Part 3

The beautifully-sculptured guards of the early fourteenth century Easter Sepulchre in Lincoln Cathedral (Fig. 9) present fine examples of the costume of the knight armed with the mace, sword, and shield towards the end of the mailed period. The bassinet on the figure to the right is particularly noteworthy.

III

_The Transition Period--From about the Reign of Edward I. to that of Richard II., 1272-1399_

The warrior sheathed in mail, mounted on his charger, whether pricking alone or in troops over hill and dale, was a picturesque and portentous figure, and when massed for battle presented an awe-inspiring sight. The gray burnished steel, glittering in the sun or under lowering skies, relieved by the fluttering pennons and banners and emblazoned shields, formed a picture that the old Crusading Chroniclers loved to dwell on, filling the imagination with those great gatherings of the chivalry of Europe. In the days of the last of the Paladins, of Godfrey de Bouillon and Richard Coeur de Lion, the dress of burnished mail was the knight's especial pride, and no garment concealed it. But as progress and love of change are universal, and the mail itself could not well be embellished, an embroidered surcoat was worn over it in the more degenerate days of John and his son Henry, concealing all but the limbs and head. This garment became the vehicle for distinguishing marks and colours, like the modern racing-jacket. A little later, when emblazoned with heraldry, it served to distinguish the individual. The transfer of the surcoat from under to over the mail gave rise to the custom of concealing the steel panoply under rich materials, which distinguished the Transition Period in armour. While it lasted we literally and constantly meet with the "iron hand under the velvet glove." This and the continual piling of one coat of defence upon another, in the fruitless attempt to secure immunity for life and limb, are the chief characteristics of the period we are now to treat.

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. Under the warlike Edward I. the powers of attack must have gathered renewed force, for a long period of tentative changes set in which finally ended in the suit of mail being completely hidden beneath an outer shell of steel plates. The qualities of steel for offensive weapons must also at this same time have undergone marked improvements, and we now begin to hear of definite seats of manufacture attaining world-wide celebrity. Cologne, Lorraine, Poitou produced weapons which are said to have pierced mail and quilted armour with ease. The heavy blows given by the battle-axe and mace, used by horse and foot, must, however, have been chiefly instrumental in introducing extra means of defence. These were by no means at first universally of steel, for cuir-bouilli or boiled leather, a very impervious substance when properly prepared, seemed at one time likely to rival it for general use; and trial was made of every other kind of material that could be used for defence, such as horn, whalebone, ivory, padded wool, leather, either alone or strengthened with metal studs or splints, brass, and small plates of iron fixed to textiles. It is almost certain that for a time the moulded surface of cuir-bouilli, with its gilded and perhaps coloured surfaces, was preferred to steel. During this tentative period every combination of these materials with chain-mail is to be met with, and the triumph of steel-plate armour only became definite after every possible substitute, combined in every practicable way, had been tried either at home or abroad and found wanting. It is at least improbable that any armour pictured with enriched designs at this date was of steel.

It would be impossible within the limits of this work, and of little interest, to endeavour to describe the constant changes, often due to individual caprice, that occur; for when groups of soldiery are represented, even long after the Transition, it is rare to find two individuals accoutred in precisely the same manner. We may rest assured, however, that each piece as it successively appears was introduced to meet some new perfection in the weapons of attack, or to cope with some new tactics, in short, to protect some part that had been proved by the practical experience of armed strife to be vulnerable. These additions were naturally subject to modification, according to the passing dictates of military display, or the changing fashions of civilian dress.

Fig. 10 is taken from one of the English MSS. most valuable for the knightly costume of the Transition. The armour is in this MS. almost entirely mail, of the banded variety, worn beneath a surcoat, which is hardly ever emblazoned. Plate-armour is only represented by the kneecaps, with an occasional roundel and shoulder-plate. The great helm, always with a fan-crest, the chapelle-de-fer worn beneath or above the mail coiffe, the bassinet, often visored, and the broad-brimmed round helmet are worn, except in jousts, quite indifferently.

The head, being the most vulnerable part of the body and the most difficult to protect, received the greatest amount of attention. The great helm, with bands and cross-cuts for the sight, continued in use throughout the Transition, but with a sugar-loaf crown, and rendered less insupportable in the reign of Edward I. by transferring the weight from the head to the shoulders. It was occasionally of brass--Chaucer mentions the knight's "helm of latoun bright," a metal used so far back as Henry I.--and much more frequently of cuir-bouilli, as in the tournament at Windsor in 1278, when twelve of the thirty-eight knights had gilded helms, and were called digniores. There can be no doubt, however, that a helm of Poitou steel was even then the surest defence.

To the custom of hanging arms in churches we are indebted for the preservation of all the most valuable historic pieces. The first record of this poetic usage occurs early in the thirteenth century, when William of Toulouse hung his helm and splendid shield over St. Julien's tomb at Brives, and his lance and sword, bow and quiver, outside. By the middle of the century it had become the practice, when a brave knight died, to hang his shield and helm on the walls above his grave, and it appears in addition, from the instance of the King of France after the battle of Cassel in 1328, that the victor in some cases presented his arms to the nearest church. The helm of the Black Prince, still suspended above his tomb at Canterbury (Fig. 11), is an illustration familiar to all. By the kindness of Sir Noel Paton we are enabled to present an even finer helm (Fig. 12), in more perfect preservation, which formerly hung above the tomb of Sir Richard Pembridge, K.G., in Hereford Cathedral, who died one year before the Prince of Wales, in 1375. Its admirable workmanship has been fully described by Baron de Cosson, its fine steely quality being such that no penknife would scratch its polished surface. It is formed of three pieces--the cone, the cylinder, and the top-piece, welded so beautifully that no seam is visible, and these are joined by round-headed nails clinched on the inside. Every practical detail, down to the minutest, has received careful attention. The metal is thickened and turned outwards round the eye-piece, which is thus efficiently guarded, and the bottom edge is rolled inwards over a thick wire, so as not to cut the surcoat. These and other details given by Baron de Cosson in the Catalogue of Armour exhibited at the Royal Archæological Institute in 1880, show conclusively that this specimen at least is a real war helm, fitted to resist and to strike fire under the shock of a lance that might unhorse its wearer. The conical helm was worn over the visorless bassinet next described, as the previous helms had been worn over the chapelle-de-fer, and being only donned in the hour of danger, is rarely represented in monuments, except as a pillow under the head. When worn the face was invisible and recognition impossible, so that a moulded crest of linen, leather, or some light material surmounted it and became its most important feature. A mantling was also introduced, at first in the simple form of a puggaree, as seen in the effigy of the Black Prince (Fig. 16), but later of more ample dimensions, fantastically shredded to represent the supposed rents of battle. When the taste for military display increased, these mantles were usually of scarlet lined with ermine. A wide-rimmed helm is often represented as worn over or in place of the bassinet, and jewelled and crested. This form reappears continually, its first introduction dating so far back as the Bayeux tapestry.

The bassinet, used with or without the helm, enjoyed a prolonged period of favour from Edward I. to Henry VI. It differed from the older chapelle-de-fer worn with the hood of mail, in having the mail hung round it, instead of passing over or under it. This mail, now called the camail or gorget, was laced to a series of staples along the edges of the bassinet and fell like a curtain on to the shoulders. At the outset merely a skull-cap, it was gradually prolonged at the back and sides so as to leave only the face exposed. Early in the fourteenth century its appearance was profoundly modified by the addition of a movable visor, at first hinged at the side, but subsequently raised and lowered from above the forehead. Being readily removed, the visor was only worn in action, and is thus rarely represented in effigies and brasses. No helm was worn over the visored bassinet, which became the battle head-piece of the fourteenth century and part of the fifteenth, the helm being reserved for jousts and tournaments. We are able, by the kindness of Baron de Cosson, to give an illustration (Fig. 13) of a real bassinet of large size, from the tomb of Sir John de Melsa in Aldborough Church, Holderness. It is described in the Catalogue of Arms already referred to as of the second half of the fourteenth century, and was worn with a large visor. A second bassinet is illustrated (Fig. 14) from Sir Noel Paton's collection, described by Baron de Cosson as transformed into a sallad about the middle of the fifteenth century. Fine bassinets are in the Tower and at Woolwich, and in the Burgess, Christy, and Wallace collections, all happily belonging to the nation, and in Warwick Castle and at Parham, but none are directly connected with English wearers. The beaked visor, represented in so many manuscripts of about the close of the fourteenth century, is a fine defensive and not unpicturesque form. There are several real examples in the Musée d'Artillerie in Paris, two of which are regarded as English.

The bassinet, like the rest of the knight's armour, did not necessarily exhibit a surface of plain burnished steel. It was frequently covered with leather, as mentioned in the inventories of Humphrey de Bohun, 1322, and of Dover Castle, 1344; while the King of France at one time wore his bassinet covered with white leather. One of cuir-bouilli, in Simon Burley's inventory, 1388, is coloured white and green. It was also tinned or gilded, and even of pure gold, as prizes for tourneys, or like one set with gems, sent to Edward I. by his father-in-law in 1334. In a bequest of William Langford, 1411, is a headpiece covered with red velvet, and actual specimens so covered are not unknown. The richness of the decorations bestowed on these helmets is shown in the goldsmith's account of one made for the King of France in 1352, and of another made in the same year for the Dauphin with a band of forty large pearls. Effigies and brasses show that coronets and jewelled fillets commonly adorned them, even in the case of simple knights, and that these are not imaginary decorations may be gathered from Froissart, who mentions that the King of Castille actually entered a battle in 1385 with his bassinet enriched with 20,000 francs' worth of gems. Sir Guy of Warwick, in the Romance, is given a helmet adorned with a circle of gold set with most precious stones.

Some notable champions, like Sir John Chandos and the Earl of Warwick, prided themselves on a disregard of danger and habitually fought without a visor, yet the tendency to close every crevice with plate defences developed continuously, and the frequent accidents at tourneys, when the lance-point glanced upward and entered the throat under the camail, led to the introduction, about 1330, of a gorget of plate or scales, which with the visor converted the bassinet into a closed helmet.

The defence of the breast was always considered next in importance to the head, and fourteenth-century inventories constantly refer to "pairs of plates large," perhaps like those till recently worn in Persia, corsets de fer, cors d'acier, brust plate pour justes, and other defences of plate. Chaucer writes, "Some would be armed in an haubergeon, a bright breastplate and a gypoun." The globose form given to the chests of effigies, such as that of the Black Prince, seems to imply the presence of a rigid defence under the emblazoned surcoat.

The limbs began to be definitely protected over the mail in the second half of the thirteenth century. Effigies and manuscript illustrations of that date commonly represent globose knee-caps, sometimes ridged down the front, and usually gilt. In the fourteenth century they are always present and frequently treated very decoratively, with shields, roundels, scalloped edges, etc. The technical name for these appendages is "Genouillière," or "knee-cap." Subsidiary plates often appear below the knee, and sometimes above it, and are continued under the mail.

The greave was a rigid gaiter fitting at first only over the front of the leg below the knee, but afterwards enveloping it; and it was either of metal or cuir-bouilli. When seen on English fourteenth-century monuments it usually seems to be of steel fitting closely over the mail, and laced or buckled at the back, but at times it is so richly decorated as to suggest cuir-bouilli. Greaves are usually omitted on early monuments, and are only commonly seen when they had become an integral part of the suit of armour. As yet they were not habitually worn except in battle, and knights were not at this time represented in their effigies accoutred for war, but in ordinary military costume. Thus the effigy of Aymer de Valence shows no plate armour, except the genouillière; but the two mounted figures of the canopy present the visored bassinet, the high gorget, the arm and elbow plates, the tubular greaves and steel sollerets for the feet. The tubular leg defence is not seen in earlier representations, and its introduction may coincide with the first recorded appearance in the field of large bodies of Welsh armed with long knives. It was usually hinged and buckled, and becomes more general as the century advances. This appears in the inventory of Piers Gaveston, 1313, who possessed three pairs of such greaves. Monstrelet relates that the bailiff of Evreux, sallying out without his greaves, had his leg badly broken by the kick of a horse.

Defences of plate armour for the feet are called sollerets, and are first, if somewhat indistinctly, visible in the small equestrian figure on the canopy of the tomb of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, in Westminster Abbey, the mail not being continued over the front of the feet as in the older effigies. One of the small equestrian figures of the adjoining tomb of Aymer de Valence has the feet, though mutilated, distinctly covered with small rectangular plates, arranged longitudinally in continuation of the greaves. In the D'Abernon and other brasses of the second quarter of the fourteenth century laminar plates are fastened across the upper part of the foot. Other varieties are the scaled sollerets of the De Cheney brass, 1375; the De Sulney brass, with sollerets of laminar plates, and one large plate over the instep; the Littlebury effigy, with longitudinal plates like those of De Valence. In the effigy of John of Eltham, 1334, we seem for the first time to meet with the whole foot visible incased in plate, as it continued to be during the rest of the century. In the Warwick collection a pair of sollerets are made each of one piece like sabots. The long curved sollerets with pointed toes of the second half of the fourteenth century are called pouleynes or poulaines, from the souliers à la Polaine, and differ slightly from those known as Cracowes, introduced by Richard II. from Bohemia. There are two fine pointed sollerets at Warwick, one measuring twenty-five inches from toe to heel, or with the spur thirty-two and a half inches. Another beautifully-made one attached to leg armour has the plates scalloped along the edges, and is attributed to Edward, son of Henry VI.

The gilt spur was the honorific and distinguishing badge of the knight, and was put on in the ceremony of investiture, and hacked off by the king's cook if the knight was formally degraded. An immense spoil of gilt spurs fell to the victors after the battle of Courtrai. Both the goad and rowel forms were in use throughout the century, and when knights habitually dismounted to fight, they were taken off. Froissart mentions instances where they were fixed in the ground like caltrops. The extravagantly long, rowelled spurs of Henry VI.'s time must have been peculiarly inconvenient.

No great time could well have elapsed before similar defences of plate were found necessary to protect the shoulders and elbows, which were scarcely less vulnerable than the legs. The shoulder-pieces, however, are rarely visible in illustrations and effigies, being much concealed by the surcoat. The earliest arm-defence is in the form of an elbow-guard, and appears in the effigy at Salisbury, date about 1260, consisting of one cupped rosette over another. Elbow-guards are more commonly seen in the second quarter of the fourteenth century, when they consist of cups and discs, or both combined, the latter occasionally spiked. The equestrian figures of the De Valence monument, already mentioned, show in one case gilt rosettes on the shoulders and elbows, and in the other the forearms sheathed in plate. John of Eltham, 1334, has a roundel on the elbow, with articulated plates beneath. In the Ifield effigy the arms are shown by Stothard completely sheathed, and with shoulder and elbow roundels bearing embossed lions' heads. Plain roundels, rosettes, shells, or lion masks were worn on the shoulders, and articulated plates are seen between 1320 and 1350. The singular and exaggerated plates known as ailettes, picturesque objects which rose above the shoulders like epaulettes, were as useless apparently as the shoulder-knots of the present day. They first appear on the scene in the Windsor tournament, 1278, and disappear in the first quarter of the fourteenth century. They are of many shapes and sizes, and are well seen in our illustration (Fig. 10) from Queen Mary's Psalter, in an elegant brass in Weaver's _Funeral Monuments_, as well as in many others, and in several stained-glass windows. Usually they bear the armorial bearings of the owner, though those of Piers Gaveston, 1311, were "frettez de perles."

Mail gloves continued to be worn, though with divided fingers, during the first part of the fourteenth century. The first effigy to show any change is that of a Whatton, engraved by Stothard, of the time of Edward II. Gloves of leather were sometimes worn between 1311 and 1360, as well as others of whalebone, metal studs and splintwork, iron scales and brass. Plate-armour gauntlets first appear towards the middle of the century with articulated fingers and a broad plate for the back of the hand and wrist; whilst a steel cuff, sometimes articulated, was shortly afterwards added. They are at times spiked, or with gads like knuckle-dusters, as in the case of the Black Prince, and frequently richly jewelled. The jewelled example given from the effigy of Sir Thomas Cawne, of the time of Edward III., is reproduced from Stothard's drawing. The other is from the monument of the Earl of Westmoreland, of the first years of Henry VI. Gauntlets are constantly represented as gilt in MSS. of these periods.

The knight's dress for war now consisted, in addition to any ordinary civilian underclothing, of a more or less complete suit of gambeson or quilted material, sometimes called the haketon, as in Chaucer's _Sir Thopas_:--

Next his shert an haketon And over that an habergeon,

And over that a fin hauberk Was all ywrought of Jeweswork, Ful strong it was of plate;

And over that his cote-armoure.

The habergeon is the mail in this case, and the hauberk is of plate or splint armour, while the cote-armoure is the surcoat, possibly thickly padded, as in the still-existing surcoat of the Black Prince. In the mutilated effigy at Sandwich the thick quilted gambeson is distinctly seen at the knee and wrist underlying the mail, while the fine hauberk of plate overlies it, and the surcoat is worn over all. The effigy at Ash shows the plate armour, under the surcoat, fashioned in the curious armadillo-like Jazerant or brigandine form, with an upper gambeson under it, as well as the usual second gambeson under the mail. That two separate quilted defences were worn at this time is supported by the De Crell brass, 1325, the D'Abernon brass, 1327, and the Ifield and John of Eltham brasses, 1334. The colours of these various garments, the edges of which were allowed to show one above the other, were no doubt effectively contrasted, while the edges of the mail, as we have seen, were pinked, vandyked, or scalloped and gilt or finished with brass rings, while the plate-armour finishes most commonly in a fringe-like arrangement of small vertical plates.