Spanish Arms and Armour: Being a Historical and Descriptive Account of the Royal Armoury of Madrid — John Shaqi
Spanish Arms and Armour: Being a Historical and Descriptive Account of the Royal Armoury of MadridCalvert, Albert Frederick
History
Spanish Arms and Armour: Being a Historical and Descriptive Account of the Royal Armoury of Madrid
Calvert, Albert Frederick
Arms and armor -- Spain; Real Armería de Madrid
There is an extremely interesting manuscript in the British Museum
called the _Comentario Apocaliptica_, said to have been executed between
1089 and 1109. It is frequently referred to by Hewitt, and throws much
light on the armour of the period. We have reason to be grateful for the
absurd practice persisted in by ancient illuminators and painters of
depicting persons, supposed to have lived in Greek and Roman times, in
the costume of their own day. One of the illuminations shows four
knights mounted. They wear long coats of mail, reaching below the knees,
with sleeves, which, in two cases, reach only to the elbows. In one case
the coat of mail is shown as composed of blue scales, with red studs,
and here we seem to have an instance of jazerine armour (from the
Italian _ghiazerino_). It seems clear that the designer did not mean to
represent chain-mail in this way, for when the body of the garment is
obviously of mail he has taken care to distinguish a different pattern
on the chausses or leg armour. Still in this class of illustration it is
always a moot point what kind of armour the artist actually did mean to
represent. Possibly a shirt of chain-mail was sometimes worn, with
stockings of leather set with scales of metal, as more flexible and
allowing greater freedom to the limbs. The shirts of mail are edged
with wide borders, which may or may not represent the under tunic or
gambeson showing beneath.
On fol. 194, we have the full-length picture of a warrior armed
_cap-à-pie_. He wears a long hauberk of mail, chausses or leg-armour of
the same material, and a conical helmet, with a “nasal” or
nose-protector, exactly the same as that worn by William the Conqueror
and his knights. Hewitt calls attention to the knop, or button,
surmounting the helmet, as a peculiarity. The knight is armed with sword
and spears, and, like the four others just mentioned, carries a circular
target. This is a noteworthy detail, as kite-shaped shields were almost
universally in vogue at this epoch, over the rest of Europe. That they
were to some extent in use in Spain also, is attested by the specimen
(O59) in the Armoury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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