Armour & Weapons

CHAP. II THE TRANSITION PERIOD 35 1300. They were frequently made of cuirbouilli, and this material is probably intended in the illustration (Plate III, 1), as elaborately decorated metal is rarely met with at this period. At the end of the thirteenth century appear those curious appendages known as Ailettes. On Plate III, 2, the figure is shown wearing the poleynes and also the ailettes. For practical purposes they are represented on recumbent figures as worn at the back, but in pictorial illustra- tions they are invariably shown on the outside of the shoulder. Fig. ii. From Roy. MS. 16. G. vi, f. 387, fourteenth century. Fig. 12. Bib. Nat., Paris, Lancelot du Lac, fourteenth century. Some writers consider that they were solely used for ornament, presumably because they are generally shown decorated with heraldic blazons. Against this, however, we may place the fact that they are depicted in representations of battles, and in Queen Mary’s psalter (2. B. vii in the British Museum) the combatants wear plain ailettes. The German name for the ailettes (Tartscheri) suggests also that they were intended for shoulder-guards. Four- teenth-century Inventories abound with references to ailettes. In the Roll of Purchases for Windsor Park Tournament are mentioned thirty-eight pair of ailettes to be fastened with silk laces supplied by one Richard Paternoster. In the Piers Gaveston Inventory c 2