Jean Chartier, in his _Histoire de Charles VI_ (p. 257), states that sometimes these rich trappings or housings were, after the death of their owner, bequeathed to churches, where they were used for altar hangings, or inversely, when trappings were needed, the churches were despoiled of their embroideries to provide them.
[Illustration: FIG. 38. Trapper of Mail, from the Painted Chamber, Westminster, thirteenth century.]
[Illustration: FIG. 39. Ivory chessman, from Hewitt's _Ancient Armour_, fourteenth century.]
The mailed horse appears as early as the Roman period, and is shown on the Column of Trajan, but in Europe he does not seem to have been commonly in use much before the thirteenth century. As the man was sometimes defended entirely by garments of quilted fabrics, so the horse also wore pourpointed housings. We can only surmise, from the folds and lines shown on seals or drawings, which variety is intended; but the stiff lines of the housing on the seal of Roger de Quinci, Earl of Winchester (1219-64), and its raised lozenges, seem to suggest a thicker substance than does the more flowing drapery on Fig. 11. Matthew Paris, in describing the Battle of Nuova Croce in 1237, writes that 'A credible Italian asserted that Milan with its dependencies raised an army of six thousand men-at-arms with iron-clad horses'. An ordinance of Philip the Fair, in 1303, provides that every holder of an estate of 500 livres rental should furnish a man at-arms well mounted on a horse 'couvert de couvertures de fer ou de couverture pourpointe'. The caparisoned horse first appears on royal seals in the reign of Edward I. In the Roll of Purchases of Windsor Park Tournament (1278), the horses are provided with parchment crests, and the Clavones or rivets used for fixing these crests are mentioned in the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward I in 1300: 'cum clavis argenti pro eodem capello.' The earliest note we have of a rigid defence for the horse is in the Windsor Roll, which contains the following item:--'D Milon le Cuireur xxxviij copita cor de similitud' capit equoz.' This headpiece was of leather, either used in its natural state or as cuirbouilli, and seems to be the material suggested in the ivory chessman (Fig. 39) illustrated in Hewitt (vol. ii, p. 314). In the Will of the Earl of Surrey (1347) is mentioned a breastpiece of leather for a horse. In the fifteenth century we find the horse protected with plate like his rider, and usually the lines of the Barding or horse armour follow those of the man. Fig. 40 shows the armed horse with the various portions of his defence named.