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The Royal castle of Saumur as it appeared around 1415. Though the height and pointed character of the architecture may have been exaggerated, the picture is essentially accurate. It also includes the large number of chimneys necessary in a chateau which was now expected to be warm and comfortable as well as strong. (Trśs Riches Heures de Duc de Berry, Musee Conde, Paris)

large pavise shield or mantlet, very few having a sword. Provenęal ‘brigand light infantry again had a cervelliere, hascinet or capellus ferreus (brimmed war bat or ‘kettle hat’), and the few who had body armour wore a jaque or a cota or malha of mail. They did not normally have shields because they were light infantry skirmishers.

The best recorded, and perhaps one of the most important of French arms manufacturing centres was the Cios de Galees at Rouen. It madę military eąuipment in very large quantities and kept even morę in a reserve. In 1376, for example, there were over one thousand armours in the Chambre de la Reine alone, although these were described as old-fashioned and of poor quality. Eight years later a substantial order from the king requested avant bras, bassinets (the most common type of helmet), boucliers, bracelets, bras de piąte, chapeaux defer, cołtes, cuissots, ecus, ecussons, gantelots, garde-brass, gorgerettes, gorgieres, harnois, haubergiers, heaumes, hoąuetons, hourratieres, jacąues, pavois, plates, poulains and targes, each paires de harnois weighing at least 25 pounds, each bassinet weighing at least 4 pounds.

A second order in 1384 allocated no less than 17,200 gold francs for the manufacture of 200,000 crossbow bolts, for repairing all existing armours, horse harness and artillery, and for buying new cquipment. Clearly war was as relatively expensive a business then as it is now.

Some armourers and arms mercbants madę arrangements with colleagues abroad, as in 1375 when Guitard de Junqiyeres, an armourer of Bordeax, agreed with Lambert Braque, an armourer in Germany, to co-operate in supplying the Lord of Foix’s castle of Morlaas willi 60 bascinets and cotes de Jer. The most detailed evidence is found in the remarkable archives of Datini, a merchant from Prato in Italy, who was a key figurę in an arms trade based at Avignon in the later 14th century. This was a major distribution centre, not only for new arms and armour but for second-hand and captured equipment as well as raw materials.

As far as specific items of armour were concemed, a separate or larger piąte to protect the chest in a coat-of-plates had appeared by the middle of the century. Within a relatively short dnie this chest piąte fused with the abdomen plates to form a true breastplate, which in turn gradually replaced the old coat-of-plates. By the end of the 14th century ii was attached to laminated faulds protecdng abdomen and groin, often with a similar backplate and skirt, the whole ensemble being hinged down one side and buckled down the other. It had, in fact, evolved into a fuli ‘white armour’ cuirass.

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