Part 4

1. Gauntlet from the effigy of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, in Staindrop Church, Durham. Time of Henry VI.

2. Gauntlet from the effigy of Sir Thomas Cawne, Ightham Church, Kent. Time of Edward III.]

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 in Chaucer's _Sir Thopas_ there is no mention of steel forming part of the visible equipment:--

His jambeux were of cuirbouly, His swerdes sheth of ivory, His helme of latoun bright.

Over the body armour was a garment, called by Chaucer "the cote-armoure, as white as is the lily floure."

His sheld was all of gold so red, And thereon was a bores hed A charbouncle beside.

The helmets were almost hidden by the large crests and the scarlet mantling, and the metal exposed was generally gilt. The trunk armour was concealed under the emblazoned surcoat or pourpoint; and when the thighs and legs are visible below this they are seen to be clothed over the mail by splinted or brigandine armour, showing velvet or satin externally attached by gilt or silver nails; the knee-caps and greaves are often richly moulded and probably cuir-bouilli, as seen in the statues on the front of Exeter Cathedral, and in the paintings from St. Stephen's Chapel they are also shown as gilt. The arms and at times the hands are similarly clothed. The horse-armour was almost entirely concealed by rich caparisons, as in Chaucer's _Knightes Tale_:--

Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele, Covered with cloth of gold diapered wele.

The figures from the tomb of Edmund Crouchback and Aymer de Valence, engraved by Stothard, show the emblazoned housings of the time of Edward II. The equestrian figures in Queen Mary's Psalter show that the fully-equipped knight of this period, when in full war panoply, was a gorgeous object, blazing in colours and gold, and exhibiting little to recall the stern realities of campaigns and sieges.

A few examples from inventories will best illustrate the colours and the magnificence of the materials used to conceal the steel. Humfrey de Bohun had breastplates covered with "vert velvet"; the Earl of March used "rouge samyt" and "drap d'or," and others had "cendal vermeil, samit vermeil, zatony, veluyau asuré, veluyau vert ouvré de broderie," etc. Piers Gaveston's pair of breastplates were "enclouez et garnie d'argent od 4 cheynes d'argent covery d'un drap de velvet vermail besaunté d'or." Two pairs of plates for the King of France required 3000 crescentic and 3000 round gilt nails to fix the velvet. Exposed pieces of armour were gilt, if not jewelled, pearls and carbuncles being the favourite gems. The baldric, knightly belt, sword-belt, hilt, and scabbard furnished a field for the goldsmith. The magnificence indulged in was often destructive to the wearers, who might have otherwise escaped in battle. They were "hunted for their hides," or slain for the sake of their spoils.

The weight and fashion of the armour largely determined the tactics in war. The English appear at this time to have reverted to their ancient practice, once more dismounting to engage in battle. At Cressy the horses were sent to the rear, while the army, forming into battalions of archers supported by dismounted men-at-arms, took up its ground and waited the attack. The weight of armour carried by the men-at-arms made any forward movement on their part impossible on foot. By good fortune the 15,000 Genoese cross-bowmen, who might have inflicted severe loss on the English, were unable to use their bows, and the French coming up quite out of hand, charged and retreated as the spirit moved them, without deploying into any battle formation, and so fell into the utmost confusion, with the well-known results. Our archers "shot their arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed as if it snowed," piercing the Genoese and dismounting the horsemen; upon which a body of 1000 Welsh foot with long knives advanced through the men-at-arms, who made way for them, and slew numbers of the French chivalry, so that the battle was "murderous and cruel."

At Poitiers, 1356, the English similarly selected a strong position and awaited the attack dismounted. The French, uncertain how to meet the enemy, commenced by attacking with a mounted division, which was routed by the effect of the English arrows on the horses before getting to close quarters. Their retreat threw the second battalion, which also appears to have been mounted, into a confusion, which quickly developed into a panic. Deeming an advance necessary at this critical moment, the English men-at-arms sent to the rear for their horses and charged, completing the destruction and dispersal of all but the rear battalion. This was dismounted in order to fight on foot, and armed with sword and battle-axe presented a most stubborn front, under the king in person, numerous parties from the broken battalions rallying and dismounting to join in its advance. The English resumed the defensive and remained immovable, the archers plying their arrows with the usual effect. The only English force capable of movement and able to skirmish in the field was the archery, while the men-at-arms kept their ground or advanced very slowly in compact order, until, seeing the day won, they again mounted to complete the discomfiture and engage in pursuit.

At the battle of Auray, 1364, the French dismounted and fought on foot, when the arrows did little execution among them, and the fight developed into a hand-to-hand engagement with battle-axes, in which the leaders, Sir Oliver de Clisson and Sir John Chandos, greatly distinguished themselves. In all subsequent battles and skirmishes between French and English, until the close of the century, we find that both sides invariably fought on foot, riding up till almost within striking distance, and then dismounting as if by common consent. To advance any distance on foot after dismounting in order to engage was, in fact, almost impossible. The old knightly weapon, the lance, was in consequence almost discarded, and could now only be used effectively if shortened to about five feet, and thus with the shield fell into disuse as a weapon of battle, while the presence of artillery also began to make itself felt.

IV

_The Age of Plate-Armour_

Any line dividing what has here been termed a Transition Age from the age of fully-developed plate-armour must of necessity be a purely arbitrary one. Roughly speaking, the age of plate commenced when mail no longer formed the outer defence of any part of the body. The last chink, leaving the mail exposed under the armpit, was a vulnerable opening in the armour called the "vif de l'harnois," or the "defaut de la cuirasse"; and even this now became protected by small plates of steel called gussets. The necessity for such defences was often proved in tournaments: it is related that the lance pierced "au vif de l'harnois" for lack of the crescent or "gouchet." When these last plates were added the knights appeared more invulnerable than Achilles. 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. The tendency is best exemplified in the fine Gothic armour of the second half of the fifteenth century, of which much is fortunately preserved. This combines most splendidly picturesque outlines with graceful fan or shell-like ridgings, which please the more when examined critically, since every curve and fluting serves some definite and practical end.

The casing of plate-armour, which had been so long elaborating, having at last become complete, the work of the armourer was directed to further perfecting its parts, and to disencumbering the wearer, with the least risk, of his weighty underlying chain-mail, quilted gambesons, and padded surcoats. This process had not proceeded far when Agincourt was fought, if we may credit the testimony of a French knight, who was present and describes the armour as consisting of the long hauberk of chain-mail reaching below the knee, and very heavy, with the leg-armour beneath, and over this the plate or white armour with the bassinet and camail. One Allbright, noted particularly as "mail-maker," and twelve other armourers, were in the suite of the king on this expedition. The weight of armour would, therefore, have rendered a repetition advisable, on the part of the English, of the tactics of Cressy or Poitiers in this battle, had not the French disconcerted us by dismounting and seating themselves, and refusing to advance. They had also, copying the English, brought a large force of archers and cross-bowmen into the field, and, in addition, kept bodies of men-at-arms in the saddle on either wing, to make flank attacks when opportunities occurred. 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. They advanced, however, with repeated huzzas, but, as the Chroniclers inform us, "often stopping to take breath." The French, stooping their visors under the amazing hail of arrows that began to fall upon them, gave way a few paces, and the English, coming close up, pressed them soon afterwards so hardly, "that only the front ranks with shortened lances could raise their hands." Our archers, flinging away their bows, fought lustily with swords, hatchets, mallets, or bill-hooks, supported manfully by King Henry and his men-at-arms. Pressing on and slaying all before them, they routed the van and reached the main body, which was also quickly destroyed. The rear battalion of the French, which had remained mounted, then fled panic-struck, and the battle terminated in some desultory charges made by a few parties of nobles and their men-at-arms, which were easily repulsed; 10,000 French perished, all but 1600 being gentlemen! many in the massacre of prisoners consequent on a false alarm. The battle of Verneuil, so fatal nine years later to the Scots, who lost the Earls of Douglas, Murray, and Buchan, with the flower of their army, was fought on precisely the same lines; the main French battalion with their Scottish allies on foot being first shaken by the storm of arrows, and then destroyed at close quarters by the advance of the archers with the usual "loud shouts," supported by the Duke of Bedford and the men-at-arms. These defeats caused the French to again waver in their plan for meeting the enemy, for at the battle of Herrings, and the skirmish at Beauvais in 1430, they made their attack mounted, the English archers receiving the first charge behind their palisade of pointed stakes, and defeating the enemy by the clouds of arrows taking their usual deadly effect on the horses. These stakes, six feet long and sharpened at both ends, formed an important item of the archers' equipment, and were planted in the ground by the front rank, sloping towards the enemy, the next rank fixing theirs intermediately to affright the enemy's horse. Throughout the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, the Burgundians of all arms were often compelled "under pain of death" to fight dismounted, the Picards especially adopting the tactics and perhaps equalling the English. A little later, as at the battle of Montlhéry, 1465, both Burgundian and English archers are armed with the formidable long-handled leaden mauls or mallets, which the armour of the men-at-arms was incapable of resisting. In the account of one of these battles we learn incidentally that the duty of the varlets who invariably formed part of the retinue of each man-at-arms was to succour and refresh their masters during the heat of the engagement, and to carry the prisoners they took to the rear.

As the various hauberks of mail, brigandines, gambesons, and other defences became more or less obsolete and discarded by men-at-arms armed cap-à-pied, they were relegated to a lighter-armed cavalry and the infantry; but so long as a suit of mail continued to be worn by the man-at-arms as a defence underlying the armour of plate, flexibility in the latter was of paramount importance.

Regarding the armour of Henry V. as the earliest complete cap-à-pied plate-armour, we find it thus composed. The breast and back plates are each of one piece, the gorget is usually in one, though a standard of mail sometimes replaces it; the limb-defences are of few pieces and rigid, except at the joints, which are guarded by caps or roundels; while the armour of the fingers, toes, and upper surfaces of the shoulders is articulated or protected by narrow laminar plates. The introduction of the gussets, and more particularly of the horizontal bands of plate forming a short petticoat below the waist, materially altered the appearance of the armour of the fifteenth century from that of the fourteenth. The plates of the petticoat, called the tassets, are first seen in the brass of Nicholas Hawberk, at Cobham, who died in 1406, and they gradually increase in number till about 1420. At Agincourt, where the fighting was on foot, the visored bassinet would have been worn by the king and his men-at-arms, and not the great helm. The example of the latter suspended in the chantry of Henry V. in Westminster Abbey, though a real helm, was only purchased from Thomas Daunt, for 33s. 4d., according to Rymer, with the crest, for the funeral. The bassinet was probably plumed with ostrich feathers, which were taking the place of crests, and was encircled by a coronet, damaged in the melée by a blow from the Duke of Alençon, which among its jewels comprised the ruby of the Black Prince, now in the regalia. The diamond-hilted sword was not taken into the fray, unfortunately, as it happened, and fell a prey to the baggage-looters. The king is generally represented wearing a tabard of arms on this occasion, a garment differing from the surcoat in being loose and cut like the modern herald's tabard, emblazoned before and behind and on the broad flaps which do duty for sleeves. The horses, borrowing the custom of Lombardy, wore a heavy chamfron or headpiece of plate, of which a specimen still exists in Warwick Castle, and an articulated crinet or neck-defence of overlapping plates, put together on the same plan as the tassets, and probably some mail defences concealed by the emblazoned caparisons. The ostentatious magnificence which had hitherto covered the body armour of the knight with silks and satins, velvet and bullion and gems, especially among the Burgundian French, was now in process of being transferred to the horse. The housings are described as of silks and satins of every colour, or velvet crimson and blue, or cloth of gold, and sweeping the ground, besprinkled with escutcheons of arms, and loaded with silversmith's work, or raised work of solid gold. We read of trappings of white silver fringed with cloth of gold, and of cloth of gold interwrought with solid silver; and it appears that no materials were too rich to deck out the favourite destrier or war-horse. It is unlikely that the English were at this time behind the French in display, for so early as 1409, of the six pages of Sir John de Cornewall, two rode horses covered with ermine, and four horses with cloth of gold; and in 1414 the English embassy carried themselves so magnificently that the French, and especially the Parisians, were astonished. Splendid, however, as were the housings, the headpieces of the horses eclipsed them. The horse of the Count de Foix at the entry into Bayonne had a headpiece of steel enriched with gold work and precious stones to the value of 15,000 crowns. The Count de St. Pol's horse's headpiece on leaving Rouen was estimated to be worth 30,000 francs, while those of the Dukes of Burgundy and Cleves on the entry of Louis XI. into Paris were still more magnificent. That of the king, however, was on this occasion merely of fine gold with ostrich plumes of various colours. As with the armour in the fourteenth century, the rich trappings of the horse naturally led at times to the pursuit and capture of the owner. It is difficult to believe, in days of such magnificence, that the pay of the Duke of York under Henry V. was only 13s. 4d. per day, an earl received but 6s. 8d., a baron or banneret 4s., a knight 2s., an esquire 1s., and an archer 6d.

Though Henry V. wore royal armour at Agincourt it does not appear that he followed the prudent custom, first noticed in the battle of Viterbo, 1243, of dressing several knights in an identical manner with himself. At Viterbo, on a knight dressed like the emperor being slain, the result was a panic, and the emperor himself had to press with his trumpets into the thickest of the fight to restore confidence. At Poitiers, though nineteen knights were dressed like the king, it did not preserve him from capture. In England, however, the king was saved on many a field by this precaution, as at the battle of Shrewsbury, when the earl, Sir Walter Blount and two others in royal armour were slain. The passages in Shakespeare will be present to the mind of all:--

Another king! they grow like hydras' heads; I am the Douglas fatal to all those That wear those colours on them. Who art thou, That counterfeit'st the person of a king?

and again, when Richard exclaims at Bosworth--

I think there be six Richmonds in the field: Five have I slain to-day instead of him.

The appreciation of steel, called by the Chroniclers plain or white armour, for its own sake, had not progressed very far by the time of Henry V.'s invasion of France, but the more lavish splendours were at least reserved for gala occasions. The next modifications were evidently devised to increase the flexibility of the armour, and can be traced with greater precision in England than elsewhere, owing to the fortunate preservation in our churches of a matchless series of military monumental brasses. These clearly indicate that the tendency during the first half of the fifteenth century was to increase the number of joints or articulations in every part of the armour. By the close of the reign of Henry V. things had proceeded so far in this direction that in some cases the greater part of the limb-defences are made up of laminated plates.

The next important change in the appearance of the man-at-arms occurs in the early years of Henry VI., and is due to a striking development of the fan-shaped elbow-guards, first seen in a rudimentary form in 1425, as well as to an addition of short hinged plates called tuilles to the bottom of the hoop-like skirt of tassets which lay closer to the body. By 1435 these tuilles are ridged or fluted perpendicularly and scalloped along the lower edge, and shortly after they take the more developed, elongate and elegant forms familiar in Gothic armour. By 1440 we have the addition of great shoulder and elbow plates attached by nuts and screws, and concealing the articulated shoulder-pieces or epaulettes. These extra plates usually differ in size, being often very much larger on the left side, which received the blows, and thus conferring a quite peculiar character on the plate-armour of the middle of the century. A scarcely less important modification, introduced about 1445, is the articulation of the breastplate in two pieces, the lower overlapping and sliding over the upper, and made flexible by straps.

The Daundelyon brass of this date, at Margate, exhibits a left elbow-piece of immense size, and pointed and ridged tuilles below the tassets, which are almost repeated again in form by the plates below the knee-caps. John Gaynesford's brass at Crowhurst, 1450, presents strong reinforcing shoulder-guards over articulated plates, and repeats the same long peaked and ridged plates below the knee-cap. We continue for the next few years to find the limb-defences constantly varying in the number and form of the pieces composing them, according to the dictates of conflicting requirements, namely flexibility and impenetrability. The frequent absence of tuilles at this time is held to imply that they were not used in combats on foot, then very popular. It is obvious that when the immensely long and pointed solleret came in with the equally preposterous spur, the fashion of fighting on foot was on the wane, and the men-at-arms generally fought mounted during the Wars of the Roses.