Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/500

 364 EFFIGIES OF THE DE SULNEYS, grey of vari'ous shades, occur continually. And all these seem to indicate a fabric in which metal pla^^s at least a con- spicuous part. The examples, among the vellum paintings, in which the banding is tinted grey or left white, are so numerous, that one can scarcely open a manuscript of the period without finding them. Instances of it in silver may be seen in Cotton MSS., Vitellius, A. xiij., and Nero, D. vj.; in Roy. MS., 20, D. 1, and Add. MS. 12,228. On fol 217, B, of the last-named manuscript, will be found the figure of a knight whose banded mail is gilt. The same kind of armour, in gold colour, appears in the windows of Beer Ferrers Church, Devonshire, and of Fulborn Church, Cambridgeshire. (See Lysons' Devonshire, p. 326, and Kerrich's Collections, 6730, fol. 61, for faithful copies of these examples.) If from the foregoing evidences we derive the belief that the basis of this fabric was metal, from a monument figured in the superb work of Count Bastard, " Peintures des Manuscrits," &c., we gather that the lines of arcs were rings ; for the fillet that tightens the coif round the temples is clearly passed through alter- nate groups of rings, exactly as in the ordinary mail hood. The figure is from a French bible of the beginning of the 14th century, and occurs in the 7th number of the " Peintures." In fairness, we must admit that this example is not altogether inadmissible as an evidence in favour of the theory of common chain-mail. And on that side may be ranged the very curious figure of Offa the First, on folio 7 of the "Lives of the Two Offas " (Cott. MS., Nero, D. 1) ; where the upper part of the warrior's coif is of " banded mail," while the lower portion is marked in the manner usually adopted to express the ordinary chain-mail. Different from all these is the interpretation offered by M. de Vigne, in his " Recueil de Costumes du Moyen-Age." On Plate 56 of that work, he has given a series of sketches, showing tlie supposed construction of various ancient armours. The banded mail is represented as formed of rows of over- lapping rings, sewn down on leather or other similar material — " avec les coutures couvertcs do petites bandes de cuir." This notion, however, seems at variance with those ancient monuments, where the inside of the defence exhibits the ring-work as well as the exterior. A more improbable garment, to say the least of it, than a hauberk of leather,