64 The History of the Spur 



arrangement is such as to render it easy to remove or replace 

 the spur. I think it is the absence of this facility in the case 

 of rivetted spurs which rendered their use so uncommon. 



An entirely different form of spur, but attached without 

 straps, is shown on Plate 37, Fig. 2. It was used about the 

 period of the Thirty Years' War, so that its date is about 

 from 1650 to 1680. The drawing is taken from a specimen 

 in the museum of the United Service Association in Whitehall. 

 It is adapted for wearing with a shoe. A curved plate, 

 resembling part of a shoe-horn, went down inside the shoe 

 between the shoe and the man's heel, while a bar, bent over 

 the upper edge of the shoe, came down outside the leather, 

 and in this specimen had a screw-hole at the bottom of the 

 bar for a screw to tighten it to the leather. From the upper 

 part of this bar projects a short curved neck, carrying a five- 

 pointed rowel, about an inch in diameter. There are several 

 of these spurs to be found in continental museums, though I 

 am not aware of another in England. There is one in the 

 Mus^e d'Artillerie in Paris, described as English. Zschille and 

 Forrer give two examples as having been used in Germany, 

 and I know of another in Italy. I think this kind of spur 

 was not an uncommon one at this period, when the rank and 

 file of armies generally wore shoes in preference to boots. 



The comparatively modern form of spur inserted into the 

 heel of the boot will be mentioned in the description of modern 

 spurs. 



The above forms of spurs, attached to their wearers' feet 

 without the aid of straps, were all more or less common at 



