28 The History of the Spur 



the strap. The fashion of attaching the strap to the inside of 

 the sides seems to have prevailed about the twelfth century. 

 The necks are a little more than an inch and a half long, quadri- 

 lateral in section, and slightly curved downwards. The ball is 

 somewhat oval, being three-quarters of an inch long and five-eighths 

 of an inch thick, and from it springs a short, sharp spike half 

 an inch in length. The surface of the ball shows marks of the 

 hammer, as do the knobs at the terminations of the sides, and 

 is covered with spots of gold, and the neck shows considerable 

 remains of gilding. The date of these spurs is, no doubt, the 

 latter part of the eleventh century or the beginning of the 

 twelfth. An illustration is given on Plate lo. Fig. i. 



The illustration given on Plate lo. Fig. 2, is taken from 

 a pair of brass spurs in the collection in the Armoury at 

 the Tower of London, but which are evidently of modern 

 make. The present custodian of the Tower Armoury knows 

 nothing as to their history, or when or why they were 

 made, but it can only be presumed that they were copied 

 from some ancient spur. They have curved sides, an arrange- 

 ment which did not come into universal use till the middle 

 of the twelfth century, by which time the cone-shaped, or 

 pyramidal-shaped, point was the usual form of spur. But the 

 curved sides were seen before 1140, so there is nothing 

 impossible in the conjunction of curved sides with the ball 

 and spike. The sides terminate in plates which I should say 

 were peculiar to this pair only. The plates appear to have been 

 arranged so that the sole strap was rivetted to the plate, while 

 the instep strap was attached by the modern button, a form 



