ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to ascertain the nature of the armament carried by the Carolingian army in the ninth century by examining the written, iconographic, and archeologicai sources. The value of such an approach was demonstrated by Gessler's study of Carolingian weaponry published in 1908, but this work is now largely outdated, and more recent discussions of the subject have seldom contained a balanced evaluation of all three types of evidence. Ninth-century written sources occasionally mention the wearing of a helmus or galea, although the shape of these helmets is never indicated, and the material from which they were made is seldom specified. The cheapest piece of defensive equipment available to any Carolingian soldier was the shield. Whereas the price of a helmet was set at six solidi in the Lex Ribuaria, and that of a byrnie at twelve solidi, a shield and lance together cost only two solidi.
