Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/220

 small and delicately fashioned chanfron marked by a strongly accentuated central ridge, bearing an unknown armourer's mark, that might be accepted as belonging to the middle of the XVth century. We may describe it as furnishing the only link between the "Attila" chanfron and those fine protective head-*pieces of the latter years of the XVth century which are to be seen in most important collections. As we have endeavoured to explain before, we are engaged in a constant struggle with the difficulty of adhering with absolute rigidity to our twofold system of classification—that according to form, and that according to provenance. We cannot say definitely that this or that type ceased to exist in this period, and that a particular form first appeared in one country rather than another; for all are intermingled in the most confusing fashion. We must therefore beg to be excused if in our suggestions as to the type prevailing at a particular period we seem to state our conclusions too generally.

From the middle of the XVth century the author ventures to be a little more definite about the war horse's defence. For the head there was, of course, the chanfron, for the neck the crinet, for the chest the poitrel, for the hind quarters the croupière, or, as it was sometimes called, the "bacul," for the flanks the flanchards. Thus armoured we can show a war horse of the third quarter of the XVth century, chosen from an example in the Musée d'Artillerie of Paris, G 1 (Fig. 987). We cannot vouch for the authenticity of the entire harness; for, though the greater part of it came from the Arsenal of Strasburg, it is acknowledged that restorations have brought it to its present complete state; but the harness, it must be confessed, illustrates most admirably the stage in the development of horse armour which was reached about 1475. The chanfron, it will be noticed, protects, in this case, only the front of the horse's head; though possibly it originally possessed the hinged side plates, such as are seen in the Wallace example (Fig. 988). The crinet, too, containing as it does only five plates of steel attached to the neck covering of mail, must also be considered less protective. The poitrel is composed of a central plate immediately protecting the chest, together with two subsidiary plates hinged on either side, the outside one strapped at the top to the foundation of the saddle. The croupière, though fashioned of plates joined together, fits solidly on the quarters of the horse; the poitrel and croupière are connected by the flanchards which are strapped beneath the base of the saddle and over the girths. The curb rein is armoured. The saddle, now placed upon this harness, though a fine example of the war saddle, is of an early Maximilian type and is therefore not quite in accord with the re