On the Rowel Spur 45 



wearer. This casing is usually ornamented with open work, 

 and various patterns in relief, and the necks are generally 

 ornamented with engraved or raised patterns. There are usually 

 openings at the upper part of the front corners for the 

 attachment of the instep strap. No sole strap is necessary, 

 as the sole plate takes its place. The outline illustrations on 

 Plate 23, Figs, i and 2, are taken from two pairs in the 

 Armeria Reale at Turin. The rowel spurs are gilt, the necks 

 are nine inches long, and they have large eight-pointed star 

 rowels, four inches in diameter. 



There is a spur of precisely similar pattern in the Musde 

 d'Artillerie in Paris, with a six-pointed rowel, three inches in 

 diameter. The other outline illustration is taken from an 

 iron spur of very similar design to the other, but, instead of 

 a rowel, the neck, which is also nine inches long, terminates in 

 a sort of ornamental trident of three points. This probably was 

 the caprice of some individual, since rowel spurs had been 

 established for some two centuries when these spurs were 

 made. 



We have seen that spurs underwent great changes thus 

 far during the fifteenth century, but they were destined to 

 undergo further change before the century closed. 



The long, straight neck, with the comparatively small rowel, 

 disappeared, and the rowels, which we have seen to be growing 

 gradually larger, increased enormously in size during the last 

 part of the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries. 

 So inconveniently large did rowels become at this period, that 

 many have thought that the enormous spurs which are 



