89049 w01I

A sculpted Capital showing the Psychomachia, from Nó tre-Dam e-d u-Port, Clermont-Ferrand. Although French rather than Norman and ofmid I2th-ccntury datę, the

sąuarc form of ventail can be scen hanging down over the chest and laced up on the ieft-hand figurę. Such ventails would not necessarily have covered so much of the face.

some cases this meant carrying supplies on pack animals or in carts; on the 3rd Crusade Richard I took so much that many of the footsoldiers were forced to carry some of the baggage. However, this was never the whole answer. It was vital that a sizeable force was ensured provisions to keep it in the field. This might be done by fortifying castles to allow a supply linę to be kept open through hostile territory, often a slow process. Alternatively a force would simply ravage the surrounding areas, which brought in supplies unless stubborn or careless; when one half of a French/Angeuin invasion force scattered to plunder round Morlemer in 1054 it was set upon by the Normans and destroyed. That is why foraging for food was accompanied often by incendiaries who burned villages and destroyed what they could not take, including peasants and their crops. Sąuires were often grouped into foraging parties, sometimes accompanied by a knightly escort. This was a far less risky way of waging war than by direct confrontation which might end in disaster. Of course, two could play at that gamę; keeping an armed force in the vicinity of a hostile invader often rendered him impotent, sińce he dare not throw out foraging parties. Thus thwarted, supplies would dry up and he would be forced to withdraw.

MUSEUMS

It should be noted that those wishing to study actual Norman arms and eąuipment are rather poorly served. Even museums which provide fairly extens-ive displays of items of the period cannot but give a flavour sińce so many pieces of arms and armour must be studied in the context of comparable pieces rather than as actual ‘Norman’ items of the ioth to early i3th century. Examples of armour are extremely rare; only four helmets survive of‘Norman’ type and only one of these, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in

49