Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/245

Fig. 557. From an unknown effigy

About 1335. Ash Church, Kent After Stothard

Fig. 558. From the brass of Sir John de Saint Quintan

About 1397. Brandesburton Church, Yorkshire. After Hewitt

included the whole hand and fingers in a single pouch, with a separate compartment for the thumb, to facilitate the grasping of a weapon. An excellent example of this early form of gauntlet is represented on the seal of Richard Cœur de Lion. It is apparent from monuments and miniatures of the period that the hand could be withdrawn from the mitten and thrust through an aperture in the wrist, allowing the mitten to hang loose, as shown in the brass of Sir Robert de Septvans in Chartham Church, Kent (Fig. 552). The effigy of William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury, in Salisbury Cathedral, who died in 1226, affords another illustration of the sleeve gauntlet drawn over the hand (Fig. 553), where it is fastened by a thong or strap round the wrist in precisely the same manner as was formerly adopted by the Japanese in their armour of nearly every period. Towards the end of the XIIIth century this mitten mail defence gradually developed separate fingers, like the modern glove. Of this style we can take a good illustration from the splendid effigy in Westminster Abbey of William de Valence (Fig. 554), who died in 1296. We consider that it was about this time that the mail gauntlet, as a separate armament not attached to the hauberk sleeve, appeared. In the church of Schutz, in the Province of Alsace, there is a monument to