Читать книгу British and Foreign Arms & Armour - Charles Henry Ashdown - Страница 3
ОглавлениеPREFACE
The study of Arms and Armour is one of absorbing interest to a large and ever increasing number of the community, inasmuch as it appeals in a marked degree to the student of history, the antiquarian, and to those who work in the realms of art. To the first it appeals as a concrete reminder of the struggles of nations for liberty, independence, power, or conquest; to the second it breathes of the age in which it saw the light with all the feeling and tone which characterised it; to the third it is a source of delight by the consummate beauty of its form or the exquisite details of its adornment. Unfortunately there are few books extant which serve as a guide to the student, although there are many which deal with the subject. The great works of Meyrick, with Skelton his illustrator, are standard only in a sense that it is necessary to be thoroughly acquainted with the subject in order to guard against the many errors embodied in them. Grose is hopelessly antiquated, while Fosbroke, Stothard, Strutt, Shaw, Planché, Cotman, and others who flourished before or about the sixties, only deal pictorially or casually with the subject. The Rev. Charles Boutell by his translation of Lacombe did much to foster the study, but it was from a French point of view, and his epitome of English armour and arms, though excellent in its way, is only superficial, and a digest of his great works on Monumental Brasses. In the latter he probably did more to further the study than any preceding author; he was the first to rationally systematise the arrangement of armour in periods in consonance with the salient features it possessed, thus breaking through the previous methods of classifying it by reigns, which was obviously absurd, or by centuries, which was equally ridiculous. I have followed his method with but little variation in the pages of this book, inasmuch as no better arrangement is extant. It is a matter for great pride to myself that such standard works should have emanated from a former Hon. Secretary of the St. Albans and Herts Architectural and Archæological Society, and if the present volume should in any degree further the good work of my predecessor it will have achieved the height of my ambition. Hewitt is delightful reading, but his arrangement is unsystematic and involved; to the advanced student, however, he is invaluable. The later works of Demmin, Clephan, Gardner, &c., are masterly monographs upon the subject, but hopelessly out of place in the hands of a beginner.
It is with a view to rectifying this obvious requirement that the following pages have been compiled, and it is confidently anticipated that a careful reading and digest of each separate period of armour, supplemented with the study of local brasses, effigies, museums, private collections, &c., will enable the average student to attack the more advanced works upon the subject with equal profit and pleasure. It is perhaps necessary to caution the student of brasses against many existing cases where the armour shown is not essentially that of the period when the person died, inasmuch as many warriors in their old age requested that the armour delineated upon their monumental slabs should be that in which they achieved renown in youth or manhood. In other examples the brass was not executed until some time after the person represented had deceased, and details had undergone change in the interim; while cases are not unknown where the brass of one person has been taken to record the demise of another, perhaps many years later. A flagrant example of this may be cited in the brass of Peter Rede, d. 1577, in St. Peter’s, Mancroft, Norwich, who is represented in complete plate of the years 1460 or 1470, with visored salade, &c. Occasionally we find the artist exercising his powers of recollection with startling results, as in the case of the Wodehouse brass in Kimberley Church, Norfolk, 1465, but probably executed sixty years later. The knight delineated has a skirt of mail of 1490 with three fluted tuilles, very high pike-guards, a camail of 1405 or earlier, sabbatons of 1500, and a breastplate with placcate of 1470. Fortunately such vagaries are so apparent that the observer is placed upon his guard at once.
The average Englishman is probably more unacquainted with arms and armour than any other technical subject. Beyond a general idea that the Crusaders fought in mail, and the Wars of the Roses were waged by warriors clad in plate, his knowledge does not extend, and he consequently witnesses many startling incongruities upon the stage of a theatre, or the arena of a pageant, with the most profound indifference. He will perceive Richard III. in a camail and Ivanhoe in a salade with the utmost complacency. The pity of it is that those who are responsible for the historical inaccuracies should be so ignorant, for no effort ought to be spared in endeavouring to educate the nation, and especially the youth of it, in the fundamental principles of rigid historical truthfulness. In our theatres recently we have witnessed Bolingbroke in a fifteenth century tabard, a waist-belt, and round-toed sabbatons, with the Duke of Norfolk in an almost equally grotesque parody of the Camail and Jupon Period; Pistol with a basket-hilted rapier; Henry V. in a camail, late fifteenth century gauntlets, twentieth century boots, and vambraces covering parts of his coudières. Upon the arena knights of Richard II.’s period have appeared in full plate armour of 1470; at Queen Eleanor’s funeral without ailettes; while bear’s-paw sabbatons have figured conspicuously in many scenes previous to 1480. These are elementary details which even a cursory knowledge of military equipment could avoid, but in the illustrations of historical scenes in books and magazines equal ignorance prevails, and a knight in pure mail and a surcoat, making love to a maiden in a reticulated head-dress seated under a two-centred Tudor archway, is only an example of the incongruities which almost every day insult the intelligence and offend the eyesight of the educated reader. Unfortunately many illustrators go to the works of Sir Walter Scott for details of mediæval military equipment, and are thereby led hopelessly astray.
It will be noticed in the following pages that continual reference is made, respecting early armour and weapons, to the MSS. which are preserved in our inimitable national collection at the British Museum, and I cannot too earnestly advise the student to utilise to the utmost extent possible the treasure-house of military detail preserved therein. The feeling which prompted early illuminators to represent Biblical and other personages in contemporary equipment, whereby Goliath was shown habited in Norman hauberk and helm, Moses appeared on horseback with couched lance in the mixed mail and plate of the thirteenth century, and Julius Cæsar crossed the Rubicon in a salade and complete Yorkist plate, is simply invaluable to the student, inasmuch as every detail, though at times almost microscopic, is faithfully delineated, and every new fashion recorded at once upon its adoption. I have drawn upon many manuscripts for illustrations, but there are scores still untouched which only need the student’s attention to deliver up many valuable examples of details probably quite unknown at the present time.
There are collateral subjects connected with the study of Armour and Arms which the exigencies of space have compelled me to wholly or partially omit, such as heraldry, mantling and the changes it underwent, caparisoning and barding, the later development of weapons of precision, history and varieties of the sword, &c., some of which would require special monographs to deal with, and do full justice to, the subject.
One of the main ideas has been the simplification of those points upon which the majority of the books extant are either silent or deal with in a casual and unsatisfying manner. One period especially, which gave me infinite trouble as a student, is that between 1320 and 1360, while another feature, generally omitted or hurriedly glossed over, is the equipment of the common soldier. In conclusion I must express my deep sense of obligation to the authorities connected with the Tower of London, the Wallace Collection, the British Museum Manuscript Department, the South Kensington Museum, the Rotunda at Woolwich, the Edinburgh Castle Museum, the United Service Institution, the Armourers’ Hall, &c., for the kind facilities they have willingly and promptly afforded for sketching, photographing, and examining the various exhibits preserved in those institutions.
CHARLES HENRY ASHDOWN.
Monastery Close,
St. Albans, Herts.
The Author gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Viscount Dillon; the Marquis of Salisbury; the late Sir John Evans, K.C.B.; The Very Rev. the Dean of Ely, D.D.; Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Bart.; H. J. Toulmin, Esq., J.P.; A. F. Calvert, Esq.; W. Page, Esq., F.S.A.; E. J. Hunt, Esq., B.A.; H. R. Wilton-Hall, Esq.
