Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/193

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Fig. 957. Two views of a chanfron

Late XIVth century. Warwick Castle Armoury. After Grose

were imposed upon a block of wood fashioned to the form of a horse's head, so that on drying they stiffened to that form. The eye protections and the ear-guards are of iron plated with pewter; so, too, is the nasal-guard, which is pierced with two circular arrangements of holes for purposes of breathing. Down the centre runs a broad band of the same medium. This chanfron, which from its lack of decoration appears to be essentially one meant for hard fighting, came from the collection of Napoleon III at Pierrefonds (Figs. 954 and 955). As an example of the full armament of the horse in the third quarter of the XIVth century, we certainly can do no better than give an illustration of that now famous little chessman, so many times illustrated, formerly in the collection of the Rev. J. Eagles (Fig. 956). Here may be noted the same pendulous plates hanging round the charger, which is clothed in mail to its fetlocks as in the Westminster painting. Doubtless the appendages were painted heraldically. Here, too, can be seen for the first time the really complete chanfron entirely enclosing the horse's head: the demarcation for the opening hinge is clearly shown under the line of the jaw bone, the ears are protected, and there are holes for the eyes and holes pierced above the nostrils for breathing. The date assigned to this ivory chess-piece is the third quarter of the XIVth century. Very like the chanfron