No. 88.
This drawing has been carefully traced from one of the "Miscellaneous Rolls" in the Tower, of the time of Henry III. The combatants are Walter Blowberme and Hamun le Stare, the latter being the vanquished champion, and figuring a second time in the group as undergoing the punishment incidental to his defeat. The names of the duellers are written over the figures, the central one being that of the victor. Both are armed with the quadrangular bowed shield and a "baston" headed with a double beak. Britton (De Jure Angliæ, fol. 41) exactly describes their arming: "Puis voisent combattre armés sans fer et sans longe arme, à testes découvertes et à mains nues (à pié?) ovesque deux bastons cornuts d'une longueur, et chascun de eux d'un escu de quatre corners, sauns autre arme dont nul ne puisse autre griever." The exact length of the bâtons we learn from a statute of Philip of France in 1215: "Statuimus quod Campiones non pugnent de caetero cum baculis qui excedant longitudinem trium pedum." They might, however, continues the statute, use staves of shorter dimensions, if they thought proper.
The arming "sans fer" mentioned above is made more clear by a passage of the "Coustumier of Normandy," chap. 28: (Les champions doivent être) "appareillez en leurs cuiries, ou en leurs cotes, avec leurs escus, et leurs bastons cornus, armez si comme mestier sera de drap, de cuir, de laine et d'estoupes. Es escus, ne es bastons, ne es armures de jambes, ne doit aver fors fust ou cuir, ou ci qui est pardevant dit; ne ils ne peuvent avoir autre instrument à grever l'un l'autre fors l'escu et le baston." The bare heads and cropped hair of our duellers are in conformity with another ordinance of the Camp-fight: "Les Chevaliers qui se combate por murtre ou por homicide, se doive combatre à pié, et sans coiffe, et estre roignés à la reonde[447]." Compare the figure of the champion of Bishop Wyvil, which appears on the monumental brass of the prelate in Salisbury Cathedral: date 1375. It is engraved in Waller's Brasses, Part ix., and in Carter's "Painting and Sculpture." For an extended series of evidences relating to the custom of Wager of Battle, see Ducange or Adelung, v. Campiones, and compare Henault, ad an. 1260.
CAERPHILLY CASTLE, GLAMORGANSHIRE.
Built about 1275.
No. 89.