Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/267

 the quilted pad against which the arm rested. So much for the description of the shield, or at least of what remains of it. Now as to its probable date. There is very little evidence to go by: unless indeed we accept it as a pageant shield of some type concerning which we are almost in the dark. Let us compare it, then, with a finely painted pageant shield in the collection of Signor S. Bardini of Florence (Fig. 587), a beautiful heraldic achievement of much the same proportions (36 inches high by 31 inches wide). Around this shield runs the inscription:. Now we are able definitely to date this example as belonging to the end of the XIVth century; for painted upon it are the arms of the Buonamici surmounted by a mantled helm bearing a crest which takes the form of the three-quarter figure of Bienheureux Buonamici, the head of the family, who died about 1405. Surely this shield and the so-called shield of Edward III have something in common? Perhaps the Bardini shield is a little more rectangular at the base; but otherwise it is exactly the same type of armament. Again, compare the Edward III shield with a second shield in the same Bardini Collection (Fig. 588); it will be seen that the latter, though simpler in decoration, certainly belongs to the same period, showing the rivets for the arm-straps put on at the same angle as in the case of the Edward III shield. So by comparison with two similar shields, the age of one of which we can fairly accurately give, it seems just possible to assign the Westminster shield to its traditional date. But it can be assigned to this date only if it is regarded as having been made purely for pageant purposes.

From Bolton's "Elements of Armouries," 1610

We will now consider another form which we find depicted in heraldry and in sculpture of the early years of the XVth century, that is, the shield of smaller dimensions, roughly rectangular, but strongly concave from the top to the base, which contains on the right-hand side, either at the top or just below it, an opening known in France as "la bouche de la lance." The lost shield of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, formerly suspended over his tomb in Old St. Paul's, was of this type. There are three old engravings of it. That in Sandford's "Genealogical History" by R. Gaywood, dated 1664, shows the shield intact with its outer covering. This the author is