CHAPTER XIV
CHAIN MAIL AND INTERLINED TEXTILE DEFENCES
We have from time to time discussed chain mail and similar
flexible armaments as we found them represented in pictorial and
sculptural art from the days of the Norman Conquest until the
middle of the XIVth century. Doubtless, apart from the early
Norse byrnie found at Vimosa and Thorsberg, to which we have
referred on page 6, vol. i, examples of chain mail may still be in existence
belonging to the XIIth, XIIIth, and even XIth centuries, if but fragmentary,
and we may have even seen them; but from the utter impossibility
of recognizing the period to which they belong, it is useless to mention them
individually. With perhaps one exception known to us, we believe, too, that
hardly a hauberk of mail is extant that has a pedigree reliable and substantial
enough to take it back even to the XVth century. The shape of a piece of
plate armour supplies the clue which enables us to assign to it, with fair
degree of accuracy, a definite period. But in the case of chain mail defences
of XIIIth and XIVth century date, this kind of evidence cannot be brought
to bear; for it must be borne in mind that as chain mail was in universal
demand throughout mediaeval times, a hauberk was of value, and was therefore
constantly being repaired and altered in shape according to the requirements
of the time, so the original "cut" of the shirt may have been
subsequently altered on more than one occasion. We are therefore forced
to depend rather upon the make and form of the rings of which the hauberk
is composed when we attempt to assign an approximate date to a hauberk
of chain mail.
Let us deal first with the only example of early chain mail with which we are acquainted that has a history, and that might, though we do not believe it, be as old as is supposed—the shirt preserved in the Treasury of the Cathedral of Prague. The so-called Saint Wenceslaus shirt of mail is first mentioned in the inventory of the Treasury of Prague Cathedral, taken in the year 1354, where it figures as "lorica sancti Wenceslaus." Exactly the same entry is made in the ensuing inventories of 1365, 1368, 1371, and 1387. We may therefore conclude that a hauberk bearing this
