Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/248

 these we illustrate examples, some to be seen in our national collections, and one in America (Fig. 1014). It must be borne in mind, however, that nearly all horse armaments come down to us lacking their caparisons—merely exhibiting their durable parts of metal, either plain or enriched, as a reminder of their past magnificence. To get any real idea of their original splendour the reader must imagine them with their rich velvet linings, their sumptuousness of gilded buckles, enriched straps, trimmings of dual-coloured chain mail, and profusion of plumes.

The differences of form, richness of medium, and fertility of design found in such portions of the horse apparel as the bit and the stirrup, we have no space here to dwell upon; a volume in itself could be written on the subject. In Figs. 358 and 1053 we have mentioned two famous pairs of stirrups—not as stirrups, but as examples of workmanship to establish some special point as to nationality or style.

[''Note by the Editor on the pair of spurs illustrated in Figs. 971 and 971''.]

, when noticing the specimen now in the Riggs Collection at New York (Fig. 971), observed that the whole surface of the spur and its membrets and buckle was chequered in gold and blue-white (blanc bleuâtre) enamel, which he read as the heraldic bearings of the princely house of Dreux (vol. v, p. 408), entirely ignoring the crimson bordure which this house in both its branches always bore. An examination of the enamel remaining on the spur in the author's collection shows us that the charge is intended to be chequey or and argent, white enamel being substituted for silver foil, doubtless because of the latter's tendency to tarnish, and one of the membrets bears chequey or and sable. This combination of metal and metal in the close association of a chequey field appears unusual to Western European heralds, but, though rare, it is by no means unknown in Eastern Europe; it is really no more unheraldic than parting or otherwise ordering a coat in two tinctures, a very constant mediaeval practice. This very unusualness considerably aids us in suggesting if not the name, at least the house to which the original owner of these spurs belonged, for the only family known to have borne such a coat of chequey or and argent was that of Wczele or Wcsezele of Poland, a family which sprang originally from Lebno (E. von Zernicki-Szeliga, Der Polnische Adel, 1900, sub "Wczele"). Wczele is now the family name of the Gurowskis, who became prominent in the XVIIth century, and were in the person of Raphael Gurowski created Prussian Counts Gurowski by Frederick William II in 1787. They were apparently a German family, coming originally from Bergen or Gurowa, and were established in Greater Poland in 1393 (E. von Zernicki-Szeliga, sub "Gurowski").

Though from early times the coat of Wczele was chequey of or and argent (F. Piekosinski, Heraldyka Polska, 1899, p. 172), it was at various periods considerably modified both in colour and arrangement. On a seal of 1382 it appears as a chessboard of six