On the Rowel Spur 4^ 



the illustration is taken from a plate in Archceologia, Vol. XI. 

 The spur was found in Yorkshire in the year 1792, on the 

 site of the battle of Towton, near York, which was fought 

 March i8th, 1461. But the spur is rather earlier than that 

 date. The rowel is six-pointed and barely an inch in diameter, 

 while the neck is over two inches, and so larger than was 

 required for the rowel-box. The necks of the former spurs, 

 it will be noticed, were split up for almost their whole length 

 to admit of the passage of the large rowel. The sides have 

 a kind of double curve. Round the back of the heel, for two 

 inches on each side of the median line, the arms went hori- 

 zontally, and then dipped down suddenly in a sharp curve. 

 The neck and sides of this spur are elaborately chased and 

 ornamented, the sides having a motto in raised letters, " En 

 loial amour tout mon coeur." The sides end with the usual 

 double perforation. 



The other spur on this plate is of much the same period, 

 perhaps a little earlier. It is in the City of London Museum. 

 It shows the same peculiar curve of the sides, which end in 

 the double rings ; the neck is not so long as in the last, 

 and the rowel, which is one and a quarter inches in diameter, 

 has twenty-nine short points — a very unusual rowel for this 

 period. The sides of both these spurs have a spread of three 

 and a half inches, giving plenty of room for them to be buckled 

 on outside the armour. We perceive, from the first introduc- 

 tion of plate armour, that the spread of the spur was enlarged 

 so as to go round a foot encased in a solleret. 



We next notice, about the middle of the fifteenth century. 



