Boiled leather

It was the usual material for the robust carrying-cases that were made for important pieces of metalwork, instruments such as astrolabes, personal sets of cutlery, books, pens and the like.

Modern experiments on simple cuir bouilli have shown that it can reduce the depth of an arrow wound considerably, especially if coated with a crushed mineral facing mixed with glue, as one medieval Arab author recommended.

Josephus records that the Jewish defenders in the Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 were reduced to eating their shields and other leather kit, as was the Spanish expedition of Tristan de Luna in 1559.

Tournaments were increasingly regulated in order to reduce the risk to life, and in 1278 Edward I of England organized one in Windsor Great Park at which cuir bouilli armour was worn, and the king provided swords made of whale bone and parchment.

[13] The account of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 by Jean de Wavrin, who was present on the French side, describes the crucial force of English longbowmen as having on their heads either cuir bouilli helmets, or wicker with iron strips, or nothing (the last, he says, were also barefoot).

Evidence from documents such as inventories show that it was common in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and used by the highest ranks, but survivals are very few.

[15] In 1547 the Master of Armoury in the Tower of London ordered 46 sets of bards and crinets in preparation for the final invasion of Scotland in the war known as the Rough Wooing.

The material is mentioned in Froissart's Chronicles of the Hundred Years' War,[19] and Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, written in the late 1300s, says of the knight Sir Thopas:[20] Hise jambeux were of quyrboilly, His swerdes shethe of yvory, His helm of laton bright, His sadel was of rewel-boon, His brydel as the sonne shoon, Or as the moone light.

His jambeaux were of cuir-bouilli, His sword sheath was of ivory, His helm of latten bright, His saddle was of rewel bone, And as the sun his bridle shone, Or as the full moonlight.

The large decorative crests that came to top some helmets in the late Middle Ages were often made of cuir bouilli, as is the famous example belonging to the Black Prince and hung with other "achievements" over his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral.