Mediaeval Armour. BY LIEUT. COL. J. R. BRAMBLE, HON. TREASURER. (Read March 17th, 1885.) DURING the excursions which we have had the opportunity of making to churches in the neighbourhood, I have on many occasions had the honour to call your attention to the various types. of Armour and other costume represented in monumental effigies; and occasionally it has happened that, owing to the fortunate circumstance of there being within the compass of a single day's excursion, or, still better, in a single church, examples of Armour of several distinct periods, I have been able to point out to you to some extent the special peculiarities characteristic of the different dates, and to explain the means by which any one with a fair knowledge of such peculiarities may assign a date approximately correct to any examples which may come before him. But, notwithstanding the great extension of Antiquarian lore during the last twenty years, it is still a most common experience to find, on visiting a church, whether in town or country, that the date assigned by tradition to any effigy without an inscription, which has been there for so long a time that the "memory of man runneth not to the contrary," is completely and often ludicrously incorrect-from one to two hundred years being comparatively a trivial error. An effigy at St. Philip's Church was long pointed out as being that of Robert, son of William the Conqueror, although the armour was some 200 years later; and other instances might be quoted by the dozen. Some few years ago I accompanied our Vice-President, Mr. John Reynolds, and Mr. George Wright the Congress Secretary of the British Archæological Association, to Tewkesbury, to make arrangements for the visit of that Association. In passing up the north aisle of the nave of the magnificent Abbey church, I casually assigned the date of 1375 to an effigy in the armour of that period. The expression of mingled scorn and triumph which passed over the really very intelligent countenance of the verger was not readily to be forgotten; he evidently thought he had caught the Antiquarians napping, and exclaimed, "No, Sir! that is Lord Wenlock, who was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471." If the monument had been that of the unfortunate nobleman in question he must, as was well said at the subsequent visit of the Association, "Have gone in his grandfather's armour," but neither this fact nor the circumstances that Lord Wenlock was not buried at the Abbey, and that the arms, a chevron between three lions masks" were not his, had any effect whatever upon the tradition. There was a monument and a name must be given to it. The tradition is now completely exploded, and the anecdote is simply given as an instance among many others of anachronisms arising from want of knowledge of this very interesting branch of Archæology. 66 Under these circumstances it has occurred to me that if we could have the opportunity of examining at one time a complete series of medieval monuments of all the different dates which are to be found in English churches, and of tracing from the effigies upon such monuments the gradual development of armour from complete mail to complete plate, from complete plate through the second mail period, and so on to its gradual almost entire disappearance, more real information would be afforded in comparatively a short time than would be gained by the inspection of a much larger number of isolated examples not presented before us in chronological order. Except in a few large cathedrals such an opportunity is not to be obtained. The series of rubbings from Monumental Brasses laid before you this evening will, however, amply illustrate the subject to which your notice is invited. In the brief notes to be laid before you it will be hardly necessary to say that it is not proposed to do more than to give such a general description of the different styles of medieval armour as will enable any one giving fair attention to the rules, and careful consideration of the examples, to understand the varieties which we are likely, in the course of our wanderings, to encounter. Anyone desirous of pursuing the subject further has ample opportunity afforded him in the works of Sir Samuel Meyrick, Hewitt, Planche, Haines, and others, by whom it has long since been amply illustrated. It must be fully understood, however, that it is impossible in armour, as in architecture, or any other matter of archæological enquiry, to set down any hard or fast line, and to say "up to a certain date such and such armour was worn; after such date a different style was adopted." Such a statement can only be approximately correct. There are certain broad lines and distinctive styles, but they are shaded into one another in a gradual and almost imperceptible manner. Still, by careful examination and comparison of various examples, it is quite possible with armour, as in architecture, to form a pretty accurate judgment as to the date of any particular specimen, and in doing so the architectural accessories are often of very great assistance. For our present purposes it is not necessary to go back to the times of our primitive ancestors, and trace the first use of defensive armour; to imagine how one of the early Britons first conceived the idea that a coat made of ox-hide would keep out an arrow better than a coat of paint, and that it was better to parry the blow of a club with the bone of a dead animal than with the arm of a living man. Neither is it necessary to describe the richly embossed armour of the Greeks, upon which Homer dilates with all the enthusiasm of one born of a nation of warriors; the plainer armour of the Romans; the chain armour of the Scythians; or that of quilted stuff, still worn by some of the Arab tribes. Except in some very isolated cases we shall meet with no armour in England earlier than the first half of the 13th century-complete chain without any vestige of plate, and from that date our study of the subject may well be commenced. Medieval armour as we find it sculptured in our churches may be conveniently arranged in six divisions: 1. Complete Mail 2. Mixed Mail and Plate : 4. Complete Plate 5. Mail Skirt period 6. Taslet period Complete Mail may be said 3. Camail (or Capmail) period I. Complete Mail.-The period of roughly to be coeval with the Norman and early English periods of architecture, the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, or from the time of William I. to Edward I. inclusive. It must be here |