rout.

The Lance is occasionally furnished with a streamer, as at a former period. It is seen in our last engraving (No. [80]), from the Lives of the Offas; and again in woodcuts, Nos. [55] and [62]. Compare also Harl. MS. 3,244, fol. 27, and other groups from the Lives of the Offas. In some of these examples, the lance-flag is ensigned with a cross only; in others it is quite blank: in others, again, as the brass of D'Aubernoun, it bears a device clearly heraldic.

In a few rare instances the spear is represented on the tomb of the knight. The necessity of reducing it far beneath its legitimate proportions, in order to be comprised within the narrow limits of the sepulchral memorial, would furnish a sufficient reason for its being generally excluded from the monumental design: but it is not improbable that mere fashion (for the tomb has its fashions) contributed in some degree to this exclusion; because we find that the royal and knightly seals, which at a previous date constantly exhibited the lance with its streamer, now more usually represent the warrior armed with the sword. The lance is found on the brass of D'Aubernoun (woodcut, No. [55]), on the sculptured effigy of a knight in the churchyard of Ruabon, in Wales, and in the incised slab at Ashington, Somersetshire, figured in the Archæological Journal, vol. viii. p. 319.

For the hastilude, the spear-head was blunted, and "about the breadth of a small knife;" as we learn from Matthew Paris, in his account of the Round-Table Game held at the Abbey of Wallenden in 1252. Here, one of the knights, Roger de Lemburn, aimed his weapon, the point of which was not blunted as it ought to have been, in such a way that it entered under the helm of his adversary, Arnold de Montigny, and pierced his throat; for he was uncovered in that part, and without a collar (carens collario). The Earl of Gloucester with the other knights immediately sought to extract the fragment of the lance, and when he had succeeded in withdrawing the wooden shaft of it, the iron head remained behind: on this being at length extracted, and examined by the surrounding knights, it was found to be very sharp at the point, like a dagger; though it ought to have been blunt, and about as broad as a small knife. Its shape was like that of a ploughshare on a small scale, whence it was commonly called a little plough (vomerulus), and in French, soket[363]. We have here the description of two spear-heads very distinct in character: one rebated for the Jousts of Peace, seemingly the prototype of the coronel which afterwards replaced it; and the other a sharp instrument, the form of which we may perhaps recognise among the tilting weapons of the Triumph of Maximilian. See, for instance, the group of knights armed for the "Course appelée Bund."

When, in battle, the charge had been made with the Lance, and that weapon was no longer available in the mêlée, it was cast aside, and the conquest carried on with the Sword:—

"Aprés le froisseis des Lances,
Qui ja sont par terre semées,
Giettent mains à blanches espées,
Desquels ils s'entr'envaissent,
Hyaumes e bacinets tentissent
E plusieurs autres ferreures.
Coutiaux trespercent armeures."—Guiart.