Armour in England, 1325–99

Abstract A dramatic change in the personal armour of the knightly classes occurred across the whole of Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century: the addition of plate armour on top of the mail defences that had been worn since the time of the Roman empire. This change is documented in England by the series of monumental effigies and brasses, as well as a very few surviving examples. The story is supplemented by documentary records, especially those of the armoury at the Tower of London, which shed new light on the equipment of the English armies of the first half of the Hundred Years War. Keywords: ArmourMailPlatePrivy wardrobeTower of London Acknowledgments I am grateful to Anne Curry and Adrian Bell for inviting me to give an earlier version of this paper at a conference at the University of Reading; to my colleagues at the Royal Armouries, especially Alison Watson, Phillip Abbott and Graeme Rimer, for supporting my research on the records of the privy wardrobe; to the Board of Trustees of the Armouries, for permission to reproduce illustrations; to Silke Ackermann and other colleagues at the British Museum for supporting my research there and for permission to reproduce illustrations; and to my supervisors at the University of York, Mark Ormrod and Philippa Hoskin. Notes 1 M. Norris, Monumental brasses, the memorials (London, 1975), 10–12. 2 The earliest English brasses, ed. J. Coales (London, 1987), fig. 74. 3 Earliest English brasses, ed. Coales, fig. 86. 4 V. Gay, Glossaire archéologique du moyen âge et de la renaissance, 2 vols (Paris, 1887–1928), vol. 2, 271. 5 Earliest English brasses, ed. Coales, fig. 88. 6 R. Storey, ‘The Tower of London and the garderobae armorum’, Royal Armouries Yearbook, 3 (1998), 176–83. 7 Kew, The National Archives [hereafter TNA], E 101/17/6. 8 TNA E 101/36/7. 9 TNA E 101/386/15. 10 Earliest English brasses, ed. Coales, fig. 91. 11 C. Blair, European armour circa 1066 to circa 1700 (London, 1958), fig. 14. 12 T.F. Tout, Chapters in the administrative history of medieval England: the wardrobe, the chamber and the small seals, 6 vols (Manchester, 1920–33), vol. 4, 445–51; Calendar of the patent rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward III, 16 vols (London, 1891–1916) [hereafter CPR], CPR 1338–40, 82–3. 13 TNA E 101/388/1. 14 TNA E 101/388/1: the same formula repeated for mail throughout the document. 15 Blair, European armour, 2. 16 Leeds, Royal Armouries, no. III.1279; the associated mail aventail for a bacinet, no. III.1280 is of all riveted construction. 17 Christie’s, Antique arms and armour from the collection of Dr & Mrs Jerome Zwanger (London, 12 December 2006), lot 208. 18 B. Thordeman, Armour from the battle of Wisby 1361, 2 vols (Stockholm, 1939–40), passim. 19 Gay, Glossaire archéologique, vol. 1, 519. 20 Blair, European armour, pl. 18. 21 Blair, European armour, pl. 17. 22 Earliest English brasses, ed. Coales, fig. 103. 23 TNA E 372/189. 24 TNA E 372/198. 25 TNA E 101/392/14. 26 O. Trapp and J.G. Mann, The armoury of the castle of Churburg (London, 1929), numbers 13 and 15; and Leeds, Royal Armouries, no. IV.470. 27 TNA E 101/397/19. 28 TNA E 101/400/10; E 101/400/14. 29 TNA E 101/403/8. 30 TNA E 101/403/20. 31 TNA E 101/394/14. 32 See H.T. Norris, ‘The hauberk, the kazaghand and the “Antar Romance”’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 9 (June 1978), 93–101, and A.S. Melikian-Chirvani, ‘The westward journey of the kazhagand’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 11 (June 1983), 8–35. 33 One in the Askeri Müze, Istanbul; the other, Royal Armouries, Leeds, no. XXVIA.322. 34 Leeds, Royal Armouries, no. XXVIA.304. 35 F.M. Kelly, ‘A knight’s armour of the early XIV century being the inventory of Raoul de Nesle’, Burlington Magazine, 6 (1906), 468. 36 TNA E101/393/9. 37 Leeds, Royal Armouries, no. VI.566; T. Richardson, ‘A newly-acquired mail crinet’, The Spring 2008 Park Lane Arms Fair (London, 2008), 13–16. 38 London, British Museum, no. 1856.07–01.2244. 39 Earliest English brasses, ed. Coales, fig. 120. 40 Kelly, ‘A knight’s armour of the early XIV century’, 468. 41 M. Prestwich, Armies and warfare in the middle ages: the English experience (New Haven and London, 1996) 26–7. 42 C. Gaier, Armes et combats dans l’univers médiéval (Brussels, 1995), 236. 43 TNA E 101/395/1. 44 Blair, European armour, 139. 45 Leeds, Royal Armouries, No. III.17, unpublished. 46 D.J. La Rocca, ‘Notes on the mail chausse’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 15 (September 1995), 69–84. 47 Though the identity of musekins is unknown, they are attested elsewhere. A fourteenth-century French verse lists ‘musekins, genouilleres, gardebras, greves et coiffrains’, cited in S.M. Taylor, ‘In defence of larceny: a fourteenth-century French ironic encomium’, Neophilologus, 15 (1981), 358–65. The regulations for the arming of men-at-arms in Hainaut in 1336 require either a hauberk and chausses of mail, or a habergeon, mail coif or bevor, gauntlets (wans de maille) and chausses, or mail paunces (pans), sleeves (maunches), bevor, musekins, chausses and gauntlets: see Le Premier Registre aux plaids de la cour féodale du comté de Hainaut (1333 à 1405), ed. F. Cattier (Brussels, 1893), 1–2. This is interesting also as it suggests that the difference between a hauberk and a habergeon in the early to mid-fourteenth century might be that the hauberk had an integral coif for the head and mufflers for the hands, as the habergeon requires these defences separately. 48 ‘Coifette de maille pro torniamento’. 49 Leeds, Royal Armouries, no. III.28. 50 E.M. Burgess and H.R. Robinson, ‘A 14th-century mail hood in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 2 (September 1956), 59–65. 51 ‘lxij galee quarum vj pro torniamentis, iij cum barberis pro hastiludo, j depicta de veteribus armis Anglie et lij pro guerro’. 52 TNA E 101/403/20, E 101/404/65 and E 101/405/4. 53 Leeds, Royal Armouries, no. IV.600. See D. Spaulding, ‘An unrecorded English helm of c.1370’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 9, number 1 (June 1977), 6–9, and L. Southwick, ‘The great helm in England’, Arms & Armour, 3, number 1 (2006), 26–31, figs 26–8. 54 Leeds, Royal Armouries, No. AL.30 1–2; Southwick, ‘The great helm’, 39, figs 34–5. 55 A. Way, ‘Inventory of the effects of Roger de Mortimer at Wigmore Castle and Abbey, Herefordshire, dated 15 Edward II, AD 1322’, Archaeological Journal, 15 (1858), 359. 56 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264; Southwick, ‘The great helm’, 33–4, figs 24, 33, 63. 57 ‘cxij capella quorum cx de ferro, j de corio pro torniamento et j de ferro deaurato cum una bordura de argento allevata de bestiis deauratis’. 58 M. Fleury, ‘La Resurrection du casque brisé de Charles VI’, Connaissance des Arts, 439 (September 1988), 150–5. 59 London, British Museum, no. 1856.07–01.2243. 60 ‘ccxlix bacinetta quorum j cum visero, xxij pro torniamento et ccxxvj pro guerro’. 61 D. Collura, Armi e armature (Milan, Cataloghi del Museo Poldi Pezzoli, 2, 1980), 26, nos 28–9. 62 M. Scalini, L’armeria Trapp di Castel Coira, 2 vols (Udine, 1996), vol. 1, 44–6. 63 Blair, European armour, 51; C. Blair, ‘The wooden knight at Abergavenny’, Church Monuments, 9 (1994), 37–8; and T. Richardson and D. Starley, ‘The helmet from Stratton village, Bedfordshire’ Royal Armouries Yearbook, 7 (2002), 15–21. 64 TNA E 101/395/1. 65 Blair, European armour, 38. 66 S. Lysons, ‘Copy of a roll of purchases made for the tournament of Windsor Park in the sixth year of King Edward the first’, Archaeologia, 16 (1814), 297–310: ‘xvij quirrez pro torniamento’. 67 E. de Prelle de Nieppe, ‘L’Inventaire de l’armurerie de Guillame III Comte de Hainaut en 1358’, Annales de la Société Archéologique de l’Arrondissement de Nivelles, 7 (1900), 1–10: ‘vj poitrines a jouster’, ‘viij paires de bras de fier a jouster’, ‘une paire de plates a jouster’ and ‘vi hiames a jouster’, contrasted with ‘kauchons de tournoy’ and ‘hyames de wiere’. 68 T. Richardson, ‘The introduction of plate armour in medieval Europe’, Royal Armouries Yearbook, 2 (1997), 40–5. 69 ‘cxliiij paria platorum quorum j par de velvetto rubro clavato de argento, xviij cooperta de velvetto diversis coloribus et cxxv cooperta de aliis diversis coopertoris’. 70 I. Eaves, ‘On the remains of a jack of plate excavated from Beeston Castle in Cheshire’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 13 (September 1989), 81–154, and compare fifteenth-century examples such as Leeds, Royal Armouries, nos III.1663–5. 71 London, British Museum, no. 1856.07–01.1665; A.V.B. Norman, ‘Notes on a newly discovered piece of fourteenth-century armour’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 8 (June 1975), 229–33. 72 ‘Espaliere de balainne a tournoier’; Kelly, ‘A knight's armour of the early XIV century’, 469. 73 T. Richardson, ‘An early poleyn’, Royal Armouries Yearbook, 7 (2002), 9–10. 74 Earliest English brasses, ed. Coales, figs 102–3. 75 The word is usually contracted to ‘cothes de platis’, and the incorrect reading of this may be the origin of the modern term ‘coat of plates’ for what is invariably called a ‘pair of plates’ in the documents; see, for example, Thordeman, Armour from the Battle of Wisby, vol. 1, 285–328; Blair, European armour, 55–6. 76 Gay, Glossaire archéologique, vol. 1, 752. Note however the ‘wans de maille’ in the Hainaut regulations of 1336, Le Premier Registre, ed. Cattier, 1–2. 77 Thordeman, Armour from the battle of Wisby, vol. 1, 413–34. 78 Blair, European armour, fig, 15; Earliest English brasses, ed. Coales, figs 91–2. 79 Thordeman, Armour from the battle of Wisby, vol. 1, 115–17, fig. 111. 80 ‘iij coffres ad armaturum pro coopertoria regis intrussando’. 81 TNA E 101/395/1. 82 TNA E 101/397/10. The list also includes William Swynley, the king’s helmet maker at the Tower, paid for seven bacinets ‘ordered by the king at his first visit to the Tower and remaining in store there’ at 41s. 6d. each; for a pair of legharness and a bacinet for Thomas of Woodstock, and another bacinet for John Holland for a total of £6; for two pairs of plate gauntlets at 20s. each, and a pair of vambraces and rerebraces at 46s. 83 ‘plumtez cum swages de latone deaurato’, the couters ‘operatis cum swages de latone’, the gauntlets ‘cum knokels deauratis’. 84 Trapp and Mann, Churburg, 19–26, no. 13. 85 No. IV.470, given by Sir Archibald Lyle in memory of his two sons who were both killed at el Alamein in 1942. 86 Trapp and Mann, Churburg, 13–26, no. 13; Blair, European armour, 60–1; Carlo Paggiarino, The Churburg armoury (Milan, 2006), 33–49, 280–1. 87 L. Boccia, Le armature di S. Maria delle Grazie di Curtatone di Mantova e l’armatura Lombarda del ’400 (Busto Arsizio, 1982), 17, tav. 1. 88 Scalini, L’armeria Trapp, 44–6. 89 Richardson, ‘Introduction of plate armour’, 41–2. 90 TNA E 101/403/20. 91 H. Nickel, ‘Der mittelalterliche Reiterschild des Abendlands’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Freie Universitat, Berlin, 1958); Blair, European armour, 181–3. 92 D. Mills and J.G. Mann, Edward, the Black Prince: a short history and the funeral achievements (Canterbury, 1975). 93 Nickel, Reiterschild; J. Kohlmorgen, Der mittelalterliche Reiterschild, historische Entwicklung von 975–1350 (Alzey, 2002). 94 G. Wilson, ‘Pavises in England’, Royal Armouries Yearbook, 2 (1997), 53–4; K. DeVries, ‘The introduction and use of the pavises in the Hundred Years War’, Arms & Armour, 4 (2007), 93–100. 95 V. Denkstein, ‘Pavises of the Bohemian type’, Sbordnik Narodniko Muzea u Praze Acta, 18 (1964), 104–97. 96 TNA E101/400/14, E 101/400/16, E 101/400/22. 97 TNA E 101/397/10. 98 TNA E 101/400/14, E101/400/16, E 101/400/22. 99 TNA E 101/403/8. 100 TNA E101/403/20. 101 TNA E 101/404/25, E 101/405/4.