Transcriber’s Notes:
Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.
Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved.
Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.
[Illustration]
Fotoset and Lithographed by COLORTONE PRESS, Washington 9, D. C.
ARMS AND ARMOR
OF THE
PILGRIMS 1620-1692
by
Harold L. Peterson
[Illustration: Patrero or “murderer”]
Published by Plimoth Plantation, Inc. and the Pilgrim Society,
Plymouth 1957
[Illustration: _A seventeenth century musketeer ready to fire his
matchlock. From Jacques de Gheyn_, Maniement d’Armes, _1608_.]
The average colonist landing on the wild shores of North America in the
early 1600’s set great store by his arms and armor. The Pilgrims were
no exception. They were strangers in a vast and largely unknown land,
inhabited by wild beasts and peopled by savages who were frequently
hostile. Greatly outnumbered by known enemies and possibly facing
dangers of which they were not yet aware, these Englishmen placed
their main hope for survival on the possession of superior weapons and
protective armor. On the more peaceful side, their firearms were also
valuable, for they provided fresh meat for the table and furs for sale
back home.
Because the colonist was so dependent on his arms he soon learned to
select the most efficient kinds that he could obtain. In so doing he
pushed the evolution of military materiel far ahead of contemporary
Europe and developed a high degree of skill, particularly in the use of
firearms.
The military supplies which the Pilgrims brought with them may be
divided into three major categories: defensive armor, edged weapons,
and projectile weapons. A completely armed man, especially in the first
years, was usually equipped with one or more articles from each of the
three groups, usually a helmet and corselet, a sword, and a musket.
ARMOR
Of all the pieces of defensive armor, the most popular was the helmet.
Almost everyone wore one when he prepared for trouble. Most of those
worn at Plymouth were undoubtedly open helmets which left the face
uncovered, although it is possible that a few completely closed
helmets were also used. These open helmets were of three principal
types: the cabasset, the morion, and the burgonet. The cabasset was
a simple, narrow brimmed helmet with a keeled bowl and a tiny apical
peak pointing to the rear. The morion had a larger crescentic brim
pointed at the front and back and a high comb along the center-line
of the bowl. The better specimens of both these helmets were forged
from a single billet of steel, and both were very efficient defenses.
The curving lines of the bowls caused most blows to glance off without
imparting their full impact, and the comb of the morion presented an
extra buffer of metal through which a sword would have to cut before
it reached the bowl. Inside each helmet was a quilted lining held in
place by a row of rivets around the base of the crown which acted much
like the modern helmet liner in holding the steel shell away from the
wearer’s head.
[Illustration: _Cabasset._]
[Illustration: _Morion._]
The burgonet was a slightly more complicated helmet than the morion or
cabasset, and it was made in a variety of styles. Basically, it was an
open-faced helmet which covered more of the head than the other two.
Usually it had a peak or umbril somewhat like the visor of a modern cap
over the eyes, a comb on the bowl, and movable plates to protect the
cheeks and ears. Often there was a defense for the face in the form of
a single adjustable bar which passed through a hole in the umbril or by
three bars fashioned like a muzzle and attached to the umbril which was
pivoted at the sides so it could be raised or lowered. One form of the
burgonet which became popular in the second quarter of the 17th century
was known as the lobster tail burgonet because the wearer’s neck was
protected by a series of overlapping plates which somewhat resembled
those on a lobster’s abdomen or “tail.”
A fourth and final type of helmet was known as a “pikeman’s pot.” This
greatly resembled the morion, but had a broad flat brim instead of a
narrow crescentic one. As its name indicates, it was worn primarily
by pikemen in conjunction with a specific type of corselet which was
generally designated pikeman’s armor.
This armor consisted of five elements in addition to the helmet. There
was a gorget to protect the neck and to support the weight of a back
plate and a breastplate which were fastened together by straps which
passed over the shoulders and attached by hooks at the front and by a
belt that passed around the waist. At the lower edge of the breastplate
were fastened two hinged plates called tassets which protected the
thighs. Although each of these plates was made from a single sheet of
metal they were embossed to resemble a series of overlapping plates,
complete with false rivets.
Of all the forms of body armor worn in America during the early
1600’s, the pikeman’s suit was undoubtedly the most popular. There
are numerous references to it in the contemporary documents. A
tasset from such a suit was found behind the fireplace in the John
Howland house near Plymouth and is now preserved in Pilgrim Hall. In
the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston there are a helmet, a
back plate and a tasset from another suit which belonged to an early
colonist, and portions of similar suits have been found in Pennsylvania
and at Jamestown, Virginia.
Men armed with muskets might sometimes wear pikeman’s armor, but
more often they wore simpler corselets consisting only of breast and
back-plates. With these corselets they wore either a cabasset, a morion
or a burgonet.
The weight of the corselets worn by the Pilgrims depended largely on
the quality of the breastplate. The helmets and other pieces were
sufficient to stop a sword blow or turn an Indian’s arrow but still
quite light. Breastplates, however, were made according to three
standards depending on what weapons they were supposed to offer
protection against. The lightest forms were labeled pike proof or
high pike proof; the next heavier were called pistol proof, and the
heaviest were musket proof. The musket proof breastplates are quite
scarce. Often they are ⅜ of an inch thick and bear a dent caused by a
bullet fired at them as a test when they were made. Pistol proof plates
are much lighter and are much more plentiful. They also often bear a
testing dent and sometimes the letter “P” as a proof mark.
[Illustration: _Burgonet_]
[Illustration: _Lobstertail burgonet._]
Most modern Americans tend to think of armor in terms of brightly
polished steel. Sometimes it was finished bright, but by the 17th
century it was more often black, brown, or dark blue. This was
especially true of those suits destined for active service in the
field. A brightly polished piece of armor needed constant care to
guard it from rust and maintain a good appearance. Blacking, russeting
or bluing it helped protect it and made it easier to maintain. The
black finishes were sometimes obtained through the use of soot and
oil, sometimes by paint. The russet and blue finishes were produced by
artificial oxidation.
[Illustration:_English pikeman’s armor bearing the cypher of James I
(1603-1625). The waist belt is now missing._]
[Illustration: _Simple corselet with a bullet proof breastplate._]
This defensive armor, though popular at first, was soon discarded by
the Pilgrims. The men who set out on the first exploring expedition
when the _Mayflower_ touched at Cape Cod were all armed with corselets.
They found them efficient protection against the arrows of the Indians,
but when they at length discovered a quantity of Indian corn, they were
so encumbered and weary from the weight of their arms that they could
not carry back as much of the booty as they desired. Soon they found
that they could usually dodge arrows unless taken by surprise, and so
gradually they began to decide in favor of freer movement and less
weight. The corselet retained its popularity for the first ten years,
but a compromise in the form of a heavy buff leather or quilted coat
began to make its appearance. By the time of the Pequot War in 1637,
the presence of “unarmed” men, as those without armor were called,
became more and more frequent. The helmet was the last piece of plate
armor to be discarded, but following King Philip’s War (1675-1678) that
too was abandoned, and plate armor disappeared from the scene except
for ceremonial occasions.
[Illustration: _Capt. Miles Standish’s rapier and scabbard._]