Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/145

 and 7, we gave a very brief general description of what might have been their actual composition; but we have no direct authority for the views there expressed. We have passed over the succeeding hundred years, and even yet we have no authority to guide us in our endeavour to throw light on the exact methods that were employed in the making of the hauberk and the coif of the Norman conquerors. In fact, we may say that we are now even more uncertain on the subject; for with the increase in the number of pictures as the years pass by, a proportionate increase in the conventional representation of chain mail is also manifest. Let us look once more carefully at the hauberk of the soldiers in the "Betrayal of Christ" (page 67, Fig. 83), the shape of which we have been discussing. The surface of the armour protecting the body, arms, and head is represented by a series of crescent-shaped strokes running in diagonal rows around the body; these rows are divided by dual lines. The whole is painted bright blue. But we notice that the mail chausses upon the same figure are rendered in a different manner, namely, by crescent-shaped markings without the dividing lines between the rows. Again, the mail worn by the soldier holding the lantern immediately on the right of the principal figure of the group is also different from the hauberk of the first soldier, and the legs of a third are clad in mail represented by cross-hatching and dots, familiar in the Bayeux needlework. The question which presents itself for consideration—and it is one which cannot now be definitely settled—is whether these different drawings are intended to represent one and the same thing, i.e., interlinked chain mail, or whether each really represents a distinct make of mail armour. If we are to take the latter view, then we have only our imagination to draw on in reconstructing the various types suggested by these crude drawings.

The representation of mail by diagonal arrangements of crescent-shaped markings, with dual lines between each set, may possibly constitute an attempt to portray double strips of leather interwoven through every other row of links, or rings between two layers of leather. The hauberk worn by the foremost soldier certainly gives the appearance of having every other row of rings threaded with flat strips of leather, the width of the interior circumference of the ring or what has been termed "banded" mail. The objection to this process of strengthening the hauberk is a certain difficulty in construction which does not seem to be compensated for by any extra utility gained. The first difficulty would arise in getting the thongs actually the same length in the large circumference of the body, for one thong of leather is more liable to stretch than another, the result of which would be