Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/221



Early XVth century. G 211, Musée d'Artillerie, Paris

As may be supposed, chain mail was employed for many purposes throughout the XIVth and XVth centuries:—in the armament of the horse, in the secret linings of civil costume, and in the guarding of those parts of the human body which cannot be effectively protected by plate armour. In many cases the chain mail required fitting to that part of the body which it was to protect. This was done by means of the insertion of gussets, etc. One of the most interesting examples of fitted chain mail is to be seen in the Zeughaus of Berlin. It is a complete bevor to be worn beneath a salade or chapel and is so reinforced in places as to render it almost stiff (Fig. 522). In the many collections which we have visited we have never seen a finer example of modelled chain mail, although a chain mail brayette in New York is perhaps to be compared to it (Fig. 522). A usual defence in chain mail towards the second half of the XVth century was the haussecol gorget of mail or haussecol standard as it was termed. It is frequently seen portrayed