-for economical reasons, in scarcity of iron,
preferablest of all weapons, giving the fullest swing and weight of blow
with least quantity of actual metal, and roughest forging. Gibbon gives
them also a 'weighty' sword, suspended from a 'broad' belt: but Gibbon's
epithets are always gratis, and the belted sword, whatever its measure,
was probably for the leaders only; the belt, itself of gold, the
distinction of the Roman Counts, and doubtless adopted from them by the
allied Frank leaders, afterwards taking the Pauline mythic meaning of
the girdle of Truth--and so finally; the chief mark of Belted
Knighthood.

35. The Shield, for all, was round, wielded like a Highlander's
target:--armour, presumably, nothing but hard-tanned leather, or
patiently close knitted hemp; "Their close apparel," says Mr. Gibbon,
"accurately expressed the figure of their limbs," but 'apparel' is
only Miltonic-Gibbonian for 'nobody knows what.' He is more
intelligible of their persons. "The lofty stature of the Franks, and
their blue eyes, denoted a Germanic origin; the warlike barbarians
were trained from their earliest youth to run, to leap, to swim, to
dart the javelin and battle-axe with unerring aim, to advance without
hesitation against a superior enemy, and to maintain either in life or
death, the invincible reputation of their ancestors' (vi. 95). For the
first time, in 358, appalled by the Emperor Julian's victory at
Strasburg, and besieged by him upon the Meuse, a body of six hundred
Franks "dispensed with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer
or die." "Although they were strongly actuated by the allurements of
rapine, they professed a disinterested love of war, which they
considered as the supreme honour and felicity of human nature; and
their minds and bodies were so hardened by perpetual action that,
according to the lively expression of an orator, the snows of winter
were as pleasant to them as the flowers of spring" (iii. 220).

36. These mental and bodily virtues, or indurations, were probably
universal in the military rank of the nation: but we learn presently,
with surprise, of so remarkably 'free' a people, that nobody but the
King and royal family might wear their hair to their own liking. The
kings wore theirs in flowing ringlets on the back and shoulders,--the
Queens, in tresses rippling to their feet,--but all the rest of the
nation "were obliged, either by law or custom, to shave the hinder
part of their head,