actually existed, it must have been executed by the armourer, either as a proof of his own superior craftsmanship, or to gratify some vain-glorious whim of his employer. In the portrait that forms the companion picture to that of the Harnischmeister, it can be noted that the Archduke's own horse is not so completely armoured, and so hampered. We must, however, confess that in the Porte de Hal of Brussels we have come across certain strangely shaped lames of plate armour, which from not resembling any individual defensive body armament that can be distinguished, may be, as described in the older inventories, "armour for the horse's legs"; but we are bound also to admit that the shape of the plates makes it difficult to say what part of the horse they were originally made to protect. They do not seem applicable to either hind or fore legs.
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Fig. 1006. Croupière for a horse in cuir bouilli
One of a large number purchased in 1547 for the Scottish campaign. Tower of London, Class VI, No. 87
Of the continued use of leather late in the XVth century as part of the horse's equipment, there is ample evidence—the horse armed "coovered with bardes of courbuly." From the writer Paolo Giovio we learn that it was the fashion of the Italians to caparison their horses with leather. The horses of French lancers who accompanied Charles VIII into Rome in 1494 are recorded to have been so protected. These leathern horse armaments must, in many cases, have been very beautiful, from the effect of tooling, of gilding, and even of applied embroidery; but none remain. In the Tower of London is preserved a croupière of cuir bouilli, the sole survivor of the many purchased in 1547 for the campaign in Scotland. It is a severely utilitarian piece of defence and now incomplete, all the lower plates being missing (Fig. 1006). It figures in the 1917 catalogue of the Tower under Class VI, No. 87. The armoury of Mr. Godfrey Williams of St. Donat's Castle, also possesses an example of leathern horse armour of about the same period.
When we look at the accoutrements provided for the horse in the various forms of jousts and tourneys that took place throughout the XVth century, we feel that it is quite impossible to discuss in detail armaments of so extra-
