Page images
PDF
EPUB

conical helmet without a nasal, the fashion having probably been discontinued from the inconvenient hold it afforded the enemy of the wearer in battle, Stephen, at the siege of Lincoln, having been seized by the nasal of his helmet and detained a prisoner; this may probably have led to its discontinuance, and the then unprotected state of the face have occasioned the invention of the close face-guards soon afterwards in common use. The long pendent sleeves of the knight, and his flowing tunic reaching below his heels, was a Frankish fashion of Oriental origin. He bears a small shield and a banner. He was standard-bearer of England in 1140. A very good coloured engraving, designed from this seal, may be seen in the first volume of Meyrick's "Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour," plate 12.

Two other kinds of armour were also in use at this period. Scale-armour, derived from the ancient Dacians and Sarmatians, who may be seen thus protected in Hope's admirable" Costume of the Ancients." It was formed of a series of overlapping scales formed of leather, or horn, or metal, similar to those of fish,' from whence the idea was evidently taken. The great seal of Rufus represents that monarch thus habited. The other kind is termed by Meyrick "rustred armour," and consisted of rows of rings placed flat over each other, so that two of the upper row partially covered one in that below, and thus filled interstices, while free motion was allowed the wearer.

up all

Many curious examples of costume occur upon the ancient sculptures of our churches erected during this period, particularly those which decorate the doors and fonts. The Norman churches of Kilpeck and Shobdon, in Herefordshire, are particularly deserving of notice; the figures of Welsh knights' introduced among the ornaments may be considered as delineating the features of the more ancient British dress, then preserved in the border country.

A poem of the time of Henry III., on the taking of Lincoln, printed in Wright's "Political Songs," figuratively mentions "the iron-girt bees of war, who with fearful stings penetrate the hostile shirts, and cut the scaly textures of iron."

2 The parts of Herefordshire lying without Offa's Dyke were regarded, until the reign of Henry VIII., as belonging to Wales.

Mr. J. G. Rokewode first pointed out this peculiarity in the thirtieth volume of the "Archæologia," and engraved two of the figures from Kilpeck,' one of which is here annexed: this figure is in profile, and wears a cap of the

Fig. 69.

Phrygian form, and exceedingly similar to those worn by the ancient Britons and Gauls, as will be seen by reference to the cut on p. 11. His hair and beard are bushy, and he wears a close vest of rayed texture, fitting tightly to the hips, round which passes a long belt, which is fancifully secured by a double knot, the ends hanging nearly to the feet. The long loose trouser is curious, and precisely such as was worn by the

[graphic][graphic]

early Saxons (see cut, p. 53) and by the Norman peasantry. A kind of mace is borne in the hand, and the entire figure is enwreathed with foliage, as is also the companion sculpture in the same cut, copied from Shobdon church; this figure, being full-faced, does not show the cap or helmet to the same advantage as the companion one; but other parts of the dress are equally curious,

2

1 The church of St. David at Kilpeck was given by Hugh, the son of William the Norman, to the monastery of St. Peter of Gloucester, in 1134, and the present building was erected not long after the appropriation.

2 Engraved from drawings by Mr. G. R. Lewis in the "Archæological Journal," vol. i., with descriptions by Mr. T. Wright. Shobdon was built about 1141 by Oliver de Merlimond, a Herefordshire knight, who obtained the manor of the powerful lord of Wigmore, Roger de Mortimer, to whom he was steward.

and the vest even more so. It is rayed, or striped, as the other, but it has the addition of a collar richly ornamented with studs or jewels. The knotted belt is not worn, but the trouser is striped like the vest, and it is shorter than that worn by the Kilpeck

figure. Another figure, from the latter church, engraved in the " Archæologia," "carries a long pointed sword with a guard at the hilt; " the Shobdon figures have all clubs similar to that carried by the one engraved. Sir S. R. Meyrick, in his "Inquiry into Ancient Armour," quoting Wace's description of the battle of Hastings, and the "villains," or serfs, hastening "with pills and maces in their hand," says that the pill was a piece of wood cut smaller at one end than the other, resembling the Irish shillelagh. The mace was something of the same kind, but with a larger head; which Fig. 70. agrees exactly with the Shobdon figure. A superior one of iron appears in the hand of Odo in the Bayeux Tapestry, and some other equestrian figures, but

Fig. 71.

its adoption by knights generally was later than the Conquest. The pills and maces were the weapons of the serfs, who were not permitted to make use of the lance or sword,

1 So says Mr. Rokewode; but it seems more like a dart or small javelin, and the guard at the hilt I believe to be no more than one of the broad stripes of the long sleeve partially covering the hand, as swordhandles were never thus protected at this early period.

which, in the Conqueror's laws, are expressly termed “the arms of freemen." The spear-heads shown in the Bayeux Tapestry are most of them barbed, but leaf-shaped and lozenge-shaped heads also occur frequently. Fig. 70, from Eadwine's Psalter (12th century) at Trinity College, Cambridge, shows a warrior with a curiously barbed spear. Fig. 71, from the same MS., gives a graphic representation of the sword-maker at work.

WE

THE PLANTAGENETS.

WE are indebted to that excellent artist and judicious antiquary, the late C. A. Stothard, for the conception and execution of his beautiful work, the "Monumental Effigies of Great Britain," which, for the first time, did full justice to these subjects. His own opinion of their value he thus expressed :-"Among the various antiquities which England possesses, there are none so immediately illustrative of our history as its national monuments, which abound in our cathedrals and churches. Considered with an attention to all they are capable of embracing, there is no subject can furnish more various or original information." With the enthusiastic desire of rendering our national series of royal effigies as complete as possible, he journeyed to Fontevraud, in Normandy, where, previous to the Revolution, the earliest monumental effigies of English sovereigns were to be seen, and which were depicted by Montfaucon1 and Sandford, but which were confidently reported to have been destroyed during that disgustingly awful period, the first French Revolution. "An indiscriminate destruction," says Mr. Stothard, "which on every side presented itself in a tract of three hundred miles, left little hope on arriving at the abbey of Fontevraud; but still less, when this celebrated depository of our early kings was found to be but a ruin. Contrary, however, to such an unpromising appearance, the whole of the effigies were discovered in a cellar of one of the buildings adjoining the abbey; for, amidst the total annihilation of everything that immediately surrounded them, these figures alone were saved-not a vestige of the tomb and chapel which contained them remaining." This was the chosen burial-place of a few of our early kings, until they lost the provinces of Anjou and Maine, in the 1 "Antiquités de la Monarchie Française," vol. ii. 2 66 Genealogical History of the Kings of England."

« PreviousContinue »