By mid-13th century, artistic evidence shows similar plate pattern to that of St. Maurice's Effigy in a German manuscript. The fact that German men-at-arms often are described with this armor in art or military records under foreign lands might suggest they were behind their popularization in Europe by that time. The coat of plates worn by German knights at the battles of Benevento in 1266 and Tagliacozzo in 1268 rendered them nearly invincible against French sword blows, until the French realized the German armpits were poorly protected. Contemporary to this, Scandinavian sources from mid-to-late 13th century also make reference to it: in the Konungs skuggsjá, from around 1250, it is called a "Briost Bjorg" and specifies that is should cover the area between the nipples and the belt. The later Hirdskraa of the 1270s calls it a "plata", informing that it should be worn beneath the hauberk, permitting it only to the highest ranks of Scandinavian military, from "skutilsvein" (knight) and up. In Barcelona, for instance, there was a local production of coats-of-plates — then called "cuirasses" − beginning in 1257; King James II of Aragon ordered such cuirasses to be made for him and his sons in 1308, which were covered in samite fabric of different colors.