CROSS-LEGGED EFFIGIES IN DORSET. 7 



panoply of plate armour it was generally abandoned for the 

 straight or parallel position. Before we turn to the effigies of 

 Dorset it may be as well to point out that, although actual 

 construction of armour is shown on later effigies, there is no 

 doubt that the representations of chain mail are nothing more 

 or less than artistic conventions. To have constructed an actual 

 hauberk of mail in stone would have been impossible, and would 

 have seriously detracted from these effigies as works of art. 

 Even a great authority like Meyrick mistakes conventional 

 representations for actual construction, and it has been left to 

 Mr. J. G. Waller, F.S.A., to throw fresh light on this important 

 point and to prove conclusively that what is known as trelliced, 

 ringed, mascled, single and double chain, are nothing more 

 than conventional methods of representing the interlaced chain 

 mail, which was the only form of chain mail in actual use, with 

 the exception perhaps of banded mail. Mr. Waller supports his 

 argument by many monuments and brasses, the only variation 

 which he can accept being the double chain mail as shown on the 

 effigy of a De Mauley, formerly in York Minster. It appears 

 that the coif was of a pattern with which we are familiar, but 

 the hauberk had a double set of rings, a smaller set, and a larger 

 set enclosing it, all interlacing together and showing a consider- 

 able amount of skill in the making. It is possible, therefore, 

 that " double mail " may have been one of the expedients for 

 strengthening the defence against the attack, which belongs 

 constantly to the history of arms and armour. 



Banded mail has long been a crux antiquariorum , notwith- 

 standing many attempts at its solution, and it is quite possible 

 that this form may be also a conventional, and not a 

 constructional, representation. The only positive thing about 

 it is that it consists of bands and rings, but how applied is not 

 known, although Mr. Waller puts forward a highly instructive 

 solution based on a hauberk from Northern India, on which the 

 chain mail is sewn between bands of leather. Another conven- 

 tion is that which represents the sleeve of the hauberk as being 

 in one piece. The bending of the arm would be impossible if 



