For 13th-century arms, although but poor scraps remain of original material, we have authority in plenty—pictures, seals and carving, and, above all, the effigies in stone or brass which give us each visible link, strap and ornament. 13th Century. All these have for a commentary chronicles, poems and account books, so that the history of armour may be followed in detail.

The long, sleeveless surcoat seen over King John’s mail on his broad seal goes through the century and is often embroidered with arms. The shield becomes flat-topped the better to receive armorial charges. The great helm is common, although many knights on the day of battle like better the freedom of the mail hood with a steel cap worn over or under its crown, keeping for the tourney-yard the great helm which towards the century-end begins to carry its towering crest. Great variety is seen in the forms of the flat or round-topped helm, some being in one piece, pierced for sight and air, others having hinged or movable ventailes. At the end of the century a sugar-loaf type is the established form. The knight’s hawberk is worn over a gambeson of linen, quilted linen or cotton, which lesser men wear with a steel cap for all defence. Breast and back plates also are sometimes borne under the hawberk, and the first plates in sight at last appear in those knee-cops which protect the joining of the upper and lower hose, and in a few examples of bainbergs or greaves of metal or leather. At the end of Henry III.’s reign we have the admirable illustrations of a manuscript of Matthew Paris’s Lives of the Offas, with many pictures of knights. (See fig 5.) Here we see knights with knee-cop and greave and a plenty of curious headpieces, the plain mail hood and mail hoods with a plate ventaile to cover the face, barrel-helms and round-topped helms and even round-topped helmets with the Norman nose-guard.

From The Ancestor, by permission of A Constable & Co. Ltd.
Fig. 5.—Knights’ Armour, c. 1250.

In the last half of the 13th century appears the curious defence known as alettes. This name is given to a pair of leather plates generally oblong in form and tagged to the back of the shoulder. As a rule they are borne to display the wearer’s arms, but being sometimes plain they may have had some slight defensive value, covering a weak spot at the armpit and turning a sweeping sword-cut at the neck. They disappear in the earlier years of Edward III.

Surcoat, shield and trapper have the arms of their owner. The rowel-spur makes a rare appearance. Weapons change little. although the sword is often longer and heavier. Richard I. had favoured the cross-bow, in spite of papal denunciations of that weapon hateful to God, and its use is common through all the 13th century, after which it makes way for the national weapon of the long-bow.

In the 14th century, the high-day of chivalry, the age of Creçy and Poitiers, of the Black Prince and Chandos, the age which saw enrolled the noble company of the Garter, the art of the armourer and weapon-smith strides forward. At its 14th century. beginning we see many knights still clad in chain mail with no visible plate. At its end the knight is often locked in plates from head to foot, no chainwork showing save the camail edge under the helm and the fringe of the mail skirt or hawberk.

Fig. 6.—Brass of Sir John de Creke.
From Waller’s Monumental Brasses.

Before the first quarter of the 14th century is past many of these plates are in common use. Sir John de Creke’s brass, about 1325-1330, is a fair example (fig. 6). His helmet is a basinet, pointed at the top, probably worn over a complete hood of mail flowing to the mid-breast. This hood was soon to lose its crown, the later basinets having the camail, a defence of mail covering neck, cheeks and chin and secured to the basinet with eyelet holes and loops through which a lace was passed. A rerebrace of plate defends the outer side of the upper arm, plain elbow-cops the elbow, and round bosses in the form of leopard heads guard the shoulder and the crook of the elbow. The fore-arm is covered with the plates of a vambrace which appears from under the hawberk sleeve. Large and decorated knee-cops cover the knees, ridged greaves the shins, and the upper part of the foot from pointed toe to ankle is fenced with those articulated and overlapping plates the perfection of which in the next century enabled the full-harnessed knight to move his body as freely as might an unarmed man. Under the plates the mail hose show themselves and the heels have rowelled spurs. He has a hawberk of mail whose front skirt ends in a point between the knees, the loose sleeves between wrist and elbow. Under this is a haketon of some soft material whose folds fall to a line above the height of the knee. Over the hawberk is a garment, perhaps of leather with a dagged skirt-edge, and over this again is a sleeveless gambeson or pourpoint of leather or quilted work, studded and enriched. Over all is the sleeveless surcoat, the skirt before cut squarely off at the height of the fork of the leg, the skirt behind falling to below the knee. The loose folds of this surcoat are gathered at the waist by a narrow belt, the sword hanging from a broader belt carried across the hip. Before 1350 the long surcoat of the 13th century was still further shortened, the tails being cut off squarely with the front. The fate of Sir John Chandos, who in 1369 stumbled on a slippery road, his long coat “armed with his arms” becoming tangled with his legs, points to the fact that an old soldier might cling to an old fashion.

The desire for a better defence than a steel cap and camail and a less cumbrous one than the great helm, in which the knight rode half stifled and half blind, brought in as a fighting headpiece the basinet with a movable viser. This is found throughout this century, disappearing in the next when the salet and its varieties displaced it. But there were many knights who still fought with the great helm covering basinet and camail, a fact which speaks eloquently of the mighty blows given in this warlike age. The many monumental brasses of the last half of the 14th century show us for the most part knights in basinet and camail with the face exposed, but their heads are commonly pillowed on the great helm and in any case the viser would hinder the artist’s desire to show the knight’s features.

Fig. 7.—Brass of Sir John de Foxley.
From Waller’s Monumental Brasses.