Such armour as is shown in the illuminated codex referred to, was no
doubt worn by the redoubtable Cid, Ruy Diez de Bivar, whose stormy
career extended from 1029 to 1099. The _Poema del Cid_, which relates
his great achievements, was written unfortunately at least one hundred
and eight years after his death, and therefore we cannot place absolute
reliance upon the few details it contains as to his equipment. The
following passages are of special interest to the student of arms and
armour:
“With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low,
With stooping crests, and heads bent down above the saddle bow,
All firm of hand and high of heart, they roll upon the foe.
And he that in good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out,
And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout:
‘Among them, gentlemen! strike home for the love of Charity!
The Champion of Bivar is here--Ruy Diez--I am he!’
Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight,
Three hundred lances, down they come, their pennons flickering white;
Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow;
And when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.
It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day:
The shivered shields, the riven mail, to see how thick they lay.”
“Riven mail” in the original is _loriga_, a word obviously derived from
the Latin _lorica_; but Mr. Ormsby, whose translation I give, is
undoubtedly right in his rendering of the word, as cuirasses, or
breastplates, were not worn in Spain for one hundred and fifty years
after the date of the poem. Here is another passage of some technical
interest:
[The Cid beholds approaching the army of the Count of Barcelona, and
encourages his own followers.]
“On with your harness, cavaliers! quick saddle and to horse!
Yonder they come--the linen-breeks--all down the mountain side.
For saddles they have Moorish pads, with slackened girths they ride:
Our saddles are Galician make, our leggings tough and stout:
A hundred of us gentlemen, should scatter such a rout.”
I am inclined to think that the linen-breeks, so scornfully alluded to,
were the trousers or shalwars worn by Moorish auxiliaries of the Count.
The word “leggings” in the original is “huesos” (French _houseaux_),
which seems to mean the same things. But they are described as being
worn on the chausses or stockings of mail, and may not impossibly have
been greaves or defences of plate after the Roman pattern. These would
seem to be an anachronism at the end of the eleventh century; but Don V.
Carderera y Solano (_Iconografia Espanola_) says that there are in Spain
several bas-reliefs of the twelfth century, which represent knights
wearing pieces similar to the Roman ocreas. It is, on the whole, more
likely that the _huesos_ that protected the stout legs of the Cid were
of the jazerine pattern--of leather faced with metal discs and strips.
The Armoury at Madrid was, till lately, believed to contain many relics
of the great national hero, among them the _Colada_, a sword which the
Conde de Valencia is satisfied belongs properly to the thirteenth
century. The sword blade numbered G180 may, however, be ascribed, in the
opinion of the same authority, to the eleventh century. It is
double-edged, and ends in a round point. Down the greater part of its
length runs a groove, on the sides of which are engraved and inlaid with
gold certain letters and hieroglyphics, the meaning of which no one has
so far deciphered. This blade was included in the treasury of Ferdinand
and Isabel at Segovia, and corresponds closely enough with the
description in the inventory of that collection of “a sword called
Tizona, which belonged to the Cid.” There is, therefore, a strong
probability that the weapon before us is actually that with which Ruy
Diez de Bivar carved out a kingdom for himself in fair Valencia.
During the twelfth century the conical helmet with nasal began to fall
into disuse, though it was worn in Germany as late as 1195. About the
last quarter of the century the flat-topped, cylindrical heaulme, or
helm, was generally adopted. It was nearly always cast in one piece,
had two horizontal clefts for the vision, and was strengthened by bands
crossing each other over the face.
The ruined monastery of Benevivere, in the Province of Palencia,
contains the tomb and effigy, reproduced in the _Iconografia Espanola_,
of Don Diego Martinez de Villamayor, sometime Chamberlain to Alfonso
III. of Castile, who died in the odour of sanctity in the year 1176. The
knight is clothed in a long and ample white tunic; over this is thrown a
voluminous red mantle. Thus we cannot very well judge whether or not he
wears armour; but as he is girt with a broad baldric, ornamented with
studs, and clasps a cross-hilted sword, we may not unreasonably infer
that he is in knightly gear, and that his spurs are buckled round
leg-armour, which appears to be of plate.
If this assumption is warranted--and it is supported by the evidence of
the bas-reliefs mentioned by Carderera--it would seem that the Spaniards
had progressed more rapidly in the armourer’s craft than their
contemporaries. Greaves, jambs, or leg-armour of plate, were unknown in
Northern and Central Europe till the fourteenth century. Hewitt thinks
they were of German origin because they are sometimes referred to in
documents of that age as _beinberga_, from the German _beinbergen_. He
admits that they might have been copied from the examples of classical
times with which their wars in Italy would have familiarized the
Teutons. “In the South of Europe the greaves were already become of a
highly ornamental character, as we may see from the sculpture of
Gulielmus de Balmis (1289), from a bas-relief in the Annunziata at
Florence.” [The greaves are ornamented with floral devices and
_ecussons_, and are strapped on to chausses of mail.] But in Spain we
get a yet earlier example, even supposing the leg-armour on the Jaca and
Benevivere effigies was not of this sort.
Don Bernaldo Guillen de Entenza was major-domo of Aragon, and one of the
bravest knights in the train of King Jaime I. the Conqueror. He died a
few days after the victory over the Moors at Enesa in 1237, and was
buried at the Monastery of Puig, near Valencia. His sculptured figure
reveals every detail of his apparel (see plate 2). He wears a hauberk of
mail reaching to the middle of the thigh, and to the finger-tips, the
fingers of the glove being separated; the face is framed in the hood of
mail (camail), and the head protected by a round _chapelle-de-fer_,
ornamented with studs, and a strengthening band. Over the hauberk is
worn a sleeveless surcoat, embroidered at the breast and reaching below
the knee; it is split up at the sides to allow greater freedom to the
limbs. Both surcoat and hauberk are bordered with a fringe, except at
the neck, where the surcoat seems to be edged with a setting of stones
or studs. A baldric encircles the lower body, and supports a short,
broad cross-hilted sword on the left hip, and a dagger or misere-corde
on the right. The pommel of the dagger is carved into the resemblance of
a grotesque human face.
The legs are protected by greaves of plate armour, with ornamental
lengths up the middle. The knees appear to be furnished with
genouilleres or knee-caps of iron. The sollerets, pointed shoes, are of
mail.
Here, then, in Aragon, in 1237, we find a knight armed with those
defences which did not become common in Europe for another century. The
circumstance, though it may not in itself appear to be of much
importance, is interesting, as proving how quick was the Spaniard of
that day to avail himself of the latest appliances and inventions of the
age. Aragon, at least, seems to have kept pace with Italy, which is
generally allowed to have set the fashion in military equipment. And we
find that the armourer’s craft was sufficiently important at Barcelona
to constitute a guild, which was existing in 1257.
In the citadel of Lerida there is a fine sepulchral monument showing us
that valiant knight, Don Guillelmo Ramon de Moncada, Seneschal of
Catalonia, armed _cap-a-pie_ (see plate 3). He died about the middle of
the thirteenth century. Like his brother-in-arms, at Puig, he wears the
camail and hauberk. Over the forehead he wears a coronet, with shields
and studs and gilt fleurs-de-lys. The surcoat, which shows the hauberk
beneath, is tastefully embroidered with pearls, and is charged with
eight _ecussons_, or shields, each supported by two doves. The garment
must have been a beautiful work of art. The Seneschal wears jambs
(leg-armour) and cuisses (thigh-armour) of plate, and what are
unmistakably genouilleres of the shell pattern. His shoes are likewise
of plate. The armpits and elbows are protected by pieces new to us--the
round plates, called palettes or rondels, elsewhere rarely found before
the end of the century. Here again, and in the articulated fingers of
the mail glove, we have evidence of the advanced condition of the
armourer’s art in Spain. This is also demonstrated by a comparison of
this effigy with one of identical date--that of a knight in Haseley
Church, Oxfordshire (Hewitt, Vol. I., plate 46.) Here the armour is
entirely of mail, neither jambs nor coudes (coudieres, elbow-plates)
being shown. Nor are there any traces of the rich ornamentation seen on
the Aragonese warriors’ surcoats and mantles.
These were the spacious days of Ferdinand of Castile and James of
Aragon, when province after province, city after city, were wrested from
the Moor, and the defeat of Roderick was wiped out on the very spot
where he had endured it five hundred years before. Cordova, Valencia,
Murcia, Seville, fell in turn before the Christian arms. The
armourer-sergeants, wandering through the bazaars of the captured
Moorish cities, and curiously examining the products of their dusky
fellow-craftsmen, must doubtless have gleaned many new ideas and scraps
of useful knowledge. Ibn-Said, born at Granada in 1214, has left it on
record that in his time Murcia was renowned for its coats of mail, its
cuirasses, and for every description of iron armour incrusted with gold;
it was likewise celebrated for its saddles and harness richly gilt. In
fact, continues the Moorish chronicler, for all articles of military
equipment, such as bucklers, swords, quivers, arrows, and so forth, the
workshops of Andalus surpassed those of any other country. He boasts the
beautiful inlaid swords of Seville, which were not inferior to those of
the Indies.[B] Cordova, the great centre of industry and refinement in
the Peninsula, never achieved fame for its steel manufactures, but its
oval leather shields (adargas) were known as early as the tenth century,
and used all over Europe, but more particularly in Spain, in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Some interesting relics of Saint Ferdinand are enshrined in the Royal
Armoury. The remains of the cloak in which the saintly King was buried
(N9) are thus described in the Catalogue (see plate 1). “Its texture is
of silk and gold, made like an Oriental tapestry, checkered, the first
of the squares being crimson and a dirty white, with gold castles, and
the second with red lions rampant, like those of the Spanish arms, but
turned to the left of the shield. The border is woven in horizontal
bands, a wide one in the centre, composed of graceful floral designs,
blue and red, on a gold ground; two narrow ones, yellow, on the outer
edges of the former, and outside these other two bands of Arab lacework
of gold on a crimson ground.”
The _azicates_ (long-necked Moorish spurs) of St. Ferdinand (F189 and
160) are of easily-worked iron. What remains of the incrustation of gold
is adorned with little silver castles, similar heraldic devices in gilt
being distinguishable on the springs of the straps.
The Conde de Valencia de San Juan endeavours to prove--and, I think,
with success--that the sword numbered G21, believed at one time to be
the Cid’s famous blade “Colada,” is no other than the “Lobera” of St.
Ferdinand. How the name “Lobera” came to be applied to a sword is
unknown. The Conde hazards a conjecture that it was named after a
gentleman called Guillen Lobera, who is referred to in the memoirs of
Jaime I. of Aragon. The word was first used in this connection by the
Saint himself, who, on his death-bed, bequeathed to the Infante Manuel
for all his inheritance, “his Lobera sword, which was of great virtue,
and by means of which God had greatly helped him.”
Not less interesting is the passage in the chronicle of Alfonso XI.,
referring to the famous battle of Salado: “Then the King sent word to
Don Juan, son of the Infante Manuel (grandson of Ferdinand), by a
gentleman, to ask why he and those in the front did not pass the river.
And an esquire, called Garci Jofre Tenoryo, son of the Admiral killed by
the Moors, who was a vassal of the King and in the front, said to Don
Juan, that his Lobera sword, which he said had virtue, would do the
most work that day.”
The blade (see plate 4) is smooth, double-edged, and round-pointed; on
both sides for two-thirds of its length it is grooved, like most swords
of that time. Inside both grooves are certain signs or letters, engraved
and gilded, which the Conde de Valencia reads as the words--_Si_, _si_,
_No_, _non_. This somewhat cryptic inscription, the learned antiquary
explains as being part of the motto of St. Ferdinand, which may be
roughly translated--“Let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay.” The hilt
is of the sixteenth century, and was the work of Salvador de Avila, a
swordmaker of Toledo, who died in 1539.
Next to this sword is another of the same era (G22), erroneously
attributed to Roland, the famed Paladin of the eighth century. It is not
impossible that this also was one of St. Ferdinand’s weapons. It is very
long and broad, thin and flexible, double-edged, scallop-pointed, and
grooved for two-thirds of its length. The groove is engraved with rings
or circles, and ends in an elaborate cruciform device. The guard, of
massive silver-gilt, has quillons drooping and curving inward, and bears
the arms of Castile on one side and those of Leon on the other. The hilt
is of wood, plated with silver; the pommel is of iron, and is plated
with silver-gilt. The plates were once covered with filigree work. The
scabbard is of wood, sheathed in silver-gilt plate, and covered with
lace-work, essentially Morisco in character. Of the seventy-five stones
originally set in this filigree, only the half remain, including a large
amethyst and three engraved stones of the classical style and period
(plate 5).
Shields had not changed much since the preceding century to judge from
the specimen numbered D60. Like the twelfth century shield next to it,
it is of wood covered with parchment, and has grips of skin. On the
obverse may be traced the design of a hood, which has led Don Leocadio
Salazar to conclude that the shield was the property of the Conde de
Bureba, four hoods being on his coat of arms. The epitaph on that
illustrious personage’s tomb declares that “he filled Spain with the
fame of his name, as Themistocles did Athens.”
Our last instance of a Spanish suit of armour of the thirteenth century
illustrates a curious fashion in military attire that often has occupied
the attention of experts. The statue of Don Berenguer de Puigvert, in
the suppressed Monastery of Poblet, represents him clothed in a full
and richly embroidered surcoat, confined at the waist by a baldric,
beneath which he is wearing a complete suit of _banded armour_ of a very
elaborate pattern. On the forearm the mail seems to be composed of rings
placed end to end vertically instead of horizontally. The gauntlets and
leg-armour are composed of alternate horizontal bands, some showing a
zig-zag pattern; the others, perhaps rings set vertically. Banded mail
of various designs seems to have been fashionable all over Europe at the
close of the thirteenth century. Hewitt enumerates four examples in
English statuary. He expounds the various theories advanced to explain
the nature of this armour, and finally confesses that the riddle is
still unsolved. As Aragon seems in all improvements in armour to have
kept well ahead of the rest of the world, we need not be surprised to
find there an example of what was evidently a fashionable style in
Europe generally.
The headpiece universally worn at this time was the heaulme or helm.
About the middle of the century the aventail, or hinged opening for the
face, was introduced, and accordingly we find St. Ferdinand (represented
in the windows of Chartres Cathedral) wearing a casque with an aventail
cleft with three vertical slits. The camail was still generally worn
under the heaulme, which rested not only on the head but on the
shoulders of the wearer, and was secured by a chain. It was too heavy to
wear habitually, and was, therefore, carried at the saddle, or by the
esquire, to be put on at the approach of an enemy. Steel caps also were
often worn underneath; but much must obviously have depended on the
degree of strength and foolhardiness possessed by the individual.
“From the collection of mediæval ‘Proverbs,’” remarks the author we have
so often quoted, Mr. Hewitt, “we learn that Spain was the favourite mart
for the knightly charger. Denmark and Brittany had also a celebrity for
their breeds of horses of a different character. The fiat of popular
approval is given to the--
“‘Dextriers de Castille,
Palefrois Danois,
Roussins de Bretagne.’
“Such was the nature of the high-bred dextrarius that, when two knights
had dismounted, and were continuing the fight on foot, their horses,
left to themselves, instantly commenced a conflict of their own of the
most gallant and desperate character.” Bucephalus and Pegasus were
inferior steeds in comparison.
NOTE
The representation of armour on tombs and sepulchral effigies was
subject, during the Middle Ages, to regulations, which throw light on
the rank and the circumstances of the death of the deceased. In
Carderera’s _Iconografia_ we find the following ordinances ascribed to
the Emperor Charles V. They are probably merely a recapitulation of
enactments which had been in force several centuries:--
“If any person during his life shall have accomplished any notable feat
of arms, or gained honour in the lists, he shall be shown armed _de
pied-en-cap_, helmet on his head, visor raised, and hands joined. His
sword shall be at his side, and his spurs on. These shall be of gold if
he shall have been an armed knight; otherwise he shall have none.
“If he shall have gained no honours in the lists, he shall have the
visor lowered, and his helmet shall be placed beside him.
“If he shall not have distinguished himself in the tourney, but shall
have died on the field of battle, contributing to the victory, he shall
be represented armed _de pied-en-cap_, visor lowered, naked sword in his
hand, the point upwards, and his shield in his left hand. If he shall
have been of the vanquished, he shall be represented armed _de
pied-en-cap_, his sword in its sheath, visor raised, his hands joined,
and his spurs put on. If he shall have been made prisoner and died on
the field or in captivity, he shall be represented as in the preceding
article, but without spurs and with empty scabbard.
“All these personages may be represented in their surcoats, if they
shall have taken part in a pitched battle, at which the Prince in whose
pay they shall have been, shall have been present; otherwise, they shall
not be thus represented, unless they be of the rank of King, Prince,
Duke, Marquis, Count, or Baron.
“No man, howsoever noble, shall be represented in his surcoat unless he
be the Lord and Proprietor of the Church or Chapel, or the successor (?
descendant) of the Lord and Proprietor.
“If any person shall have followed the wars as a man-at-arms, he may be
represented armed, but without surcoat and helmet.
“No one shall be represented with a fringe to his surcoat, unless he be
of the rank of Baron.”
It should be said in conclusion, that these rules were not always
strictly observed, and cannot be relied upon in the absence of
corroborative testimony from other sources.
II
THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
The fourteenth century witnessed a notable transformation in military
equipment.[C] The introduction of firearms and the marked improvement in
weapons of offence led to the almost complete abandonment of the coats
of mail which had served the chivalry of Europe so long and so well, and
to the substitution of plate armour for at least the more vital points
of the harness. In Spain we have seen the transition began considerably
earlier than in Northern Europe, but the adoption of the new fashion in
its entirety did not proceed quite so rapidly as this early start might
lead one to expect.
Aragon, thanks to its intercourse with Italy--to which country, as has
been noted, swords were exported from Barcelona--led the van in
armourership. The companions-in-arms of Jaime el Conquistador are nearly
always represented wearing a considerable weight of plate armour.
Don Ramon Folch, Vizconde de Cardona, surnamed, on account of his
commanding personality and abilities, _el Prohom_, is shown on his tomb
at Poblet wearing jambs, or greaves of steel (it is difficult to say
which), and at the neck a high mentonniere, which must have been worn
with a heaulme, or visored salade. The close-fitting _chapelle-de-fer_
is adorned with cardon flowers, the arms of his house. So also is the
long and tastefully-embroidered surcoat with sleeves, which descends
below the knees. Beneath this was worn a hauberk of mail, with
articulated gloves. A broad decorated baldric supports a short sword.
This monument dates from 1322.
No greaves or any plate armour, on the other hand, appear on the
sepulchral monument, executed about twenty years later, over the remains
of Don Rodrigo de Lauria, son of the famous Admiral. The warrior is
clothed entirely in a suit of mail, with hood and camail, a graceful
coronet with fleurs-de-lys encircling the forehead. The surcoat or tunic
is, as in the other examples, charged with the armorial bearings of the
deceased, and has three openings--at the sides, and in the middle--with
a gilt fringe--“a fashion,” remarks Don Valentin Carderera, “which we
have observed in Spain only on the statues of Aragonese knights.” The
sword is much longer and narrower than usual, and reveals fine
workmanship. The spurs are of the goad shape.
The _Historia Troyana_, executed in Castile about 1350, represents
warriors clad in similar suits of mail, with pointed heaulmes with
visors, but no chin-pieces. Greaves and genouilleres are worn with the
chausses. In one instance a surcoat is shown of scaled and studded
pattern. This may have been some rare sort of gambeson, or again may
have been made of the _cuir-bouilli_--boiled leather--common all over
Europe and the East then and for centuries after. Banded armour is also
shown.
The statue of Don Alonso Perez de Guzman, Captain-General of Jerez, who
distinguished himself at the taking of Algeciras in 1344, is interesting
technically as showing several new pieces of plate-armour. The jambs
(leg-plates) are closed, and coudieres are worn on the elbows and
vambraces on the forearm. Defences of plate for the arm were coming into
use about this time. The earliest examples date from 1328, but they
occur very rarely prior to 1360. Yet this monument is believed to have
been executed some years before the knight’s death in 1351. It is
evident that the Castilians were not lagging behind in the arts and
appliances of warfare. Don Alonso wears pointed sollerets of six
plates, and the hauberk of mail beneath a surcoat. He clasps a long
cross-hilted sword.
A decided impetus was given to the movement towards plate armour by the
influx of English and French troops into Castile, incidental to the
restoration and final deposition of Pedro the Cruel. Almost for the
first time the Spaniards were brought face to face on the tented field
with a foreign Christian soldiery, and that under leaders no less
formidable than Edward the Black Prince and Bertrand Duguesclin. Against
such doughty foemen stouter defences were needed than against the
light-armed, leather-and-mail-clad chivalry of Islam. Though in Aragon
the cuirass, or _coracina_, had already been worn, its introduction into
Castile is generally ascribed to Bertrand Claquin and those who with him
entered the service of Don Enrique de Trastamara. This tradition seems
to be warranted by a sepulchral effigy of Don Pedro, described in
Carderera’s _Iconografia_ (see plate 6), though it should be said that
this was not executed till seventy-six years after that King’s death.
The components of the armour are: a hauberk of mail, reaching half-way
down the thigh; a coracina or cuirass; vambraces, rere-braces,[D]
coudes, and genouilleres. The surcoat and mantle which hide so much of
the armour, are brocaded with gold flowers on a blue field.
The monument of one of Don Enrique’s partisans, Juan Alfonso, Lord of
Ajofrin (see plate 3), was erected a year or two after his death on the
field of Aljubarrota, in 1385. He wears a short hauberk with a sleeved
surcoat, which probably concealed a cuirass. The leg-armour--jambs,
genouilleres, cuisses--is entirely of plate. The gauntlets are of
extraordinarily delicate workmanship. The cuff and hand are of plate,
richly chased; the fingers are articulated and composed of small annular
plates, which must have allowed perfect freedom to the joints; the tips
are shaped to imitate the nails; and the knuckles are furnished with
gads or spikes, which served as offensive as well as defensive armour.
Gauntlets of beautiful workmanship were not, of course, peculiar to
Spain, but were adopted there as early as in any other country. The Lord
of Ajofrin wears laminated sollerets, and carries a sword of unusual
length, with drooping quillons, and a shield or escutcheon on the
pommel.
Castile owed, not only the corselet, but an improved headpiece to the
White Company, which crossed the Pyrenees to support the claims of Don
Enrique in 1366. It should, however, be said that Don Pedro in his will,
dated 1362, bequeaths his _bascinet_ to his son, Don Juan.[E] “The
heaulme,” says M. Mathieu Prou, “having become too heavy, was from 1300
onwards little more than a headpiece for parade. In action the knights
preferred to combat with uncovered face, the head protected by a casque
called _bassinet_ or _bascinet_, which was without a nasal, round, at
first rather low, but towards 1330 assuming an ovoid form. From the
beginning of the fourteenth century it became the custom to fix to the
iron cap a visor moving on pivots, or attached to hinges, and opening
like a shutter. This visor was ordinarily pointed and elongated in
muzzle form, and provided with two horizontal slits for the vision
(occularia), and numerous holes for respiration. As this helmet did not
protect the throat, to the lower part was soon added the piece called
beavor, over which the visor fell when it was lowered.”
The celada or salade was also worn in Spain about this time. The
collection of Don Jose Estruch, at Barcelona, contains such a headpiece
of somewhat peculiar shape. The crest is very high and the brim very
broad. To it is fastened a beavor in three plates, to which again is
laced a covering of mail for the back of the neck. The bascinet is worn
by the Lord of Ajofrin’s contemporary, Don Bernardo de Anglesola, of
Aragon (see plate 8). It is encircled by a double band of ornaments and
precious stones, and is worn over the camail, which falls like an ample
tippet over the breast. The harness is composed of hauberk of mail,
rere-braces, vambraces, coudes, gauntlets, cuisses, genouilleres, jambs,
and sollerets. The brocaded surcoat may be intended to conceal a
corselet.
Froissart throws some light on the military equipment and peculiarities
of the Castilians of his day. From more than one passage in the
_Chronicles_ it is evident that the sling, a weapon long discarded by
other Western nations, was still esteemed in Spain, where the javelin
also was a favourite weapon. We read, “‘By my faith,’ said the Duke of
Lancaster, ‘of all the arms the Castilians and your countrymen make and
use, I love the dart best, and love to see it used; they are very expert
at it; and I tell you, whoever they hit with it, he must be indeed
strongly armed, if he be not pierced through and through.’ ‘You say
truly,’ replied the squire, ‘for I saw more bodies transfixed at these
assaults than ever I saw before in all my life. We lost one whom we much
regretted, Senhor Joao Lourenco da Cunha, who was struck with a dart
that pierced through his plates and his coat of mail and a gambeson
stuffed with silk, and his whole body, so that he fell to the ground.’”
The address of the Castilians with the dart or javelin is again referred
to at the attack on Vilha Lobos in 1386; while, at the battle of Najara,
“the Spaniards and Castilians had slings, from which they hurled stones
and crushed heaulmes and bascinets; in which manner they wounded many.”
In another passage we are told that the troops were armed according “to
the usage of Castile, with darts and _archegayes_ (assegais) and
throwing stones from slings.”
There is a tendency among certain historians to exaggerate the influence
exercised by the Moors on the applied arts in Spain. So far as armour
was concerned, it is clear that the Christians of the Peninsula, where
they did not originate fashions, followed those of Italy, or in later
times of France. They certainly did not look to Granada for a lead. And
if the Spanish Moors had been such skilful armourers as some would have
us believe, it is hardly likely that their kinsmen and neighbours, the
Moors of Barbary, would have gone so poorly equipped as they seem to
have gone in Froissart’s time.
“For,” says Messire Froissart, “they are not so well nor so strongly
armed as the Christians; for they have not the art nor the method nor
the workmen to forge armour as the Christians do. Neither is the
material, that is, iron and steel, common with them. Their armour is
usually of leather, and at their necks they carry very light shields,
covered with cuir-bouilli of Cappadocia, which, if the leather has not
been overheated, no weapon can penetrate.”
On the other hand there can be no doubt that the conquest of Andalusia
had let the Castilian artificers into the secrets of many new methods,
such as damascening and enamelling, by which they were not slow to
profit. The traditions of the goldsmith’s craft, handed down from
Visigothic times, had never been lost; and certain it is that in the
fourteenth century, when the conquerors had had time to assimilate the
arts of the conquered to their own, armour and metal work of all kinds
began to assume a rich and elaborate character. The goldsmiths of
Barcelona, Toledo, Valladolid, and Seville enjoyed a European
reputation. They worked in close co-operation with the armour-smith. In
the example of a fourteenth-century harness we have just
considered--that of Don Bernardo Anglesola--not only bascinet,
gauntlets, coudes, and genouilleres are chased, and in some cases set
with precious stones, but the hauberk has a rich fringe of gilt, and
each plate of the rere-braces has a decorative band at the lower border.
The baldric is adorned with studs and fleurs-de-lys. In the statue, at
Seville, of Don Alvaro de Guzman, Admiral of Castile, who died in 1394,
the same elaboration may be noticed in the roped edges of the
genouilleres, the gauntlets, and the tasteful floral devices,
alternating with rows of studs, in the ornamentation of the baldric. The
pommel of the sword, as was customary, is emblazoned with the arms of
the owner. According to Froissart, the bascinet of the King of Castile
(1385) was encircled by a fillet of gold and precious stones--“qui bien
valoient vingt mille francs.”
Helmets at the close of the fourteenth century were not only richly,
but, as was often the case in preceding ages, fantastically decorated.
We have an excellent illustration in the Armoury (plate 9) in the crest
of King Martin of Aragon (1395-1412), formerly attributed to Jaime el
Conquistador, and carried for many years in the procession of the
“Standart,” at Palma (OII). It represents the head, neck, and wings of a
dragon--the _Drac pennat_, the device displayed in field and tilt-yard
by the Princes of the House of Aragon from Pedro IV. to Fernando II.
(1336-1479). As was generally the case, it is made of boiled parchment
and gilded plaster, and was set on the crest of the helmet, encircled by
the crown or coronal, amid dancing plumes. The cap on which the _Drac
pennat_ is mounted was added in the first years of the fifteenth
century, that it might be worn by the man who carried in the procession
the standard of Jaime I. At the renowned and honourable passage of arms
of Don Suero de Quinones (1434), the crest of one of the knight’s
helmets was in the shape of a golden tree, with green leaves and golden
fruit; round the trunk was coiled a serpent, and in the middle was a
naked sword with the device--_Le vray amy_. (True friend).
To the last year of the fourteenth century belongs the effigy of a
knight of the Anayas family in the Cathedral of Salamanca, described by
Carderera. French influence is attested by the corselet and by the
brigantine or hauberk of metal discs which was in very general use and
esteem in France at that time. The legs and arms are, as now customary,
sheathed in plate, the coudes being of tasteful design and sharply
pointed. The transition from mail to plate is well illustrated by a
medallion which represents Alfonso V. of Aragon, when a youth (about
1416), in a coat of mail, and a bas-relief portraying him as a man of
mature years in a complete harness of plate, mail only appearing as
gussets at the armpits.
The reign of Juan II. of Castile (1406-1454) is extolled by Spanish
writers as the golden age of chivalry. Knighthood was in flower, in
fact, somewhat later in the Peninsula than in the rest of Europe, though
I can find no adequate reason for ascribing the introduction of
chivalry, as an institution, to the Black Prince and Duguesclin. Such
enactments as that of Jaime II. of Aragon (1291-1327), which ordained
that any cavalier escorting a lady should be secured from any kind of
molestation or hindrance, and given a free passage from one end of the
kingdom to the other, show that the spirit of chivalry was certainly
understood South of the Pyrenees many years before the battles of Najara
and Montiel. But it is likely enough that warfare with a Christian foe
may have put a finer edge on the Spaniards’ sense of honour--blunted,
perhaps, by their relations with the infidel, to whom it was deemed
unnecessary to extend all the courtesies of war. The lull, too, in that
long conflict caused men to find an outlet for their energies in tourney
and tilt-yard, where the atmosphere was more favourable to the generous
emotions than was the field of actual battle. Juan II. and his
all-powerful minister, Alvaro de Luna, Constable of Castile, delighted
in jousts and tournaments, and encouraged the sentiment and exercise of
chivalry by all the means in their power. The Constable himself often
appeared in the lists as a mantenedor (or challenger), or aventurero (or
respondent). The spirit of the age is exemplified by the famous passage
of arms, to which I have already made reference. In 1434, Don Suero de
Quinones, a knight of good family, besought the King to grant him
release from a vow he had made to his lady, by allowing him to hold the
Bridge of Orbigo, near Leon, with nine friends, for thirty days against
all comers. His Majesty convoked the Cortes to deliberate upon this
grave proposal, with the result that a large sum of money was voted to
defray the expenses of the tournament, and invitations were sent to all
the Courts of Europe. Knights flocked from all parts of the Continent.
Nothing was omitted that could lend dignity and splendour to the scene.
There were in all sixty-eight competitors, and seven hundred and
twenty-eight courses were run. One Aragonese knight having been killed,
and several champions seriously wounded, among them Suero de Quinones
himself, the latter was adjudged to have fulfilled his vow, and to have
honourably discharged his duty to his lady. This memorable contest was
considered to have reflected immortal lustre on Castilian arms, and King
Juan no doubt felt prouder of himself, his knights, and his kingdom than
if he had driven the Moors from Spain. The Honroso Paso de Don Suero de
Quinones is set forth in minute detail in a special chronicle, and is
frequently and lovingly referred to in Spanish history.
Stimulated by such public displays of prowess and knightly address, and
despite severe sumptuary laws, armour and military gear became more
ornate and costly every year. In the chronicle of Don Alvaro de Luna, in
the account of the battle of Olmedo in 1445, we read:
“So long had the wars in Castile lasted, that the greatest study of
everyone was to have his armour well decorated and his horses well
chosen; so much so that it would scarcely have been possible in all the
Constable’s host to find one whose horse had no covering, or the neck of
whose horse was without steel mail. Thus all those noble young gentlemen
of the Constable’s house, and many others, were very richly adorned.
Some had different devices painted on the coverings of their horses, and
others jewels from their ladies on their helmet-crests. Others had gold
and silver bells, with stout chains hanging to their horses’ necks.
Others had badges studded with pearls or costly stones around the
crests. Others carried small shields, richly embellished, on which were
strange figures and inventions. Many different things were put on the
helmet-crests, for some had insignia of wild beasts, others plumes of
various colours, and others had plumes both on their helmet-crests and
on the face-covering of their horses. Some horsemen had feathers that
spread like wings against their shoulders; some affected simple armour;
others wore plated coats over the cuirass; others rich embroidered
tunics.”
The increased popularity of tilting and similar martial exercises
brought about a demand for heavy reinforcing pieces of armour, such as
could not be worn habitually except by men of the strongest physique, in
the field. Henceforward we find a distinction made between war harness
and tilting harness. As a specimen of the latter, belonging to the time
of which I am now speaking (middle fifteenth century), we have in the
Royal Armoury, a Spanish tilting breast-plate (E59), thus described in
the 1898 Catalogue:
“Spanish tilting Breastplate, middle fifteenth century, composed of
breastplate and over-breastplate, screwed together. The breastplate,
tin-plated to avoid oxidation, preserves the nails of the brocade with
which it was covered. The over-breastplate was also called ‘the
volant’--a defence much used in tilts in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. It was strengthened with iron, as stated in the description
of the honourable passage of Don Suero de Quinones. It is doubtful if
this second piece was also covered with rich cloth, like others of a
later period; it has its original hollow lance-rest, for tilt, fastened
with a bolt and four staples. It has also a piece of iron, which we call
_flaon_, used as a wedge between the shield and the breastplate, and
forming a resisting whole against the adversary’s lance. This _flaon_,
the only iron one we have seen, serves also to fasten the helm to the
breast”--in the manner shown on the piece A16. [The _flaon_ was nearly
always of wood.]
The headpiece was correspondingly strengthened. Referring more
particularly to the tilting helm that forms part of the suit (A16)
belonging to Felipe I. of Castile (1478-1506), from which the casque
worn by Don Suero probably did not differ, the Conde de Valencia says:
“The tilting helm, or round closed _almete_, as it was called, appeared
at the end of the fourteenth century, and continued in use, with slight
modifications in each country, until the beginning of the sixteenth.
Designed to resist the impact of a lance in front, the part around the
vizor, or the horizontal opening between the crest and the face, was
strengthened, attaining a thickness of nine millimetres in some places;
in others, as the sides and occiput or back of the helmet, it gradually
diminishes. Its vertical and almost cylindrical length, is such that it
might rest on the shoulders, so that, fastened to the breastplate by the
hinge, and to the backplate by a strong strap, it might protect the
tilter’s head without inconveniencing his movements. In certain tilts,
this resource was insufficient against the violence of a lance-thrust at
full gallop of two horses going in an opposite direction, and then the
horsemen protected the head with a stiffened cap, which in German was
called _harnisch kappe_.”
The armet, the most graceful form of steel headpiece, also seems to have
been introduced into Spain about the middle of the fifteenth century. A
fresco in the Escorial, copied from a painting of the first half of that
century, representing the battle of Higueruela, depicts men-at-arms
wearing this species of helmet. It superseded the bascinet for use in
war, and will be described further on in these pages.
The sword continued, as during the preceding centuries, to be
two-edged, of rhomboidal or almond-shaped section, intended much more
for cutting and hacking than thrusting. The grip now tended to lengthen,
and the pommel, which was usually pear-shaped, became lighter. To this
period belongs G4, the sword presented by Pope Eugene IV. to Juan II.,
in the sixteenth year of his pontificate (1446), as the inscription
engraved with aqua fortis on the ricasso records. The blade is wide and
grooved. In the groove are inscribed the words PIERVS ME FECE.
“The guard, notable for its elegant simplicity, is all of silver, gilded
over and chased, with the cross of straight arms with fleurs-de-lys at
the ends. The hilt is a festooned ballister, _i.e._, a small pillar
swelling in the centre or towards the base, and the pommel, covered with
leaves, also festooned, is pear-shaped. The description in the inventory
of this Treasury (King Juan’s) makes us aware that the hilt has lost
much of its most beautiful decoration: ‘Another sword with a groove in
the middle and the words _pierus me fece_, gilded, has the cross one
hand in length, the pommel, hilt, cross, and all the sheath of gilded
silver, and on this are some open leaves soldered to some trunks; and
the cross is a serpent with wings enamelled green; the rim, which is the
first piece of the sheath, is enamelled blue with its _quirimi_’ (from
_quiris_, a spear or javelin), &c.”
G5. Blade of a Pontifical sword, sent to Henry IV. of Castile by Pope
Calixtus III. in 1458. (This Spanish pontiff, Alfonso Borgia, of
Valencia, was elected in 1455, and died in 1458.)
It has four surfaces, with false guard and long ricasso, sloped on both
edges; gilded and engraved on both sections. Length, 1.180; width,
0.039.
The history of this weapon leads us to suppose that the mark is that of
an unknown Italian swordmaker. On each side of the blade is a circular
shield with the arms of the Pontiff (a bull on a ground composed of
bezants, surmounted by the tiara and keys), and this inscription: ACCIPE
S C M GLADIVM MVNVS A DEO I QVO DEI CIES (_sic_) ADVERSARIOS P P LI MEI
XPIANI.
According to the note in the _Cronicon of Valladolid_, this sword was
sent to Enrique IV. of Castile by Calixtus III., to encourage him to
fight unremittingly against the Moors. The ornamentation has gone; but
we may judge of its richness and artistic value by the sketch of it in
the Inventory of the _alcazars_ of Segovia: it says--”.... A sword, all
gilded, nearly to the last third section, with large letters in each
portion, and the mark consists of seven spots on a small shield; the
pommel, the hilt, and cross are all of gilded _acucharado_ silver, and
in the middle of the pommel are the words Calistus Papa Tercio; the
sheath of gilded silver, engraved with evergreen oak-leaves and acorns,
has four round enamels on the middle portion; on one is St. Peter with a
cross in his hand, in a ship, and on each of the other two (_sic_) is a
coloured cross and four small ones; the rim is enamelled with coats of
arms of the Pope, and a shield with an ox in each quarter and some blue
letters ..., &c. This work of art was by the artificer of Zaragoza,
Antonio Perez de las Cellas, established in Rome, who worked almost
exclusively for Calixtus III. during his brief pontificate.” (Muntz,
_Les arts a la cour des Papes._)
The name _falsaguarda_, or dummy guard, was given, in an Inventory of
arms of the sixteenth century, to the two small pieces or wings on the
blades of broadswords, a third of the way from the guard, where the
grooving on the blade ends.
These, of course, were presentation swords. The blade (G24), which is
traditionally ascribed to the Conde de Haro, of Juan II.’s reign, is
gilded and engraved at the upper end, the design representing on one
side the Annunciation, on the other, St. John in the Desert. It has a
groove down its entire length, and is diamond-pointed. The sword
(G23--plate 11) is of similar make, and is engraved in Gothic character
on a field of gold with texts, which, translated, run as follows:
THE LORD IS MY HELP; I WILL NOT FEAR WHAT MAN CAN DO UNTO ME, AND I WILL
DESPISE MY ENEMIES; SUPERIOR TO THEM, I WILL OVERTHROW THEM. On a
circle, part of verse 8, chapter xviii. of the Gospel of St. John: IF YE
THEREFORE SEEK ME, LET THESE GO THEIR WAY, BUT JESUS PASSED THROUGH (the
midst of them), and also in the centre, MARY VIRGIN. In another circle,
part of the anthem of the Purification of Our Lady: MAKE ME WORTHY TO
PRAISE THEE, BLESSED BE THE SWEET VIRGIN MARY, and, in the centre, the
monogram of Jesus Christ.
The guard consists of an iron crosspiece with traces of gold: the guard
curved towards the blade and twisted at the ends; circular pommel with
two faces with a cavity (round) in the centre, which was frequently
incrusted with the shield of arms of the owner.
The two-handed sword was introduced in the late fourteenth or early
fifteenth century. The Armoury contains a specimen (G15--plate 10)
belonging to the first half of the latter era. It comes from Mallorca.
The blade is almond-shaped, metre 0.990 long, by 0.038 broad; it has a
long ricasso, counter-guard (_falsaguarda_), and three grooves. The
guard is of copper, once gilded, with quillons drooping very slightly;
the grip, of corded wood, covered with leather; the pommel pear-shaped
and facetted.
Before the century was three-quarters gone, complete suits of
plate-armour were worn in Castile, though the hauberk was still
retained, in some cases, as an additional defence. The powerful and
ambitious Juan Pacheco, Marques de Villena and Grandmaster of St. James,
who died in the same year as his sovereign Enrique IV. (1474), is shown
(plate 12) wearing, in addition to the pieces which had now become a
regular part of the harness, espaliers in five pieces, and _tassets_ or
armour for the hips, of five pieces, in the graceful oak-leaf pattern,
which endured till the time of Charles V. The opening between the
tassets is defended by the skirt of the hauberk, worn beneath the
cuirass. That piece, and the vambraces, are exquisitely chiselled with
floral designs. The armour of Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, Conde de
Tendilla, who died five years after Villena, is very similar. His coudes
are very large, chased, and set with gilt studs round the borders. |
|
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기