30 The History of the Spur 



been the case. As a rule, the most trustworthy evidence 

 afforded by brasses was by the sides ; that is, whether they 

 were curved or straight, and by the method of attachment of 

 the straps, whether they passed through a loop or were 

 ri vetted to a plate, while the goad part cannot always be 

 taken for granted, since it was the part furthest away from 

 the artist, and either an attempt at perspective or the entire 

 absence of it might in either case cause some distortion. In 

 the brasses to Sir John d'Abernon, 1277, and Sir Roger de 

 Trumpington, 1280, the spurs are represented in both cases as 

 long wavy spikes without any guard whatever. (See page 52.) 

 In these particular cases I do not think the artist faithfully 

 represented on the brass the spur he was supposed to copy, for 

 the elongated and unguarded spike had been given up for several 

 hundred years before that date. But in each case the sides 

 are represented as being curved, which is in accordance with 

 the evidence afforded by such spurs of the thirteenth century 

 as are in existence at the present day. In the case of rowel 

 spurs the evidence afforded by brasses is, possibly, more trust- 

 worthy. An artist is more likely to suggest correctly the 

 number of points in the rowel of the spur he was copying 

 than he would be in the case of the prick spur, which, after 

 all, only ends in a point, to record exactly any modifications 

 of that point. 



On the effigies on the tombs both of Henry I. and 

 Richard I. the ball-and-spike form appears, and with curved 

 sides, thus bringing us down to a.d. 1200, by which time the 

 depressed sides, curving under the ankle-bone, had well come 



