Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/179

 retracing our steps as is obligatory to pick up the story of each. It is also necessary from time to time to leave the general course of the history in order to treat our subject thoroughly by examining in detail any important example of a particular armament, offensive or defensive, that may have been handed down to us or to dilate on some piece of contemporary evidence that does not directly but eventually affects our story.

With the object, therefore, of preventing the chronicle from becoming more involved than is necessary, we have so far omitted further reference to the accoutrements and appurtenances of the knight's charger, since we alluded to it in pre-Norman times on pages 28, 29, and 30. During the period which we have dealt with, the horse, as far as we are able to judge, was unarmoured. True M. Viollet-le-Duc, in his ''Dictionnaire du Mobilier Français'', has most ingeniously constructed an imaginary armour for the horse in the XIIth century, but he was working with next to nothing whereon to found his theories.

Early XIIIth century

No. 102, Royal Armoury, Madrid

We can clearly see the saddles of the invading Normans and their first descendants. They are represented quite simply upon the Bayeux needlework, indeed their construction appears very similar to the modern saddle of Tibet. The stirrup, in its general form and its means of attachment to the leathers, was the same as that in use to-day. In the Bayeux needlework an excellent illustration is given (page 44, Fig. 53). Stirrups here are clearly defined, and are similar to those specimens which in limited numbers have been exhumed or otherwise handed down to us. We give illustrations of