Men-at-Arms, Fourteenth Century
Next, round plates of metal, called placates or roundels, were applied to shield the armpits from a thrust; and sometimes they were used also at the elbow to protect the inner side of the joint where, for the convenience of motion, it was destitute of armour. An example of a roundel at the shoulder will be seen in one of the men-at-arms in the woodcut
The Feat of Arms at St. Inglebert’s
For an actual historical example of the tournament in which a number of knights challengers undertake to hold the field against all comers, we will take the passage of arms at St. Inglebert’s, near Calais, in the days of Edward III., because it is very fully narrated by Froissart, and because the splendid MS. of Froissart in the British Museum supplies us with a magnificent picture of the scene.
Justing.—XIV. Century
The figure is a representation of the just, taken from a manuscript in the Royal Library, of the thirteenth, or early in the fourteenth century, where two knights appear in the action of tilting at each other with the blunted spears.