and 873), the former purporting to have its original haft, the latter having its splendid massive head incrusted with brass. We also give an illustration of a superbly fashioned beak and hammer from a war-hammer which was some few years ago dug up in Spain (Fig. 874). This, however, appears to be of somewhat later date, and doubtless originally was hafted to the length of four to five feet; it is a weapon of Italian or possibly of Spanish make. There is, in the Museo Civico of Venice, another such hammer-head—a magnificent example, indeed one of the finest known to the present writer—a massively constructed and deadly implement.
It would appear from such pictorial evidence as is available that the short martel de fer was often one of the auxiliary weapons of the mounted knight. In Uccello's painting (Vol. i, Fig. 238), which hangs in the National Gallery, the knight in the right-hand corner of the picture may be seen armed with a war-hammer, and successfully parrying a blow dealt him by an adversary armed with a sword. Froissart speaks of the iron war-hammer in describing the tumults in Paris in 1382—and again in his account of the battle of Rosebeke.
Throughout the XIIIth and XIVth centuries we find the mace represented either with the plain spheroidal head, or very simply flanged, which in the first place would be achieved by grooves cut in the globular head, parallel with the handle, so as to make the mace bite and tear, as well as crush, when a blow was given. We may take it, however, that in many cases the mace was doubtless little more than the baston to which we have already referred. The deepening of the grooves in the head of the mace was a step towards the flanged or laminated maces, the latter, to which Meyrick gave the name of the quadrell, being best known. The head of the earlier quadrell consisted as a rule of four flanges or laminae placed at obtuse angles to one another; while in its latest development the head of the mace was multi-lamed. It was a weapon not only used by knights but by all classes. King Edward III, in the first years of his reign to 1327, forbade these "mansels," or more correctly masuels (which was the French word of the period), to be carried by the citizens of London. Many examples of war maces of the XVth century have survived the passage of time and are to be seen in collections to-day; but we know of scarce half a dozen that we dare date earlier than the XVth century. In all forms, especially when the head had flanges of triangular shape, the mace was an admirable weapon for close combat, having a crushing, biting, and tearing action; the
