Armour & Weapons

20 THE AGE OF MAIL chap, i used for some ceremonial purpose ; for this insecure method of fixing would be useless in the stress and strain of battle or active service. The most usual method of interlinking the rings is for each ring to join four others, as will be seen in the drawing on Plate I, No. 7. No. 8 on the same plate shows the mail as more generally depicted in illuminations. When we consider the inexperience of the scribes and illustrators of the Middle Ages we must admit that this representation of a very intricate fabric is not only very ingenious but follows quite the best modern impressionist doctrines. Portions of chain-mail survive in most armouries and museums, but their provenance is generally unknown, and much that is of Oriental origin is passed off as European. Chain-mail itself comes in the first instance from the East, but when it was intro- duced into Europe is difficult, if not impossible, ' to state. It is certainly represented as worn Fig. i. Probable by the Scythians and Parthians on the Trajan method of making Column, and is probably of greater antiquity still, links for mail. From the beginning of the thirteenth century, for about sixty or seventy years, we find a curious arrangement of lines intended to represent a form of defensive armour, both in illuminated manuscripts and also on carved monuments (Plate I, 12, 13). Mr. Waller, in the article on the Hauberk referred to above, gives it as his opinion that this ‘ Banded Mail as it is called, was but a variety of the ordinary interlinked mail ; but if we examine the illuminations of the period we shall find that it is shown side by side with the representation of what all authorities admit to be chain-mail. No. 12 on Plate I shows the arm and leg defences to be formed of this banded mail, while the head is protected with the ordinary chain-mail. We have then to try and discover how these horizontal bands dividing each row of links in the mail can be shown in a practical form. Meyrick vaguely suggests a row of rings sewn edgeways on the body garment and threaded with