Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/259



German, about 1490 From a castle in the Bavarian Tyrol Collection: Author

Showing in profile the pointed gads upon the knuckle plate German, about 1470 Collection: Author

A modern production, but of an interesting type, in the French fashion of about 1470 No. 620, Wallace Collection

up to the end of the XVth century, when the gauntlet, developing far more rapidly than the rest of the body armour, reached the zenith of its usefulness and beauty of form. From this time onwards its general construction remained unaltered, and we may leave it at this point, though we propose to give as a final illustration two mitten gauntlets of the early years of the XVIth century. One (Fig. 582) is a very protective short-cuffed gauntlet of five separate plates now in the collection of Sir Edward Barry. An undecorated but thoroughly protective hand defence, it would appear to be of North Italian origin of about 1500. The second (Fig. 583), which like a previously mentioned specimen (Fig. 578) came from a castle in the Bavarian Tyrol, is the typical broadly-proportioned mitten gauntlet with short cuffs and of German make and of the fluted Maximilian style. Many kinds and individual styles of gauntlets were made for purposes of the tournament and of the