Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/151



Probably of the latter part of the XIIth century. Now in the Belfast Museum

Showing the medium-sized shields. (Nero MSS., C. IV, f. 23). British Museum

From an enamelled tablet of the third quarter of the XIIth century, now in the museum of Mans

see the shield splendidly emblazoned with arms correctly coloured, thus affording us evidence that it was between the years 1080, the date to which we assign the Bayeux needlework, and about 1170, the period of the production of the Anjou enamel, that a true heraldic significance was attached to decoration of the shield. In the centre of the Anjou shield is the umbo of