Shields had not changed much since the preceding century to judge from the specimen numbered D60. Like the twelfth century shield next to it, it is of wood covered with parchment, and has grips of skin. On the obverse may be traced the design of a hood, which has led Don Leocadio Salazar to conclude that the shield was the property of the Conde de Bureba, four hoods being on his coat of arms. The epitaph on that illustrious personage’s tomb declares that “he filled Spain with the fame of his name, as Themistocles did Athens.”
Our last instance of a Spanish suit of armour of the thirteenth century illustrates a curious fashion in military attire that often has occupied the attention of experts. The statue of Don Berenguer de Puigvert, in the suppressed Monastery of Poblet, represents him clothed in a full and richly embroidered surcoat, confined at the waist by a baldric, beneath which he is wearing a complete suit of _banded armour_ of a very elaborate pattern. On the forearm the mail seems to be composed of rings placed end to end vertically instead of horizontally. The gauntlets and leg-armour are composed of alternate horizontal bands, some showing a zig-zag pattern; the others, perhaps rings set vertically. Banded mail of various designs seems to have been fashionable all over Europe at the close of the thirteenth century. Hewitt enumerates four examples in English statuary. He expounds the various theories advanced to explain the nature of this armour, and finally confesses that the riddle is still unsolved. As Aragon seems in all improvements in armour to have kept well ahead of the rest of the world, we need not be surprised to find there an example of what was evidently a fashionable style in Europe generally.
The headpiece universally worn at this time was the heaulme or helm. About the middle of the century the aventail, or hinged opening for the face, was introduced, and accordingly we find St. Ferdinand (represented in the windows of Chartres Cathedral) wearing a casque with an aventail cleft with three vertical slits. The camail was still generally worn under the heaulme, which rested not only on the head but on the shoulders of the wearer, and was secured by a chain. It was too heavy to wear habitually, and was, therefore, carried at the saddle, or by the esquire, to be put on at the approach of an enemy. Steel caps also were often worn underneath; but much must obviously have depended on the degree of strength and foolhardiness possessed by the individual.