BAT 



45 



BAT 



bad broken his battle-axe in pieces before he took to his 

 sword, and was even then brought down by a stony. (Script. 

 x. Twysd. col. 1354.) 



During the middle period of English history we read but 

 little of this weapon, though it appears to have been con- 

 stantly used. The Welsh infantry at the battle of Agincourt, 

 in 1415, found it particularly serviceable in despatching 

 those whom the archers had wounded with their arrows. In 

 Strutt's Manners and Customs of the English, vol. ii. pi. 

 xliv., Henry V. is represented as setting Richard, Earl of 

 Warwick, to keep Port Quartervyle, at the siege of Rouen, 

 by the delivery of a battle-axe. 



Toward the close of the sixteenth century, the battle-axe, 

 as a weapon of war, seems to have fallen into gradual dis- 

 use : although the occasional placing of a pistol in its handle, 

 in some specimens which remain, seems to bespeak a wish 

 on the part of the warriors of that period that it should 

 be retained with an improved use. 



Grose, in his Military Antiquities, vol. ii. pi. xxviii. fig. 

 4, and pi xxxiv. fig. 3, has engraved a Lochaber axe, and 

 an antient battle-axe. Sir Samuel Meyrick, in his en- 

 graved illustrations of antient armour now at Goodrich Court 

 in Herefordshire, pi. Ixxxiii., has engraved numerous spe- 

 cimens of battle-axes and pole-axes from the time of Henry 

 VI. Fig. 1 represents a German pole-axe of the time o'f 

 Henry VI., furnished with a ring to which a thong might 

 be fastened, in order to twist round the arm of the person 

 wielding it. Yis. 2, a battle-axe of the time of Henry VIII., 

 to which was once attached a match-lock pistol. The whole 

 is of iron, and came from Ireland. Fig. 3, a Venetian pole- 

 axe of the same period, the blade beautifully engraved, and 

 having on it the lion of St. Mark. Fig.4, another specimen. 

 Fig. 5, a battle-axe of the close of the reign of Henry VIII. 

 Fig. G, a Jedburg axe, or Jeddart staff of the same period, 

 found in a river in Scotland. Such weapons were implied 

 by the single word ' staves,' which included all kinds of arms 

 whose handles were long poles. Fig. 7, a Lochaber axe as 

 old as the last described, if not of greater age. Fig. 8, a 

 battle-axe of the commencement of the reign of Queen 

 Elizabeth. Fig. 9, another of the middle of that period. 

 Figs. 10, 1 1, two of the close of her reign. Fig. 12, one of 

 the commencement of the reign of James I. Fig. 13, ano- 

 ther of this period, furnished with a wheel-lock pistol. Fig. 

 1-1, a Polish pole-axe, having on the blade a crown, and the 

 letter S. twisted round the number III., for Sigismund III. ; 

 its staff ornamented with a brass bead, and its form exactly 

 like those of the Anglo-Saxons in the Bayeux tapestry. Fig. 

 15, a Dutch battle-axe, having on it the date 1685, the 

 handle being ornamented with ivory. 



In Sir Samuel Meyrick's engraved Illustrations, vol. ii. 

 pi. 93, fig. 7, he has given the blade of a battle-axe of 

 its full size of the time of Queen Elizabeth, made in Ger- 

 many. 



The battle-axe was used at a very early period in naval 

 fights, chiefly to cut the ropes and rigging of vessels. (See 

 Schoffer, Mil. A'<it>. ii. 7.) 



BATTLE, WAGER OF. [See APPEAL.] 



BATTLEMENT, a parapet wall, commonly employed 

 in castellated and in ecclesiastical edifices of that kind which 

 are distinguished by the general name of Gothic. [See 

 GOTHIC ARCHITKCTURE.] The battlement isof very remote 

 antiquity, as remains of them still exist in Greece and Italy. 

 (Sec- M:i/ois' Pnni]:fii and Stuart's Athens.) The modern 

 battlement, however, is better known as belonging to build- 

 ings from the eleventh to the end of the sixteenth century : 

 but it was not in general use in ecclesiastical edifices until 

 the middle of the twelfth century. 



The battlement is generally indented, with a coping 

 sloping both ways from about the centre ; the lower part 

 between the coping and the cornice of the building is often 

 pierced and decorated. Although by the word battlement 

 is eenerally understood the whole indented parapet wall, the 

 term may perhaps with more propriety be applied to express 

 rather the higher part of the wall, in contradistinction to the 

 indent, interval, or embrasure. It is possible that the term 

 battlement may have derived its name from the facility 

 afforded to soldiers of doing battle under the protection 

 afforded by the higher part of the indented wall. Battle- 

 ments offer in their proportions, and in the details of their 

 mouldings and ornaments, a great variety of examples. 

 Mr. Rickman has endeavoured to distinguish the different 

 periods in which the pointed-arch style of Gothic architec- 

 ture changed the form of its detail ;' and in this endeavour 



he has taken great pains to describe the characteristic fea- 

 tures of the Norman, early English, decorated English, and 

 perpendicular English styles of battlements. 



As to Norman battlements, he says it is very difficult to 

 ascertain what was their precise form. He considers them 

 to have been only plain parapets ; but remarks (hat there 

 are instances in some castellated Norman buildings of a 

 parapet with here and there a narrow interval cut in it, 

 which appears original. 



It is more probable, then, that the Norman battlement \vs 

 a plain parapet, but without intervals ; and, if decorated, 

 the decoration probably consisted of the semicircular arch, the 

 peculiar feature of the Norman style. In support of this 

 opinion we may mention the upper part or rim of a Norman 

 font, decorated with semicircular-headed pannels, in South 

 Hayling Church, Hampshire. The Norman church of 

 1'Abbaye aux Dames, at Caen in Normandy, has a parapet 

 decorated with pointed-arched-headed pannels, which at the 

 introduction of the pointed-arch style most probably sup- 

 planted the old semicircular-arched pannel, similar to that 

 at Hayling Church, 



Early English Battlements. During nearly the whole 

 period in which this style was in use, the parapet was seldom 

 indented ; and in many buildings it was plain, in others 

 decorated. At Salisbury it is executed with a series of 

 arches and paanels, and in Lincoln Cathedral with quatre- 

 foils in sunk p.annels. A battlement of equal intervals 



Battlement. 



'refolled archrs 



and corbels under 



battlement. 



[Salisbury Cathedral.] 



occurs in small ornamented works erected about the close 

 of this period, when the early English style gave way to 

 another more decorated, denominated by Mr. Rickman the 

 decorated English style. 



Decorated English Battlement. During this period the 

 parapet wall without indentations continued frequently to 

 be used ; but it is often pierced through in various forms, 

 generally consisting of quatrefoils, and quatrcfoils in cir- 

 cles. Another form, however, which is not so common, 

 may be considered more beautiful. This is a waved line, 

 the spaces of which are trefoilcd. In St. Mary Magdalen 

 Church, at Oxford, there is a good example of this kind of 



[Mary Magdalen Church, Oxford,] 



battlement. Of the plain battlements, that which was most 

 in use in this period has the embrasures or intervals narr w, 

 and is surmounted with a capping moulding placed in a 

 horizontal position as at Waltham Cross ; but there are 



[Waltham Cross, as restored from the iintient fragments, by W. B. Clarke." 



some battlements of the same date with the capping run 

 ning both vertically and horizontally, of which there is a 

 fine specimen in the tower of Merton Chapel, Oxford. In 

 some smnll works of this style a flower is occasionally used 

 as a finish above the capping, moulding, or cornice, but it is 

 by no means common. The nave of York Cathedral pre- 

 sents a fine example of the pierced battlement so prevalent 

 during this period : it consists of arches or arched pannels 



