CROSS-LEGGED EFFIGIES IN DORSET. 17 



protection became necessary until we reach the full panoply of 

 plate armour, and it is most interesting to notice how from the 

 earliest times there has been this continual struggle for 

 supremacy between arms and armour until the invention of 

 gunpowder gave the final victory, as far as military warfare is 

 concerned, to the weapon. In naval warfare, however, the 

 struggle is still going on. It is the old, old problem, altered 

 not a whit in its essentials, because to-day the armour protects 

 many men in floating fort, instead of one man in an iron suit. 



These three effigies under consideration belong, as I have 

 stated, to the final stage of the transition from mail to plate 

 armour a stage which is known as the last division of the four 

 (or " Camail ") periods into which English armour has been 

 divided, and these effigies date from 1360-1405. In 1410 the 

 full panoply of plate armour was in use. 



We see here how the flexible chain mail has been almost 

 entirely replaced by more solid defences, which give these figures 

 a peculiarly wooden appearance, but one by no means devoid of 

 artistic merit, although the globular breast plates give them a 

 curiously feminine appearance. The lower limbs and arms are 

 entirely cased in plate armour and the feet acutely pointed at the 

 toes in laminated or tergulated sollerets, the latter consisting of 

 a series of overlapping plates, evenly distributed, somewhat in 

 the nature of tiles. The body is covered with a short hauberk, 

 apparently sleeveless, which reaches to about the middle of the 

 thigh. At the shoulders and elbows are laminated e*paulieres 

 and elbow-guards which conform somewhat to the construction 

 of the joints. Under the hauberk is a large globular breastplate, 

 and over the hauberk is the jupon, a kind of surcoat fitting 

 tightly to the shape and short enough to expose the skirt of the 

 hauberk below. The jupons were usually made of some rich 

 material and, as we see here, with an escalloped edge. There 

 are no arms emblazoned on the jupons of these effigies, although 

 such was the usual custom at this period. The belt is remarkable 

 for its splendour and for the method of adjusting it so that it 

 appears immediately above the escalloped edge of the jupon. 



