Read Ebook: Armor and Arms An elementary handbook and guide to the collection in the City Art Museum of St. Louis Missouri U.S.A. by Hoopes Thomas T

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THE EARLIEST ARMOR AND ARMS

Once upon a time there probably were men who had neither armor nor arms. They did not last long, for wild animals or other men with stones or sticks in their hands killed them and ate them up. The first men about whom we know anything definite already had weapons of stone. Arms and, later, armor have accompanied man throughout his history.

The first obvious weapons were stones, roughly shaped to make them more effective. Such are not to be found in the City Art Museum, but we do have examples of the next type to develop, the weapons of the bronze age.

Bronze is a mixture of copper and tin, and it was invented a very long time ago, and in many different places. It was known in ancient Egypt, in the Far East and in Europe. Two thousand years before Christ the Chinese were making bronze arms and domestic and ceremonial objects of all sorts, and were making them so beautiful that such objects are considered proper exhibits for an art museum. We have a very fine collection of ancient Chinese bronzes, exhibited in the Museum's Chinese galleries, and among them are numerous weapons. The earliest include axes and dagger-axes . These date from the Shang Dynasty, This too is the period of a bronze helmet in the form of a hood with smooth sides which come down well over the cheeks, while leaving the front of the face exposed. Helmets of almost precisely this form, but made of steel, were worn in Italy in the fifteenth century, more than two thousand years later! This helmet has a small plume-holder at its very top, and is peculiar in having, as its only decoration, a pair of eyes embossed in relief on the forehead.

From the Ordos region of Siberia, where a primitive culture lasted for a very long time, comes a particularly fine ceremonial dagger of bronze with inlays of turquoise. From China again, dating throughout the thousand years before Christ, come numerous bronze weapons now in the Museum's Study Collection, including swords, daggers, and, from about the beginning of the Christian Era, most ingenious mechanisms for the crossbow a weapon which was not known in Europe until many centuries later.

An Etruscan grave has yielded the large bronze disk of Fig. 5. On stylistic grounds it is believed that this originated not in Etruria, but on the other, Eastern, shore of Italy in Picenum, in the second half of the seventh century before Christ. It was probably the central reinforcement of a large leather shield.

But of all the specimens of antique armor and arms in this museum, none surpasses the helmet shown in our frontispiece. This helmet, together with fragments of armor, a shield rim and a spear point, all now in the Museum, was found in a tomb near Metaponto, in Southern Italy, where once there was a Greek colony. It is believed to date from about the middle of the sixth century B.C. The helmet is of bronze, the upper part of the bowl formed as the neck and head of a ram. This is surmounted by a great crest of silver, resting on a support of ivory. The cheek pieces of the helmet have rams' heads in profile embossed in relief. The eyes, the horns of the main ram's head, the ivory crest holder and part of the silver crest are restorations, but enough original fragments of the crest were found with the helmet to indicate exactly how the crest was shaped. Moreover the existence of such metallic crests is verified by a bronze statuette of similar origin .

At first glance, the helmet proclaims itself a great work of sculpture, and proves that arms and armor can properly belong in a museum of art. How very well this piece deserves its place here is still more apparent on close examination. It seems incredible that so long ago a craftsman could, without any of our modern tools, have formed from a single plate of bronze such a deep and difficult forging as this helmet bowl. It is equally amazing that, in a period still considered as archaic, his artistic imagination could have produced so naturalistic yet so noble a rendition of an animal form. The technical skill and taste of the engraving and embossing are also noteworthy: the suggestion of locks of hair around the forehead, the eyebrows which terminate as snakes' heads, the suggestions of skin texture on the rams' heads. It is indeed one of the world's masterpieces of armor.

Although the Greeks made their armor out of bronze, they did have knowledge of iron, at least as early as the fifth century B.C. But it was extremely difficult for them to prepare, as they had not yet discovered efficient methods of smelting it from iron ore, so that what little they had was very precious. It could not be spared for making armor, but was restricted to edged weapons where a relatively small amount of this hard new metal could be most effective. The Romans too used iron, and as their technical skill improved they used more and more of it.

After the Roman empire was overwhelmed by the barbarian hordes from the North the making of fine arms languished. It did not cease; occasionally discoveries are made of beautifully inlaid sword pommels and shield bosses belonging to the so-called "dark ages". Sword blades too turn up occasionally, skillfully constructed of many layers of alternately hard steel and soft iron, so that they may retain a keen cutting edge yet still be tough rather than brittle.

CHAIN MAIL

Except for the rare finds just mentioned, we know little about the armor and arms of the period from the fall of Rome to about the twelfth century. The paintings, drawings, and statues which have survived suggest, but give no clear information. We have reason to believe that armor was made of small plates of iron attached to cloth or leather garments, or of chain mail, a fabric made of interlinked rings of iron wire. Towards the end of this period we know that chain mail was extensively employed, for it often appears, especially in England, on the engraved brass plates attached to the tombs of important people of the time . The Museum has a small collection of paper impressions of these "brasses" which are well worthy of study by anyone interested in early armor. Some are exhibited on the walls of the armor gallery.

In places where special strength was required, as around the throat, the rings were made of the same size but of heavier wire, which was flattened by hammering in the neighborhood of the rivet. In this way the overlapping of the rings became so close that not even a needle could penetrate the fabric . In other cases, unflattened rings were used, but strands of leather were drawn through the rows, giving additional rigidity and protection. It is believed that this practice accounts for the appearance of what is known as "banded mail" in numerous monuments and engraved brasses.

Chain mail was a good protection against cuts and stabs, but it had a number of serious disadvantages. In the first place, it was expensive. Even the most skillful armorer could make it but slowly. The mail cape of Fig. 8 contains about 44,235 links, each separately forged and riveted; some complete coats of mail contain over 200,000! Forgeries of antique chain mail are practically non-existent, for they would cost more to make than genuine specimens, rare as they are, would be worth today.

Again, chain mail was very easily attacked by rust, and, once it was rusted, was most difficult to clean. Consequently very little early mail is left--most of it just rusted away to nothing. It was heavy and uncomfortable, for the whole weight hung from the shoulders.

But its worst disadvantage lay in its flexibility. It would resist a cut, but was of little protection against a blow. To make it of any use in battle against heavy swords, maces, and battle axes it was necessary to wear beneath it a very heavily padded garment which, of course, was hot. How the Crusaders in their chain mail must have sweated in the hot sun of the Holy Land! And how many mail-clad knights must have been pounded to death without necessarily losing one drop of blood!

To protect against blows, therefore, it became necessary to produce a rigid protection. The primitive state of iron metallurgy did not permit the making of more than small pieces of iron at a time. Nevertheless, iron head coverings were already in use by the eleventh century, and from that time on pieces of plate armor increased in size and number. After the head defense, the most vulnerable part of a rider's body was the knees. Have you ever had a really hard bump on the kneecap, and, if you remember one, should you have liked to go on fighting just after receiving it? The knight represented in the brass of Fig. 7, who died in 1289, wears knee-guards, and rests his head on his great "pot-helm", which was normally attached to his body by a chain, so that it could not easily be lost if he took it off to get a breath of air. The City Art Museum has no specimens of plate armor of this early period.

"GOTHIC" ARMOR

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the most important single personality in Europe was probably King Maximilian I of Germany and Austria. A contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, he lived at a time when versatility was one of the characteristics of an educated man, and as sovereign he set his subjects a good example in this respect. He wrote books on genealogy, hunting and woodsmanship, horse breeding, architecture, and landscape gardening. He was greatly interested in arms and armor, and frequently visited his court armorer in his workshop. It is not surprising, therefore, that he had a great influence on the design of armor, and that the new and sharply different fashion which appeared at this time became known as the "Maximilian". It was characterized by parallel, or almost parallel, fluting, especially on breastplate and thigh guards, by broad-toed foot guards as compared with the long pointed toes of the Gothic period, and by strongly roped edges of the plates. The City Art Museum has an excellent suit of Maximilian armor . The breastplate, thigh guards and main shell of the helmet illustrate the characteristic flutings, while the sollerets are fully developed Maximilian style. The suit was made in Nuremberg in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and was formerly in the armory of Prince Liechtenstein.

In the military armor, intended for actual fighting, taste was usually conservative. Extravagances, such as excessively wide or narrow sollerets, over-elaborate elbow guards, or extremely large shoulder guards, were avoided. A moderate amount of decoration was considered quite permissible, provided it did not lessen the functionality of the armor; such decoration most frequently was in the form of etching.

Although we are accustomed to think of etching primarily in connection with pictures on paper, the process seems to have originated with the armorers. They would take a helmet or breastplate, paint it all over with a heavy acid-proof varnish, scratch a design through this varnish with a sharp needle, then place the metal in a bath of acid. The acid would eat away the steel where the varnish had been scratched, but not elsewhere. After the plate had been taken from the acid and the varnish removed, the etched part would show dark against the polished surface of the steel. This contrast could be heightened by rubbing in a little black pigment, and the early armorers discovered that they could readily keep a record of their work or a sample sheet to show other customers, by simply placing a piece of paper against the etched and blackened surface and rubbing it. The fresh black would stick to the paper, giving a clear impression of the etched design. Masters of etching like Rembrandt used and modern etchers still use essentially the same process.

Tournament armor, used in the toughest, most exciting sport that man has ever invented, was worn for comparatively short periods of time, and could, therefore, be considerably heavier than the military armor which a man might have to wear continuously. Decoration on the armor itself was reduced to a minimum, although elaborate trappings of cloth and feathers were often added to it. Fig. 14 shows a helmet for use in a form of tournament conducted according to Italian rules, in which the contestants were separated by a fence which prevented their horses from colliding, thus permitting unrestricted speed of attack. The helmet is very solid and sturdy, with plain polished surfaces to deflect the opposing lance-point. Notice the circular hollow rim at the neck. This closed over an outward-turned rim on the throat defense so that although the helmet could be turned to either side following the motion of the wearer's head, it could not separate from the body armor at the throat and leave an opening for hostile spear or sword point.

Specimens of the simpler parade armor, with etched and gilded ornament against a background colored a warm brown, are the shield shown in Fig. 15 and the helmet of Fig. 16. A mitten-gauntlet of the second half of the sixteenth century from the Clarence Mackay collection and formerly from the Imperial Russian Collection in the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg is an example of the work of the British Royal Armory at Greenwich, which made numerous finely decorated suits of armor for the nobles of the court of Queen Elizabeth. This gauntlet is a magnificent specimen of engineering skill as applied to the design of armor; its construction allows complete freedom to the wrist, knuckle, and finger joints, yet keeps the hand perfectly protected in any position. The gauntlet is decorated with an etched design of rising eagles in interlaced medallions against a dotted background; the latter is partly black, partly gilded.

An entirely different type of parade armor is the shield of Fig. 18. It is made of wood, covered on the inside with leather, on the outside with canvas painted with a small coat of arms and a large representation of two unarmored men in mortal combat. This shield also was formerly in the Clarence H. Mackay collection.

Another example of parade equipment in a different medium is a pair of stirrups made of bronze and elaborately carved and gilded. They were formerly in the Spitzer collection.

LATE ARMOR

As the sixteenth century drew to a close armor began to deteriorate. No single influence was responsible. Do not think that firearms were invented and armor was therefore suddenly made obsolete. As a matter of fact, firearms were in use before plate armor really received general acceptance, and firearms were in use all the time that plate armor was being worn in Europe. But the gradual improvement in the efficiency of firearms undoubtedly caused armor to be made heavier and heavier, and thereby contributed greatly to its decline. For just when armor was thus increasing in weight there developed a new school of cavalry tactics based upon the use of lightly armed troopers on fast horses who, instead of directly attacking the enemy, could dash around his flank and cut off his supplies from the rear. The tendency was, therefore, to make the armor light and very flexible, directly contrary to the need for solid, bullet-stopping protection. Even fashion had a deteriorating effect on armor. Fig. 20 shows a late suit of armor which has a multitude of small plates to give extreme flexibility, and has extra wide leg protectors to cover the extravagant wide-topped trousers which were then the vogue. But what a clumsy suit this is compared to the Maximilian suit of Fig. 10!

QUESTIONS CONCERNING ARMOR

Let us turn back to the armor of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and consider some of the questions which naturally arise in our minds as we contemplate these relics of the past. In the first place, was it practical? How could men possibly wear such a mass of metal upon their bodies and engage in long military campaigns, interspersed with violent battles? Isn't it true that an armored man, once fallen, could not get up again until he was hoisted with a derrick? No, that isn't true. The comical scenes in the moving pictures of frustrated knights floundering about in search of hoisting engines were put in strictly for laughs. Armor was practical; it was worn by about all the most important men of more than three centuries; if they had not worn it they would not have lived long enough to become important! As a matter of fact armor is not as heavy as one might think. A good military suit weighs no more than the pack carried by a modern soldier, sixty pounds or less, and is a great deal more comfortable to carry. The pack hangs from the shoulders, but a good suit of armor, carefully made to fit the individual body of the wearer, has its weight distributed over the entire body. The helmet rests partly on the head and partly on the shoulders. The breast and backplates rest partly on the shoulders and partly on the hips. The arm and leg guards are laced to the special undergarment which had always to be worn with armor, and each limb supports its own protection. The joints come at exactly the right places to correspond with the natural motions of the body, and every one of these motions is provided for. A man wearing a properly fitting suit of armor over the correct undergarment could do anything that a modern man can do wearing a winter overcoat, and probably, due to his special training, a number of things that the modern man could not. He could certainly walk, run, climb a wall, lie down and get up quickly, and mount his horse without help. To test the truth of these statements and the implications of the romantic novels of the past, the writer donned a suit of armor which fitted him only approximately, yet found himself able to perform all the actions above mentioned and, in addition, to descend two stories on a rope, hand under hand.

Who wore armor? Every man who could afford it. Armor was always very much of a luxury. Its making required the services of consummate craftsmen, men who were not only expert metal workers, but also skilled draughtsmen, expert tailors, and keen students of human anatomy. Armorers were the aristocrats of all mediaeval craftsmen, the most highly respected and by far the best paid. It required a great deal of their time; the completion of a full suit of armor might take a year or more. Armor was, therefore, in the class of the modern automobile. A wealthy monarch might have a large wardrobe of beautifully decorated armor, as a millionaire to-day owns a fleet of expensive imported motor cars. A simple knight would be proud to possess a single suit, plain, but nevertheless made exactly to fit him and no other person. A minor soldier was lucky if he could secure a simple ready-made breastplate and helmet.

What was the physical character of the men who wore armor? Why do the suits seem so small? Were people smaller in those days? Yes and no. It is true that the nature of their life tended to develop men of the cowboy type, wiry rather than massive. Men who spend their lives on horseback are likely to have a broad shoulder and narrow waist, strong thigh and slender calf. It is true too that with primitive medicine and sanitation man died young; the average age of adult males was less than it is now.

MIDDLE EASTERN ARMOR

In addition to the armor of Europe, consideration should be given to that of the Middle East, of which the City Art Museum displays a number of fine specimens in a special gallery. Armor was worn in Persia and in India long after it had been abandoned in Europe; it is even possible that among isolated tribes armorers may still be plying their trade. However, as in Europe, the later work tended to deteriorate, and the earlier an Eastern armor is, the better will it probably be.

The Indian and Persian smiths had two specialties: Damascus steel and damascened steel, which are often and not unnaturally confused, both having presumably originated at Damascus. Damascene work has already been described on page 15; both the "true" and the "false" variety were practised throughout the Middle East. Damascus steel, on the other hand, is a type of metal especially suitable for armor and sword blades, made by the intimate combination, in innumerable layers, of two kinds of metal, one extremely hard, the other soft and tough. As billets of this composite steel were twisted, bent, and reformed, the superimposed layers made intricate patterns like those in watered silk. Such Damascus steel patterns can be best observed in sword and dagger blades like those illustrated in Fig. 35, page 29.

But the helmet in Fig. 26, probably a century or more earlier, shows a much greater appreciation of sculptural form. With a row of parallel vertical flutings around its domed upper part, it resembles closely the Maximilian armor of contemporary Europe. It is doubtful, however, if many European smiths could have forged the minaret-like pinnacle which terminates the dome. The helmet is decorated with damascene work of silver in calligraphic inscriptions and arabesques. Its owner's neck was protected by chain mail attached around the lower edge of the helmet. Probably because of the warmer climate, the Saracenic warriors never adopted the closed helmet of European lands, but preferred to leave the face exposed, or protected only by a nasal bar which was often so arranged that it could be slid upwards and clamped.

ARMS: STRIKING AND CUTTING WEAPONS

Man's first weapon was probably a club, and the simple club has always retained a certain popularity. Even in the middle of the sixteenth century, when arms of all kinds attained great elaboration, the mace, or short one-handed club, was the accepted weapon of military men in holy orders who, forbidden to shed blood, found no such prohibition against the bloodless cracking of skulls. Fig. 27 shows such a mace, of heavy steel, carved and gilded, a formidable though beautiful weapon. Related arms are short-handled military axes and hammers.

But the accepted symbol of man as a fighting creature has always been the sword, and the sword, perhaps more than any other item of man's warlike panoply, has experienced the full range of his artistic and technical initiative. Space does not here permit a discussion of the innumerable types of swords; only a brief resum? of the general development can be given. This is supplemented by a display of some typical forms along one side wall of the armor gallery.

Stone Age man could not make any true swords, for the flint and obsidian which he had to use were too brittle to be available in large pieces. But bronze could be cast into swords both effective and beautiful. A number of Chinese bronze sword blades from the Han Dynasty are available in the study collection. They are rather short, double edged blades, adapted primarily for thrusting, but not without cutting ability too. The Greeks and Romans used swords of rather similar form, and also another type which tended to broaden near the point, bringing the weight forward and adding impetus to both the thrust and the cut.

Mention has already been made, , of the rare but beautiful swords of the dark ages, made in whole or in part of laminated metal resembling the Damascus steel of the Middle East, . Such swords were carried by the Vikings who harried the coast of Britain and extended their voyages even to North America. These swords had long, straight, symmetrically double-edged blades, a short hilt, and a short crossbar guard between blade and hilt. They were very powerful in a downward slash, but too heavy to be manipulated easily as thrusting weapons.

LANCES AND POLE ARMS

Other pole arms are developments of the axe. Military axes had handles somewhat shorter than those of pikes, spears or partisans but longer than the short-handled axes used on horseback. They were particularly popular for use in judicial combats or "trial by battle". Each contestant in a law suit would swear to the truth of his claim, and call upon God to prove its truth. The two men, armed with such axes, would fight until one was killed or driven out of the ring. The victor was thus proven to have told the truth, while the unsuccessful contestant, if still alive, was executed for perjury. Such axes, capable of defending the right, were made with special care, and were highly valued by their surviving owners.

MIDDLE EASTERN EDGED WEAPONS

The chief characteristic of the blades of the Middle East is the beautiful watered pattern of the Damascus steel, discussed on page 20. Unfortunately this pattern is too delicate to show well in reproduction, but it may readily be observed in the actual objects, exhibited in the gallery of Middle Eastern Art. Two knives are shown in Fig. 35, illustrating delicate Damascene work in gold and similar ornament carried out not by inlay of another metal, but by chiselling in low relief.

Fig. 36 shows a Persian sword hilt of solid gold, from the late thirteenth or fourteenth century. The ends of its guard are formed as the heads of lions. It is engraved with floral arabesques and a calligraphic inscription. The engraved lines are filled in with black pigment .

PROJECTILE WEAPONS: BOWS AND CROSSBOWS

Ever since a hairy primitive first picked up a stone and threw it, man has tried to find better and better ways to strike from a safe distance. The devices which he has produced for this purpose have been many and varied, yet, strangely enough, remarkable similarities often occur between inventions of widely separated areas. In ancient Peruvian graves have been found cord slings for hurling stones almost identical with those used by herd boys in Palestine today, as in the time of David and Goliath. Bronze arrowheads from prehistoric Japan are much the same as those excavated from Roman Britain. The bow has several different characteristic forms distributed throughout the world, but its fundamental principle is everywhere the same.

The first projectile-throwing arm appropriate to an art museum is the crossbow, which is simply a bow mounted on a wooden stock provided with a catch and trigger, so that the bow could be carried ready to shoot. This was a great convenience in hunting or war, because otherwise the time lost in drawing the bow might give the victim opportunity to escape. Moreover, it was soon found that the application of mechanical devices permitted the use of a bow much stronger than any man could draw unaided.

The crossbow of Fig. 38 is Italian work of the sixteenth century. The bow is light enough to be pulled by the hands alone, without mechanical assistance. It had a double string, with a little pouch attached between the two strands, and shot small bullets, instead of arrows. The wooden stock is beautifully carved and the metal parts are damascened with arabesques in gold. This type of light crossbow was especially popular with aristocratic ladies who are frequently represented shooting it in hunting tapestries of the period.

In Fig. 39 is shown a very powerful hunting crossbow of the seventeenth century. The bow is of steel, two inches wide and a third of an inch thick. The bowstring resembles a piece of heavy rope. To pull this string, bending a steel spring as massive as this, requires a tremendous power and an immense strength in the mechanism which will hold the fully-drawn bow until the moment for its release.

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