Part 5

The fourteenth century witnessed a notable transformation in military equipment.[C] The introduction of firearms and the marked improvement in weapons of offence led to the almost complete abandonment of the coats of mail which had served the chivalry of Europe so long and so well, and to the substitution of plate armour for at least the more vital points of the harness. In Spain we have seen the transition began considerably earlier than in Northern Europe, but the adoption of the new fashion in its entirety did not proceed quite so rapidly as this early start might lead one to expect.

Aragon, thanks to its intercourse with Italy--to which country, as has been noted, swords were exported from Barcelona--led the van in armourership. The companions-in-arms of Jaime el Conquistador are nearly always represented wearing a considerable weight of plate armour.

Don Ramon Folch, Vizconde de Cardona, surnamed, on account of his commanding personality and abilities, _el Prohom_, is shown on his tomb at Poblet wearing jambs, or greaves of steel (it is difficult to say which), and at the neck a high mentonnière, which must have been worn with a heaulme, or visored salade. The close-fitting _chapelle-de-fer_ is adorned with cardon flowers, the arms of his house. So also is the long and tastefully-embroidered surcoat with sleeves, which descends below the knees. Beneath this was worn a hauberk of mail, with articulated gloves. A broad decorated baldric supports a short sword. This monument dates from 1322.

No greaves or any plate armour, on the other hand, appear on the sepulchral monument, executed about twenty years later, over the remains of Don Rodrigo de Lauria, son of the famous Admiral. The warrior is clothed entirely in a suit of mail, with hood and camail, a graceful coronet with fleurs-de-lys encircling the forehead. The surcoat or tunic is, as in the other examples, charged with the armorial bearings of the deceased, and has three openings--at the sides, and in the middle--with a gilt fringe--“a fashion,” remarks Don Valentin Carderera, “which we have observed in Spain only on the statues of Aragonese knights.” The sword is much longer and narrower than usual, and reveals fine workmanship. The spurs are of the goad shape.

The _Historia Troyana_, executed in Castile about 1350, represents warriors clad in similar suits of mail, with pointed heaulmes with visors, but no chin-pieces. Greaves and genouillères are worn with the chausses. In one instance a surcoat is shown of scaled and studded pattern. This may have been some rare sort of gambeson, or again may have been made of the _cuir-bouilli_--boiled leather--common all over Europe and the East then and for centuries after. Banded armour is also shown.

The statue of Don Alonso Perez de Guzman, Captain-General of Jerez, who distinguished himself at the taking of Algeciras in 1344, is interesting technically as showing several new pieces of plate-armour. The jambs (leg-plates) are closed, and coudières are worn on the elbows and vambraces on the forearm. Defences of plate for the arm were coming into use about this time. The earliest examples date from 1328, but they occur very rarely prior to 1360. Yet this monument is believed to have been executed some years before the knight’s death in 1351. It is evident that the Castilians were not lagging behind in the arts and appliances of warfare. Don Alonso wears pointed sollerets of six plates, and the hauberk of mail beneath a surcoat. He clasps a long cross-hilted sword.

A decided impetus was given to the movement towards plate armour by the influx of English and French troops into Castile, incidental to the restoration and final deposition of Pedro the Cruel. Almost for the first time the Spaniards were brought face to face on the tented field with a foreign Christian soldiery, and that under leaders no less formidable than Edward the Black Prince and Bertrand Duguesclin. Against such doughty foemen stouter defences were needed than against the light-armed, leather-and-mail-clad chivalry of Islam. Though in Aragon the cuirass, or _coracina_, had already been worn, its introduction into Castile is generally ascribed to Bertrand Claquin and those who with him entered the service of Don Enrique de Trastamara. This tradition seems to be warranted by a sepulchral effigy of Don Pedro, described in Carderera’s _Iconografia_ (see plate 6), though it should be said that this was not executed till seventy-six years after that King’s death. The components of the armour are: a hauberk of mail, reaching half-way down the thigh; a coracina or cuirass; vambraces, rere-braces,[D] coudes, and genouillères. The surcoat and mantle which hide so much of the armour, are brocaded with gold flowers on a blue field.

The monument of one of Don Enrique’s partisans, Juan Alfonso, Lord of Ajofrin (see plate 3), was erected a year or two after his death on the field of Aljubarrota, in 1385. He wears a short hauberk with a sleeved surcoat, which probably concealed a cuirass. The leg-armour--jambs, genouillères, cuisses--is entirely of plate. The gauntlets are of extraordinarily delicate workmanship. The cuff and hand are of plate, richly chased; the fingers are articulated and composed of small annular plates, which must have allowed perfect freedom to the joints; the tips are shaped to imitate the nails; and the knuckles are furnished with gads or spikes, which served as offensive as well as defensive armour. Gauntlets of beautiful workmanship were not, of course, peculiar to Spain, but were adopted there as early as in any other country. The Lord of Ajofrin wears laminated sollerets, and carries a sword of unusual length, with drooping quillons, and a shield or escutcheon on the pommel.

Castile owed, not only the corselet, but an improved headpiece to the White Company, which crossed the Pyrenees to support the claims of Don Enrique in 1366. It should, however, be said that Don Pedro in his will, dated 1362, bequeaths his _bascinet_ to his son, Don Juan.[E] “The heaulme,” says M. Mathieu Prou, “having become too heavy, was from 1300 onwards little more than a headpiece for parade. In action the knights preferred to combat with uncovered face, the head protected by a casque called _bassinet_ or _bascinet_, which was without a nasal, round, at first rather low, but towards 1330 assuming an ovoid form. From the beginning of the fourteenth century it became the custom to fix to the iron cap a visor moving on pivots, or attached to hinges, and opening like a shutter. This visor was ordinarily pointed and elongated in muzzle form, and provided with two horizontal slits for the vision (occularia), and numerous holes for respiration. As this helmet did not protect the throat, to the lower part was soon added the piece called beavor, over which the visor fell when it was lowered.”

The celada or salade was also worn in Spain about this time. The collection of Don José Estruch, at Barcelona, contains such a headpiece of somewhat peculiar shape. The crest is very high and the brim very broad. To it is fastened a beavor in three plates, to which again is laced a covering of mail for the back of the neck. The bascinet is worn by the Lord of Ajofrin’s contemporary, Don Bernardo de Anglesola, of Aragon (see plate 8). It is encircled by a double band of ornaments and precious stones, and is worn over the camail, which falls like an ample tippet over the breast. The harness is composed of hauberk of mail, rere-braces, vambraces, coudes, gauntlets, cuisses, genouillères, jambs, and sollerets. The brocaded surcoat may be intended to conceal a corselet.

Froissart throws some light on the military equipment and peculiarities of the Castilians of his day. From more than one passage in the _Chronicles_ it is evident that the sling, a weapon long discarded by other Western nations, was still esteemed in Spain, where the javelin also was a favourite weapon. We read, “‘By my faith,’ said the Duke of Lancaster, ‘of all the arms the Castilians and your countrymen make and use, I love the dart best, and love to see it used; they are very expert at it; and I tell you, whoever they hit with it, he must be indeed strongly armed, if he be not pierced through and through.’ ‘You say truly,’ replied the squire, ‘for I saw more bodies transfixed at these assaults than ever I saw before in all my life. We lost one whom we much regretted, Senhor Joao Lourenço da Cunha, who was struck with a dart that pierced through his plates and his coat of mail and a gambeson stuffed with silk, and his whole body, so that he fell to the ground.’”

The address of the Castilians with the dart or javelin is again referred to at the attack on Vilha Lobos in 1386; while, at the battle of Najara, “the Spaniards and Castilians had slings, from which they hurled stones and crushed heaulmes and bascinets; in which manner they wounded many.” In another passage we are told that the troops were armed according “to the usage of Castile, with darts and _archegayes_ (assegais) and throwing stones from slings.”

There is a tendency among certain historians to exaggerate the influence exercised by the Moors on the applied arts in Spain. So far as armour was concerned, it is clear that the Christians of the Peninsula, where they did not originate fashions, followed those of Italy, or in later times of France. They certainly did not look to Granada for a lead. And if the Spanish Moors had been such skilful armourers as some would have us believe, it is hardly likely that their kinsmen and neighbours, the Moors of Barbary, would have gone so poorly equipped as they seem to have gone in Froissart’s time.

“For,” says Messire Froissart, “they are not so well nor so strongly armed as the Christians; for they have not the art nor the method nor the workmen to forge armour as the Christians do. Neither is the material, that is, iron and steel, common with them. Their armour is usually of leather, and at their necks they carry very light shields, covered with cuir-bouilli of Cappadocia, which, if the leather has not been overheated, no weapon can penetrate.”

On the other hand there can be no doubt that the conquest of Andalusia had let the Castilian artificers into the secrets of many new methods, such as damascening and enamelling, by which they were not slow to profit. The traditions of the goldsmith’s craft, handed down from Visigothic times, had never been lost; and certain it is that in the fourteenth century, when the conquerors had had time to assimilate the arts of the conquered to their own, armour and metal work of all kinds began to assume a rich and elaborate character. The goldsmiths of Barcelona, Toledo, Valladolid, and Seville enjoyed a European reputation. They worked in close co-operation with the armour-smith. In the example of a fourteenth-century harness we have just considered--that of Don Bernardo Anglesola--not only bascinet, gauntlets, coudes, and genouillères are chased, and in some cases set with precious stones, but the hauberk has a rich fringe of gilt, and each plate of the rere-braces has a decorative band at the lower border. The baldric is adorned with studs and fleurs-de-lys. In the statue, at Seville, of Don Alvaro de Guzman, Admiral of Castile, who died in 1394, the same elaboration may be noticed in the roped edges of the genouillères, the gauntlets, and the tasteful floral devices, alternating with rows of studs, in the ornamentation of the baldric. The pommel of the sword, as was customary, is emblazoned with the arms of the owner. According to Froissart, the bascinet of the King of Castile (1385) was encircled by a fillet of gold and precious stones--“qui bien valoient vingt mille francs.”

Helmets at the close of the fourteenth century were not only richly, but, as was often the case in preceding ages, fantastically decorated. We have an excellent illustration in the Armoury (plate 9) in the crest of King Martin of Aragon (1395-1412), formerly attributed to Jaime el Conquistador, and carried for many years in the procession of the “Standart,” at Palma (OII). It represents the head, neck, and wings of a dragon--the _Drac pennat_, the device displayed in field and tilt-yard by the Princes of the House of Aragon from Pedro IV. to Fernando II. (1336-1479). As was generally the case, it is made of boiled parchment and gilded plaster, and was set on the crest of the helmet, encircled by the crown or coronal, amid dancing plumes. The cap on which the _Drac pennat_ is mounted was added in the first years of the fifteenth century, that it might be worn by the man who carried in the procession the standard of Jaime I. At the renowned and honourable passage of arms of Don Suero de Quiñones (1434), the crest of one of the knight’s helmets was in the shape of a golden tree, with green leaves and golden fruit; round the trunk was coiled a serpent, and in the middle was a naked sword with the device--_Le vray amy_. (True friend).

To the last year of the fourteenth century belongs the effigy of a knight of the Anayas family in the Cathedral of Salamanca, described by Carderera. French influence is attested by the corselet and by the brigantine or hauberk of metal discs which was in very general use and esteem in France at that time. The legs and arms are, as now customary, sheathed in plate, the coudes being of tasteful design and sharply pointed. The transition from mail to plate is well illustrated by a medallion which represents Alfonso V. of Aragon, when a youth (about 1416), in a coat of mail, and a bas-relief portraying him as a man of mature years in a complete harness of plate, mail only appearing as gussets at the armpits.

The reign of Juan II. of Castile (1406-1454) is extolled by Spanish writers as the golden age of chivalry. Knighthood was in flower, in fact, somewhat later in the Peninsula than in the rest of Europe, though I can find no adequate reason for ascribing the introduction of chivalry, as an institution, to the Black Prince and Duguesclin. Such enactments as that of Jaime II. of Aragon (1291-1327), which ordained that any cavalier escorting a lady should be secured from any kind of molestation or hindrance, and given a free passage from one end of the kingdom to the other, show that the spirit of chivalry was certainly understood South of the Pyrenees many years before the battles of Najara and Montiel. But it is likely enough that warfare with a Christian foe may have put a finer edge on the Spaniards’ sense of honour--blunted, perhaps, by their relations with the infidel, to whom it was deemed unnecessary to extend all the courtesies of war. The lull, too, in that long conflict caused men to find an outlet for their energies in tourney and tilt-yard, where the atmosphere was more favourable to the generous emotions than was the field of actual battle. Juan II. and his all-powerful minister, Alvaro de Luna, Constable of Castile, delighted in jousts and tournaments, and encouraged the sentiment and exercise of chivalry by all the means in their power. The Constable himself often appeared in the lists as a mantenedor (or challenger), or aventurero (or respondent). The spirit of the age is exemplified by the famous passage of arms, to which I have already made reference. In 1434, Don Suero de Quiñones, a knight of good family, besought the King to grant him release from a vow he had made to his lady, by allowing him to hold the Bridge of Orbigo, near Leon, with nine friends, for thirty days against all comers. His Majesty convoked the Cortes to deliberate upon this grave proposal, with the result that a large sum of money was voted to defray the expenses of the tournament, and invitations were sent to all the Courts of Europe. Knights flocked from all parts of the Continent. Nothing was omitted that could lend dignity and splendour to the scene. There were in all sixty-eight competitors, and seven hundred and twenty-eight courses were run. One Aragonese knight having been killed, and several champions seriously wounded, among them Suero de Quiñones himself, the latter was adjudged to have fulfilled his vow, and to have honourably discharged his duty to his lady. This memorable contest was considered to have reflected immortal lustre on Castilian arms, and King Juan no doubt felt prouder of himself, his knights, and his kingdom than if he had driven the Moors from Spain. The Honroso Paso de Don Suero de Quiñones is set forth in minute detail in a special chronicle, and is frequently and lovingly referred to in Spanish history.

Stimulated by such public displays of prowess and knightly address, and despite severe sumptuary laws, armour and military gear became more ornate and costly every year. In the chronicle of Don Alvaro de Luna, in the account of the battle of Olmedo in 1445, we read:

“So long had the wars in Castile lasted, that the greatest study of everyone was to have his armour well decorated and his horses well chosen; so much so that it would scarcely have been possible in all the Constable’s host to find one whose horse had no covering, or the neck of whose horse was without steel mail. Thus all those noble young gentlemen of the Constable’s house, and many others, were very richly adorned. Some had different devices painted on the coverings of their horses, and others jewels from their ladies on their helmet-crests. Others had gold and silver bells, with stout chains hanging to their horses’ necks. Others had badges studded with pearls or costly stones around the crests. Others carried small shields, richly embellished, on which were strange figures and inventions. Many different things were put on the helmet-crests, for some had insignia of wild beasts, others plumes of various colours, and others had plumes both on their helmet-crests and on the face-covering of their horses. Some horsemen had feathers that spread like wings against their shoulders; some affected simple armour; others wore plated coats over the cuirass; others rich embroidered tunics.”

The increased popularity of tilting and similar martial exercises brought about a demand for heavy reinforcing pieces of armour, such as could not be worn habitually except by men of the strongest physique, in the field. Henceforward we find a distinction made between war harness and tilting harness. As a specimen of the latter, belonging to the time of which I am now speaking (middle fifteenth century), we have in the Royal Armoury, a Spanish tilting breast-plate (E59), thus described in the 1898 Catalogue:

“Spanish tilting Breastplate, middle fifteenth century, composed of breastplate and over-breastplate, screwed together. The breastplate, tin-plated to avoid oxidation, preserves the nails of the brocade with which it was covered. The over-breastplate was also called ‘the volant’--a defence much used in tilts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was strengthened with iron, as stated in the description of the honourable passage of Don Suero de Quiñones. It is doubtful if this second piece was also covered with rich cloth, like others of a later period; it has its original hollow lance-rest, for tilt, fastened with a bolt and four staples. It has also a piece of iron, which we call _flaon_, used as a wedge between the shield and the breastplate, and forming a resisting whole against the adversary’s lance. This _flaon_, the only iron one we have seen, serves also to fasten the helm to the breast”--in the manner shown on the piece A16. [The _flaon_ was nearly always of wood.]

The headpiece was correspondingly strengthened. Referring more particularly to the tilting helm that forms part of the suit (A16) belonging to Felipe I. of Castile (1478-1506), from which the casque worn by Don Suero probably did not differ, the Conde de Valencia says:

“The tilting helm, or round closed _almete_, as it was called, appeared at the end of the fourteenth century, and continued in use, with slight modifications in each country, until the beginning of the sixteenth. Designed to resist the impact of a lance in front, the part around the vizor, or the horizontal opening between the crest and the face, was strengthened, attaining a thickness of nine millimetres in some places; in others, as the sides and occiput or back of the helmet, it gradually diminishes. Its vertical and almost cylindrical length, is such that it might rest on the shoulders, so that, fastened to the breastplate by the hinge, and to the backplate by a strong strap, it might protect the tilter’s head without inconveniencing his movements. In certain tilts, this resource was insufficient against the violence of a lance-thrust at full gallop of two horses going in an opposite direction, and then the horsemen protected the head with a stiffened cap, which in German was called _harnisch kappe_.”

The armet, the most graceful form of steel headpiece, also seems to have been introduced into Spain about the middle of the fifteenth century. A fresco in the Escorial, copied from a painting of the first half of that century, representing the battle of Higueruela, depicts men-at-arms wearing this species of helmet. It superseded the bascinet for use in war, and will be described further on in these pages.

The sword continued, as during the preceding centuries, to be two-edged, of rhomboidal or almond-shaped section, intended much more for cutting and hacking than thrusting. The grip now tended to lengthen, and the pommel, which was usually pear-shaped, became lighter. To this period belongs G4, the sword presented by Pope Eugene IV. to Juan II., in the sixteenth year of his pontificate (1446), as the inscription engraved with aqua fortis on the ricasso records. The blade is wide and grooved. In the groove are inscribed the words PIERVS ME FECE.

“The guard, notable for its elegant simplicity, is all of silver, gilded over and chased, with the cross of straight arms with fleurs-de-lys at the ends. The hilt is a festooned ballister, _i.e._, a small pillar swelling in the centre or towards the base, and the pommel, covered with leaves, also festooned, is pear-shaped. The description in the inventory of this Treasury (King Juan’s) makes us aware that the hilt has lost much of its most beautiful decoration: ‘Another sword with a groove in the middle and the words _pierus me fece_, gilded, has the cross one hand in length, the pommel, hilt, cross, and all the sheath of gilded silver, and on this are some open leaves soldered to some trunks; and the cross is a serpent with wings enamelled green; the rim, which is the first piece of the sheath, is enamelled blue with its _quirimi_’ (from _quiris_, a spear or javelin), &c.”

G5. Blade of a Pontifical sword, sent to Henry IV. of Castile by Pope Calixtus III. in 1458. (This Spanish pontiff, Alfonso Borgia, of Valencia, was elected in 1455, and died in 1458.)

It has four surfaces, with false guard and long ricasso, sloped on both edges; gilded and engraved on both sections. Length, 1.180; width, 0.039.

The history of this weapon leads us to suppose that the mark is that of an unknown Italian swordmaker. On each side of the blade is a circular shield with the arms of the Pontiff (a bull on a ground composed of bezants, surmounted by the tiara and keys), and this inscription: ACCIPE S C M GLADIVM MVNVS A DEO I QVO DEI CIES (_sic_) ADVERSARIOS P P LI MEI XPIANI.