Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/198

 the knee-caps and bembergs. As before stated, these additional defences were ordinarily of iron, but sometimes of bronze or cuir bouilli which was leather hardened by a process of boiling in a glutinous substance. Next was donned the hauberk of chain mail, into the sleeves of which the coudières of plate were likewise introduced. Upon the head was placed the hemispherical steel cap, over which was drawn the mail coif. Then over the hauberk was added a gamboised or quilted garment that went in later times by the name of the gipon. This was not, however, invariably worn, the surcoat which came next sometimes covering the hauberk itself.

King John, on his great seal, is the first English monarch to be represented wearing the surcoat over his chain armour (see page 110, Fig. 133), and it figures thus in nearly all the effigies of the XIIIth century. The generally accepted view is that its use originated with the Crusaders, who veiled their metal armour from the rays of the Syrian sun with such a garment, which at the same time, from its possible heraldic treatment, distinguished its knightly wearer. The surcoat, from its weatherproof qualities, protected the armour from the elements, for according to the contemporary authority in "The Hvowynge of King Arthur":

Gay gownes of grene To hould thayre armur clene And were hitte fro the wete.

Over the surcoat the knight girded his horizontal belt, an article of considerable importance, attached to which was his sword and dagger. M. Viollet-le-Duc describes it as la ceinture noble, for, in its full elaboration, it does not appear to have been worn by any under the rank of knight. An existing belt of this form, though of a later type, possibly early XVth century, is to be seen in the National Bavarian Museum of Munich. Of the type of sword worn with such a belt we have already spoken at some length in dealing with those of a somewhat earlier period, and as the form of their hilts until the second quarter of the XIVth century underwent but very slight alteration, our former description will suffice.

Of the dagger of the closing years of the XIIIth century it is somewhat difficult to speak authoritatively, for none that we can with certainty assign to this exact period are known to the present writer, but for the type we can refer to the illumination (page 130, Fig. 159). On the earlier effigies the daggers are usually broken; indeed, we are unable to show an example prior to that on the Kerdeston effigy, 1337, in Reepham Church, Norfolk.

The knight still carried the shield, which was of the same heater shape