THE DECADENCE OF ARMOUR
[Illustration: FIG. 41. Grotesque helmet, sixteenth century. Nuremberg.]
In the practice of any of the crafts, or applied arts as they are now
called, the surest and most manifest signs of decadence are to be found in
two aspects of that craft. The first of these is that which refers to the
material used. With regard to armour this consideration is faithfully
adhered to in most examples of the armourer's work up to the end of the
fifteenth century; but by the beginning of the sixteenth century we find
the craftsman becoming wearied of his technical perfection and the
simplicity and constructional dignity which invariably accompanies such
perfection. His efforts are now directed to fashioning his metal into such
forms as in no way suggest his material, but only show a certain
meretricious skill in workmanship. Fig. 41 shows a very favourite form of
this artistic incoherence. The defensive properties of the helmet are in
no way increased, but rather are annulled by presenting hollows and
projections where before a smooth surface existed. It is superfluous to
point out the grotesque and bizarre effect of this human face in
metal.[32] Another instance of this wilful disregard of material is to be
noticed in those suits which imitate the puffed and slashed dress in
fashion for civilian wear during the sixteenth century. Many of these
suits exist in English and European armouries, which proves that they were
popular, but to the true craftsman there is something degrading in the
efforts of the expert ironworker, expending his energies, not to produce a
finely constructed piece of work, but rather to imitate the seams and
pipings of the work of a tailor or dressmaker; and, however much we may
admire his technical skill, we must, perforce, place his artistic
aspirations side by side with the 'grainer and marbler' who was so
conspicuous a factor in domestic decoration in the middle of the
nineteenth century. Fig. 42 shows this decadence carried to its furthest
pitch. By the middle of the sixteenth century the Renaissance, which had
been, in the first instance, the birth of all that is best in European art
and craftsmanship, became a baneful influence. The expert painter, having
mastered the intricacies of his art, turned them into extravagant channels
and exaggerated action; foreshortened figures and optical illusions took
the place of the dignified compositions of the earlier period. Nor could
the crafts escape this deadly poison. To the credit of the craftsmen we
may hope that the luxurious indulgence and ostentatious display of the
princely patron was the cause of decadence in the crafts, rather than the
inclination of the workers themselves. Still the fact remains that, as
soon as the plain and constructionally sound work began to be overspread
with ornament, architecture, metal-work, wood-carving, and all the allied
arts began to be debased from their former high position. With the
decoration of armour its practical utility began to decline. It must be
admitted, however, that one reason for the decoration was that armour
was, by degrees, less and less used for war and only retained for pageant,
joust, and parade in which personal display and magnificence were
demanded.
[Illustration: FIG. 42. Puffed suit, sixteenth century. Vienna.[33]]
[Illustration: FIG. 43. Casque after Negroli, sixteenth century. Paris.]
The engraved and inlaid suits of the late sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, although they offend the craftsman's eye as does the decorated
bicycle of the Oriental potentate to-day, do not transgress that important
law, on which so much stress has been laid, of offering a glancing surface
to the opposing weapon. It is when we come to the embossed suits with
their hollows and projections that we find the true character of armour
lost and the metal used only as a material for exhibiting the dexterity of
the workman without any consideration for its use or construction. This
interference with the glancing surface is noticeable in the suit
illustrated in Fig. 42, but even here there is some excuse, in that the
designer had reason for his embossing of the metal--if the imitation of
the puffed suit was to be carefully portrayed. The same, however, cannot
be urged for those suits which are simply covered with ornament with no
purpose, little meaning, and less composition or design. If we set aside
our opinions as to the suitability of the ornament, we are compelled to
admire the wonderful technical skill which produced such pieces as the
suit made for King Sebastian of Portugal by Anton Pfeffenhauser of
Augsburg, and now in the Madrid Armoury. Here every deity of Olympus, the
allegorical figures of Justice, Strength, and the Cardinal Virtues, crowd
together with Navigation, Peace, and Victory; Roman warriors fighting with
elephants are found among Amorini, Satyrs, and Tritons; while every inch
of the metal not devoted to this encyclopaedia of history and legend is
crowded with foliage and scroll-work of that debased and unnatural form
which has become the branding mark of this period of the Renaissance.
[Illustration: FIG. 44. Pageant shield, sixteenth century. Vienna.]
It will be sufficient to give one example of this prostitution of art and
craftsmanship. This helmet after Negroli (Fig. 43), and a similar example,
signed by Negroli, at Madrid, show how the canons of the armourer's craft
were ignored at this period. It is true that the casque still provides a
metal covering for the head, and that the comb gives an additional
protection to the skull, but when we examine the embossed figures at the
side--and marvellously good the embossing is--we find lodgements for the
sword or spear which would most certainly help to detach the helmet from
its wearer. As to the comb, it may fairly be cited as an example of all
that is artistically worst in the late Renaissance. Its technical merits
only emphasize this. The warrior is laid on his back to suit the required
shape of the helmet, and to give point to his position his hair is held
by two figures whose attributes seem to suggest that intercrossing of
birds, beasts, and fishes which delighted the decadent mind of the period.
The figures are human to the waist and end in a dolphin's tail. Angels'
wings spring from their shoulders and leopards' claws from the junction of
tail and waist. Not content with this outrage to the dignity of art, the
craftsman ends his warrior in an architectural base which has not even the
slight merit of probability which the tail of the merman might offer. In
short it is an example of technical skill at its highest, and artistic
perception at its lowest point. The shield from the Vienna collection
(Fig. 44) is another example, like King Sebastian's suit, of meaningless
decoration. The strap work does not in any way follow the lines of the
shield, and the female figures seem to be introduced only to show that the
craftsman could portray the human form in steel as easily as he could the
more conventional ornament.
As the armourer, weary of constructional skill, turned to ornament as a
means of showing to what further extent his powers could expand, so, with
this change in his point of view, his constructional skill itself
declined. The headpiece, which in the golden age of the armourer was
forged in as few pieces as possible, is in the late seventeenth century
made of many pieces, as the art of skilful forging declines. The ingenious
articulations of the soleret are changed, and the foot is cased in plates
which, overlapping only in one direction, preclude the easy movement of
the wearer. The fine lines of leg and arm defences, which in the fifteenth
and sixteenth century follow the shape of the limbs, give place to
straight tubular plates which can only be likened to the modern
stove-pipe. The grace and symmetry of the Gothic suit shown on Plate VIII,
especially the leg armour, exemplify this merit of the best period of
armour, while the suit made for Louis XIV, and the gilt suit of Charles I
in the Tower, offend in the opposite direction. Another sure indication of
the decadence of the craftsman is to be found in the imitation of
constructional detail with no practical purpose. Examples of this may be
seen in late seventeenth-century armour, where a single plate is embossed
to represent several overlapping plates or lames, and also in the
plentiful use of '_clous perdus_' or false rivets which are scattered
broadcast on some suits in places where no rivets are needed.
To turn from the degradation of the simplicity and constructional
perfection of armour to the reasons which led to its gradual disuse, we
find that, after the Gothic period, armour became heavier, partly because
of the shock tactics in vogue on active service and partly because, in the
case of jousting armour, strength and great weight were needed to protect
the wearer from vital injury, and partly because the improvement of
firearms necessitated extra defence. The temper of the metal used was such
that it would resist a pistol shot, as we have noticed in Chapter III; and
on examining the surface of the metal we find, as in the Pembridge helm,
that it is of so fine a texture that a modern knife will not leave a
scratch when testing it. Therefore we must regard the weight of armour as
one of the chief reasons for its disuse. Again, military tactics
necessitated forced marches and longer expeditions than before; or at any
rate it was discovered that when engaging in long expeditions the troops
were chafed and hindered by their armour. It is somewhat curious to note
that as the leg was the first part of the body to be armed with plate, so
the leg armour was the first to be discarded. The jambs were the first
pieces to go, and were replaced, in the case of the mounted man, by thick
buff leather boots. The tassets were prolonged to the knee or--to describe
this portion of the armour in a different way--the cuisses themselves were
formed of riveted lames and the tassets discarded.
The helmet at the latter end of the seventeenth century is generally open
and of the burgonet type. The breastplate is usually short and projects
downwards at the lower portion after the fashion of the 'peascod' doublet
of civilian wear. As early as 1586, at the siege of Zutphen, we find
officers discarding their armour and keeping only the cuirass. From the
Hatfield MSS. we learn that a penny a day was allowed to each soldier in
1590, over and above his pay, for the wearing and carriage of his armour,
because it had become the custom for the troops to give their
accoutrements to the baggage-carriers when on the march: 'a matter both
unseemly for soldiers and also very hurtful unto the armour by bruising
and breaking thereof, whereby it becometh unserviceable.' In Cruso's
_Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie_ (1632), we find that the
arquebusiers had wholly left off their armour in favour of buff coats.
Turner's _Pallas Armata_ (1670) mentions the armour of officers as 'a
headpiece, a corslet and a gorget, the captain having a plume of feathers
in his helmet, the lieutenant not'. Further on we read, 'now the feathers
you may peradventure find, but the headpiece for the most part is laid
aside.' Fig. 45 shows that half armour was still worn during the
Commonwealth, but by the Restoration very little was retained except for
ceremonial use. As far as can be gleaned from contemporary letters and
histories, Charles I never wore either the somewhat cumbrous gilt suit
which is shown at the Tower or the more graceful half suit of blued steel
in which Vandyke represented him in his equestrian portrait. All the metal
defence we can be sure he actually wore is a steel broad-brimmed hat
covered with velvet. The headpiece used by the cavalry during the Civil
War is of the same type as No. 11 on Plate IV, a variety of the burgonet
with a movable nasal. The breastplate continued to be worn during the wars
of Marlborough, but that, too, was discarded when the efficacy of the
musket proved its uselessness. The last survival of plate armour is to be
found in the gorget. This became smaller as the uniform was changed, and
in the end was simply a small crescent of brass hung at the neck. It was
worn by infantry officers up to the year 1830, at which date it was given
up in England.
[Illustration: FIG. 45. Cromwellian pikeman. Tower.]
The last official use of full plate armour was at the Coronation of George
IV, when the King's Champion, Dymoke, entered Westminster Hall and threw
down the gauntlet to challenge those who disputed the King's right to the
crown. The suit worn on this occasion belonged originally to Sir
Christopher Hatton, Captain of the Guard to Queen Elizabeth, and was made
by Jacobe,[34] whose designs for armour have been referred to in Chapter
III. The suit is now in the Guard Room at Windsor. The Guardia Nobile of
the Pope still wear the picturesque half armour of the sixteenth century.
The cuirass and helmet of the Household Cavalry of the present day are not
survivals, for they were introduced at the time of the Coronation of
George IV.
The study of defensive armour and weapons must of necessity need much
careful comparison of examples and investigation of documentary evidence,
but, even when undertaken only superficially, it will add greatly to the
interest of modern history and of the arts of war. Costume can only be
studied from pictorial and sculptured records, but in the case of armour
we have, after a certain period, actual examples not only of historical
but also of personal interest. With modern methods of arrangement and with
the expert care of those most learned in this subject these examples will
be an ever-present record which may be examined with more interest than
might be bestowed upon many branches of the applied arts; because, in
addition to the interest centred in the personality of the wearers, we
have the sure signs of the master-craftsman which are always evident in
good craftsmanship, and, not infrequently, the sign-manual of the worker
himself.