Armour in England, from the Earliest Times to the Reign of James the FirstGardner, John Starkie
History
Armour in England, from the Earliest Times to the Reign of James the First
Gardner, John Starkie
Armor -- England
beautifully painted armour of Pisano's St. George published by the
Arundel Society, which must have been executed prior to 1450. A
jousting suit by him of much later date is engraved and partly gilded,
apparently made in 1498 for an envoy of Ludovico Moro to the Emperor
Maximilian.
Italian Gothic armour is very much rarer than German. Thoroughness is a
German characteristic, and once embarked on a given course the German
pursues it until, as is so apparent in their general iron-work, the
result becomes exaggeration verging on the grotesque. The Missaglias
introduced a certain grace of line into Milanese armour, and the German
armourers pursued this vein, making the figures erect and slender and
imbuing the waist and bust with womanly elegance. The Italians probably
kept to much the same lines, for most representations of armour towards
the third quarter of the fifteenth century display the same graceful
characteristics, brought to a pitch, however, but little consonant with
the stern realities of war, and brusquely set aside before the close of
this century.
One of the most formidable of Missaglia's competitors north of the
Alps was Hans Grünewalt, born about 1440 and died 1503, regarded by
Böheim as one of the foremost armourers of his day. The founder of
the bells of St. Sebaldus in 1396, Heinrich Grünewalt, appears to
have been the grandfather of a family which became considerable in
Nuremberg, building the still standing Pilatus House, properly the
"Zum geharnischten Mann." Hans was employed by Maximilian when King of
the Romans, and no armourer in Germany was more sought after. While
he flourished Nuremberg was the most renowned of any city of Germany
for the production of armour, but on his death Augsburg was allowed to
entirely supplant it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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