Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/207

 CHAPTER XIV

CHAIN MAIL AND INTERLINED TEXTILE DEFENCES

We have from time to time discussed chain mail and similar flexible armaments as we found them represented in pictorial and sculptural art from the days of the Norman Conquest until the middle of the XIVth century. Doubtless, apart from the early Norse byrnie found at Vimosa and Thorsberg, to which we have referred on page 6, vol. i, examples of chain mail may still be in existence belonging to the XIIth, XIIIth, and even XIth centuries, if but fragmentary, and we may have even seen them; but from the utter impossibility of recognizing the period to which they belong, it is useless to mention them individually. With perhaps one exception known to us, we believe, too, that hardly a hauberk of mail is extant that has a pedigree reliable and substantial enough to take it back even to the XVth century. The shape of a piece of plate armour supplies the clue which enables us to assign to it, with fair degree of accuracy, a definite period. But in the case of chain mail defences of XIIIth and XIVth century date, this kind of evidence cannot be brought to bear; for it must be borne in mind that as chain mail was in universal demand throughout mediaeval times, a hauberk was of value, and was therefore constantly being repaired and altered in shape according to the requirements of the time, so the original "cut" of the shirt may have been subsequently altered on more than one occasion. We are therefore forced to depend rather upon the make and form of the rings of which the hauberk is composed when we attempt to assign an approximate date to a hauberk of chain mail.

Let us deal first with the only example of early chain mail with which we are acquainted that has a history, and that might, though we do not believe it, be as old as is supposed—the shirt preserved in the Treasury of the Cathedral of Prague. The so-called Saint Wenceslaus shirt of mail is first mentioned in the inventory of the Treasury of Prague Cathedral, taken in the year 1354, where it figures as "lorica sancti Wenceslaus." Exactly the same entry is made in the ensuing inventories of 1365, 1368, 1371, and 1387. We may therefore conclude that a hauberk bearing this