Armour in England, from the Earliest Times to the Reign of James the First

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FOREIGN ARMOUR IN ENGLAND

I
INTRODUCTORY

A former monograph, Armour in England, treated of weapons and armour made either in this country or connected historically with English wearers. The more extensive field of foreign armour brought into England by wealthy and enthusiastic collectors is now embraced.

The enthusiasm felt for armour is not surprising; its interest is so many-sided. Not only are collectors fascinated by it, but students of history, artists, and antiquaries. As mere decoration it appeals to some, and finds a place in their abodes; but it is among artistic people that its more ardent admirers are found. Hence it is far from rare to find the glint of arms and weapons lighting up the artist’s walls.

From the artistic standpoint nothing can be more picturesque than the varied forms assumed by armour and weapons in obedience to the all-powerful dictates of self-preservation, or to the more arbitrary changes of fashion. To realise what these changes mean, to appropriate them to the scenes and episodes of history, belongs to the painter, sculptor, and scenic artist. If anything in art should be accurately portrayed, it is the men and the events which make up history. Historic painting and sculpture, which might live long in art, may be disregarded by posterity owing to the anachronisms due to neglect of this important study. Most of the changes were perhaps efforts to avert the recurrence of some accident in the lists or field of battle. To definitely track them to their actual origin, to seek out the causes for the singular and ceaseless modifications arms and armour have undergone, is, however, work only possible to the antiquary. It is his province to open the door to the artist.

The quality of the art lavished as decoration on the gala suits of princes and nobles is superb. In mediæval days it was the prerogative of the male sex, the fighting sex, to deck itself like a game bird in gorgeous plumage; women’s raiment was more subdued. To the male, no richness of dress that ingenuity could invent or wealth procure was denied. In preparation for those stately festivals when the courtier was to shine in the presence of the fair sex, his sovereign, and his peers, nothing was spared. The armour of parade intended for royal jousts and tournaments is as sumptuous as the wit of man could devise, with time and money unstinted. Chasing, embossing, engraving, damascening, and gilding of the most exquisite quality were lavished upon it, the designs, and possibly the actual work, being by the best artists of the day. The later suits, when cap-à-pie armour was mainly consecrated to festivals and little regarded in battle, were especially loaded with decoration. Besides its excellence of design and richness of ornament, the mere craftsmanship of the armour itself is of a quality that never can be excelled, and the modern counterfeiter, with all his skill and appliances, is baffled in the reproduction of tours-de-force, such as the high-combed morions of Italy and Spain.

To study the evolution of armour is like observing the works of nature. Necessity, it is well known, is the great stimulator of the inventive faculty of man, and no necessity is more cogent than that of self-preservation. In the long trials of skill, in which for generation after generation the armourer was pitted against the guilds concerned in the production of lethal weapons, the means of defence seemed once or twice so entirely perfected as to defy the weapons of the assailants. But ere long, the attacking forces, gathering energy, calling on the ingenuity of bowyers, fletchers, sword- and gun-smiths, seem again to emerge triumphant, armed with yet more deadly and powerful weapons. The struggle on the one hand to encase the man, like Achilles, in invulnerable armour, and on the other to break down his armour of proof, was like that between the gunners and naval architects to-day, but it lasted for centuries. It ended, as all such struggles must, in the complete discomfiture of the armourer; the increasing use and accuracy of firearms finally reducing defensive armour to a costly incumbrance. Nature, indeed, seems to will that all things, animate or inanimate, should succumb to persistent attack. Viewed in its true light, armour reveals all the stages, and is the very embodiment of, perhaps, the most prolonged and determined struggle that the development of civilisation has witnessed. It presents a gauge of the extent and limitation of man’s inventive faculties, in other words, of his brain capacity, in the ages so-called mediæval.

Concerning the history of the vast bulk of the armour that falls into the possession of the collector, all is speculation, and its very nationality perhaps matter of conjecture. The place whence it has come is often purposely concealed by the dealer, and a legend concocted to invest it with a higher market value. The weapon may have played its part in the stern realities of war; the armour may have saved its owner, or, failing in the hour of need, contributed to the deaths of those who trusted to it. Little armour perished with the wearer. Next to gold and silver, the harvest of arms was the most coveted spoil of victory, and none remained ungleaned on the battle-field. What harvests such holocausts as Flodden Field must have presented, affording opportunities of refitting to the man-at-arms, archer, hobiler, billman, down to the rapacious camp-follower. Though etiquette may have hindered the squire of low degree from donning the full cap-à-pie armour of the knight he overcame, no doubt many a captor of rich armour sacrificed life to indulgence in the dangerous vanity of dressing beyond his station.

The historic and personal associations connected with the arms and weapons present at, and by whose agency were enacted, the decisive battles, the most stirring incidents of history humanity can witness, are not the least of the many-sided interests of armour.

Though but a small proportion of the vast number of suits, helmets, and weapons that have come down to us can be assigned to definite wearers, and most of even these were but the parade suits of royalty and the court, the few pieces of real actual fighting armour identified with particular owners are invested with extraordinary interest. Most of these owe their preservation to the ancient and poetic custom of hanging the arms of knightly personages over their tombs, a custom linked with the still older dedication of arms and armour at the obsequies of the dead, either by placing them in the grave or hanging them in the temples of the gods. The reality of the connection between the pagan and Christian customs is apparent by such incidents as that of William of Toulouse, early in the thirteenth century, who dedicated his helm, shield, and weapons to St. Julian, hanging them over his shrine; or that of the King of France, who, after the battle of Cassel in 1327, presented his victorious arms to the neighbouring church. The churches in fact ought to have been the great treasure-houses for actual armour, as they are of representations of armour on monuments and brasses. Unfortunately, however, the old veneration for the person of the dead which led to the consecration of the armour and weapons he had actually used, hardly survived the close of the thirteenth century. Cupidity induced the prelate to claim them as a perquisite of the burial function, as when the Prior of Westminster received £100 as ransom for the horse and accoutrements of John of Eltham; while the temptation natural to the survivor to retain the finely tempered weapons and armour, whose quality had been tested in the field, had always to be reckoned with. This reluctance to sacrifice them is beautifully expressed in such ancient ballads as those on the death of King Arthur.

Armour was moreover specially devised by will to be kept as heirlooms. Grose in the Antiquities states that Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry IV., left to his son Richard by will the sword and coat of mail said to belong to the celebrated Guy, Earl of Warwick, he having received them as an heir-loom from his father. Sir Thomas Poynings, in 1369, devised to his heir the helmet and armour which his father devised to him. It also became penal to make away with armour. Enactments, such as that of 1270, commanded that all armour was to be viewed and kept in safe keeping under good security not to be let go, for the king’s use at reasonable valuation. The custom, which prevailed extensively, of leaving the undertaker to provide property helmets and arms in place of those the departed had himself used, also tended to lessen the interest of even the arms which yet remain. That the helmet of Henry V. was provided by the undertaker is well known, and that he continued to provide arms down to Elizabeth’s time, is shown by accounts of funerals such as of Lord Grey de Wilton in 1562, when among the items of the undertaker’s bill are a “cote of arms,” banner and bannerolles, a “helmett of stele gylt with fyne golde,” with a crest gilt and coloured, a “swerde with the hyltes, pomell, chape, buckle, and pendant, likewise gylte, with a gurdle and sheathe of velvet.” This custom of substituting spurious insignia at the solemn interment of the dead was set by the Church, who consigned mock croziers and chalices of no intrinsic value to the graves of even the most exalted prelates. But of the true and the spurious armour alike, time, rust, and above all, changes of religious sentiment in regard to the churches, have spared little besides an occasional helmet. The claims of neighbouring magnates, to the custody of what they regard as family relics, the temptation to sell, and lack of interest, have further sadly reduced this residue within the present century.

Yet neglect and depredations notwithstanding, the preservation of nearly all the English fighting helms known, from the time of the Black Prince to that of Henry VIII., and of many swords of early date, is due to their having been deposited in churches. Other magnificent fourteenth and even thirteenth century swords owe their preservation to their inclusion in the insignia of Municipal Corporations. Lincoln, Bristol, Kingston on Hull, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Southampton, Gloucester, Hereford, Exeter, Chester, Coventry, are among the cities still possessing these interesting relics.

If our national collections are less imposing than those of Spain, Austria, Italy, France, and Germany, the enthusiasm of wealthy amateurs has made this country second to none in the richness of its private collections of European arms and armour.

Of collections commenced and handed down from the time that armour was still in use, by far the most important is the Tower Armoury. Its history can be gathered from Lord Dillon’s paper in the fifty-first volume of Archæologia, “Arms and Armour at Westminster, the Tower, and Greenwich.” The collection had its origin in Henry VIII.’s passion for arms and armour, which was ministered to by Continental sovereigns, especially Maximilian, who shared this taste, and with whom he maintained a close friendship. His extensive array of tilting and jousting suits was kept at Greenwich, and an inventory taken of them upon his death. They were not removed to the Tower until perhaps 1644, though the armoury there was already, during the reign of Henry, one of the sights of London. The arms stored at Westminster were probably removed to the Tower as early as the beginning of the reign of Edward VI. The armoury was no doubt regarded more as an arsenal for use, than in the light of a collection, and perhaps was drawn upon constantly until the Civil Wars, when it was extensively depleted. Five of the Greenwich complete suits of Henry VIII. still exist, however, three mounted upon barded horses, as well as other pieces. The collection becoming on its removal a national one, several suits of distinguished nobles of Elizabeth’s reign, and some of the royal armour of the Stuarts, were added. During the present century attempts to render it more complete have been made, by purchasing examples of enriched foreign armour, and more especially of pieces illustrating the armour of more ancient days. Many of the latter, however, are now pronounced to be spurious, and none of them are remarkable.

It appears that the Tower collection has been drawn upon, at some comparatively recent period, for the decoration of Windsor Castle. Some half-dozen of the richest suits are now in the Guard Chamber. Arrayed in cases in the north corridor is a most extensive collection of magnificent weapons, many intimately connected with the history of the country, as well as a matchless collection of oriental arms and armour, formed to a large extent from the collection at Carlton House and added to by Her Majesty.

The Museum of Artillery in the Rotunda at Woolwich contains a valuable collection of armour and weapons, formed partly from the Tower collection, and by judicious purchases. The series of Gothic armour from Rhodes is very remarkable. There are also a few pieces in the Royal Artillery Institution not far distant, and a small part of the collection has been placed in Dover Castle.

The British Museum contains a limited but choice collection, chiefly bequeathed by Mr. Burges, of Mediæval and Renaissance armour, as well as its unrivalled series of antique arms and weapons.

The South Kensington Museum also possesses a few interesting arms and weapons, besides collections deposited on loan.

The munificent bequest of the Wallace Collection has put the nation in possession of a superb series of armour only rivalled by that in the Tower Armoury. It must unfortunately remain inaccessible, being packed away in cases until the rearrangement of Manchester House is completed; consequently none of its contents could be illustrated. It contains perhaps over 1200 specimens, without counting the Oriental arms, all of them choice and some unsurpassed. It is rich in Gothic, fluted, and highly decorated armour, and comprises a matchless series of swords and other weapons. Of private collections in this country that are historic, the Earl of Warwick’s is undoubtedly the most interesting, part of it having been in the Castle from the days when armour was in constant use. Besides the few almost legendary pieces, it claims to contain armour of Lord Brooke, killed at Lichfield, of Montrose, the target of the Pretender, and Cromwell’s helmet.

Among the armour at Wilton House are the superb suits of the Dukes of Montmorency and Bourbon, captured by the Earl of Pembroke at the battle of St. Quentin, together with the suit worn by the Earl, and pictured in the Jacobe Album. With these are a good number of lancers’ demi-suits marked with the family initial. The armour of the Earl of Cumberland, also figured in the Jacobe Album, yet remains in perfect preservation in the possession of Lord Hothfield. The collection at Penshurst Castle comprises some good armour, including helmets and weapons of the Sidneys, its former owners. Sir Wheatman Pearson possesses the barded suit of fluted armour said to have been worn by a Talbot of Shrewsbury at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Many other ancient seats still contain family armour, either relics of the Civil Wars, as at Littlecote and Farleigh Castle, or removed from the neighbouring church, or discovered in some attic, vault, or even well, as at Arundel.

The Armourers and Braziers Company possess one of the Jacobe suits in their small collection; the Benchers of the Middle Temple own some armour; and there are a few pieces in the United Service Museum in Whitehall. Mr. Leonard Brassey possesses a fine historic cap-à-pie suit of the hereditary challengers, the Dymoke family. Some of the Corporation Museums, especially at Edinburgh, comprise examples of armour and weapons.

It is unfortunate that nearly all the notable private collections made within the present century have been dispersed, either on the death of their owners, or before. The Walpole, Bernal, Meyrick, Londesborough, Shrewsbury, Coutts-Lindsay, Brett, De Cosson, and many other collections have been scattered far and wide under the hammer. The Warwick and others have suffered severely by fire; and of collections made by the past generation probably only that of Lord Zouche at Parham remains intact.

A great deal of armour is absorbed as decoration, not only in such stately homes of the nobility as Arundel, Eaton Hall, Hatfield, Knebworth, but in private houses. Armour is also hidden away in small and unknown collections, like two in the writer’s family, which would well repay careful examination. But undoubtedly the richest treasures are in the collections of wealthy amateurs, like Mr. David Currie, Sir Noël Paton, and above all in those of members of the Kernoozer’s Club. It is impossible to convey, in a slight sketch, any adequate idea of the wealth of armour in the country, the real extent of which is as yet only to be surmised; but in spite of sales it is doubtless increasing yearly.

The fact cannot be ignored that, of all this mass of armour, very little has been made in England. By far the larger part was indeed certainly made in Germany, a country devoted to metal-working from the earliest periods of its history.

The first dawning of anything like European reputation for the production of arms and armour, since the collapse of the Roman Empire, was achieved by Germany. Owing to its political constitution, and perhaps extent and population, its towns were more enterprising in mediæval ages than ours, and acquired a name for particular manufactures at a relatively early period. The necessity the trading towns were under of arming their citizens to defend their freedom and privileges, amidst the semi-independent princelings and nobles who kept armed retainers and combined to levy blackmail, induced many to take up the manufacture of arms in self-defence, for which they afterwards sought a market among neighbours and abroad. In the thirteenth century, when St. Louis bore a German sword to the Crusades, the names of Cologne, Passau, Heilbronn appear almost simultaneously as seats famous for the production of lethal weapons. Cologne soon assumed the ascendency, at least in English eyes, for its weapons are spoken of with respect in many an early ballad. Thus the battle of Otterbourne is fought “with swords of fyne Collayne,” and King Arthur’s sword hails from Cologne:—

The Duke of Norfolk having sent for armour out of Germany proves that its armour was already regarded as of superior excellence in the time of Richard II. German armour might have been used more largely in England and at an earlier period, but for want of sympathy, perhaps inherited from the Crusades. These, which knitted so many of the races of Europe into close contact, happened not to promote any camaraderie between Germany and ourselves. Their Crusades were undertaken independently, or were ill-timed relatively to ours. The unfortunate differences between Richard and the Archduke of Austria, which drained our country of so much gold and silver that even the chalices were melted, rendered Germany unpopular, and the feeling was not improved by the further great loss of treasure on the abortive election of Richard of Cornwall as Emperor. Princely intermarriages were unable to effect a union of hearts, for the Kings of Almayne never come out well in contemporary poetry. Nor was the perpetual presence of enterprising Hansa merchants in factories, such as the London Steleyard, calculated to promote good feeling, though introducing a large bulk of German goods into the country. Steel, itself a German word, was certainly amongst the imports, probably not only as a raw product, but manufactured into articles such as the “Colleyne clowystes” and “Cullen cleavers,” and possibly sometimes defensive armour as well. Until late in the fifteenth century, however, the differences between the military equipment of Germany and England is more marked than between that of England and France, which country with the Netherlands formed a natural barrier that only strong common interests would effectively bridge. When bonds of trade began to knit peoples together, German armour, from its excellent quality, divided the market of the world with Italy. The accession of Henry VIII. opened the English market wide to it, his ambition to again dismember France, his alliance with Maximilian and relationship to Charles V. leading to distinct rapprochements. Natural inclination and political necessity strongly biassed him in favour of his wife’s kinsmen, until his unhappy divorce left him isolated.

Italy vied with Germany in the production of armour, Milan taking the lead. Matthew of Paris heard, in 1237, from a credible Italian that Milan and its dependencies could turn out 6000 men on iron-clad horses. An item in the inventory of Louis Hutin, 1316, is “2 haubergeons de Lombardi”; and that of Humphrey de Bohun, in 1322, mentions Bologna “un haubergeon qu’est apele Bolioun.” Italian armourers were established in Paris as early as 1332. Ancient British ballads abound in references to Myllan and Myllen steel. The Earl of Derby, afterwards Henry IV., sent to procure armour from Sir Galeas, Duke of Milan, and when he had selected all he wished for in plated and mail armour, the Lord of Milan ordered four of the best armourers in Milan to accompany the knight to England. In the fifteenth century Milan was able, after the battle of Macado in 1427, to furnish within a few days 4000 suits of armour for cavalry and 2000 for infantry. At a great Spanish tournament held in 1434, only Italian armour and weapons were permitted. Louis XI. and the Duke of Burgundy settled Italian armourers in their dominions. This king seized in 1481 a heavy convoy of cuirasses, sallads, etc., packed in cotton to prevent them rattling and imitating bales of silk, on the way to the Duke of Brittany, giving them to John Doyac as a reward for their discovery. Monstrelet mentions that the Milanese gave corselets and other armour to the Swiss, with the finest promises, before the battle of Marignano. Henry VIII. kept 1000 Myllen swords for the tourney in the Tower, and sent to Milan to purchase 5000 suits of “almain rivets.” The most eloquent testimony to the excellence of Milanese arms is, however, to be found in the pages of Brantôme, a very keen observer on all matters military. Milan furnished the finest engraved and most elegant corselets for hommes de pieds “tant de M. de Strozzi que de Brissac.” “Ce genre de cuirasse legère eut la plus grande vogue à la cour de France”; and “on y approuvoit fort les corselets gravés de Milan et ne trouvoit point que nos armoriers parvinssent à la mesme perfection, non plus qu’aux morions.” Strozzi, insisting that his armaments should be Milanese, “pria voire quasy contraignit tous ses capitaines de n’avoir plus autres armes, tant harquebuses, fourniments, que corselets de Milan”: while Guise wished his infantry to be armed not with muskets, but good harquebuzes de Milan—“de bonne trampe pour ne crever.” Milanese armourers, like the Gambertis, were enticed to Paris; Pompée a Milanese was selected to teach the King fencing, and Maistre Gaspar de Milan is pronounced “le meilleur forgeur qui jamais eut.” Brantôme further describes the troops on their way to relieve Malta, “portant sa belle harquebuze et son beau fourniment de Milan,” and adds, “car nous avions passé par Milan, où nous nous estions accommodez d’habillements et d’armes si superbement qu’on ne scavait pour quelz nous prendre, ou pour gentilshommes, soldats, ou pour princes, tant nous foisoit beau veoir.”

Little of the Moorish armourer’s work has come down, though they worked steel extensively in Toledo and Seville. No Hispano-moresque swords exist of earlier date than the fifteenth century, and these have richly-worked hilts in the Arab taste. A few Moorish helmets are preserved, also of the fifteenth century, two of which, attributed to Boabdil, are in the Madrid armoury, and are also richly decorated in the Arab manner. The fame of Moorish armour is preserved in the words Morion and Morris pike. The famed swords of Toledo did not obtain renown until the Renaissance, and were not produced after the seventeenth century. Real Spanish armour appears very clumsy, and probably little, if any, was made much after the accession of Charles V. One of the latest suits in the armoury at Madrid is late Gothic in feeling, with a tilting helm of Henry VII., and marked with the poinçon of the city of Valencia.

France is very much in the same position as England in regard to armour, for no city in it ever established any permanent reputation as a seat of manufacture. Louis X. had a Toulouse sword—Louis Hutin’s inventory comprises mail from Chambly. Metz, Pignerol, Abbeville are mentioned by Brantôme as producing armour inferior to Italian. Froissart speaks repeatedly of the excellence of Bordeaux weapons, but at the time when Bordeaux was English. The same is true of the Limoges steel. But Paris must after all have been the metropolis of French armourers. The description by Froissart of the battle of Rosebecque, fought in 1382, where the hammering on the helmets of the combatants made a noise that could not have been exceeded if all the armourers of Paris and Brussels had been there working at their trade, shows that these cities were great centres for the production of armour. The names of very few French armourers have escaped oblivion, however; and Italian workmen were employed in France from at least the time of Louis XI. Some beautifully decorated French armour exists, chiefly early seventeenth century, but in France, as in England, most of the armour was probably obtained from Italy and Germany, when once the superiority of their work was definitely established.

Netherlandish armour was always in high repute, and some of the Brussels armourers achieved European fame. It even set the fashion, as we read that Sir Gilbert Talbot, 1353, provided himself with “a curas complete of Flanderis makyng of the new turn for £20.” Very few specimens that can be identified as Belgian or Flemish exist, however, in collections.

II
CHAIN MAIL

The immense antiquity of chain mail, and that it originated in the East, are the two facts beyond dispute in its history. Its fine-linked structure exposes, however, the maximum surface of the perishable iron to atmospheric decay, and hence few specimens of great antiquity are known. The two shapeless masses of iron rust in the British Museum, brought from Nineveh by Layard, only reveal on close examination that they were once supple and glittering coats of mail. Whether these are to be assigned to the Nineveh of Sennacherib or to the Sassanian period, they equally claim to be the oldest actual relics of chain mail in existence. The jackets sculptured on the Trajan column are unusually faithful and realistic renderings of chain-mail armour, for the labour and difficulty of an exact reproduction of the minute and complicated repetitions of form into which the links of mail group themselves are generally evaded by a variety of conventional ways of expressing its texture.

The wearers of mail were nomadic horse—Persian, Parthian, and Scythian, and inhabited a belt stretching obliquely from the Caspian in the direction of Scandinavia, the mysterious and imperfectly known amber trade perhaps keeping these peoples in touch. The Viking became acquainted with mail and brought a knowledge of it to Western Europe; his descendants wore it in their expeditions to the East, completing the circle when the mail-clad Crusaders under Cœur de Lion met the mail-clad horse in alliance with the Saracens on the plains of Ascalon. Coats of Eastern mail called gasigans, as told by Geoffrey de Vinsauf, formed part of the spoils of victory taken by Richard, especially on the capture of the great caravan near Galatin in 1192.

Although an immense quantity of mail exists in collections at home and abroad, it can as yet neither be dated nor located upon its intrinsic structure. The links of the Viking suits discovered in the peat morasses of Denmark are as carefully formed as those from Persia or India of the present century. The fashion of the garment is the only guide, but whether the mail is of the period of the garment, or older material made up, cannot be determined. It continued to be used in the West until the seventeenth century, and to a much later time in Eastern Europe; and it is probable that no scrap of such a costly material was ever discarded. It was not passed on and absorbed by foot soldiers, who seem rarely to have cared to use it.