Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/249

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  • tion, in accordance with the jazarine armaments of the time. Such gauntlets

often appear in contemporary illumination and sculpture. We are fortunate in being able to give illustrations of fragments of two actual gauntlets of this type; while we know of a third right-hand gauntlet of this make which is in the collection of Graf Hans Wilczek at Schloss Kreuzenstein near Vienna. The first fragment (Fig. 562) is a portion of a gauntlet in the Tower of London collection, the provenance of which is unfortunately unknown; while the other (Fig. 563) is part of a similar gauntlet of the same period, about 1370, which was given to the British Museum by the late Herr Richard Zschille.

Fig. 563. Portion of a gauntlet

Formerly covered with textile material and studded with metal disks. About 1370. Presented to the British Museum by the late Herr Richard Zschille

Fig. 564. From the brass of an unknown knight

About 1410. South Kelsey Church, Lincolnshire

The hour-glass type of gauntlet continued in fashion until the early years of the XVth century. On a brass in South Kelsey Church, Lincolnshire, dating from about 1410, it appears in a very elongated form (Fig. 564). From the point of view of defence the great defect in these gauntlets, which had the finger plates attached only to the leather fingers of the glove inside, is, of course, that the point of a weapon could enter the gauntlet between the scales on the fingers and the edge of the main metal