If any “conte,” baron or other chevalier break any of the rules of the tourney, he shall, with the assent and command of the Seigneurs, Sire Edward, fiz le Rey; Sire Eumond, frère le Rey; Sire William de Valence; Sire Gilbt de Clare; and Cunto Nichole,[55] lose horse and armour and be imprisoned at the discretion of the said court of honour, and all disputes shall be referred to it for settlement.
Any esquire to a knight breaking the regulations in any way should lose horse and armour and be imprisoned for three years; and none was allowed to raise up a fallen knight but his own appointed esquire, bearing his device. Spectators were prohibited the wearing of armour or the carrying of arms. Etc.
May we see in the comparative mildness of these rules, and the control exercised by the court of honour, some results of King Edward’s own dangerous experiences at the Chalôns tournament.
It is an interesting fact that the effigies of two of the members of this distinguished committee have been preserved, viz.: those of Edmund Crouchback, whose sword-belt is enriched with heraldic bearings; and William de Valance. Both are in Westminster Abbey. The figure of the former wears the coif or hood of mail; the body is covered by a surcoat with long sleeves and reaching nearly to the ankles; but poleynes or knee-kops can be discerned. In the case of the other effigy the surcoat is sleeveless and shorter than the other, reaching down to just over the knees. Poleynes are present, but there are no coudes. A concave triangular shield hangs by the belt. Chain-mail; quilted stuffs, often reinforced with rings or studs of iron, bone or horn; ordinarily dressed leather and cuir-bouilli, which is leather boiled or beaten—were all quite capable of resisting an ordinary sword-stroke or lance-thrust.
An effigy of the twelfth century in the Temple Church, London, that of Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, dating in the year 1144, in the reign of Stephen, exhibits the knight completely encased in mail, wearing a coif of mail of the same fabric, and over it is the tall cylindrical, flat-topped helm. It was found, however, that certain vital and more exposed parts of the body required further protection, for the mail, far from presenting a glancing surface towards the strokes and thrusts from weapons of attack rather afforded them a lodgment. The mail therefore became gradually reinforced over the most vulnerable places with pieces of leather or plates of iron until a full panoply of metal plating had been attained, a process which had not been quite completed before the first decade of the fifteenth century. The course of transition can best be followed by a study of brasses and effigies. The Crouchback and de Valence effigies show us that but little progress in the direction of plate-armour had been made up to the end of the thirteenth century, though after that time the transition became rapid.
The usual knightly panoply was a coif of mail and beneath it a cap of cloth, worn in battle with or sometimes without a surmounting helm; the tunic; the gambeson or pourpoint, of quilted cloth; the hauberk, of chain-mail; the chaussons, which covered the upper part of the leg; the chausses, the lower; and the surcoat.
Chain-mail is probably a fabric of Eastern origin, consisting of forged iron rings, each ring interlinked with four others. This web must have been somewhat of a rarity even as late as the eleventh century, and, indeed, until the process of wire-drawing had been invented, owing to the laborious and costly nature of its manufacture. Each ring required to be cut from a long strip of wire, hammered-out from the solid, then interlinked, riveted, forged or butted together. The Romans employed chain-mail, as shown by the compressed masses which have been found, but whether it was interlinked in the manner just described is doubtful. Hauberks of quilted stuffs, reinforced with rings or studs of iron, bone or horn, were much in use; and so were those of ordinarily dressed leather; or of cuir-bouilli, which is leather prepared by boiling and beating. All these defences were quite capable of resisting an ordinary sword-stroke or lance-thrust.
The arming of the horse with a bard of chain-mail or its substitutes did not take place before the third quarter of the thirteenth century; the trapper came into use somewhat earlier, though probably not painted or embroidered with heraldic bearings before the reign of Edward I.