"Malement devina de mei,
Ki ne sout deviner de sei."
Adding:—
"Fol est ki se fie en devin,
Ki d'altrui ovre set la fin,
E terme ne set de sa vie:
D'altrui prend garde è sei s'oblie."
GREAT SEAL OF KING HENRY THE FIRST.
No. 28.
In examining the body-armour of the period under review, though we find some change in the adaptations of the old fabrics,—of the quilted-work, of the interlinked chain-mail, of the scale and jazerant,—there appears to be only one piece which is entirely new,—the so-called Plastron de fer, a breastplate that was worn beneath the gambeson or other armour that formed a general covering for the body. In a preceding passage from the Speculum Regale, we have read of a breast-defence of iron, extending from the throat to the waist, which may have been the breastplate in question. But a passage of Guillaume le Breton more exactly defines this contrivance. In the encounter between Richard Cœur-de-Lion (then earl of Poitou), and Guillaume des Barres:—
"Utraque per clipeos ad corpora fraxinus ibat,
Gambesumque audax forat et thoraca trilicem
Disjicit: ardenti nimium prorumpere tandem
Vix obstat ferro fabricata patena recocto,
Qua bene munierat pectus sibi cautus uterque."
Philippidos, lib. iii.