Armour in England

ARMOUR IN ENGLAND

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
TO THE REIGN OF JAMES THE FIRST

By
J. STARKIE GARDNER

LONDON
SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED, GREAT RUSSELL STREET
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1897

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ARMOUR IN ENGLAND

I
The Britons—An Early Age of Plate-Armour

It is the nature of islands to exhibit some peculiarities in their fauna and flora, and this insularity is no less pronounced in the manners and customs of the human beings inhabiting them. Thus even the stone implements of Britain of remote prehistoric days can readily be distinguished by the expert; and we have the authority of Sir John Evans for regarding our types of bronze celts and weapons as both peculiar and indigenous. On first taking a place in history several strange and extra-European customs were noticed in these isles by Cæsar, such as the use of chariots in war, and dyeing the skin blue with woad: British nations were, moreover, frequently ruled by queens, and some practised the rare and difficult, and very far from barbaric, art of enamelling on bronze.

Modern opinion is at present opposed to the theory that the culture and civilisation of Western Europe originated exclusively in the East, and is inclined to regard our primitive arts and crafts as indigenous. That this must in a large measure be true appears sufficiently established; but the large and excellently-made bronze bucklers with concentric rings of bosses or studs, called the clypeus, the singular art of enamelling, the use of studs of coral for embellishing weapons and trinkets, the chariots of war and the government by women, all so remote from savagery, and so intimately connected with Eastern civilisation, compel the belief that these isles did actually at some distant time possess a privileged and intimate communication with the East. The old and rooted tradition of a direct traffic in tin between Britain and Phœnicia cannot yet in fact be safely abandoned.

These arts and practices, however, only fall within the scope of our subject so far as they were applied to arms and weapons. One of these, very rarely used for the embellishment of arms in later times, is that of enamelling, a process unknown to the Romans. Philostratus, who wrote in the third century, referring to some coloured horse-trappings, observed, “They say that the Barbarians who live in the Ocean pour these colours on to heated bronze, and that they adhere, become hard as stone, and preserve the designs which are made in them.” The bronze to be enamelled was cast with the pattern upon it, and the colours used were varied and bright, but opaque. Some brilliant horse-trappings with purely Celtic decorations and a few sword-hilts are known, but the bulk of cast bronze enamelled ware consisted of brooches, seal-boxes, cups, and vases, all Romano-British in design. A much rarer enamel is found on beaten or repoussé bronze armour. Pliny, in the Natural History, remarks that the Gauls were in the habit of adorning their swords, shields, and helmets with coral, but an immense demand springing up in India, it became unprocurable. We find accordingly that resort was had in England to enamel to reproduce the effect of the coral studs. In the British Museum is an oblong shield of Celtic design, found in the Witham, embellished with coral, but a smaller and handsomer shield beside it, found in the Thames, has gold cloisonné studs of blood-red enamel. The curious Celtic reproduction of the Roman peaked helmet, and the horned helmet found in the Thames, both from the Meyrick collection, are also decorated with small raised bosses cross-hatched to retain red enamel, some of which still adheres. The horned brazen helmet should, according to Diodorus Siculus, be a relic of, or borrowed from, the Belgic Gauls, who inhabited so much of this part of England. The gem-like effect of the enamelled studs, like single drops of red on the golden bronze, must have been most refined; it is altogether too restrained to have originated with the enameller, who usually covers his surfaces. The identity of workmanship of these arms with the Irish bronze and enamel work suggests that some of those who produced them passed over and found with their traditions and arts a peaceful refuge in the sister isle.

Tacitus, however, states most explicitly that the Britons wore neither helmets nor armour, and were not able, therefore, under Caractacus, to maintain their resistance. Herodianus also, relating the expedition of Severus 250 years after Cæsar’s invasion, presents an extraordinary picture of savagery. He observes that the Britons were a most warlike and sanguinary race, carrying only a small shield and a spear, and a sword girded to their naked bodies. “Of a breastplate or helmet they knew not the use, esteeming them an impediment through the marshes.” They encircled their necks and loins with iron rings as an evidence of wealth, instead of gold, and went naked rather than conceal the tattoos of different animals which covered and gave a blue cast to their bodies.

In striking contrast to this picture are the large number of chariots employed in war and the extraordinary skill displayed in handling them. Cæsar states that Cassivelaunus, when totally defeated and a fugitive, was still accompanied by 4000 charioteers; the basis probably of Pomponius Mela’s later statement that 4000 two-horsed chariots armed with scythes formed part of that chieftain’s army. Having proved ineffectual against Roman discipline, this arm was perhaps soon abandoned, since we find little further mention of war-chariots, though cavalry did not cease to form part of a British army. In process of time the subjugated Britons must have become completely Romanised as to arms, and accustomed to wear the helmet, greaves, and corselet, either of one piece or formed of smaller and more flexible plates or scales. Though the manhood of the country enrolled in disciplined cohorts and legions had deserted it, Roman weapons must have been the arms of those who remained when the Romans finally retired from Britain in 410.

In the two succeeding centuries, which were to elapse before the country definitely inclined to become English, an intensely Celtic feeling, embodied in the legends of King Arthur and wholly opposed to Roman ideas, had time to spring up. Judged by their ornament, it is to this period that most of the bronze enamelled arms and trappings in the British Museum belong. The golden corselet found in a barrow in Flint, together with many traditions of the finding of golden armour, such as the helmet of pure gold set with gems found in a bronze vase and presented to Katharine of Arragon, suggest the idea that serviceable qualities became sacrificed to a love of display. At this time it is said the Britons, in obsolete and fantastic panoply, bore an evil reputation, as being vain and fruitful in menaces, but slow and little to be feared in action. Their frightfully demoralised state, if not greatly overdrawn by Gildas, called for a day of reckoning and the condign, almost exterminating, punishment which overtook them. The agents destined to execute the vengeance of Providence were the Frisian pirates, the scourge of the Channel, who had with difficulty been kept in awe by the most powerful Roman fleets. The country, left to the divided rule of clergy, nobles, and municipalities, and described as “glittering with the multitude of cities built by the Romans,” presented a tempting and easy prey to these professors of rapine. They were Teutons, who relied mainly on the Fram or spear-like javelin, as when Tacitus described them, and still carried the round gaudily-painted buckler, though then strengthened with an iron umbo and rim. Their weapons had been perfected in a long series of grim experiences in actual war, and they had added to their equipment a sword and dagger, and some kind of simple headpiece. That they had adopted any complete defence of plate-armour in the Roman fashion is improbable, but they were apparently entirely unacquainted with chain-mail. In the history of armour in Britain this period, taken as a whole, can only be regarded as a very primitive age of plate. To be an efficient protection plate-armour must, however, be of an intolerable weight, at least to men on foot, making celerity of movement impossible. We cannot close the chapter better than by instancing the dreadful fate of the Æduan Crupellarians, related by Tacitus, who clothed themselves in unwieldy iron plate, impenetrable to sword and javelin. Though the main army was overthrown, these kept their ranks as if rooted to the ground, until, fallen upon with hatchets and pickaxes, armour and men were crushed together and left on the ground an inanimate mass. This lesson was not forgotten by the nations of Europe who fought on foot with Rome, and no such use of body-armour among them is again recorded.

II
The Mailed Warrior

The appearance of the mail-clad warrior opens up an entirely new era in the history of European armour. The light plate defences worn by the Mediterranean nations, whether Greeks, Etruscans, or Romans, were never calculated to secure immunity from wounds; and as a fighting equipment they went down before mail, as stone before bronze, or bronze before iron. Chain-mail body-armour is distinctly represented on the Trajan column, and wherever worn, whether by the Scythian, the Parthian who was armoured down to his horse’s hoofs, or the dreaded Sassanian horse, it seems to have flashed like a beacon of victory, and its wearers ever appear in history as Rome’s most dreaded and formidable foes.

The Scandinavian also, isolated so long and unknown in history, suddenly burst upon Europe as a new and even more redoubtable mail-clad warrior. How so remote a people became acquainted with chain-mail can only be surmised, but it was perhaps through some Scythian channel not open to Western Europe. That the ravaging Viking landed on our shores equipped in mail, the “war nets” of Beowulf, “woven by the smiths, hand-locked, and riveted”; “shining over the waters” or in “the ranks of battle,” is sufficiently recorded by the Chroniclers. Shirts of mail, called “byrnies,” attributed to even the fourth and fifth centuries, are found in Danish peat-bogs fashioned of rings welded and riveted in alternate rows as neatly and skilfully as can possibly be, and all made by the hammer, if it be a fact that wire-drawing was not invented till nearly a thousand years later. The almost perfect specimen we figure, one-tenth the natural size, was found at Vimose, with portions of others. Some have also been found at Thorsberg, and in a burial-place of Roman age in Jutland.

Besides the mail defence, the Danes were armed with a shield, an iron cap, lance, axe, and sword. Thus equipped they proved for a long time almost irresistible, and ventured on the most dangerous and desperate undertakings. When we reflect on their adventurous voyages, the reckless attacks on powerful nations made by mere handfuls of men, and the gallant pertinacity they at all times displayed, it is impossible not to admire their exalted courage. It is easy to detect a rugged poetry, almost chivalry of a kind, underlying the Viking nature, in spite of ruthless cruelty, while the exaltation of deceit when practised on an enemy into a virtue is but a germ of modern statecraft. Their lives depending at every moment on the quality of their weapons caused these to be invested, particularly the sword, with a mystic glamour, which scarcely died out with chivalry itself, and lingers even yet in the more important functions of state. The chieftain’s sword was in fact his inseparable companion, known and endeared to his followers by a name symbolic of the havoc they had seen it wreak upon the enemy, and its fame in sagas was as undying as its owner’s. Tradition elevated the maker of the sword of Odin, a smith, we must believe, who forged swords of uncommon excellence, into a demigod; and has handed down the story of how he made a blade called Mimung so keenly tempered that when challenged to try conclusions with one Amilias, a rival, it sliced him so cleanly in two as he sat in his armour, that the cut only became apparent when, as he rose to shake himself, he fell dead in two halves. The name of this prince of craftsmen yet lives in the mysterious Wayland Smith of English folklore. Another vaunting smith Mimer was slain by the sword Grauer wielded by Sigurd; and the sword Hrunting is made famous by its owner Beowulf, the father of English lyrics. A Danish sword in the British Museum is inscribed in runes Ægenkœra, the awe-inspirer. From the Danes the exaltation of the sword passed to the English, and we find Ethelwulf, Alfred, and Athelstan bequeathing their swords by will as most precious possessions, equivalent to a brother’s or sister’s portion. Thence it passed, in legend at least, to the Britons, King Arthur’s sword Calibon, or Excalibur, presented ultimately by Richard I. to Tancred when in Sicily, being almost as famous as Arthur himself. Even Cæsar is provided by history with a sword named “Crocea mors,” captured from him in combat by our valiant countryman Nennius. The hilts of the Danish swords are described in the Edda as of gold, and Beowulf speaks of hilts that were treasures of gold and jewels. Canute’s huiscarles and Earl Godwin’s crew had swords inlaid with the precious metals, and some English swords were valued at eighty mancuses of gold.

The origin of the remarkable veneration for arms and armour, so apparent in the history of chivalry, is thus traced to wearers of mail, the first figures also to appear in something like what we regard as knightly equipment. The dress of Magnus Barefoot, described in 1093, differed probably but little from that of his predecessors, and consisted of helmet, a red shield with a golden lion, his sword called Leg-biter, a battle-axe, and a coat-of-mail, over which he wore a red silk tunic with a yellow lion.

The wearing of armour, particularly mail, on land, necessitated riding, and the northern rovers, finding the weight intolerable on their inland forays, took to horse whenever possible, harrying by this means an extent of country otherwise almost inaccessible. They even learnt in time to transport their horses over the sea, and in the ninth and tenth centuries landed in England from France as a mounted force, as their descendants after them did at Hastings. The English, on the other hand, rarely wore mail, though the spoils of the Danes might have furnished a fair supply, and they only used cavalry as a small force for scouting. An English king of the eighth century is, however, represented in mail by Strutt, and Harold and his immediate companions may have worn mail at Hastings, as represented in the Bayeux tapestry, and as he certainly did when assisting William in his war against Conan of Brittany. Handsome presents of Norman arms and armour were then made to him by Duke William. A little later we have the curious testimony of Anna Comnena, 1083-1146, that this mail, made entirely of steel rings riveted together, was wholly unknown in Byzantium, and only worn by the inhabitants of Northern Europe.

The definite conversion of the Northmen from sea-rovers to mounted men-at-arms when they settled in Normandy enabled them to lengthen their coats-of-mail, as well as their shields, lances, and swords, and to adopt many French manners and customs. But in facing the infantry wedge at Hastings, the time-honoured fighting formation of Teutonic stocks from the days of Tacitus, they did not disdain to fall back on the old Viking tactics of a pretended flight and rally, practised already by them during two centuries of warfare in England. That the English should have allowed their impenetrable ranks to be broken by so threadbare a stratagem is indeed extraordinary.

The Norman Conquest introduced into England a permanent mail-clad cavalry as the chief strength of the battle, as in France, and infantry was discredited until the disputes of the sons of the Conqueror led once more to an English infantry force taking the field. The mail coat of the cavalry had in the meantime been further lengthened, and changed into a complete sheathing of steel by the addition of long sleeves and mufflers falling over the hands; leggings covering the thighs, shins, and feet; and a capuchin-like hood only leaving the eyes and nose exposed, but which could be thrown back. Thus enveloped, with a thickly-padded garment under the mail, a conical or flat-topped steel helmet, a large kite-shaped shield, and long-reaching weapons, he had little to fear when opposed to light-armed cavalry or infantry. The mail and helmets were always kept bright, as we know, but Anna Comnena adds that even the shields of steel and brass were so brightly polished as to dazzle beholders. Combined with the pennons and banners of various forms, with their glittering emblazonry, the massed men-at-arms of that day must have presented a magnificent spectacle, as the Chroniclers so frequently remind us. The coat-of-mail remained with but trifling variations the chief knightly defence until the close of the thirteenth century, and the protection it afforded was so complete that of 900 combatants who once entered battle in steel armour but three were slain. At Joppa in 1192, during a battle lasting from the rising to the setting sun, only three were killed on the side of the Crusaders; at the battle of Lincoln only three, at Evesham (1260) one knight and two esquires, at Falkirk (1295) but one knight and thirty foot on the winning side. These somewhat random examples seem fairly to represent the loss on the side of the victors, though terrible massacres overtook the losers. The protection was such that Saladin’s bravest warriors reported our men to be impenetrable; blows, they said, fell as if on rocks of flint, for our people were of iron and would yield to no blows. But though so terrible on horseback, the mailed knight, as observed by Anna Comnena, was little dangerous when dismounted. Neither had the English failed to observe this, and thus directed all their efforts to dismount the enemy. They had been severely galled by the bow at Hastings, and they came to recognise it as the one weapon likely to render them really formidable to their Norman oppressors. Henry I. encouraged its use, and we soon find the English arrows described as falling in battle like a shower on the grass or as falling snow. In a skirmish at Bourgthéroude in 1124, the first discharge brought forty horses to the ground before a stroke was struck, and eighty men-at-arms soon fell prisoners into the victors’ hands. At the battle of the Standard, the cloud of arrows pierced the unarmoured Scots, and chiefly contributed to the dreadful slaughter, set down at 11,000. The effects of missile weapons were such that the mailed period of which we are speaking saw three English kings fall victims to the bow, while a fourth, Edward I., escaped a like fate by a miracle. The accounts handed down of the extraordinary range and precision attained soon afterwards by this weapon appear wholly incredible in the light of modern toxophilite displays.

The cross-bow was an even more powerful weapon, whose use had been forbidden in war, but allowed by the Pope to the Crusaders in 1139. Richard I. appears to have introduced it into the English army, which became so expert in its use that in some of the sieges conducted during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the enemies’ walls could not be manned. It is related of Richard, both at the sieges of Acre and Nottingham, that he himself slew men with this weapon. The numbers of cross-bowmen in our armies appear, however, to have been always relatively small. King John, with 400 knights, had but 250 cross-bowmen, used as skirmishers, keeping a mile in front of the army. The splendid army of Edward I. assembled at Poitou (1242), numbering 1600 knights and 20,000 foot, comprised but 700. The battle of Lincoln, however, was gained by them owing to their shot mowing down the horses of the barons, who were rendered helpless when dismounted. The cross-bow was at first bent by the hand and foot, but was afterwards of steel, when it required mechanical aids to charge it. The short and heavy bolts, called quarrels, struck with greater force than arrows, and the knight hit full on the head or breast by one was fortunate if only stunned. Instances are recorded of twofold mail and the quilted coat being penetrated by them. Cross-bowmen for a long time formed corps d’élite, the weight of the weapon and the armour causing them to be frequently mounted, and so early as King John the mounted “balistarii” were provided with one, two, or even three horses each, with carts to carry the quarrels and even the cross-bows as well. Notwithstanding superior accuracy in aim and penetrating power, it fell into disuse in England soon after the close of the thirteenth century, owing to its heavy weight and liability to damage by wet, and above all, on account of the greater rapidity with which arrows could be discharged from the longbow,—in a ratio of something like ten to one.

Nothing is more constantly met with in chronicles than accounts of the destructive effects of missiles, whether from bow or cross-bow, upon the horses of mounted combatants; yet, apart from the poetic fancy of Wace, who mounts Fitz-Osbert on an iron-clad steed at Hastings, the first mention of horse-armour at all connected with English history is at the battle of Gisors in 1198, when Richard I. speaks of the capture of 140 sets in terms which plainly show that he then met with it for the first time. It has, however, been concluded, from the absence of any mention of horse-armour in English statutes until 1298, that it was unknown here till the close of the thirteenth century. At this time a man-at-arms in France received half as much again in pay if his horse was armoured, and in 1303 every man with an estate of 500 livres was bound to provide horse-armour. A mailed horse appears in the effigy of Sir Robert de Shirland in Sheppey, and a fine figure of a steed completely clad in mail is among the figures of The Painted Chamber, published by the Society of Antiquaries.

The English custom of fighting on foot, it is almost needless to add, had been adopted by the Danish and even the Norman settlers here, and during the civil wars of Henry I., Stephen, and Henry II., the leaders on both sides, including the kings in person, fought their battles dismounted, rendering horse-armour of relatively small importance.

A permanent force was raised by a law of Henry II. in 1181, compelling every burgess or freeman to possess an iron headpiece, a lance, and either a mail hauberk or a gambeson, according to his means: and this was supplemented by the addition, under Henry III. in 1253, of swords and knives to the infantry equipment, and the calling up of a reserve of those possessed of less than 40s. of land, armed with scythes, long-handled axes, knives, and other rustic weapons. Soon afterwards a wild Welsh and Cornish infantry was enrolled, and we hear of lagers and intrenchments, and in 1302 one of the first really crushing defeats is inflicted on chivalry at the hands of burghers by the men of Bruges, who slew forty counts and barons at Cambray.

This extensive arming of the population led to the formation of bands of outlaws, who devastated the country, something in the manner of the free-companies of France at a later time. A young man named William, declining to acknowledge Lewis of France in 1216, drew together a thousand bowmen and conducted a guerilla warfare in the forests of Sussex. The still more renowned Adam Gordon infested the woody country between Wilts and Hants until Prince Edward at last, about 1267, overcame him in single combat. The ancient Ballads abound with instances of such exploits, which are embodied in the romance of Robin Hood.

A contemporary of Richard I. describes the equipment of an English foot-soldier as consisting of an iron headpiece, a coif and coat-of-mail, and “a tissue of many folds of linen, difficult of penetration and artificially worked with the needle, vulgarly called a pourpoint.” He was taught to receive cavalry with the right knee on the ground, the left leg bent, the shield in the left hand and the butt of the lance in the ground with the point to the enemy. Between every two lances was a cross-bowman with a rear rank to load while the front shot. Against this formation the Moslem cavalry’s “surging charges foamed themselves away,” and as at Waterloo, the retreating squadrons were charged again and again by our heavy-armed horse. On the other hand, the same tactics, when employed against forces largely composed of English archers, were unsuccessful; thus the Welsh in 1295 set their long spears on the ground with points towards the cavalry, but the Earl of Warwick placed an archer between every two horsemen and routed them. Wallace’s massed pikemen, three years later, were broken by Edward’s archers and military engines, and routed by the men-at-arms, who dashed into the openings.

Two suits of mail (see Fig. 3), illustrated in the catalogue of the loan collection of Ironmongers’ Hall in 1861, now in the possession of Mr. J. E. Gardner, F.S.A., are formed of unriveted links, the ends of the rings being merely butted. Their authenticity has therefore been questioned. The description of them printed in 1861 was to the effect that they had been found in a chest or in a vault of a church in Oxfordshire. In the manuscript catalogue of the collection at Parham is a note to the effect that they were found in stone coffins built in the wall of the church at Goring, Berks, supposed to be coffins of the Beche or De Beche family, and contained skeletons, a third suit having been destroyed except the hood, which is now at Parham. However this may be, the larger suit affords a good representation of the mailed figure of the end of the twelfth, and the small one of that of the thirteenth century, with reinforcing pieces of plate. The possibility of their having been made for lying in state or funerals deserves perhaps a passing note, especially in view of their respective dimensions; and it is in any case very questionable whether the prices paid for them would have remunerated the labour of producing forgeries. Another hauberk of large size was found in Phœnix Park, Dublin, thirty years ago, but a silver badge of an O’Neil found with it showed it to have been buried not earlier than the middle of the fifteenth century. In the thirteenth century the curious and well-known banded mail appears on effigies and other representations, which Mr. J. G. Waller, F.S.A., regards as caused by the passing of a leather thong through each alternate row of rings, for the sake of extra strength. This variety may have originated with the single thong passed through the links of the coif over the forehead and below the knee, seen in early effigies like that of William Longespée (Fig. 4) at Salisbury.