6. _English from the Norman Conquest._--It is unnecessary here to trace

in detail the history of European armour in the middle ages and after, but its use and fashion in England may illustrate the broad lines of the gradual perfection and the hurried abandonment of the ancient war-harness. Each country gave its armour something of the national character, the Spanish harness being touched with the Moorish taste, the Italian with the classical note borrowed from the monuments of old time, and the German with the Teutonic feeling for the grotesque. [FIG. 4.--From the Bayeux Tapestry.] 11th-century Bayeux tapestry. To understand the development of English arms and armour it is well for us to consider carefully the fashion of these things at the time of that landmark of history, the Norman Conquest. Poets, chroniclers and law-makers give us material for their description, and in the great embroidery of Bayeux, with its more than six hundred lively figures, we have pictured all the circumstances of war. We find that weapons and war gear have advanced little or nothing beyond the age which saw the Dacian warrior armed from crown to foot. A knight is reckoned fully armed if he have helmet, hawberk and shield; his weapons are sword and lance, although he sometimes carries axe or mace and, more rarely, a bow. The coat of fence, which the Norman called _hawberk_ and the English _byrnie_, hangs from neck to knee, the sleeves loose and covering the elbow only, the skirt slit before and behind for ease in the saddle. The Bayeux artists (see fig. 4) commonly show these skirts as though they were short breeches, the hawberk taking the fashion at first sight of a man's swimming dress, but other authorities set us right, and towards the end of the tapestry we see men stripping hawberks from the slain by pulling them over the head. Back and front are so much alike that he who armed Duke William for the fight slipped on the armour hind side before, an omen that he should change his state of a duke for that of a king. The hawberk might be mail of woven rings, of rings sewn upon leather or cotton, of overlapping scales of leather, horn or iron, of that jazerant work which was formed of little plates sewn to canvas or linen, or of thick cotton and old linen padded and quilted in lozenges, squares or lines. There are indications that the hawberk was sometimes reinforced at the breast probably by a small oblong plate fastened underneath. Its weight is shown in the scene where William's men carry arms to the ships, each hawberk being borne between two men upon a pole thrust through the sleeves. The helmet is a brimless and pointed cap, either all of metal or of leather or even wood framed and strengthened with metal. Its characteristic piece is the guard which protects the nose and brow from swinging cuts, so disguising the knight that William must needs take off his helmet to show his men that he had not fallen. Such a nasal appears in a 10th-century illumination; at the time of the Conquest it was all but universal. It grows rare and all but disappears in the 13th century, although examples are found to the end of the middle ages. The helmet is laced under the chin, and under it the knight often wore a hood of mail or quilting which covered the top of the head, the ears and neck, but left the chin free--in two or three cases he has this hood without the helmet. A close coif was probably worn beneath it when it was of ringed mail, to spare the fretting of the metal on the head. The knights' legs are shown in most cases as unprotected save by stout hose or leg-bands: only in two or three instances does the tapestry picture a warrior with armed legs, and it is perhaps significant of the rarity of this defence that the duke is so armed. The feet are covered only by the leather boot, the heels having prick spurs. Broad-bladed swords with cross-hilts of straight or drooping quills are fastened with a strap and buckle girdle to the left side. They have a short grip, and the blade would seem to be from 2-1/2 to 3 ft. in length. The chieftain unarmed in his house is often seen with unbuckled and sheathed sword sceptre-wise in his hands, carrying it as an Indian raja will nurse his sheathed tulwar. The ash spears brandished or couched by the knights as they charge seem from 7 to 8 or 9 ft. in length. In a few cases a three-forked pennon flutters at the end. The axe, a weapon which the Normans, in spite of their Norse ancestry, do not carry in the battle, is of the type called the Danish axe, long-shafted, the large blade boldly curved out. Maces, such as that with which the bishop of Bayeux rallies his young men, seem knotted clubs of simple form. Short and strong bows are drawn to the breast by the Norman archers. Of the shields in the fight, four or five borne by the English are of the old English form--large, round bucklers of linden-wood, bossed and ribbed with iron. For the rest the horsemen bear the Norman shield, kite-shaped, with tapering foot, and long enough to carry a dead warrior from the field. On the inner side are straps for the hand to grip and a long strap allowed the knight to hang the shield from his neck. Let us note that although wyvern-like monsters, crosses, roundels and other devices appear on these shields, none of them has any indication of true armory, whose origins must be placed in the next century. 12th Century. The 12th century, although an age of riding and warring, affects but little the fashion of armour. The picture of a king on his seal may well stand for the full-armed knight of his age, but Henry Beauclerc, Stephen and Henry II. are shown in harness not much unlike that of the Bayeux needlework. But the sleeve of the hawberk goes to the wrist, and the kite shield grows less, Stephen's shield being 30 in. long at the most. On Stephen's second seal the mail hood is drawn over the point of the chin, and Henry II.'s seals show the chin covered to the lips. At least one seal of this king has the legs and feet armed with hose of ringed mail, probably secured by lacing at the back of the leg as a modern boot is laced. The first seal of Richard Lionheart marks an important movement. His hawberk, hood and hose clothe him, like his father, from crown to toe, and to this equipment he adds gloves of mail. Under the hawberk flows out to the heels the skirt of a long gown slit in front. But helm and shield are the most remarkable points. The shield has become flatter at the top, and at last the shield of an English king bears those armorial devices whose beginnings are seen elsewhere a generation before. The earlier seal has the shield with a rampant lion ramping to the sinister side and closely resembling that on the shield of Philip of Alsace, long believed to be the earliest example of true armory. But the shield in the second seal bears the three leopards which have been ever since the arms of the kings of England, and from this time to the end of the middle ages armorial devices become the common decorations of the knight's shield, coat, saddle and horse-trapper. The helmet of the first seal is a high thimble-topped cap, without a nasal guard, but the second has the king's head covered with the great helm, barrel-shaped and reinforced in front with a flat ventaile pierced in slits for the sight. This helm is crested with a semicircular ridge from which spring two wings, or rows of feathers fan-wise. On its side the ridge bears a single leopard, the forerunner of the coming crests. 13th Century. For 13th-century arms, although but poor scraps remain of original material, we have authority in plenty--pictures, seals and carving, and, above all, the effigies in stone or brass which give us each visible link, strap and ornament. All these have for a commentary chronicles, poems and account books, so that the history of armour may be followed in detail. [Illustration: FIG. 5.--Knights' Armour, c. 1250. From _The Ancestor_, by permission of A Constable & Co. Ltd.] The long, sleeveless surcoat seen over King John's mail on his broad seal goes through the century and is often embroidered with arms. The shield becomes flat-topped the better to receive armorial charges. The great helm is common, although many knights on the day of battle like better the freedom of the mail hood with a steel cap worn over or under its crown, keeping for the tourney-yard the great helm which towards the century-end begins to carry its towering crest. Great variety is seen in the forms of the flat or round-topped helm, some being in one piece, pierced for sight and air, others having hinged or movable ventailes. At the end of the century a sugar-loaf type is the established form. The knight's hawberk is worn over a gambeson of linen, quilted linen or cotton, which lesser men wear with a steel cap for all defence. Breast and back plates also are sometimes borne under the hawberk, and the first plates in sight at last appear in those knee-cops which protect the joining of the upper and lower hose, and in a few examples of bainbergs or greaves of metal or leather. At the end of Henry III.'s reign we have the admirable illustrations of a manuscript of Matthew Paris's _Lives of the Offas_, with many pictures of knights. (See fig 5.) Here we see knights with knee-cop and greave and a plenty of curious headpieces, the plain mail hood and mail hoods with a plate ventaile to cover the face, barrel-helms and round-topped helms and even round-topped helmets with the Norman nose-guard. In the last half of the 13th century appears the curious defence known as _alettes_. This name is given to a pair of leather plates generally oblong in form and tagged to the back of the shoulder. As a rule they are borne to display the wearer's arms, but being sometimes plain they may have had some slight defensive value, covering a weak spot at the armpit and turning a sweeping sword-cut at the neck. They disappear in the earlier years of Edward III. Surcoat, shield and trapper have the arms of their owner. The rowel-spur makes a rare appearance. Weapons change little. although the sword is often longer and heavier. Richard I. had favoured the cross-bow, in spite of papal denunciations of that weapon hateful to God, and its use is common through all the 13th century, after which it makes way for the national weapon of the long-bow. 14th century. In the 14th century, the high-day of chivalry, the age of Crecy and Poitiers, of the Black Prince and Chandos, the age which saw enrolled the noble company of the Garter, the art of the armourer and weapon-smith strides forward. At its beginning we see many knights still clad in chain mail with no visible plate. At its end the knight is often locked in plates from head to foot, no chainwork showing save the camail edge under the helm and the fringe of the mail skirt or hawberk. [Illustration: FIG. 6.--Brass of Sir John de Creke. From Waller's _Monumental Brasses._] Before the first quarter of the 14th century is past many of these plates are in common use. Sir John de Creke's brass, about 1325-1330, is a fair example (fig. 6). His helmet is a basinet, pointed at the top, probably worn over a complete hood of mail flowing to the mid-breast. This hood was soon to lose its crown, the later basinets having the camail, a defence of mail covering neck, cheeks and chin and secured to the basinet with eyelet holes and loops through which a lace was passed. A rerebrace of plate defends the outer side of the upper arm, plain elbow-cops the elbow, and round bosses in the form of leopard heads guard the shoulder and the crook of the elbow. The fore-arm is covered with the plates of a vambrace which appears from under the hawberk sleeve. Large and decorated knee-cops cover the knees, ridged greaves the shins, and the upper part of the foot from pointed toe to ankle is fenced with those articulated and overlapping plates the perfection of which in the next century enabled the full-harnessed knight to move his body as freely as might an unarmed man. Under the plates the mail hose show themselves and the heels have rowelled spurs. He has a hawberk of mail whose front skirt ends in a point between the knees, the loose sleeves between wrist and elbow. Under this is a haketon of some soft material whose folds fall to a line above the height of the knee. Over the hawberk is a garment, perhaps of leather with a dagged skirt-edge, and over this again is a sleeveless gambeson or pourpoint of leather or quilted work, studded and enriched. Over all is the sleeveless surcoat, the skirt before cut squarely off at the height of the fork of the leg, the skirt behind falling to below the knee. The loose folds of this surcoat are gathered at the waist by a narrow belt, the sword hanging from a broader belt carried across the hip. Before 1350 the long surcoat of the 13th century was still further shortened, the tails being cut off squarely with the front. The fate of Sir John Chandos, who in 1369 stumbled on a slippery road, his long coat "armed with his arms" becoming tangled with his legs, points to the fact that an old soldier might cling to an old fashion. The desire for a better defence than a steel cap and camail and a less cumbrous one than the great helm, in which the knight rode half stifled and half blind, brought in as a fighting headpiece the basinet with a movable viser. This is found throughout this century, disappearing in the next when the salet and its varieties displaced it. But there were many knights who still fought with the great helm covering basinet and camail, a fact which speaks eloquently of the mighty blows given in this warlike age. The many monumental brasses of the last half of the 14th century show us for the most part knights in basinet and camail with the face exposed, but their heads are commonly pillowed on the great helm and in any case the viser would hinder the artist's desire to show the knight's features. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--Brass of Sir John de Foxley. From Waller's _Monumental Brasses_.] The fully-armed man of the latter half of the 14th century seems to have worn a rounded breastplate and a back-plate over his chain hawberk. Chaucer's Sir Thopas must always be cited for the defences of this age, the hero wearing the quilted haketon next his shirt, and over that the habergeon, a lesser hawberk of chain mail. His last defence is a fine hawberk "full strong of plate" showing that "hawberk" sometimes served as a word for the body plates. Over all this is the "cote-armure" or surcoat. Many passages from the chroniclers show that the three coats of fence one over the other were in common use in the field, and Froissart tells a tale of a knight struck by a dart in such wise that the head pierced through his plates, his coat of mail and his haketon stuffed with twisted silk. The surcoat in the age of Edward III. became a scanty garment sitting tightly to the body, laced up the back or sides, the close skirts ending at the fork of the leg with a dagged or slittered edge. The waistbelt is rarely in sight, but the broad belt across the hips, on which the dagger comes to hang as a balance to the sword, grows richer and heavier, the best work of the goldsmith or silversmith being spent upon it. Arms and legs and feet become cased in plate of steel or studded leather, and before the mid-century the shoulder-plates, like the steel shoes, are of overlapping pieces and the elbow also moves easily under the same defence. (See fig. 7.) 15th century. Such harness, ever growing more beautiful in its rich details, serves our champions until the beginning of the 15th century, when the fashion begins to turn. The scanty surcoat tends to disappear. It may be that during the bitter feuds and fierce slaughters of the Wars of the Roses men were unwilling to display on their breasts the bearings by which their mortal foe might know them afar. The horseman's shield went with the surcoat, its disuse hastened by the perfection of armour, and the banners of leaders remained as the only armorial signs commonly seen in war. But at jousts and tourneys, where personal distinction was eagerly sought, the loose tabard, which, after the middle of the century, bore the arms of the wearer on back, front and both sleeves, was still to be seen, with the crest of parchment or leather towering above a helm whose mantle, from the ribbon-like strip of the early 13th century, had grown into a fluttering cloak with wildly slittered edge streaming out behind the charging knight. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--Brass of Sir John Lisle at Thruxton.] When a score of years of this 15th century had run we find the knight closed in with plates, no edge of chain mail remaining in sight. The surcoat being gone we see him armed in breast and back plate, his loins covered by a skirt of "tonlets," as the defence of overlapping horizontal bands comes to be named (fig. 8). The chain camail has gone out of fashion, the basinet continuing itself with a chin and cheek plate which joins a gorget of plate covering the collar-bone, a movable viser shutting in the whole head with steel. The gussets of chain mail sewn into the leathern or fustian doublet worn below the body armour are unseen even at the gap at the hollow of the arm where the plates must be allowed to move freely, for a little plate, round, oval or oblong, is tagged to each side to fence the weak point. These plates often differ in size and shape one from the other, the sword-arm side carrying the smaller one. [Illustration: FIG. 9.--Gothic Style of Armour. Monument of Count Otto IV. of Henneberg.] Soon after this the six or eight "tonlets" grow fewer, being continued on the lower edge by the so-called tuilles, small plates strapped to the tonlets and swinging with the movement of the legs. A fine suit of armour is shown in the monument of Count Otto IV. of Henneberg (fig. 9). Knightly armour takes perhaps its last expression of perfection in such a noble harness as that worn by Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, whose armed effigy was wrought between 1451 and 1454 (fig. 10). In this we see the characteristic feature of the great elbow-cops, whose channelled and fluted edges overlapping vambrace and rerebrace become monstrous fan-like shapes in the brass of Richard Quartremayns, graven about 1460. At this time the harness of the left shoulder is often notably reinforced, as compared with that of the sword-arm shoulder. Towards the latter part of the century chain mail reappears as a skirt or breech of mail, showing itself under the diminished tonlets, and, when helm and gorget are removed, as a high-standing collar. The articulation by overlapping plates extends even to the breastplate, whose front is thus in two or more pieces. Very long-necked rowel-spurs are often found, and the toes of the sabbatons or steel shoes are sharply pointed. The characteristic helmet of the latter half of the century is the salet or salade, a large steel cap, whose edge is carried out from the brows and still more boldly at the back of the neck. [Illustration: FIG. 10.--Brass of Richard Beachamp, earl of Warwick. From Stothard's _Monumental Effigies_.] Knights abandon the great helm in war, but it is perfected for use in the tilt-yard, taking for that purpose an enormous size, to enable two good inches of stuffing to come between head or face and the steel plate. Such a helm sits well down on the shoulders, to which it is locked before and behind by strong buckles or rivets. The note of the 15th century in armour is that of fantastically elaborate forms boldly outlined and a splendour of colour which gained much from the custom of wearing over the full harness short cloaks or rich coats turned up with furs, or from another fashion of covering the body plates or brigandines with rich velvets studded with gold. The details of the harness take a thousand curious shapes, and even amongst the simpler jacks and steel caps of the archers the same glorious variety is seen. [Illustration: FIG. 11.--Meeting of Henry VIII. and Maximilian. From Hewitt's _Arms and Armour_.] 16th century. If the note of the 15th century be variety of form, that of the 16th century, the last important chapter in the history of armour, is surface decoration, the harness of great folk atoning in some measure for loss of the beautiful medieval sense of line by elaborate enrichment. Plain engraving, niello, russet work, golden inlay and beaten ornament are common methods of enrichment. The great plume of ostrich feathers flows from the helmet crown of leaders in war. As in the reign of Edward III., costume's fashion affects the forms of armour, the broad toe of the Henry VIII. shoe being imitated in steel, as the wide fluted skirts of the so-called Maximilian armour imitate the German fashion in civil dress which the Imperial host popularized through northern Europe (fig. 11). These skirts have been called "lamboys" by modern writers on military antiquities, but the word seems an antiquarianism of no value, apparently a misreading of the word "jambeis" in some early document. So many notable examples of the armour of this 16th century are accessible in European collections, other illustrations occurring in great plenty, that its details call for little discussion; a fine and characteristic suit is that by the famous English armourer, Jacob Topf (fig. 12), which belonged to Sir Christopher Hatton. Into this century the arquebusier marches, demanding a chief place in the line of battle, although it is a common error that the improvement in fire-arms drove out the fully armed warrior, whose plates gave him no protection. Until the rifle came to the soldier's hands, plate armour could easily be made shot-proof. It was driven from the field by the new strategy which asked for long marches and rapid movements of armies. This century's armour for the tilt-yard gives such protection to the champion, with its many reinforcing pieces, that unless the caged helm were used--the same which cost Henry II. of France his life--the risks of the tilt-yard must have fallen much below those of the polo-field. The horse with crinet, chafron and bards of steel was as well covered from harm. [Illustration: FIG. 12.--Suit by Jacob Topf, nearly complete, the gorget does not belong to it. Below is the placcate.] Before the end of the 16th century the full suit of war harness is an antique survival. Long boots take the place of greaves and steel shoes, and early in the 16th century the military pedants are heard to bewail the common laying aside of other pieces. The mounted cavalier--cuirassier or pistolier--might take the field, even as late as the Great Rebellion, armed at all points save the backs of the thighs and the legs below the knee; but a combed and brimmed cap, breast and back plate and tassets equipped the pikeman, and the musketeer would march without any metal on him save his headpiece, for it was soon found that heavily armed musketeers, after a long trudge through summer dust or winter mud, were readier to rest than to shoot. Everywhere there was revolt against the burden of plates, and as early as 1593 Sir Richard Hawkins found that his adventurers would not use even the light corslets provided by him, "esteeming a pot of wine a better defence." Gervase Markham, in his _Souldier's Accidence_ of 1645, asks that at least the captain of cuirassiers should be armed "at all peeces, cap a pee," but he would have found few such captains, and Markham is a great praiser of noble old custom. The famous figure of a pikeman of 1668 (fig. 13) in Elton's _Art Military_ has steel cap, corslet and tassets, but he stands for a fashion dead or dying. The last noteworthy helmet was what is now termed the lobster-tail helmet, a headpiece with round top, flat brim before, a broad articulated brim behind, cheek-pieces hanging by straps and a grate of upright bars to cover the face, some having in place of the grate a movable nose-guard to be raised or lowered at will. The close resemblance of this helmet to that worn by the Japanese, with whom the Dutch were then trading, is worth remark, although each of the two pieces seems to have had its separate origin. Thus, save for a steel cap here and a corslet there, especially to be found amongst the guards of sovereigns who must cling to something of antique tradition, armour departs out of the civilized world. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--Pikeman. From _The Compleat Body of the Art Military_, by Lieut. Col. Elton (1668).] Survival of armour. When in the reign of Queen Victoria her mounted guardsmen were given back their breast and back plates, the last piece of body armour had been the tiny gilt crescent worn at the throat by officers of foot, which crescent was the shrunken symbol of that great gorget of plate that came in with the 13th century. The shining plates of the Guards are parade pieces only, but a curious revival of an old defence was carried by English cavalry in the field at the end of the 19th century, when small gussets of chain mail were attached to the shoulders of certain cavalrymen as a defence against sword cuts. Through all the age of modern warfare inventors have pressed the claims of various bullet-proof breastplates, but where they have been effective against rifle fire their weight has made them too heavy an addition to the soldier's burden. (See, however, ARMOUR PLATES, _ad fin_.) Last of all we may reckon those secret coats of mail which are said to be worn on occasion by modern rulers in dread of the assassin. The London detective department has such coats of fence in its armoury; and on the other side it may be remembered that the Kelly gang of bushrangers, driven to bay, were found to have forged suits of plate for themselves out of sheets of boiler-iron. Collections. Ancient arms and armour are now eagerly sought by European and American collectors, and high prices are paid down for every noteworthy piece. The supply is assisted by the efforts of many forgers of false pieces, the most cunning of whom bring all archaeological skill to their aid, and few great national or private collections are free from some example of this industry. For the genuine pieces competition runs high. Suits of plate of the earliest period may be sought in vain, and the greatest collectors may hardly hope for such a panoply of the late Gothic period as that which is the ornament of the Wallace collection. Even this famous harness is not wholly free from suspicion of restoration. Armour of the latter half of the 16th century, however, often appears in the sale-rooms and is found in many private collections, although the "ancestral armour" which decorates so many ancient halls in England is generally the plates and pots which served the pikemen of the 17th-century militia. It is not hard to understand this scarcity of ancient pieces. In the first place it must be remembered that the fully armed man was always a rare figure in war, and only the rich could engage in the costly follies of the later tournaments. The novelists have done much to encourage the belief that most men of gentle rank rode to the wars lance in hand, locked up in full harness of plate; but the country gentleman, serving as light horseman or mounted archer, would hold himself well armed had he a quilted jack or brigandine and a basinet or salet. Men armed _cap a pee_ crowd the illuminations of chronicle books, the artists having the same tastes as the boy who decorates his Latin grammar with battles which are hand-to-hand conflicts of epauletted generals. Monuments and brasses also show these fully armed men, but here again we must recognize the tendency which made the last of the cheap miniaturists endow their clients lavishly with heavy watch-chains and rings. As late as the 18th century the portrait painters drew their military or naval sitters in the breastplates and pauldrons, vambraces and rerebraces of an earlier age. Ancient wills and inventories, save those of great folk or military adventurers, have scanty reference to complete harnesses. Ringed hawberks, in a damp northern climate, will not survive long neglect, and many of them must have been cut in pieces for burnishers or for the mail skirts and gussets attached to the later arming doublets. As the fashion of plate armour changed, the smith might adapt an old harness to the new taste, but more often it would be cast aside. Men to whom the sight of a steel coat called up the business of their daily life wasted no sentimentality over an obsolete piece. The early antiquaries might have saved us many priceless things, but it was not until a few _virtuosi_ of the 18th century were taken with the Gothic fancy that popular archaeology dealt with aught but Greek statuary and Roman inscriptions. The 19th century was well advanced before an interest in medieval antiquities became common amongst educated men, and for most contemporaries of Dr Johnson a medieval helm was a barbarous curiosity exciting the same measure of mild interest as does the Zulu knobkerry seen by us as we pass a pawnbroker's window. (O. Ba.)