in the MS. of Prudentius. (Imp. Library of Paris.)]
In the Bayeux tapestry we see the army of William that fought the battle
of Hastings composed of three different bodies of troops: the archers,
light infantry, armed with arrows and darts; foot-soldiers, or Heavy
infantry, using weightier arms, and clad in iron mail; and cavalry, in
the midst of which figures the Duke William (Fig. 47).
The costume exhibits little variety; only two sorts of accoutrements are
observable; one very plain, worn by men who have no helmet, is evidently
that of an inferior soldier; the other, covered with iron rings, not
interlaced, extends from the shoulders to the knees, and belongs only
to warriors whose head-dress is a narrow, conical helmet, more or less
sharply pointed, extending behind (_en couvre nuque_) to cover the nape
of the neck (Fig. 48), and in front provided with a metal protector for
the face, called the _nasal_.
Among the horsemen thus encased in iron, are some who have boots and
stirrups, others are without them, and even wear no spurs. Their shields
are convex, secured to the arm by a leather strap, generally circular at
top, and terminating in a point below. Some, however, are polygonal and
convex, and in the centre show a rather long point.
[Illustration: Fig. 47.--King William, as represented on his seal
preserved in England.]
[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Lancer of William’s Army.]
Offensive arms consist of swords, axes, lances, javelins, and arrows.
The swords are long, of uniform width nearly to the extremity which
comes abruptly to a point, and have heavy, strong hilts. The axes
exhibit no remarkable peculiarity. The spears terminate in an iron
point, probably sharpened, and equal in length to one-sixth of the
handle. We see also clubs, maces, and, finally, pronged staves (_bâtons
fourchus_), doubtless the earliest form of the weapon; these last were
subsequently called _bisaguë_, and, with maces and clubs, were
ordinarily used by serfs and peasants; the sword and the spear being
reserved for freemen.
The sling is not to be found in the hands of any warrior; but it is
remarkable that, in the border of the Bayeux tapestry, it is used by a
peasant aiming at a bird; from which it may be inferred that the sling
had become a mere weapon for field-sport. Moreover, this was also the
case with the bow among the French; which was again held in honour after
the advent of the Normans, especially since the latter could ascribe to
it their success at the battle of Hastings, where Harold, the opponent
of William, was killed by an arrow. Nevertheless, the statutes of the
Conqueror, who himself excelled with the bow, did not include that
weapon among those of the nobility.
From the conquest of the Normans to the Crusades, we scarcely find
anything worth notice, except the adoption of a very murderous implement
of war, which acquired the name of the flail, or armed whip (_fléau_, or
_fouet d’armes_); it was formed of iron balls studded with points, and
was attached to the end of a strong staff by small chains. But we come
to a period when the events which occurred in Asia had a considerable
influence on the arms and the military costume of Europe. The first and
principal of the importations due to those distant expeditions was that
of the coat of mail, then in common use among the Arabs, and which has
since been discovered in the sculptures of the period of the Sassanidæ,
a royal race that ruled over Persia from the third to the seventh
century.
It is not affirmed that prior to the first crusade we had no knowledge
of iron chain-work, of which the Orientals made defensive helmets; but
we imitated it only in a heavy and clumsy manner. This armour, which was
of ponderous weight, and, besides, was far from rendering invulnerable
those who were burdened with it, had not displaced the _haubergeons_,
the _jacques de fer_, the _brigandines_, the _armures à macles_ (Fig.
49), (such were the names given to the cuirasses of leather and of cloth
covered with metal plates); but when such defensive armour came to be
better known, with all its original good qualities; and when we had
learned to make it according to the Oriental method, there was no
further delay in adopting that network of iron (_tricot_) at once
flexible, light, and, in some degree, impenetrable. However, since the
manufacture of ancient armour was more simple, and consequently less
costly, it was not altogether abandoned. It is only so late as the time
of Philip Augustus and Louis IX. (the thirteenth century) that the use
of coats of mail became general; to this some knights attached mail
hose, to protect the thighs, legs, and feet (Fig. 50).
In the reign of Louis le Gros (twelfth century) we see the first attempt
at a movable vizor adapted to the conical helmet of the Normans; and to
the same period must be referred the invention of the crossbow: or, it
may rather be said that a stock, or _arbrier_, was added to the bow,
which afforded greater facility for stretching the string, and also
aided in directing the arrow. This new weapon, after being exclusively
used in the chase, appeared in warfare; but, in 1139, Pope Innocent II.,
confirming the decisions of the Council of Lateran, which had condemned
it as too destructive, prohibited its use. The crossbow was not restored
to military equipments until the third crusade, under Richard Cœur de
Lion, who, having permitted his men to resume the weapon, was
subsequently assumed to have invented it.
[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Norman Archer.]
[Illustration: Fig. 50.--Jean Sansterre, as represented on his Seal.
Reproduced by Meyrick.]
During the first crusade, barons and knights wore a hauberk of links of
iron or steel. Every warrior had a helmet--silver-plated for royalty, of
steel for nobles, and of iron for the private soldiers. The crusaders
used the lance, the sword, a kind of dagger called _miséricorde_, the
club and the battle-axe, the sling and the bow.
In the windows which Suger, minister of Louis VII., caused to be painted
for the church of the abbey of Saint-Denis, and which represented the
principal events of the second crusade, we see the chiefs of the
crusaders still clothed in hauberks of links, or _macles_ (plates of
iron); the helmet is conical and without the nose-piece (_nasal_); and,
lastly, the buckler, formed like a scutcheon, covers the breast,
generally suspended from the neck by a leather thong.
Towards the middle of the twelfth century, the iron breastplate is said
to have been introduced; it was placed over the chest to support the
hauberk, the direct pressure of which being found detrimental to health.
But no description of it is to be met with in the romances of chivalry,
that furnish the best documentary evidence regarding the armour of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Helmet of Don Jaime el Conquistador (Armeria
Real, Madrid.)]
Under Philip Augustus, who, as we know, was one of the leaders of the
third crusade, the conical helmet assumed a cylindrical form; to this
was occasionally added a vizor called _ventail_, intended to protect the
face. Richard I., King of England, is represented on his seal with this
kind of helmet; level with the eyes and also at the height of the mouth
are two horizontal slits, which admit of seeing and breathing. Still the
use of the conical helmet without vizor or nose-piece was retained even
to the thirteenth century in Spain, as is proved by that worn by Jaime
I., King of Aragon (Fig. 51), which is preserved in the Armeria Real,
Madrid. It is of polished steel, is surmounted by a dragon’s head, and
portions of it are richly ornamented.
Thus in the third crusade the use of the “coat-of-arms” became
general,--a sort of overcoat, if we may so term it, of cloth or of silk
stuff, and the purpose of which, at first, was only to mitigate the
insupportable effect of the rays of an Eastern sun on metal armour. This
new garment soon served, moreover, when made of various colours, to
distinguish different nations marching under the standard of the Cross
(Fig. 52). It became really a dress of military splendour, was made of
the richest stuffs, and embroidered in gold or silver with excessive
refinement.
[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Knight in his Hauberk (after Meyrick).]
The slingers, who had never been otherwise recruited than from the
lower orders, disappeared from the French armies after the reign of St.
Louis. As for the archers, those of England wore at that time, over the
hauberk, a leather jacket, adopted subsequently by the French archers,
and called _jacque d’Anglois_. An old author, in fact, thus mentions
it:--
“C’étoit un pourpoint de chamois;
Farci de bourre sus et sous;
Un grand vilain jacque d’Anglois,
Qui lui pendoit jusqu’aux genoux.”
The _jacque_ having become the fashion in France was soon recognised in
every kind of material more or less costly; it continued in use until
the end of the fourteenth century; Charles VI. wore one of black velvet
during a journey he made in Brittany.
[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Helmet of Hughes, Vidame of Chalons. (End of
Thirteenth Century.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Tournament Helmet, screwed on the Breastplate.
(End of Fifteenth Century.)]
The casque, or helmet, from that time enclosing the head entirely,
assumed, under St. Louis, the form of two truncated cones “réunis par
leurs grandes bases.” In addition to the helmet there was also worn at
that time the _chapel de fer_, which at first was only a simple cap
underneath the hood of the hauberk; but when, curtailing the hood, a
brim was added to the cap, it thus became a hat almost of the form of
the felts now in use. To protect the neck there was also attached to the
rim of the hat a tippet of mail, falling on the shoulders, and called
_camail_.[5] The iron cap then took
[Illustration: CASQUE, MORION, AND HELMETS.
With and without vizors, from the Armeria Real at Madrid.]
the name of _coiffre_ or _cervelière_, and later it became a kind of
reversed pot concealing the entire head, and kept in position by its
weight only (Fig. 53).
[Illustration: Fig. 55.--Plain Armour of the Fifteenth Century, about
1460. (Museum of Artillery, Paris.)]
Again; there had for some time been manifested a movement which
gradually caused the knights to be entirely cased in iron. A king of
Scotland, contemporary with Philip Augustus, is represented on his seal
with a plate of armour intended to protect the elbow. The knee-cap
followed. Under Philip the Bold, successor of St. Louis, the iron
_grévières_ (greaves), or half leg-pieces, protecting the front of the
legs, were adopted. In the reign of Philip the Fair we have the first
example of an iron gauntlet with its fingers separate and jointed:
previously it was merely an inflexible piece covering the back of the
hand. About the same time the _cervelière_, either flat or spherical,
became pointed at the top, and took the name of _bassinet_; but this
bassinet was unlike the casque which, in the following century,
retained that name and was made completely closed. The exact period of
the transition from mailed armour to that of plain iron or steel, called
also plate-armour, dates from the first thirty years of the fifteenth
century (Fig. 55).
[Illustration: Fig. 56.--Convex Armour of the Fifteenth Century, said to
be that of Maximilian. (Museum of Artillery, Paris.)]
The annals of Florence contain a statute of 1315, requiring every
horseman serving in a campaign to have a helmet, a breastplate,
gauntlets, cuishes, and leg-pieces, all of iron; but in France and
England the whole of these pieces were not adopted until somewhat later.
In the reigns of Philip V. and Charles IV. we see the ventail of the
helmet with a grating, and the vizor opening with a hinge. The
bassinet, lighter than the helmet, was at first worn by the knight when
no hostile encounter was anticipated; but subsequently, and at an early
date, the vizor was added to the bassinet, as well as to the casque; and
then it became as much used as the helmet, which, towards the end of the
fourteenth century, was abandoned.
About the same period some portions of iron horse-armour began to make
their appearance. We find entered in the inventory of the armour of
Louis X., a _chanfrein_ (a plate of iron fastened on the horse’s
forehead).
[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Crossbow Men protected by Shield-bearers.
Fifteenth Century. After a Miniature from the Chronicles of Froissart.
(MS. Bibl. Imp. de Paris.)]
The crossbow, for some time prohibited by ecclesiastical authority, was
the weapon most in use at the period spoken of; as having the double
advantage of being drawn with more power than the ordinary bow, and of
throwing its arrows to a longer distance with greater precision.
Historians say that at Crécy, in 1346, there were fifteen thousand
crossbow men in the French army. The Genoese were considered the most
skilful in Europe; and next, those of Paris. A manuscript in the
British Museum shows them wearing iron helmets, _brassières_,[6] and
leg-pieces; and for body-covering, jackets with long, hanging sleeves.
While the bowmen had both hands occupied in discharging their arrows,
shield-bearers were employed to protect them by means of large bucklers
(Fig. 57).
In the year 1338 the use of firearms is for the first time noted in
France. But we think it right to reserve all we have to say of these
modern offensive weapons until our history of the ancient system of
armour is finished. Considering the early imperfections of firearms, the
old system must have long continued, especially among combatants of
noble degree--for they affected contempt for the new warlike equipments,
by means of which personal valour became in a manner useless and could
no longer ensure victory in battle.
Under John the Good, that is, in the middle of the fourteenth century,
plain armour was generally adopted; the long coat of mail, heavier and
less convenient, was entirely abandoned; but chain-armour still covered
certain parts of the body not yet protected by iron plates. The
_bassinet_, then very pointed, was furnished with mail, covering the
neck and a portion of the shoulders. The upper part of the arm was
protected by a half-armlet, called the _épaulette_, but the lower part
was provided with mail.
Ornaments began to be introduced in armour in the reign of Charles V.;
until that time it had a simple and plain appearance. For instance, the
_camail_ of the _bassinet_ is embroidered on the shoulders with gold and
silver, and the point surmounting it is decorated with an imitation of
foliage--an ornament which, according to the “Chronicle of Du Gueslin,”
had the disadvantage of presenting a kind of handle to an opponent. The
cuirass, to which it was then deemed sufficient to impart a bright
polish, or to paint in ordinary colours, sometimes bright, sometimes
dark, began to be engraved and chased towards the end of the following
reign.
In the time of Charles VI. there was introduced, for the first time,
four or five flexible plates, called _faldes_, which protected the lower
part of the stomach without impeding the movements of the body. A little
later, _tassettes_ were added; they were attached to the top of the
thigh to guard the hips and the groin. It appears that at this period
the artisans of Milan, were especially renowned for the manufacture of
armour; for Froissart relates that Henry IV., King of England, when Earl
of Derby,[7] and preparing to enter the lists with the Duke of Norfolk,
requested armour from Galeas, Duke of Milan, who sent it with four
Milanese armourers. The swords and spears made at Toulouse and at
Bordeaux were also held in great repute; so also were the double-handed
swords in use from the middle of the thirteenth century, and
manufactured at Lubeck, in Germany. The steel helmets of Montauban were
also much in request.
Towards the commencement of the fifteenth century, engines of war,
distinct from those in which powder was used, had attained a remarkable
degree of perfection. When John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, marched
upon Paris, in 1411, there was with his army a considerable number of
machines called _ribaudequins_, a species of gigantic crossbow drawn by
a horse, and which with enormous strength threw javelins to a great
distance.
Under Charles VII., the breastplate of the cuirass was composed of two
parts: one covered the breast; the other, reaching to the hips,
protected the stomach, and was attached to the former by clasps and
leather straps. Generally the breastplate was convex.
Taught by the disastrous defeat of Agincourt,--where ten thousand men,
of whom eight thousand were of the nobility, had fallen, owing to the
precision and the celerity of the fire of the English archers,--Charles
VII. instituted in France the _franc archer_ (Fig. 58), who wore the
_salade_ and the jacket or _brigandine_, and carried the dagger, the
sword, the bow, the quiver or crossbow _garnie_. These archers were
exempt from all taxes or imposts; their equipments were declared not
distrainable for debts, and during war they received pay at the rate of
four livres a month.
The _salade_, a part of armour which has remained particularly
celebrated, and the name of which has been applied subsequently to
helmets of divers forms, is pre-eminently the helmet of the epoch of
Charles VII. At first it was a head-dress for war, composed of a simple
cap (_timbre_), that covered the top of the head, with a pendent piece
of metal of greater or less length at the back, which sometimes was made
for protecting the neck, and
[Illustration: Fig. 58.--Franc Archers (Fifteenth Century), from the
Painted Hangings of the Town of Rheims.]
sometimes to guard a portion of the shoulders. Towards the end of the
fifteenth century there was added to the salade a small vizor, that was
gradually lengthened downwards to near the upper lip, and in which a
narrow opening was then made for the sight. In the reign of Louis XII.
the salade received a chin-piece, the lower part of which was a
_gorget_, that surrounded and protected the neck. The top of the cuirass
had a cord, to which was attached the salade; and this helmet, so
different to the primitive salade, continued to bear the same name (Fig.
59).
[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Knights in complete Armour, with the _Salade_.
(End of Fifteenth Century.) A Single Combat, taken from “The Triumph of
Maximilian,” by Burgmayer, after a drawing by Albert Dürer.]
The _brigandine_, recalling the early armour abandoned for the coat of
mail, was composed of small plates of steel or iron arranged on a strong
piece of leather, and stitched or fixed with wire, in the form of the
scales of a fish. A decree of Peter II., Duke of Brittany, issued in
1450, ordered the nobles to equip themselves as archers, or in
brigandine, if they knew how to use arrows; but otherwise, to be
provided with _guisarmes_, with good salades, and leg-armour; each noble
was to be attended by one _coustillier_, and to have two good horses.
The _guisarme_ was a sort of two-edged and pointed javelin. The
_coustillier_ was a foot-soldier, or a horseman, whose duty it was to
act as a servant to the nobleman, and to carry the _coustille_, a long,
slender sword, triangular or square, apparently resembling the foil in
our fencing-rooms.
[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Armour ornamented with Lions, supposed to be
that of Louis XII. (Museum of Artillery, Paris.)]
About this period French noblemen displayed much magnificence in the
adornment of the _chanfrein_ of their horses. For instance, we know that
at the siege of Harfleur, in 1449, the charger of the Count de Saint-Pol
had on its head a massive gold chanfrein, of the most delicate work,
valued at not less than twenty thousand crowns. In the same year, at the
siege of Bayonne, the Count de Foix entered the conquered city mounted
on a horse whose chanfrein of polished steel was enriched with gold and
precious stones to the value of fifteen thousand gold crowns.
Half a century later--that is, in the reign of Charles VIII. and that of
Louis XII.--chargers wore, besides the chanfrein, the _manefaire_,
protecting the neck, the _poitrail_, the _croupière_, the _flancois_,
which respectively covered the chest, the back, and the flanks of the
horse; and to these was added another piece of armour placed under the
tail.
Of the date of Louis XII., we still see embossed suits of armour
ornamented with fluting, sometimes blended with beautiful engraved work
executed in the metal by the use of aquafortis, or subjects in relievo
produced by embossing: ornamentation of this nature elevated the
equipments of the warrior to real works of art (Fig. 60).
Louis XII. was the first to admit Greek mercenaries into his army. These
were named _stradiots_; they tendered their military services equally to
both Turks and Christians. The armour of these troops consisted of a
cuirass with sleeves and gauntlets in mail, and over this a jacket; on
their head a vizorless helmet was worn. The stradiots were armed with a
large sword, called a _braquemart_, much resembling the Turkish sword,
but with a cross-handle; the sword and its scabbard were ornamented with
Grecian devices. They carried in addition several small arms at the
saddle-bow, and also a _zagaye_, a very long lance, tipped at both
extremities with iron.
At this period also was introduced the _pertuisane_,[8] the blade of
which, wider than that of the lance, formed a crescent immediately above
the handle.
There were at that time two kinds of cross-bows--one for discharging
bolts, the other for bullets. The bow was slung by means of a
_moulinet_, a kind of hand-winch.
Embossed and fluted armour was not the only kind used in France and in
Italy at the end of the fifteenth and the commencement of the following
century. The monuments in the former country of the time of Louis XII.,
and on the other side of the Alps, show how prevalent was a peculiar
description of plain armour, whereof the cuirass, which was longer than
that of the embossed armour, had a rib or raised line in the middle.
This rib, which completely altered the character of the cuirass, in that
it served to turn aside the thrust of the lance, became increasingly
distinctive as the seventeenth century drew near.
In the reign of Francis I. embossed and ribbed armour were equally
[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Damaskeened Armour of the end of the Sixteenth
Century. (Portrait of François, Duc d’Alençon, from Montfaucon’s “La
Monarchie Françoise.”)]
used (Fig. 61). In the Museum of Artillery, in Paris, is preserved the
armour which that king wore at the battle of Pavia. The body is longer
than in the cuirass of the preceding century, the rib in the centre is
more raised, the gusset of the shoulder-piece is made of several
movable plates, and of large size. The _casque_, a generic name given
since those times to all descriptions of head-armour, assumed a
comfortable and elegant shape, which was maintained as long as the use
of armour continued.
Another cuirass of the same date, still longer in the body, was made to
turn up towards the lower extremity, and then took an inward bend to fit
the hip. It was made with movable plates overlapping from below; this
allowed the wearer to stoop, which it was almost impossible to do when
the breast-piece and the back-piece were in one. Sometimes these plates
were only three or four in number over the stomach, and the others over
the breast were only represented, not genuine plates.
The armour called _à éclisse_, or _à écrevisse_, worn at a certain
period by the halberdiers, must not be passed over; it received this
name because the cuirass was made of horizontal plates (_éclisses_),
three or four inches in width, which, though they covered the entire
body, did not in any way impede its movements.