Armour & Weapons

84 PLATE ARMOUR CHAP. IV The Morion and the Cabasset are both helmets worn by foot- soldiers, and appear about the middle of the sixteenth century. The cabasset is generally to be distinguished by the curious little point projecting from the apex. Often the comb and upturned brim of the morion are extravagant in form and tend to make the helmet exceedingly heavy and inconvenient. The shields of the fifteenth and sixteenth century were more Fig. 37. Pavis. Cotton MS. Julius E. iv, 1485. for display than for use, except in the tilt- yard. As we have seen, the development of plate armour, especially on the left side, made the shield not only unnecessary, but also inconvenient. In the joust, however, where it was important that the lance should find no hold on a vital part of the body, such as the juncture of the arm, the shield was used to glance the weapon off, or, where unhorsing was the object, it was ribbed with diagonally crossing ridges to give the lance-point a surer hold. The Pavis or Pavoise (Fig. 37) was more generally used by archers and crossbowmen as a cover. A good specimen of the pavis exists in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and there are two large examples of heavier make with peepholes for the archer, and wooden props as shown in our illustration, at Brussels and Berlin.