Armour & Weapons

40 THE TRANSITION PERIOD CHAP. II spurs, &c., all had some significant reference to his life and achieve- ments.1 It is almost superfluous to point out that those details which referred to the knight’s captivity, or the fact that he had been vanquished, were more honoured in the breach than in the observance. The armour of this period was often richly decorated with engraving, as may be seen on the brass to an unknown knight Fig. 15. Brass of Sir T. de S. Quentin, Harpham, Yorks, 1420. Fig. 16. Knightly figure in Ash Church, Kent, fourteenth century. Fig. 17. Bib. Nat., Paris, Tite-Live, 1350. at Laughton, Lincs., and also on the monument to Sir Hugh Calverley at Bunbury, Cheshire. Of the jupon, King René, in his Livre des Tournois, about the year 1450, writes that it ought to be without fold on the body, like that of a herald, so that the cognizance, or heraldic blazon, could be better recognized. The jupon of the Black Prince, preserved at Canterbury and admirably figured in Monumenta Vetusta, vol. vii, is embroidered with the Royal Arms, and is quilted with cotton padding. So general is the use of the jupon at this period that it is a matter of some conjecture 1 Car derer a, Iconografia.