Part 3

Campaign Litter of the Emperor Charles V, 230

Carriage given by Napoleon I to Charles IV (from the Coach-houses of the Royal Palace, Madrid), 231

Gala Coach of Charles IV (from the Coach-houses of the Royal Palace, Madrid), 232

Carriage of the President of the Cortes (from the Coach-houses of the Royal Palace, Madrid), 233

The Crown Coach (from the Coach-houses of the Royal Palace, Madrid), 234

Wedding Coach of Ferdinand VII and Maria Christina (from the Coach-houses of the Royal Palace, Madrid), 235

Carriage of the Mace-Bearers of the Cortes (from the Coach-houses of the Royal Palace, Madrid), 236

Carriage, with gilt Panels, of Charles IV (from the Coach-houses of the Royal Palace, Madrid), 237

Cover of an Album, exterior, the work of E. de Zuloaga, 238

Cover of an Album, interior, the work of E. de Zuloaga, 239

Portable Chair, in Leather, of the Emperor Charles V, 240

Magnificent Bureau, in engraved Iron, belonged to Charles V, 241

Wooden Trunk, with Ornaments in the Pointed Style, 242

Iron Inkstand, embossed and inlaid, the work of E. de Zuloaga, 243

General View of the Interior of the Armoury, 244

General View of the Interior of the Armoury, 245

General View of the Interior of the Armoury, 246

Figure explaining various technical Terms used in the Text, 247

Figure explaining various technical Terms used in the Text, 248

SPANISH ARMS AND ARMOUR

INTRODUCTORY

The prominence which Spain has enjoyed from the earliest times as a manufactory of armour and a school of arms is attributable, in the first instance, to its mineralogical richness, and, subsequently, to the part it played in the military history of Europe. In the days of Rome’s greatness, Spain became the chief mineral-producing tributary of the Empire. Its mines contained in perfection all the metals then applied to warlike uses, and its rivers were believed to possess peculiar properties for the tempering of blades. Bilbilis was as much a name to conjure with among the Roman warriors as was the “Bilbo” among the gallants and swashbucklers of Shakespeare’s day. Toledo and the sword are indissolubly associated in the literature of arms; it is impossible to mention the name of the city without recalling the unchallenged excellence of the blades it has given to the world. And if Toledo is the city of the sword, Spain is the land of swordsmanship. It was in Spain that the muscular sweep of the broadsword was refined into the scientific point-play of the rapier; it was there that the art of fence originated; and to-day it is claimed that there are more books on fencing in Spanish than in any other language.

From the highest in the land to the lowest the love of arms is seen to have been inherent in the Spaniard from time immemorial, and he has ever shown himself quick to adopt foreign methods and innovations that promised to lend greater efficacy to his blow and sterner resistance to his defensive armour. Francis I. beheld the youth of Spain stoutly accoutred and armed to the teeth, and exclaimed, “Oh, happy land, which brings forth and rears armed men.” The profession of arms was the avocation of every Spaniard; he left his mother’s breast to take his place at his father’s side; he was a soldier by birth, breeding, and training. Only a nation of soldiers could have successfully withstood an invasion so overwhelming as that of the Saracens. Only a race imbued with the traditions and love of war and its arts could have persevered so long against enormous odds to the final and glorious triumph of the closing years of the fifteenth century.

The Spaniards of the days of Pizarro and Cortes, like their contemporaries, the English admirals, courted war as a mistress, and strove to meet her in their bravest array. The devoted attention they paid to their armour and the temper of their weapons excited the regretful admiration of their determined foe, old sea-dog Hawkins. The Castilian loved the glint of shimmering steel and the ring of a true forged blade on stout harness; his was a land of iron, and so long as the issue of the battle depended on the sword and the lance, he could defy Europe, and hold two Continents in fee. But the age of iron passed; with it passed that grand old craftsman, the armourer; and the day of Spain also, passed, for a while, into the grey evening of nations. For Spain, so faithfully wedded to its native arms, and so pre-eminent in their use, was slow to embrace the faith of explosives. Cervantes, in the following passage, which he puts into the mouth of Don Quixote, has left on record the aversion of his countrymen to the levelling-up influence of the rifle, and their exaggerated attachment to the weapons of chivalry:

“Blessed be those happy ages that were strangers to the dreadful fury of those devilish instruments of artillery which is the cause that very often a cowardly base hind takes away the life of the bravest gentleman, and in the midst of that rigour and resolution which animates and inflames the bold, a chance bullet (shot perhaps by one that fled, and was frighted at the very flash the mischievous piece gave when it went off), coming nobody knows how or from whence, in a moment puts a period to the brave designs and the life of one that deserved to have survived many years. This considered, I could almost say I am sorry at heart for having taken on me this profession of a knight-errant in so detestable an age: for though no danger daunts me, yet it affects me to think that powder and lead may deprive me of the opportunity of becoming famous, and making myself known throughout the world by the strength of my arm and the dint of my sword.”

The national love of the sword and buckler was encouraged in the Spaniards by many of their sovereigns, foremost among whom was the warrior-King, Charles V. In the beginning of the sixteenth century the crown of Spain passed to this prince, the grandson and heir of Maximilian of Germany, in whose veins flowed the blood of the martial Dukes of Burgundy. Maximilian had done more than any other monarch to encourage and advance the armourer’s art, and Charles V.’s passion for the practice and perfecting of arms, and all that pertained to military equipment, was even greater than that evinced by his grandfather. By a fortunate combination of circumstances, supplemented by his lust of conquest, he found himself the monarch of three realms, in one of which (Spain) the love of arms was almost a mania, while in the other two (Germany and Italy) the armourer’s craft had attained a degree of perfection that has not been approached in any other age or country. The sovereign that could command the services of the Colmans of Augsburg and the Negrolis of Milan was in an unequalled position for one who desired to gratify a taste for armour, and Charles did not neglect his opportunity. He patronised liberally the master-craftsmen of Italy and Germany, sedulously stimulating their rivalry the while, and at his death left to Spain--the worthiest of his realms to inherit it--the finest collection of knightly harnesses that any monarch had ever possessed.

It will be gathered from the following brief sketch that Spain has achieved distinction both as a manufactory and a storehouse of arms. Aragon, and, to a less marked extent, Castile, were always in the van where the improvement of armour was concerned; and although experts consider that Italy set the fashion in the craft during the Middle Ages, it is by no means certain that Barcelona did not, at some periods, assume the lead. Swords, as in the days of the Cæsars, continued to be exported to Italy from Catalonia through the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the traffic, curiously enough, being chiefly in the hands of that unwarlike race, the Jews.

But while arms and armour have ever been a study in the Peninsula which has engaged the closest attention of Kings, soldiers, and artificers, no distinct style, no essentially national type of armour was, or could be, evolved. Nor is this fact calculated to cause surprise, for it is obvious that there can be no Spanish school of armoury in the sense that there is a Spanish school of painting, or of music. Weapons and means of defence must vary according to periods rather than localities, and thus it follows that while the armour of one century may be easily distinguished from that of another, to differentiate between a German and a French suit of the same period is always a difficult, frequently an impossible, task. The warrior could not permit himself to be swayed by fanciful or patriotic prejudice in the fashion or make of his arms; his life depended on the stoutness and quality of his weapons, and he secured the best that his means could command wherever they were obtainable. If the enemy were possessed of stronger, more pliant, or better tempered weapons or accoutrements, the soldier had no choice but to learn the methods of his foeman. The secrets of improvements in the science of armoury could only be preserved in times of peace, for, once the weapons were used in the tented field, the riddle of their superiority was solved. The harness of a vanquished knight became, according to the laws of chivalry, the property of his conqueror. In this manner a constant interchange of arms and armour went on through the Iron Ages, and the equipment and methods of victorious and vanquished nations were sooner or later divulged and adopted.

There is, therefore, as has been said, no national school of Spanish arms; and the Royal Armoury itself, although admittedly the finest collection of its kind in the world, is not a gallery of Spanish workmanship. Thanks to the range and extent of the dominion of its founder, Charles V., the Armoury, from its institution, has assumed an international character. Here are suits of harness, the choicest product of native craft, executed at the Emperor’s command, interspersed with the finest works of Germany, of Flanders, and of Italy--gifts, purchases, and the spoils of war. In no other collection of a like nature can be seen so many _chefs d’œuvres_ of the greatest masters of Europe; but while so many of the most important exhibits are of foreign origin, the museum remains essentially the Royal Armoury of Spain--the repository of the armour of its kings, the swords of its captains, and the trophies of its victorious armies.

I

FROM THE FIFTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

When, in the fifth century, the Visigoths passed over the Pyrenees and laid the foundations of a new nation, they found a people armed for war, as they were clothed in peace, after the Roman fashion. The legionary’s equipment must have been tolerably familiar to the fair-haired invaders, and it is likely that they had already adopted it in many of its details. That they did so on their establishment in Spain, at all events, is proved by the descriptions contained in the _Etymologies_ of St. Isidore, which, however, make no mention of the lorica or breastplate, and ocreas or greaves worn by the soldiers of the empire. Reference is made instead by the saintly chronicler to coats of fence, made of chain-mail, or of thick quilted stuff woven in Silesia.

There was at one time a very general belief that chain armour was introduced into Europe from the East. This view is successfully combated by Hewitt--_Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe_--who proves that this important article of military apparel was worn by the Germans, Normans, and Anglo-Saxons at a very remote period. Varro, indeed, ascribes its invention to the Gauls. The Anglo-Saxon epic, “Beowulf” (eighth century) contains many allusions to the “ringed byrnie,” while in the _Volsunga Saga_ we read that “Sigurd’s sides so swelled with rage that the rings of his byrnie were burst asunder.” It is evident from this passage that what was meant was mail-armour; _i.e._, composed of interlinked rings, not merely the quilted tunic on which were sown metal discs, such as was, however, undoubtedly worn also at that time and for many centuries after. Both kinds of defensive armour may have been brought to Spain by the Visigoths, or again adopted by them subsequent to their settlement in the country.

I have been unable to discover on effigies or in illuminated manuscripts any specimens of Visigothic armour. There is good reason to believe that it was far from being of a rude description. The methods of tempering steel which had made the blades of Toledo and Bilbilis renowned throughout the Roman world could hardly have been forgotten; and Baron Davillier has shown that a craft closely allied to the armourer’s--the goldsmith’s--received liberal encouragement from the successors of Ataulfo. The Saracens, according to their own historians, were amazed at the splendour and richness of the treasure accumulated in the cities of Spain. Tharik Ben Zeyad, when he took Toledo in 712, found amongst a profusion of crowns, jewellery, and plate, “gilded armour, daggers, and swords richly mounted, bows, lances, and various arms, offensive and defensive.” The spoils, as enumerated by another writer, included one thousand swords for the use of the kings, and one hundred and seventy crowns of pure gold.

This testimony is confirmed by the priceless relics of Visigothic dominion, preserved in the Cluny Museum, and, thanks to the liberality of Queen Isabel II., in the Royal Armoury at Madrid (see plate 1). The circumstances of their discovery, as related by Don Pedro de Madrazo, and set forth by Conde de Valencia de San Juan, are of almost romantic interest.

“On the night of August 25th, 1858, a man and a woman were journeying on two small donkeys along the road from Toledo to Guadamar. On approaching the Guarrazar fountain, they observed by the light of the moon, that the rain which had fallen during a great storm the previous day, had washed the earth down towards the issue of the fountain, and left bare what looked like tombs. Out of curiosity, or necessity, the woman got off her donkey, and approached them, and in a square hole, made of stones and lime, ill-concealed with two flat stones, between which the moonlight penetrated, she saw with wonder that something strange was glistening. On her exclaiming, the man also dismounted, and, putting his hand into the hole, he touched an object like a collar made of hearts. He took it out, and after that, other things of different shapes, then a cross, then a crown, and then a larger one ... washing them with the water from the adjoining fountain, gold and precious stones revealed themselves to their astonished eyes. They afterwards declared that they thought they were dreaming. They took away the treasure they had found with all secrecy; said nothing in the town, and the following night, with the same secrecy, and provided with a small lantern and the necessary tools, they returned to examine the marvellous hiding-place, whence they took all that remained.

“Within a few days pieces of valuable gold and silver work of an unknown period began to be seen in the Toledo silversmiths’ shops, and a goldsmith and dealer in stones and gems in the town, who had his house and workshop in a beautiful garden by the Tagus, near the Sword Factory, and who was distinguished among his fellows by his taste for archæology, had the patience to acquire one by one, and to match together the different pieces under observation; after many combinations and rectifications, leaving out some pieces, and, with consummate art, supplying others that were missing, he at last formed, or rather restored, several crowns, among them one very large and valuable, which, by the hangings, was found to be the crown of King Recesvinto (649-672).

“With the same secrecy that the discoverers of the treasure had observed, Navarro (for this was the name of the dealer in stones and gems) proceeded with the difficult task of restoring to their original shape those inestimable insignia of Visigothic Royalty. He took them to France, and they were already in a case in the Cluny Museum when Spain heard of the discovery and extraction of the crowns of Guarrazar.

“But the treasure, taken in 1858 from Guarrazar to Guadamar was not exhausted. About May, 1861, a villager of Guadamar, Domingo de la Cruz, who had found in the same Guarrazar cemetery, but in a different hole to the one already explored, other crowns and objects used for worship, presented himself at Aranjuez, where Queen Isabel was at the time. This man, after many ambiguous and roundabout proposals, having ascertained that no harm would come to him from the revelation he was about to make, and, above all, stimulated by the promises which, relying on the generosity of the Queen, the Intendant Don Antonio Flores cleverly let fall in the conversation, said he was the possessor of these treasures. The crafty rustic had them with him, but at the moment he did not say so, and only showed them when Flores, having obtained the consent of her Majesty, formally offered him, in the Queen’s name, a life-pension [4,000 reals a year], which from that day was religiously paid to him.”

The Armoury and the Cluny Museum probably contain only a half of the treasure of Guarrazar. As we have seen, much of it was broken up and melted down by the goldsmiths of Toledo. It is said that it comprised a beautiful golden dove, which came into the possession of a jeweller, who had so many qualms of conscience concerning it, that he at last took the drastic course of throwing it into the Tagus. That rapid stream must have received a good deal of Visigothic treasure since it first flowed under the arches of Toledo.

The crowns preserved at Madrid and the Cluny are not the official insignia of royalty, but offerings at the shrine. This is proved by the inscriptions on them, and by the fringe of pendants, which could not possibly have dangled over the royal countenance. The crown of King Suintila (numbered N1 in the catalogue), who reigned from 621 to 631, is formed by two semi-circles of double gold plate, joined by hinges, the resulting hoop being 0.220 in diameter, and 0.060 in height. The inside plate is plain. The outer hoop is encircled by three bands in relief, two being set with pearls and sapphires, and the middle and wider one designed with openwork rosettes, enriched with settings of the same stones. In its original state the crown had, hanging from its lower edge, a cross and twenty-two letters, making up the inscription, SVINTHILANVS REX OFFERET. All and each of the letters were actual jewels set in a vitreous substance, like enamel sockets, attached to which are brilliants, pearls, and pear-shaped sapphires hanging from each other in the order mentioned. Though only twelve letters were remaining, the dedication was skilfully reconstructed by Señores Madrazo and Amador de los Rio. The crown is suspended by four chains from an ornament composed of two golden lilies separated by a piece of rock crystal cut in facets. Each chain consists of four links, shaped like the leaf of the pear-tree. Hanging from one of these chains is a cross of beautiful workmanship, composed of pieces from two other crosses, belonging in all probability to two different crowns.

The exhibits N4 and N6 are floral ornaments similar to that from which the crown of Suintila is suspended. The votive crown of the Abbot Theodosius (N2) is of less elaborate workmanship and design; seven of its eight pendants of gold, pearls, and sapphires remain. Close to it (N3) is the Byzantine cross which, the letters stamped upon it in reverse order tell us, was offered by Bishop Lucetius. It has, likewise, seven pendants of gold and pear-shaped sapphires. The various articles in this collection do not differ appreciably in style and material, it is perhaps unnecessary to observe, from those of similar origin in the Cluny Museum. All exhibit the traces of Byzantine influence.

To the Visigothic era is also ascribed (Conde de Valencia thinks with good reason) a very ancient horse’s bit (F123--plate 9), found on a battlefield in Andalusia, and said to have been used by Witiza, the ill-fated Roderick’s predecessor. The mouthpiece does not differ greatly from the modern pattern, but in place of rings it has four oblong pieces pierced with holes for the reins and halter. These apertures form dragons’ heads and crosses, alternating with cruciform monograms. The bit is of unusual thickness, and the roughness of the work, together with the silver incrustation, complete its resemblance to other relics classified as Gothic or Scandinavian.

During the three centuries that followed the dreadful days of the Guadalete, the Spaniard must needs have looked well to his armour and his weapons: “In native swords and native ranks, the only hope of courage dwelt.” The sword industry of Toledo had passed under the control of the invaders, and we read that Abd-ur-Rahman II. (822-852) regulated and reformed it. One of the numerous friendly passages between Moor and Christian was marked by a gift of Toledan blades from Al Hakim II. to Sancho, Count of Navarre (865). Meanwhile, among the fastnesses of Asturias and the Pyrenees, the hard-pressed Spaniards were forging for themselves arms and armour against which the sword of the doughty Roland was shivered, and which successfully withstood the swift strong lance-thrusts of Saracen chivalry. Cut off though they were from the rest of the Christian world, the early defenders of Spanish liberty do not seem to have arrayed themselves for war in a fashion very different from that of their contemporaries. In the cathedral of Oviedo is preserved the Libro Goticó,[A] a curiously illuminated codex, where we see “armigers” carrying circular and kite-shaped shields, and wearing, in one case, what seems to be a hauberk of mail. The sepulchre of the three daughters of Ramiro I. of Aragon, dating from the last years of the eleventh century, is sculptured with the forms of three knights, two mounted and about to engage in combat, while the third, Samson-like, is forcing open the jaws of a monstrous beast. The cavaliers wear close-fitting caps, seemingly fluted, and very much like the _chapelles-de-fer_ of a later age; long surcoats reaching below the knee, and decorated with ornamental borders at the neck, cuff, and openings; one is armed with a spear, the other with spear, sword, and kite-shaped shield with bosses; and both wear greaves or leg-armour of plate or leather. The horses are not provided with any defensive armour; the custom of “barding” chargers not being introduced till a much later date.