Ailettes of a superb construction appear in the Inventory of the effects of Piers Gaveston in 1313: "Item, autres divers garnementz des armes le dit Pieres, ovek les alettes garniz et frettez de perles[341]." They are named also in the Inventory of the goods of Umfrey de Bohun in 1322: "iiij peire de alettes des armes le Counte de Hereford[342]."
Besides the defences of chain-mail, which, as we have seen, formed the usual armour of the knights of the thirteenth century, there were other materials occasionally employed for the warrior's habit. Scale-work still appears, though in but few monuments; and it seems to have been used for small portions only of the equipment. See the brass figured by Waller, Part x., and Boutell, page 113.
In this singular figure of a knight from Roy. MS. 2, A. xxii. fol. 219, the leg-defences are composed of a kind of Bezanted Armour: small roundels of metal, placed contiguously, appear to be rivetted to a fabric of cloth or to leather: forming a garment very similar to the "penny plate armour" of the sixteenth century. In the original drawing, the chausses are shaded with blue: but, singularly enough, the chausson is shaded with red, though it seems clearly to be intended for chain-mail. The date of the figure appears to be about the close of the thirteenth century. As a curious illustration of bezanted armour, the late Mr. Hudson Turner told the writer of these pages that he had seen in an ancient record an account of a hauberk of Edward III., studded with gold florins; though, with the usual caution of the antiquarian discoverer, he withheld the name and locality of the document.