At the request of many of those who attended my course of lectures, delivered before the University of Oxford during the Lent Term, 1909, I have collected and illustrated some of the more important notes dealing with the Development of European Defensive Armour and Weapons. These pages are not a mere reprint of those lectures, nor do they aspire to the dignity of a History of Armour. They are simply intended as a handbook for use in studying history and a short guide to the somewhat intricate technicalities of the Craft of the Armourer.

No work, even of the smallest dimensions, can be produced at the present day without laying its author under a deep sense of indebtedness to Baron de Cosson for his numerous notes on helms and helmets, and to Viscount Dillon for his minute and invaluable researches in every branch of this subject. To this must be added a personal indebtedness to the latter for much assistance, and for the use of many of the illustrations given in this work and also in my course of lectures.

CHARLES FFOULKES.

Oxford, 1909.

The following works should be consulted by those who wish to study the subject of Armour and Weapons more minutely:—

A Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour, Sir Samuel Meyrick; A Treatise on Ancient Armour, F. Grose; Ancient Armour, J. Hewitt; Arms and Armour, Lacombe (trans. by Boutell); Arms and Armour, Demmin (trans. by Black); Armour in England, Starkie Gardner; Waffenkunde, Wendelin Boeheim; Guida del Amatore di Armi Antiche, J. Gelli; Dictionnaire du Mobilier FranÇais (vols. ii and vi), Viollet-le-Duc; Encyclopedia of Costume, PlanchÉ; A Manual of Monumental Brasses, Haines; Engraved Illustrations of Antient Armour, Meyrick and Skelton; Monumental Effigies, Stothard; The Art of War, C. W. C. Oman; Archaeologia, The Archaeological Journal, The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries; the Catalogues of the Armouries of Vienna, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Turin, Dresden; the Wallace Collection, London and Windsor Castle.

The author is indebted to the publishers of Wendelin Boeheim’s Waffenkunde for the use of the illustrations 33 and 35, and to Messrs. Parker, publishers of Haines’s Monumental Brasses, for the figures on Plate III.