The phrases, “the Stone,” “Bronze,” and “Iron Ages” are mere generalizations fast losing their significance, and the purposes of this volume will not permit of any special disquisition on the weapons of these mixed and merging classifications of periods, or even those recorded of the Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, and Eastern peoples; beyond what, in some instances, may seem necessary for showing any prototypes or analogies of arms or armour in use during the “Middle Ages” and the “Renaissance.”
The more remote ages of Egypt would have been a blank to us but for the character of the tombs, which preserved so wonderfully the papyri and frescoes we find so valuable, and, above all, the inscriptions and bas-reliefs on stone, affording infinite information concerning the arms of this ancient people and their martial achievements; indeed, we really know more of the weapons of the ancient Egyptians, and even those of the times of Hesiod, Homer, and Cambyses, than we do of those of the Goths, Vandals, Huns, and Ancient Britons during the centuries immediately following on the final evacuation of Britain by the Roman legions. The vigorous races that had been vanquished by imperial Rome, and those that in their turn had invaded and conquered Italy, inherited much from the earlier Roman wars and domination, more than has been thoroughly understood by historians of the nebulous centuries partly preceding and closely following on the final overthrow of the Western Empire; and the Romans had already gathered together many of the forms of the nations and empires that had preceded them, to say nothing of adaptations from the armament of contemporary tribes and peoples; still, in the main, the Romans had imposed their own methods and civilisation on all the nations they conquered. On a monument recently brought to light by M. de Morgan at Susa, erected by Naram-Sin about B.C. 3750, is a figure of the king wearing a horned helm, and armed with an arrow in his right hand and a bow in his left; a dagger is thrust into his girdle.
The granite sculptures of Persepolis show the weapons of the Assyrians to have been mainly those perpetuated for many ages and under many degrees of civilisation—viz., the sword, the lance or javelin, the sling and the bow; and in the rusty fragments of solidified iron rings in the British Museum, found at Nineveh, we see the ancestor of the Roman lorica, the bright byrnie of the “Sagas,” and hauberk of the “middle ages.” The same monumental inscriptions clearly indicate to which ancient people the Romans were indebted for their missile-casting engines, for here you have the catapulta and ballista, differing but little from those which were used by the Romans in the third century of our era, and doubtless handed down in their turn principally through the Franks to mediæval times. Strange it is that the principle involved, nay, the very machines themselves, have hibernated, so to speak, again and again!
An antique Greek drawing, representing Amazons fighting, in conjunction with Scythians, against Theseus at Attica, shows the following armament, viz.1:—Helmets of the Phrygian type; tunics coming half-way down the thighs, fortified with scales; and complete leg armour looking on the drawing like chain-mail, but probably, like the tunics, of small scale armour similar to that found at Æsica, referred to later in these pages. Two of the figures brandish long spears with leaf-formed heads, while the third is in the act of bending a bow, the arrow having a barbed head, and wears a quiver slung over the shoulder. They all have belts, and the tunics are ornamented with a geometrical border. Such long spears were also the weapons of the heavy Greek infantry. We owe, then, the inception of much of the arms and armour of European countries to the ancient civilisations of Asia and Egypt, and much also to the Etrurians, Greeks, and Romans; for, up to the middle of the fifth century, the countries as far as the Danube, in form at least, were still under the domination of Rome, so that Roman influence on armament must still have been very considerable; but with the final break-up of the empire of the West, at the end of the century, the old national and patriotic forms, which were of a more ponderous character, began to reassert themselves. These, again, became much modified, at a later period, in a considerable revival in the direction of Roman forms among the Franco-Germans, who aimed at a continuation or reconstruction of the traditional Western Empire. Another potent influence in the direction of change and interchange, concerning which we can merely speculate, was the swarming out of Eastern peoples, as well as the constant pressure from the frozen North towards the sunny South.
The analysis of the suits hereinafter presented will be prefaced by a short and concise sketch of mediæval and “renaissance” armour in general, and under its own section, that of the weapons of war, etc. This, no doubt, will be helpful in making the explanations clearer as regards nationality, fashion, and chronology.
During the earlier periods, and in fact throughout the entire time covering the use of defensive armour to its decadence, great difficulties constantly arise regarding the precise antiquity and nationality of specimens preserved, and, consequently, the fashions generally prevailing in a given country at a particular time. This uncertainty is greatly owing to immigration, invasions, and to the importation of foreign artificers, as well as of arms and armour from the more advanced countries to others less forward in mechanical skill, as applied to armour and weapon-making.
Some of the manuscripts, seals, effigies, brasses, and illuminated missals preserved, afford great help in deciding doubtful points; but very little of this kind of evidence goes farther back than the ninth century, besides being sometimes of a more or less fanciful and inaccurate character, and it is only by closely weighing and comparing that some reasonable degree of certainty can be got at.
In English brasses we have the best consecutive representation of armour, extending from that of Sir John Daubernoun, in the reign of Edward I., to that found at Great Chart, near Ashford, Kent, of the reign of Charles II.; but few have been preserved that date from earlier than the fourteenth century, though there are many military effigies. There was formerly a brass in St. Paul’s Church, Bedford, of Sir John Beauchamp (1208), and this would have been the oldest brass known had it been still to the fore. There is now an Elizabethan brass of a knight in this church. The figure on the brass of Sir John Daubernoun (1277), Stoke d’Abernon, near Leatherhead, Surrey, is entirely encased in mail, excepting, of course, the face. A large number of brasses may be seen in Boutell and Creeny, and you have the best series of effigies in Stothard and the continuation by Hollis. There are, besides, many other books treating both on brasses and effigies. The best German series exists in Hefner’s Trachten. Some of the foreign brasses are most artistic, but the iconoclast has left us only a couple of hundred, while the English brasses are to be numbered by thousands. The great majority of Continental brasses now left are in Germany and Belgium, while some half-dozen examples cover those of France, and there is only one in Spain. It must be borne in mind that the date on ancient monuments is that of death, so that the armour indicated may be the make of a quarter of a century earlier; besides, it may have been inherited by the defunct. There are also cases where these memorials were executed during the subject’s lifetime, or from contemporary models after his death. Suits were also sometimes “restored” by the armourer to correspond with a later fashion, and cases of this kind naturally give rise to some difficulty; and, as in the case of some Egyptian tombs, we have instances of misappropriation in English monuments. A case in point is the memorial of “Vicecomes et Escheator Comitatus Lincolniæ,” who died in the reign of Henry VIII. The armour is late fourteenth century, but to whom the monument was originally raised is unknown. Of course, the armour for the back is not shown on brasses and effigies. The Beauchamp effigy at Warwick affords, however, a notable exception, though this is of less importance owing to the fact of there being real armour of that period existing. Another valuable source of information arises from the custom prevailing during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, of leaving arms and armour as mortuaries to churches, and several helms and shields have come down to us in this way.
Later in these pages will be found a chapter headed “Details of Defensive Plate Armour.” This section deals as fully as a reasonable regard for space will allow with each important piece of armour, as regards its form, history, and chronology. It will serve also, to some extent, as a glossary of terms. It will be seen that there is usually a period of transition between the different well-marked styles of armour, just as is the case in architecture.