Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/75



f we were to follow the usual custom employed by those who have written on the evolution of arms and defensive armour before us we should take the very earliest records as the foundation of our story, and the weapons of prehistoric man, his stone-axe, his spear-head and arrows would occupy our attention in the initial chapter. We should follow by relating all the information obtainable respecting the weapons used throughout the many centuries that passed between the bronze age and the period preceding the Christian era, when the armourer's craft reached a very high state of perfection; and we should not leave unmentioned the beauties of the Etruscan helmet or of the Greek's crested head-piece, nor omit descriptions of the many Greek, Roman, and Gallic armaments that the hand of time has spared to be discovered in such plenty. We shall, however, leave these subjects behind us, and begin to unravel the skein of our story at a point late in the history of the world.

It would be difficult, almost impossible, to select any one given year and describe definitely the arms and armour in use at that juncture, and with these uncertain data to enter upon our story of evolution. We must take a date—we have chosen the year 1000—and there look about us, making survey of what evolution and necessity have then already taught the armourer. Thenceforward we may attempt to carry the unbroken history of the craft.

We begin slowly, halting in the tale. Records of this age are few; already the writers who deal with arms and armour have made most of them over familiar to antiquaries. So it is, that with the best will to bring fresh evidence to the work, we must yet, now and again, show a picture that has become, even in the school history book, as well known as any postage