A PAGEANT OF MEDIAEVAL ARMOUR.
PLENTY of men in armour will be seen in the Army Pageant which begins on Monday, but few of the onlookers will be able to appreciate the history and the meaning of their coats of mail. The history of mediaeval armour and its evolution throughout the Middle Ages is, nevertheless, well worth study.
In many ways the battle of Hastings was an epoch-making event, and not the least in its relation to military history. There the English infantry battle, and the shield-wall forma- tion—likened to a castle for its firmness and impenetrability— faced a brilliant Continental cavalry judiciously combined with foot soldiery armed with missile weapons ; and there the English failed. Their javelins and few bowmen availed them little, and acts of indiscipline precipitated their fate.
It seems certain that chain-mail was in use at the time of the Conquest; but there can be little doubt that the armour of the time was commonly of leather or quilted linen, in many cases reinforced with metal rings and studs. Harness for the legs was only rarely used. The hauberk to the knees, the conical nasal helmet, and the large kite-shaped shield were the defences of the Normans ; their bow was not the longbow which became so famous later. Many of the English carried the great round shield, and used the long-handled axe. Watching the evolution of armour and arms, we mark the gradual perfection of chain-mail harness in the thirteenth century. Chausses covered the legs ; the hauberk, with continuous coif, sleeves, and mittens, was worn over a gambeson. The plastron defer and the skull of iron beneath the coif (or the cervelliere, occasionally, above it) were the only defences not of pure chain in the knightly harness. There were, however, the iron helms fre- quently, but not invariably, worn over alL It is instructive to follow out their evolution. The flat-topped forms began to give way, in the latter half of the century, to the round- topped, and soon were succeeded by the " sugar-loaf " type. This conical apex had an obvious advantage in causing blows to glance off from the head. The crossbow was in use by the beginning of the thirteenth century, but it does not seem to have affected at all largely the evolution of armour; the ordinary give and take of war found the chain harness in- sufficient. But we ask ourselves what were its imperfections; and the answer is best afforded by a glance at the additions and alterations brought about by the passage of time. Knee- cops of cuirbouilli and then of plate are first noted. The continuous coif was superseded by the more convenient coif de mailles ; it is possible that this also relieved the bead and neck from some of the crippling drag to which we faney the continuous coif must have subjected the wearer. Ailettes for a time gave additional protection to the neck and shoulders. Quilted chaucons of leather or fabric sometimes covered the thighs—perhaps lightening the clinging of the mail chausses about the knee—and the knee-cops met bainbergs of plate and lames on the feet, the chain chausses being still worn beneath, below the knees. Demi-brassarts and elbow-cops of plate were strapped over the mail sleeve of the hauberk. Thus, roughly speaking, was the knight of the early fourteenth century armed. The shield, indeed, is to be treated as armour, for when it merely hung by the guige about the knight's neck, it defended the left front of the wearer and was a part of his harness. It was certainly a cumbrous equipment, and as armour became more perfect the long kite-shaped Norman shield was superseded by the smaller bowed form, and then by the flat type ; finally, the still smaller heater-shaped four- teenth-century shield arose. The round-topped cervelliere with permanently attached camail seems to have been the prototype of the conical bascinet with removable camell which was one of the most noticeable features of fourteenth- century equipment. To the latter helmet a movable vizor was sometimes fitted even before the middle of the century, though it was not always worn at a much later day. In this country various circumstances (including perhaps some traditional clinging to the English infantry battle) tended to modify the very general superstition of the sole utility of an armoured cavalry. None the less, in the years between the Conquest and the fourteenth century spectacular cavalry achievements outnumbered those of infantry. The longbow being recognised by the end of the thirteenth century, our archers of the next century made it obviously worth the while of the English men-at-arms to act as infantry on more than one famous occasion. By the latter half of the fourteenth century the knight was armed in sollerets, jambs, knee-cops, and cuisses of plate, and had over the aketon the old chain hauberk (now reaching to the middle of the thigh instead of to the knees). The "pourpoint " was worn above the hauberk, with the short surcoat or jupon over all. But it is certain that the coat of splint-work, or of plates couvertes (which the "pourpoinV probably was in many cases), preceded by some years the use of the breast and back of plate, with taces. The breast- and back-plates, with the skirt of taces in later instances, were often worn under the jupon for perhaps the last three decades of the fourteenth century. The gauntlets, brassarts, elbow-cops, and epaulieres of plate, with the bascinet and chain carnal', completed a war harness which was practically of plate. The misericorde had now taken its place almost invariably at the right side of the belt. Towards the beginning of the fifteenth century many of the swords used were longer in the hilt than formerly, and heavily bladed in proportion,—were, in fact, hand-and-half swords. The shield was now practically out of use in war, and the glaive (properly so-called), the axe, and the shortened, five- foot spear were among the weapons of the men-at-arms fighting on foot. Of obvious imperfections in this armour we notice the hanging edge of the camail, beneath which foigning weapons might find entrance. In some cases this defect was partly remedied by ties or arming-points holding down the camail edge. The vif de l'harnois between the breastplate and the epanlieres left a vulnerable spot only protected by the chain hauberk (or generally, now, by the mailed arming- doublet superseding it).
In the early fifteenth century the jupon ceased to be worn, so that the breast- and back-plates and the attached faces appeared ; the mf de Phornois was covered by the small plate moton. Greatest change of all, the camailed bascinet was succeeded by the slightly different form of bascinet with gorget of plate ; under the gorget the standard of mail was worn in addition for a short time. Thus had the harness of chain given way to one of complete plate ; but the words lorica and cuirass remain to suggest the defences of leather which preceded both. That plate was superior to chain is true for obvious reasons, as well as for some which are not quite so immediately apparent. Upon mail a weapon could bite, for chain offered no glancing surface ; the weight of plate armour
was borne by the hips, not wholly by the shoulders as had been the case with the chain hauberk.
During the fifteenth century we have to deal with intricate and innumerable details, and a brief survey can only be imperfect. The salade with vizor and beavor came into use, and articulated breast- and back-plates (plavcates) gave more freedom of movement for the body. The plate reinforcements of the vif de l'harnois grew into pauldrons (especially large on the left side), the elbow-cops were increased in efficiency, and generally in size, and the garde de bras was added. This does not exhaust the tale of plate additions. Suits of armour were fairly common in which a certain amount of individual fancy was apparently allowed full play. It seems probable that at one time in fighting on foot the left arm, so greatly reinforced, was used to guard the head and body from blows much as the shield had once been used. In any case, there was obvious reason for giving as much freedom as possible to the sword-arm, and for concentrating reinforcements on the left side, where of course the greatest proportion of blows fell.
The snits of the sixteenth century and the enclosing helmets, &c., of that age (despite the ingenuity and fine craftsmanship of much of the work) have not quite the same interest for us in connexion with the history of actual warfare. The weight of armour was telling against it; the time was coming when it was to be deemed an encumbrance. The old knightly view of war as a glorified tournament was giving way—killed by many harsh experiences—before that theory which was ulti- mately to supersede even the army of trained mercenaries by a standing body of waged men as efficient as Cromwell's genius could make them. In the seventeenth century the cuirass and tassets were full body-armour; but a buff coat or a mere gorget of plate amply sufficed for nine-tenths of the men of that day. In fact, the "hand gonne " of the Middle Ages had become a practical weapon at last; cavalry and infantry were used in combination and with real appreciation of tactics and strategy; the mediaeval period had given place to the modern epoch.
Inasmuch as no man may hope, in a short space, to write comprehensively of mediaeval armour, arms, and warfare, it seems necessary to add one final remark. Though we can state with much exactness the generally well-defined trend of
evolution in armour (which is the collective result of indi- vidual experience and individual choice in the Middle Ages), yet the classification is not so simple as it appears. The very facts—the individuality of experience and choice—
necessitate the appearance of exceptions to the general rules, and still more presuppose the overlapping of the more strongly marked fashions. Recollecting the clearly defined and un- mistakable periods into which armour falls, we may best express how personal fancy still retained some freedom of action, though within certain limits, by a passage which Chaucer wrote concerning the end of the fourteenth century (a passage equally true, mutatis mutandis, of other ages) :—
" Som wel ben armed in an haubergeoun;
In a bristplate and in a light gypotut ; And somme woln have a pairs plates large; And somme woln have a Price sheeld or a tarp ; Somme woln ben armed on hir leg,ges weel, And have an ma, and sorame a mace of steel ; Ther is no news gyse that it nas old.
Armed 'were they, as I have you told, Everyth after his opinion."
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