By the Bev. E. E. Goddard. 29 



known by the same name. It is true that in its modem develop- 

 ment it bears but little resemblance to its prototype, but still the 

 steps by which its form has gradually grown to what it is can be 

 readily traced. 



The mace in its original form of a wooden club is probably one 

 of the oldest forms of offensive weapon used by man. But it is the 

 mace in its mediaeval form with which we have to do. As Chancellor 

 Fergusson shows in his interesting paper in the ArchceologicalJournal 

 for 1884, at the Battle of Hastings, as seen in contemporary 

 representations, the maces used for close quarters had globular heads 

 of iron. Against a blow delivered by a powerful arm with such a 

 weapon the flexible shirts of mail then in vogue must have been but 

 a poor defence. Accordingly plate-armour was invented to resist 

 the blows of the mace, and then the solid head of the mace was 

 grooved, and eventually armed with projecting triangular flanges, 

 or with spikes, which should penetrate and tear the armour. 



These flanged maces were in use in the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries, but soon after the beginning of the sixteenth century the 

 pistol superseded the mace as at once a more handy and more 

 effective weapon for close quarters. 



Mr. Fergusson points out that at least as early as the fourteenth 

 century, both in England and France, the mace was the special 

 weapon of the King's serjeants-at-arms, who formed his peculiar 

 body-guard, and as a mark of high favour it became usual to grant 

 fto mayors, and others to whom the royal authority was delegated, 

 [the right to have one or more " serjeants-at-arms," or serjeants-at- 

 mace — " servientes ad clavas" 



As the mace, then, was the symbol of royal authority delegated by 

 the Sovereign it was necessary that a place should be found for the 

 royal arms. They could not well be placed on the flanged head, so 

 the butt end of the civic mace was slightly enlarged and the arms 

 engraved thereon. The butt thus became really a more important 

 part than the head, and by the principle of evolution grew and 

 increased at the expense of the head, until it swelled gradually into 

 a bell-shaped protuberence, whilst the now useless flanges decreased 

 in size. Then the mace was turned upside down, and what had 



