John Starkie Gardner

“ The Earl of Warwick knew Milan in his youth, when he had tilted successfully at Verona; and it was a practice among the great to obtain armour there, dating from so far back as 1398, when the Earl of Derby had his armour brought over by Milanese armourers; the Baron’s view presents therefore no improbabilities. Wherever made, the Earl of Warwick’s suit appears to have solved the armourer’s problem, being at once light, flexible, yet impenetrable. Indeed, in its beautiful proportions and admirably perfect adaptation to all requirements, it appears more like a work of nature than of art. ”

“ It is singular that few fine suits can be attributed to France, and fewer still either to Spain, the Netherlands, or England. The youth of Edward, the fact that female sovereigns succeeded, and finally, the timidity and horror of war felt by James, account for none of the known chef-d’œuvre suits being made for English wearers. Such extraordinary and magnificent armour was meet for none but the high-spirited and rival princes of Europe, and no king distinguished for valour occupied the throne of England during the period when enriched armour reached its culminating point of grandeur. ”

“ In contemplating the lithe figure we may well believe that the steely quality and workmanship of such a suit would confer immunity on the wearer; and that the relative elasticity and lightness of a perfectly-fitting suit might confer such superiority on an active and sinewy champion engaging with men swathed like mummies beneath their armour in thick gambeson or mail, as to enable him to emerge from his deeds of arms as triumphantly as the heroes of romance. ”

“ Among this the most exquisitely beautiful is the damascened work, scattered over Europe, persistently though erroneously attributed to Cellini, of which, perhaps, one of the finest examples is the target at Windsor. It is no exaggeration to say that neither chiselling, embossing, nor damascening on metal has ever rivalled or even approached that bestowed at this time upon royal arms and armour. The chief seats of production were in Germany and Italy, at Milan above all, then Innsbrück, Augsburg, Nuremberg; and in a less degree Florence, Brescia and Venice. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Missaglias introduced a certain grace of line into Milanese armour, and the German armourers pursued this vein, making the figures erect and slender and imbuing the waist and bust with womanly elegance. The Italians probably kept to much the same lines, for most representations of armour towards the third quarter of the fifteenth century display the same graceful characteristics, brought to a pitch, however, but little consonant with the stern realities of war, and brusquely set aside before the close of this century. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For suits of Gothic armour which have belonged to known wearers, and have been handed down with unbroken pedigree, we must go to the great collections of Europe, and especially to those which, like the Viennese, were commenced while armour was still worn. Of sculptured representations of Gothic armour none surpass the Beauchamp effigy at Warwick. ”

“ In more conservative Italy and Spain a few Gothic suits have escaped destruction, and though the Art Renaissance of the one, and wealth and pride of the other, were inimical to the preservation of obsolete arms, yet probably some few specimens have passed from the hands of private possessors into those of wealthy amateurs of France and England. Germany, however, has ever been the inexhaustible treasure-house whence Gothic arms and armour have leaked from the hands of private possessors into those of collectors. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The splendid glitter of polished steel, so associated in our minds with the knight in armour, appealed scarcely at all to its wearers in this Transition age. In fact, no decided preference can be discovered even for the defensive qualities of steel, and this constitutes perhaps the most marked peculiarity of the age. In the halcyon days of mail, the steel was kept bright and bare, the helm and shield burnished, with nothing to conceal its brilliancy but a coronet and the rich sword-belts which merely enhanced the effect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All is still entirely dictated by fitness to its purpose, and the requirements of jousts and war; and the decorative and subtle shell-like ridgings and flutings are really present more to deflect the weapon’s point than as ornament, while the engrailing, dentelling, scalloping and punching of the margins of the plates unmistakably indicate that the decorative spirit is applied to embellishing and not to concealing the steel. The superb gilded metal effigy (Fig. 19) of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, presents a faithful model of the most beautiful type of Gothic armour known. ”

“ Armour began from about the accession of Edward VI. to cease to be a military necessity, and those engaged in practical warfare were more ready to dispense with its doubtful protection than to encumber themselves with its certain disadvantages. Excuses were found for appearing in the field without armour, or with an imperfect equipment, and punishments were inflicted in the vain attempt to stem the tide of change. Those who served on foot had naturally the strongest objection to bearing its weight, since when opposed to firearms it ceased to have any practical utility. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a full-sized representation of the latest Italian Gothic armour nothing can perhaps be finer than the fifteenth century effigy of Guidarello Guidarelli surnamed Braccioforte from Ravenna, of which there is also a cast in the South Kensington Museum. The tuilles are flexible and pointed, formed of narrow horizontal plates; the shoulder-plates are bossed into lions’ heads; and the armet has a double visor without bavier. ”

“ It ended, as all such struggles must, in the complete [Pg 7] 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. ”

“ The shoulder-guards are less exaggerated than in contemporary French and English armour, but the elbow-guards seem large, angular, and loosely fitting. The sollerets are well made, unpointed, and leave the red stocking exposed at the toe and heel. The sword, on the left hip, is in a velvet scabbard with a beautifully and simply worked steel hilt and cross quillons slightly curved towards the blade. The shield is fine in form and typically Italian, bearing a Medusa’s head and other classic ornaments, boldly embossed. The hands are bare, the right holding a slender staff or wand. ”

“ Until the Transition, the mounted knight, cap-à-pied in mail over the quilted gambeson, with the steel cap, and the great helm for the supreme moment of combat, seemed completely invulnerable unless to missile weapons mechanically projected. Few men-at-arms fell in actual battle on the winning side, and great slaughters were only consequent on the complete rout of one of the parties. ”

“ The English having in vain endeavoured to provoke the enemy to advance by sending out archers to fire a house and barn, posted an ambuscade and moved forward, the archers in front as usual and the men-at-arms behind. The archers thus gave up the shelter of their pointed stakes, and the men-at-arms suffered the fatigue of an advance in armour of an almost insupportable weight to men on foot. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A battle-scene at Hampton Court, the battle of Forty by Snayers, furnishes the strongest justification for its disuse among men-at-arms. It represents a number of mounted men in complete armour, who discharge horse-pistols point blank at each other’s breastplates, the individual struck falling in every case dead or wounded from his horse. The wheel-lock pistol, the arm of the German Reiters, who wore black armour, mail sleeves, and a visored morion, was in the field in 1512. ”

“ To definitely track them to their actual [Pg 6] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The short-waisted, podgy, globular breastplate, the stolid limb-pieces, rounded knee-caps and strikingly splay-footed sollerets, appear as if invented to altogether banish the very idea of agility, if not of movement; and contrast in the strongest manner with the lithe and supple-looking armour of the Beauchamp effigy. The Tower collection, so relatively poor in Gothic armour, is fortunately extremely rich in that of the period of Henry VIII., containing four or five suits actually made for his personal use. ”

“ In Germany even the trading towns had clung to their ancient buildings, walls, and traditions, and in many of the old Town Halls the furniture, arms, and weapons of the civic guards, and the old implements of punishment and torture, are still preserved. The innumerable feudal castles of the lesser nobility have to a yet greater extent preserved the belongings of their ancient occupants, who clung to their titles, heraldry, arms, and weapons as symbols of vanishing rights and power, and of ancient pretensions and privileges, so out of harmony with the world beyond. ”

“ We find at almost every period, however, that a fair blow delivered “au pas de charge” with a well-steeled lance might penetrate every defence; and that no armour could be made actually proof against downright blows from a two-handed battle-axe wielded by a powerful and expert rider.
One of the most marked characteristics of this age of plate-armour was a growing appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of steel, and a new desire to invest steel armour with graceful lines. ”