Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/253

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applied round the upper edge of the cuffs. This is embossed with a fluted and dotted moulding, in the middle of which is the word AMOR, twice repeated, on a groundwork engraved with a matted ornamentation. A ragged staff with a ribbon wound round it is also introduced into the decoration. On the cuff of the left gauntlet, where the circumference of the wrist is smallest, is fastened a cable pattern ornament also of latten—this is missing on the right gauntlet—and round the finger edges of the gauntlets are bands of latten a quarter of an inch wide, engraved with an interlaced design and riveted on.

Fig. 569. Right gauntlet

About 1380. Found among the ruins of the Castle of Tannenberg. Collection: Dr. Bashford Dean, New York

Fig. 570. From the brass of Sir George Felbrigge

About 1400. St. Mary's, Playford, Suffolk

We venture to say that the Wallace gauntlets are, with the exception of the Black Prince's, the only true examples of their kind in England. There is, in the Tower Armoury, a gauntlet purporting to be a specimen dating from the end of the XIVth century; but it is a forgery. Going farther afield we may state that Dr. Bashford Dean, of New York, possesses a gauntlet somewhat of this type, found among the ruins of the Castle of Tannenberg, which came from the Hefner-Alteneck Collection (Fig. 569). In the collection of the late Mr. Frederick Stibbert of Florence, is another real example, while the Ressman Collection in the Bargello, Florence, besides possessing the magnificent pair we have described, can show a left-hand