WEAPONS. A Pictorial history

The Bayeux Tapestry which illustrates the whole story of the invasion of England by Duke William, and depicts the Battle of Hastings which King Harold and his Saxons lost to the invader, shows the doings of knights and men-at-arms but largely disregards plain soldiers.

Bayeux Abbey Tapestry, fragment.

Much of what is known of military equipment at this time comes from the Tapestry, though not all the information it provides is wholly dependable. For instance, it is known from other sources that the Saxons wore kilts, but the Tapestry shows them dressed like the Normans in divided knee-length hauberks of chain mail or scale armor. The hauberk was descended from Charlemagne's lorica. In front and behind it was split to the crotch, to allow its wearer to ride a horse. Hauberks had short sleeves and most of them had hoods with an opening for the face. They were usually topped with a conical iron cap which had a nose guard attached to it.

A quilted jerkin was probably worn under the hauberk, as it always was later, and the warrior's legs wore banded-over narrow trews, such as those worn in Charlemagne's time. These trews, also, may have been leather. Some important people seem to have worn chain-mail leggings.

Norman shields were usually round at the top and pointed at the bottom and from three to four feet high. Nearly all of them had painted decorations on them but none of the patterns were associated personally with the bearer, as they were in later heraldry.

Each mounted knight carried a wooden lance with an untapered shaft probably eight or nine feet long and tipped with a broad iron head. Some "couched" the lance under the right arm in the new fashion which had become possible with the introduction of stirrups, but more thrust with the older overarm stroke. The lance was frequently thrown like a javelin and its butt rested on the stirrup when it wasn't needed. Swords had by this time reached their full growth; broad near the hilt and tapered to the point, their double-edged length was a full forty-four inches from pommel to tip. This was the "knightly blade" which, changing very little, "carved the casques of men" for nearly four hundred years. Its ornamented scabbard hung from a belt straight down at the knight's left side. At his saddle bow the Norman warrior carried either an iron-headed mace or a broad-bladed battle-ax according to his taste.

King Harold was killed by an arrow at Hastings and the Tapestry shows massed bowmen fighting for the Normans. On the Saxon side there is only an occasional archer mixed in with men-at-arms, who fight with bills, spears and axes. Thus the bow appeared on both sides in this ancient battle, but though the Conqueror's son Henry encouraged archery by ruling that accidental shootings at practice shouldn't be punished as crimes, the bow as a major English war weapon didn't come into its own until many years had passed.

There had been an elaborate feudal system among the Saxons, but the Normans swept most of its regulations aside and set up their own. Among them military rank was a thing wholly separate from social position, though not entirely uninfluenced by wealth. The king's son might be a mere squire and a man-at-arms might aspire to become a knight, as a result of some remarkable feat in battle. The next step higher, however, the knight banneret had to "own" and equip at least fifty men-at-arms; and to do that took cash or its equivalent, which was land. He who held land must defend land. The usual military service was forty days. Clergymen and ladies of estate were not required to serve personally but had to furnish and equip substitutes or pay scutage. This was "shield money" which in easy times any vassal could pay to the king for release from the obligation of military service; the king could use the money to hire mercenaries who were always available; in fact, mercenaries fought among Duke William's invasion forces.

Two saxons and a mounted norman knight

It should be understood that a man-at-arms was a superior soldier, potentially, at least, a knight. His lord might pay for the arms of such a one if he was particularly good with sword or spear; but the common infantry had to arm itself as best it could. Armor was far too expensive for ordinary people to own, especially in France, since the common people actually were little more than slaves. The value set upon armor is indicated by the little figures in the border of the Bayeux Tapestry, who are busily stripping mail shirts from the fallen while the battle still rages above them.

It is probably true that few who wore the golden spurs of chivalry actually lived up to all its high ideals of bravery, piety, generosity and purity well enough to qualify as Chaucer's "very gentil parfait knight," but at least those ideals were set up and served to smooth a little bit the rough manners of the time. There were few people then who could read, and the civilizing effect of literature was slight; so even if chivalry later reached fantastic heights of pretense and absurdity, in its early days it shared with religion the job of turning savages into gentlemen.

The aspirant to knighthood normally began his training at about the age of twelve by serving as a page in the castle of a nobleman. During this period he was much in the company of women but he underwent constant training in the use of arms and in horsemanship. At sixteen or thereabouts he became a squire or shield-bearer. In early days he was just that: he rode behind some knight and carried his shield for him. Later, squire or esquire was an honourable title just below knighthood, which many men bore all their lives.

Unless he greatly distinguished himself before that age, a squire couldn't become a knight until he was twenty. Then, having confessed, he went through an elaborate ritual of fasting, and after an all-night church vigil, he took a great oath to tell the truth and protect all that was weak, good or holy. When the oath had been sworn, the king or some great lord hit the novice on the neck with the flat of a sword; gilded spurs were then fastened to his heels and he was a knight "without fear and without reproach."

Unfortunately it didn't always stick. Some disgraced themselves so completely that they were stripped of the honor in another ceremony, which consisted of having their spurs hacked off by the king's cook.