Part 8

It may be only romance or it may be fact, but certainly Oliver de la Marche,[85] writing about the year 1450, describes some such process of tempering armour after it was made. “Boniface avoit trempe son harnois d’une eau qui le tenoit si bon que fer ne povoit prendre sus.” It is not to be suggested that it was a special kind of water that was used for this, but rather that it was some method of heating and cooling the metal which was employed. Angellucci, in the _Catalogue of the Armeria Reale, Turin_ (p. 129), quotes, from documents of the sixteenth century, the account of a breastplate made by Colombo, an armourer of Brescia, being spoiled because he had used excessive charges for his pistol or musket.

1602. _Milice français_, Montgomery, Pt. II, p. 187.

Les chevau-légers estoient armez d’armes complètes d’une cuirasse à l’épreuve. Le reste estoit à la légère.

The last detail shows that the back-pieces were much lighter than the proof breastplates, and this is borne out by other similar entries during the century. Evidently the efficacy of the musket had increased in the first years of the seventeenth century and with it the weight of the proved armour. In later entries we find that pistol proof is of more frequent occurrence, and from this we may gather that the weight of metal was a serious hindrance to the soldier and that he preferred the risk of a bullet.

Still there are cases to be found of complete proof, for in 1605 even the brayette was of proof (_Arch. Gov. Brescia Privil., R. 7, V_, p. 10),[86] and if this small, in fact the smallest, portion of the armour was proved, we may be sure that the whole suit was tested equally.

In 1628-9 we learn from the State Papers Domestic, lxxxix, 23, that one Whetstone had a project for making light armour as good as proof, but there are no details of his methods. It is quite probable, in most cases, that when one piece of the armour was proved the rest were made of similar material and tempered in the same way, and that actual proof was not expected or given. An interesting extract from the _Memorials of the Verney Family_, IV, 30, gives us some information as regards the proof of armour:--

1667, Feb. Richard Hals is choosing some armour for his cousin in London: he has tested it with as much powder as will cover the bullet in the palme of his hand.

This rough-and-ready method of estimating the charge is borne out in Gaya’s _Traité des Armes_, p. 30 (Reprint 1911, Clarendon Press).

The Verney extract goes on to say that Verney wished to have the armour tested again, but the armourer refused, for by this time it was finished, and he said that “it is not the custom of workmen to try their armour after it is faced and filed.”

This suit cost £14 2s. 8d., and when it was delivered Verney was by no means pleased, as it did not fit.[87] A clear proof that armour was tested before it was finished is to be found on the suit made by Garbagnus of Brescia for Louis XIV of France, now in the Musée d’Artillerie (G, 125). M. Buttin[88] in noticing this suit describes it as “La magnifique armure offerte à Louis XLV par la République de Venise,” but in this we must certainly hold a different opinion, for the production, although elaborately engraved, is perhaps the best example of the decadence of the craft of the armourer, so graceless and clumsy are its lines and proportions. The proof mark is upon the left of the breastplate, at the point where the lower edge of the pauldron ends. It has been made the centre of a double-petalled rose, showing plainly that the bullet mark was there before the engraver began his work. A similar mark at the back is made the centre of a flower (Fig. 35). The document relating to the “proof mark” of the Armourers’ Company of London will be found in Appendix K.

Gaya in his _Traité des Armes_, 1678, referred to above, states on page 53 that the casque and front of the cuirass should be of musket proof, but the other parts need only be of pistol or carbine proof. In speaking of head-pieces he states, on the same page, that the heavier kinds were proved with musket-shot, but the light varieties were only tested with “estramaçon” or sword-cut; and he adds that for armour to be good it must be beaten and worked cold and not hot.

We have seen how armour was proved and how the proof mark of crossbow-bolt or bullet is often found as a witness to the fact. In addition to this we frequently find the mark or poinçon of the armourer, which invariably means that the piece is of good workmanship and worthy of notice.

Like all the other craft gilds, that of the armourer was very jealous of the reputation of its members. The tapestry weavers of Flanders were obliged to mark, in some cases, every yard of their production; and so in fine suits of armour we find many of the individual pieces that go to make up the suit stamped with the maker’s mark and also with the stamp of the town. These town stamps are mostly found in German work from Nuremberg, Augsburg, etc. We find the name Arbois used on some Burgundian armour, but never are the names of Italian or French towns stamped. With the sword this rule does not hold good, for the Spanish, Italian, and German makers frequently used the town of origin as a mark in addition to their own. Toledo, Passau, Ferara, Solingen are all found upon swords, and are very often stamped upon blades of an entirely different nationality. This forgery of the stamp may have been perpetrated with the intent to defraud, or it may simply have been used as a mark of excellence, like “Paris fashions” or “Sheffield steel” at the present day. The forgery of marks on suits of armour is very seldom met with and where it exists it is obviously done for ulterior reasons.

The stamps take the form of signs such as the trefoil of Treytz, the monogram such as the “M Y” of the Missaglias, and the crowned “A” of the Armourers’ Company of London; the rebus, as for example the helm used by the Colman (Helmschmied) family, or a combination of two or more of the above variety.

About the year 1390 we have the following entry:--

Achetiez de Symond Brufaler armeur ... 1 auberion d’acier de botte cassé duquel toutes les mailes sunt seignier du seignet du maistre.[89]

This shows that in some cases every link of mail was stamped with the armourer’s mark. In Oriental mail letters and sometimes words from the Koran are stamped on each link, but we have no examples extant of European mail stamped with the maker’s mark on each link.

On May 11, 1513, Richard Thyrkyll writes to Henry VIII from Antwerp saying that he can find no “harness of the fleur de lys” in any part of Brabant (Brit. Mus. Galba, B, III, 85).

This probably refers to a trade-mark or poinçon well known as denoting metal of high temper. A brigandine in the Museum at Darmstadt bears this mark repeated twice on each plate, showing that it was proof against the large crossbow (Fig. 36). Demmin (_Guide des Amateurs d’Armes_) gives a mark of a lion rampant as stamped on the plates of a brigandine in his collection, and an example in the Musée d’Artillerie has the Nuremberg mark on each of the plates.

In the case of mail a small label is sometimes found, riveted on to the fabric, on which is the maker’s stamp; an example of this is the eagle which is stamped on a label attached to the mail skirt G, 86, in the Armeria Reale, Turin (see Table of Marks, 59). In brigandines we sometimes find each of the small plates stamped with the maker’s mark, which is held to be evidence of “proof.”

As we have seen from the entry under the date 1448, on page 65, the single stamp signified proof against the small crossbow and the double stamp proof against the heavy windlass-bow.

As has been noticed above, the forgery or imitation of marks is more common on sword-blades than on defensive armour, and of these the wolf, dog, or fox of Passau is most frequently imitated. In some instances the representation is more or less life-like, but in others there is simply a crude arrangement of straight lines that suggest the head, legs, body, and tail of the animal.

Stamping of armour was practised early in the middle of the fourteenth century, as will be seen in the Regulations of the Company of Heaumers transcribed in Appendix B.

In Rymer’s _Fœdera_ (XIX, p. 312) we find accounts for repairing and remodelling armour in the year 1631, and at the end of the list comes the entry “For stamping every harness fit to be allowed £ 0 0 0”, which shows that even armour that was remade from old material was subjected to tests, and also that these tests were recorded by a gratuitous stamp of the craftsman or of the company to which he belonged.

The only entry extant which actually refers to the making of these stamps for armourers is given in the _Mem. de la Soc. Arch. de Touraine, T. XX, pp. 268-9_ (_Arch. de Tours, Grandmaison_).

1470. A Pierre Lambert orfèvre, la somme de 55 s. t. ... pour avoir fait et gravé 6 poinsons de fer acérez pour marquer les harnois blancs et brigandines qui seroient faiz et délivrez en lad. ville, de la façon que le roy l’avait ordonné, et pour avoir retaillé et ressué 2 desd. poinsons qui estoient fenduz en marquant les harnois.

A Jehan Harane orfèvre, pour avoir gravé les armes de la ville en 2 poinsons de fer pour marquer les harnois et brigandines vendues en lad. ville 30 s.

The number of armourers’ marks known at present amounts to several hundred, but of the majority nothing is known as to ownership and history. A few of the principal marks in English and Continental collections are given on page 148.

FOOTNOTES:

[77] Gaya, _op. cit._

[78] _Revue Savoisienne_, 1906, fasc. 4.

[79] Panzer, body-armour.

[80] _Cat. Armeria Reale Turin_, 129.

[81] _Rev. Savoisienne_, 1906, fasc. 4, p. 3.

[82] Edit. 1756, p. 58.

[83] A half-suit in the possession of H. Moffat, Esq., Goodrich Court, formerly the property of New College, Oxford, has a heavy “plastron” or reinforcing piece. The bullet has dented this and also the cuirass underneath. The head-piece and back-plate are pierced by bullets.

[84] Hungarian or Innsbruck iron.

[85] _Memories_, I, xxi (edit. 1884).

[86] _Cat. Armeria Reale Turin_, p. 73 note.

[87] See page 105.

[88] _Rev. Savoisienne_, 1901, fasc. 2 and 3.

[89] Arch. Cam. de Turin, Compte des Très. gén. de Savoie, Vol. XXXIX, f. 163.

THE DECORATION OF ARMOUR

From the earliest times defensive armour has been more or less decorated and ornamented with more or less elaborate detail as the armourer became skilled in his craft and as the patron indulged in vanity or caprice. Perhaps the most astonishing work in this direction is the shoulder-piece of a cuirass known as the Siris bronze in the British Museum, which is of such elaborate repoussé work that it is difficult to see how the tool can have been used from the back. It is not, however, the intention of this work to deal with Greek or Roman armour, or indeed with armour previous to the eleventh century; otherwise its limits would have to be considerably enlarged. The ornamentation of early armour, the employment of brass or latten rings, which formed patterns on the hauberk, called for no special skill on the part of the craftsman, and it is only when we come to the thirteenth century that we find traces of actual decoration on the pieces of plate which composed the suit.

And here it should be remembered that the axiom of suitability was, in later years, forgotten, and the ever-important “glancing surface” was destroyed by designs in high relief, which not only retained the full shock of the opposing weapon, but also hindered the free movement of the several plates one over the other. The word “decoration” in itself suggests a “decorous” or suitable adornment, and this suitability was not always considered by the sixteenth and seventeenth century armourers.

The use of jewels was always favoured among the nobility, and we find in the inventory of the effects of Piers Gaveston[90] plates ornamented with gold and silver and ailettes “frettez de perles.” In 1352 King John of France and the Dauphin had elaborate head-pieces ornamented with jewels, and in 1385 the King of Castile wore a helmet at the battle of Aljubertota which was enriched with gold and valued at 20,000 francs.[91]

The well-known brass of Sir John d’Aubernon, 1277, shows the first traces of the actual ornamentation of armour, which culminated in the work of Piccinino and Peffenhauser in the sixteenth century. Similar ornamentation is found on the brass of Sir Robert de Bures, 1302 (Fig. 37). It is possible that the poleynes shown on this brass and also the beinbergs on the figure of Guigliemo Berardi in the Cloisters of the Annunziata at Florence (Fig. 38) were made of cuir-bouilli and not metal, for there is not much incised or engraved iron found in domestic objects of this period (Fig. 37). But when we reach the end of the century we find a richly decorated suit of complete plate shown on the brass of an unknown knight of about the year 1400 which in no way suggests any material but iron or steel (Fig. 39).

This engraving of armour, either by the burin or by etching with acid, was employed with more or less intricacy of detail from the beginning of the fifteenth century up to the period when armour was discarded; for the suits of Charles I (Tower, II, 19) and of Louis XIV of France (Musée d’Artillerie, G, 125) are almost entirely covered with fine engraving. The tradition is well known that the art of engraving and printing the results on paper was discovered by the Florentine metal-workers of the fifteenth century, who employed this expedient for proving their ornamental work upon various metals. In some cases the engraving of armour was merely the first process of the niello-work, in which the lines and spaces cut out were filled in with a black compound. Neither the engraving alone nor the niello-work in any way interfered with the utility of the armour, for the surface was still capable of a high polish and would still deflect the weapon. No better example of this could be found than the “Engraved Suit” made for Henry VIII by Conrad Seusenhofer (Tower, II, 5). Here the entire surface is covered with fine engraving of scenes from the lives of SS. George and Barbara, and of decorative designs of the royal badges--the Rose, the Portcullis, and the Pomegranate. Originally the whole suit was washed with silver, of which traces remain, but there was no attempt to destroy the utility of the armour. Indeed, it would have been a daring armourer who would have essayed such decoration when making a suit which was to be a present from Maximilian to Henry VIII, both of whom were among the most practised jousters in Europe (Plate XII). It was only when work in high relief was produced that this utility was destroyed. While condemning the neglect of true craft principles in this respect, we cannot but give our unstinted admiration for the skill in which this embossed armour was produced. The Negrolis, the Colmans, Campi, Lucio Piccinino, Peffenhauser, and Knopf were all masters of this form of applied art; but the admiration which their work compels is that which we have for the work of a gold or silver smith, and not for that of the armourer. In some cases, it is true, there is some definite idea in the craftsman’s mind of a subject, as for example the parade suit of Christian II (Johanneum, Dresden, E, 7), in which the artist, who is generally considered to have been Heinrich Knopf, embossed scenes from the labours of Hercules on the horse-armour. As a rule, however, the ornamentation is merely fantastic and meaningless, and consists for the most part of arabesques, masks, and amorini based upon classical models of the worst period and style. For sheer incoherence of design, and at the same time for technique which could hardly be surpassed, we have no better example in any of the applied arts than the parade suit made for King Sebastian of Portugal by Anton Peffenhauser of Augsburg in the second half of the sixteenth century (Real Armeria, Madrid, A, 290). Here we have tritons, nereids, dolphins and sea-horses, combats of classical warriors, elephants, allegorical figures of Justice, Strength, and Victory, gods, goddesses, heroes, virtues, and symbolic figures spread broadcast among a wealth of arabesques and foliation which leaves the beholder breathless at the thought that this was simply produced for parade purposes, when but little of the detail could be seen and none of it could be adequately studied or admired. In fact the whole equipment may be described in a sentence originally used in far different circumstances: “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre” (Plate XIV).

Much of this embossed work was blackened or oxidized so that the full value of the relief-work could be appreciated. Gilding and gold inlay were also in high favour, but the latter art never reached the high pitch of excellence which we find in Oriental weapons, though the arrogant Cellini asserted that he could damascene swords as well as any Oriental craftsman, and better. That the art was not seriously attempted we gather from Cellini’s own words, for he says that it “differed from any he had as yet practised.”[92]

In all this ostentatious riot of ornament we in England preserved a dignified reticence. It is true that the City of London commissioned Petit of Blois to make the cumbersome gilded and engraved suit for Charles I, but we have in our national collections no specimens of elaborately embossed parade armour which were made for kings, princes, or nobles in England.

The master-craftsman Jacobi Topf and his pupil William Pickering both produced suits of great richness and beauty, but they were always eminently practical, and their utility and convenience were never hampered or destroyed. Where there is embossing it is shallow, and as the relief is not sharp there is no edge which might catch the lance-point or sword. Much of the work of Topf was russeted and gilt, a method which produced a highly ornate and yet never a trivial or confused effect.

The parade suit by Bartolomeo Campi, made for Charles V (Real Armeria, Madrid, A, 125), is so obviously a fantastic costume for masque or pageant that it can hardly be criticized as armour. It is based upon a classical model, for the cuirass is moulded to the torse after the manner of the armour of the late Roman Empire. As metal-work it will rank with the finest specimens extant, but as armour it completely fails to satisfy (see page 132 and Plate XIV).

Although not in any way decorative, the “puffed and slashed” armour copied from the civilian dress of the sixteenth century is an example of the armourer making use of embossing apart from the actual requirements of the constructive side of his craft. Radiating lines of repoussé work, simple, fine, and delicate, had been introduced into the later forms of Gothic armour, the pauldrons had been fluted like the cockle-shell, and these flutings had been made of practical use in Maximilian armour, giving increased rigidity without weight, a factor which is found in modern corrugated iron.

The imitation of fabrics in steel is, however, unpardonable, and has not even the richness or minute technique of the parade suits mentioned above. It is true that the embossing gives greater rigidity to the metal, but we can have none of the admiration for these unnatural forms of armour that we have for those in which the goldsmith and armourer worked together. The style of dress which was imitated was in itself designed to create a false impression, for the slashings were intended to convey the idea that the wearer was a swashbuckler, fresh from the wars. We can only, therefore, regard it as an absurdity to represent fabrics, which were supposed to have been frayed and cut by weapons, in weapon-proof steel. That the fashion was popular we know from the number of suits extant, and even Conrad Seusenhofer himself did not disdain to produce them. The vogue did not endure for more than about twenty years, for as soon as the fashion in civilian dress changed the armour became simpler and the imitation ceased (Plate XXI).

FOOTNOTES:

[90] _New Fœdera_, II, 203.

[91] Froissart (Johnes’ trans.), II, 124.

[92] _Life of Benvenuto Cellini_, 1910 edition, I, 112.

THE CLEANING OF ARMOUR

An important part of the work of the armourer was the cleaning and keeping in repair his master’s effects. This was especially the case with mail, which from its nature is peculiarly susceptible to the action of rust. It is to this cause and to the incessant remaking of armour that we owe the loss of all authentic mail armour of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. A good example of this may be cited in the hoard of plate armour and helmets, of which last nearly a hundred were collected, found in a cistern in the castle of Chalcis, in Eubœa, in the year 1840.[93] They had lain there since the year 1470, when the castle was taken by the Turks, and are in many instances in excellent preservation considering the condition in which they were found. The collection was brought to light and catalogued in a very unscientific manner by the historian Buchon, but there is no trace of mail of any kind except one link attached to a helmet.

In the early part of the fifteenth century mail was used extensively both for complete defence and for protecting vital parts not covered by plate, of which details will be found on page 109; therefore it is most improbable that a large collection such as this should have been left with no vestiges of mail. It is obvious, therefore, that the delicate fabric was attacked and destroyed by rust long before the same agent could make any effect on the solid plate. The following extracts will give in chronological order the various entries which concern the cleaning and repairing of armour:--

1250 (?). _The Avowynge of King Arthur, stanza 39._

Gay gownus of grene To hold thayre armur clene And were[94] hitte fro the wette.

Here we find the reason, or at any rate one of the reasons, for wearing the surcoat. Some writers have suggested that it was worn to protect the Crusader from the sun in his Oriental campaigns, but the quotation given definitely asserts that it was to keep off the rain. This is certainly a practical reason, for, as has been stated before in this chapter, the intricate fabric of mail was peculiarly susceptible to damp.

1296. 23-24 _Edw. I_ (_Duchy of Lancaster Accounts_).

Itm. xx s. xj d. in duobus saccis de coreo pro armatura comitis.

This refers to leather sacks used either for keeping the armour in or for cleaning it by shaking it with sand and vinegar.

1344. _Inventory of Dover Castle_ (see also page 25).

i barrele pro armaturis rollandis.