Illustrated by Joseph Bond
In the history of medieval warfare, when the weapons of combat changed, the blacksmiths and later the armourers had to find ways of defending against them. Tom Smith, a blacksmith in Saxon times, discovers how to make ring mail.
A blacksmith's wife of Norman times helps to make garments of chain mail, and craftsmen at the time of the Hundred Years' War produce full body armour that a knight can turn somersaults in.
The art of the armourer had reached its highest level - until a revolutionary development in weaponry reduced it to so much scrap metal . . .
