Armour & Weapons

 PLATE ARMOUR CHAP. IV the left arm, held at rest at the bridle, could be covered with as heavy defences as the wearer might choose. This form of unequal arming is well shown on the Frontispiece. The left shoulder wears a large pauldron with a high neck-guard, and the elbow wears the passe-guard which we have noticed in detail in the preceding chapter. The leg armour in this suit should be noticed, for it is extremely fine and graceful in line, and yet proclaims its material. The suit of Henry VIII (Plate VI) is a good specimen of armour of the Maximilian period, but without the flutings which generally distinguish this style of plate. The neck-guards are high and the large coudes show the glancing surface plainly. This detail also is shown on the fan plates at the genouillières, which in the Tower Inventories are called by the more English term ‘ knee-cops The bridle-hand of the rider wears the Manifer (main-de-fer). Those writers who still follow blindly the incorrect nomenclature of Meyrick give the name Mainfaire or Manefer to the Crinet or neck defence of the horse. How this absurd play upon words can ever have been taken seriously passes understanding. The manifer is solely the rigid iron gauntlet for the bridle-hand, where no sudden or complicated movement of the wrist or fingers was needed ; another instance of the difference in arming the two sides of the body. This difference of arming is more noticeable in the jousting armour, for in military sports, especially during the sixteenth century, the object of the contestants was to score points rather than to injure each other. We find, therefore, such pieces as the Grand-guard, and with it the Volant piece, the Passe- guard, the Poldermitton—so called from its likeness to the ‘ épaule de mouton and worn over the bend of the right arm—and the various reinforcing breastplates which were screwed on to the left side of the tilting suit to offer a more rigid defence and also to present additional glancing surface to the lance-point. In some varieties of joust a small wooden shield was fastened to the left breast, and when this was the case the heavy pauldron was dis- pensed with. The large Vamplate (Plate XI) sufficiently protected the right arm from injury. The Nuremberg suit (Plate VII) shows