Now that the armour period has been roughly covered, the evolution of each important piece will be followed to its decadence, when hand-to-hand fighting was rarer, and strategy in masses more developed, as the proud knight had at length become of minor importance as against organised infantry, which was now “the strength of the battle,” and when the use of various weapons of attack, especially the harquebus, became general. Tactics in warfare were at a very low ebb during the fourteenth century, and the military scandals of that time were many. Agincourt is an example of confusion among the French ranks that had many parallels at the time; but with the advent of the fifteenth century, much systematic improvement was effected. It was not before the reign of Elizabeth that any large body of troops could advance in close column without breaking its formation. Armies in the sixteenth century no longer consisted of mere feudal and communal levies, but were organised into companies and regiments, the battalion becoming the recognised unit for the infantry in the reign of James I. Systematic tactics were introduced, and the proper proportions of horse, foot, and artillery in the field determined. The effective use of gunpowder in battle, and its influence on armour and tactics, was very gradual, but during the sixteenth century it progressively compassed great changes in both. Boys in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were taught the use and practice of arms at an early age. An interesting group of boys’ harnesses, of various sizes and periods, may be seen at the Dresden Museum. Numerous dints on the armour, some of them heavy, show that very hard knocks had been exchanged. The mode indicated of treating the subject will be clearer than any attempt made at elaborate contemporary classification as a whole. Representative suits, especially from local and foreign collections, will now be taken more or less in detail, thus showing the combinations of the various periods they represent, leaving separate chapters for tilting suits, extra tilting pieces, and the tournament generally, besides enriched armour and a slight sketch of prominent armour-smiths, and some of the most important collections of arms and armour. A large proportion of the armour used in England continued to be imported from Italy and Germany. Henry VIII. bought and received in presents, harnesses, both for foot-fighting and horseback, from these countries; indeed, the trade in armour and arms formed a not inconsiderable item in the importations of the Hanseatic Bund already mentioned, and the bulk of the armour in private collections of fifteenth and sixteenth century make is of German or Italian origin. Not only was armour imported, but foreign smiths and artificers, principally of German nationality, known as Almayne armourers, were introduced. Milan armourers were working at Greenwich in 1514.[19] Exportation from England was not allowed without royal licence.