The Defensive Armour and the Weapons and Engines of War of Mediæval Times, and of the "Renaissance."Clephan, R. Coltman (Robert Coltman)
History
The Defensive Armour and the Weapons and Engines of War of Mediæval Times, and of the "Renaissance."
Clephan, R. Coltman (Robert Coltman)
Armor; Weapons
Tilting was practised during the fourteenth century very much as in
the century following. A joust of about 1330 is figured on “The Codex
Balduin Treverenses,”--the horses bear housings, and the knights
mantles. The armament for jousting and battle began in this century to
show some difference from that of earlier times. The games continued in
unabated vigour throughout the middle ages and the “renaissance,” and
until the general use of firearms rendered such exercises no longer of
much practical value.
The necessary limits of this work will not admit of any detailed
description of the many and curious rules, usages, and limitations
which were absolutely necessary for carrying on these dangerous games
without great and unnecessary bloodshed and the loss of many valuable
lives, but much can be seen in a set of regulations prevailing under
Henry VIII. in the tournament roll preserved in the Heralds’ College.
Students of the subject will do well to read an able paper in the
_Archæological Journal_, vol. lv., No. 219, entitled “Tilting in Tudor
Times,” written by Viscount Dillon in 1898; and a most excellent and
comprehensive account of the German “turnier,” and weapons used, exists
in Herr Wendelin Boeheim’s work, _Handbuch der Waffenkunde_. This is a
veritable text-book.
Tournaments and tilting generally were, however, rendered less
dangerous than might have been expected by the addition of reinforcing
armour, which pieces were screwed on over the more vulnerable places,
on armour made for ordinary fighting purposes, and for some courses of
the tournament, mainly on the left side, which received most of the
blows; indeed, these extra pieces constituted a double defence of iron
for the head, chest, and left shoulder. This was obviously rendered
necessary when one considers the terrible impact of the lance in full
career with the breastplate or helmet. These extra tilting pieces made
their appearance in the reign of Edward IV., but they were known in
Germany several decades earlier. It was early when suits of armour
were made differently for battle and for tournaments, as William Lord
Bergavenny bequeathed to his son “the best sword and harness for justs
of peace and that which belong to war.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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