Before the end of the 16th century the full suit of war harness is an
antique survival. Long boots take the place of greaves and steel shoes,
and early in the 16th century the military pedants are heard to bewail
the common laying aside of other pieces. The mounted cavalier--cuirassier
or pistolier--might take the field, even as late as the Great Rebellion,
armed at all points save the backs of the thighs and the legs below the
knee; but a combed and brimmed cap, breast and back plate and tassets
equipped the pikeman, and the musketeer would march without any metal on
him save his headpiece, for it was soon found that heavily armed
musketeers, after a long trudge through summer dust or winter mud, were
readier to rest than to shoot. Everywhere there was revolt against the
burden of plates, and as early as 1593 Sir Richard Hawkins found that his
adventurers would not use even the light corslets provided by him,
"esteeming a pot of wine a better defence." Gervase Markham, in his
_Souldier's Accidence_ of 1645, asks that at least the captain of
cuirassiers should be armed "at all peeces, cap a pee," but he would have
found few such captains, and Markham is a great praiser of noble old
custom. The famous figure of a pikeman of 1668 (fig. 13) in Elton's _Art
Military_ has steel cap, corslet and tassets, but he stands for a fashion
dead or dying. The last noteworthy helmet was what is now termed the
lobster-tail helmet, a headpiece with round top, flat brim before, a
broad articulated brim behind, cheek-pieces hanging by straps and a grate
of upright bars to cover the face, some having in place of the grate a
movable nose-guard to be raised or lowered at will. The close resemblance
of this helmet to that worn by the Japanese, with whom the Dutch were
then trading, is worth remark, although each of the two pieces seems to
have had its separate origin. Thus, save for a steel cap here and a
corslet there, especially to be found amongst the guards of sovereigns
who must cling to something of antique tradition, armour departs out of
the civilized world.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Pikeman.
From _The Compleat Body of the Art Military_, by Lieut. Col. Elton
(1668).]
Survival of armour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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