Chapter II: Engravings (3)

Luxurious display was, at that time, prominent among the classes who aspired to ostentation. When writing of furniture, we saw to what a pitch of splendid profusion kings, princes, and nobles carried the mania for displaying their wealth. We particularly pointed out sideboards in the dining-rooms, covered with plate and all kinds of objects, which were only placed there to dazzle the eyes. The custom of these displays having been introduced, it could nevertheless be only indulged in by those in possession of considerable fortunes, and therefore it will be readily understood how quickly fashion affected the productions of ceramic art; which, in addition to being recognised as works of art, were singularly well suited, both in character and by their comparative cheapness, to the spirit of ostentation which had taken possession of people of inferior rank. It was sufficient that some piece of majolica should have found a place on the sideboard of a prince amidst the gold and the silver which hitherto had alone enjoyed this privilege, for the lower ranks of the _bourgeoisie_ and the _tiers-état_ to adopt the fashion, in their dining-rooms, of decorating them either with majolica alone, or associated with plate.

And admitting this fact, that the productions of ceramic art were thus allowed to find admittance, and, as it were, in some measure an equally distinguished position, amidst plate and objects of precious metals, it resulted that this new industry, supported by the best artists, soon became remarkable for works which were at the same time most beautiful and original.

As something new in history, we find simple pieces of pottery--to give them their generic name--passing as valuable offerings among the great, and employed on very many occasions to denote ardent admiration in the world of courtly gallantry. It is thus we have handed down to us, principally on cups by renowned masters, portraits of the beauties who in those times adorned the ranks of the nobility: the Dianas, the Francescas, the Lucias, the Proserpines, whom their admirers caused to be portrayed in order to offer them their own likenesses.

It was at Florence, about the year 1410, that Luca della Robbia first introduced his invention; but as soon as the process became known, the greater part of the towns of Italy, especially those of Tuscany, established manufactories, among which a remarkable rivalry soon arose: Pesaro, Gubbio, Urbino, Faenza, Rimini, Bologna, Ravenna, Ferrara, Citta Castellana, Bassano, Venice, emulated each other, and almost all succeeded in giving, as it were, an individual character to their productions.

Pesaro--the place were the earliest workshops of ornamental pottery in Italy were seated, and the processes of which (derived from Luca della Robbia) seem to have blended with the ancient Spanish, or _Majorquaises_--presents to us a design of a rather harsh and stiff character. “The outlines of figures,” adds M. Jacquemart, “are drawn in manganese black, the flesh is the colour of the enamel, and the drapery alone is of uniform tint.”

It was at Pesaro that the celebrated Lanfranco flourished. The ceramic museum of Sèvres has two of his pieces: it was he who invented the method of applying gold to earthenware, at a time when the early processes of ornamenting this manufacture had ceased to be employed, and had given place to delicate paintings, which, although no longer executed by the most renowned artists of Italy, were nevertheless the work of intelligent pupils who had received the benefit of their teaching and example.

The manufactory at Gubbio had for its founder Giorgio Andreoli, who, both as a sculptor and an artist in majolica, executed works as remarkable in form as in effect. “The palette of mineral colours adopted by Andreoli was the most perfect of the period; and coppery yellows, ruby reds, are frequently used in his works.” There are still extant some works signed by this _master_ (a title officially conferred on him by a patent of nobility); one is a slab in the Sèvres collection, and another a tablet representing the Holy Family.

Urbino--of which the dukes, especially Guidobaldo II., signalized themselves as the most zealous patrons of ceramic art--became famous through the works of Francesco Xanto, who executed historical subjects on enamelled clay. Xanto had as a successor Orazio Fontana, who has been named “the Raphael of Majolica,” and who produced, among other magnificent objects, some vases which, when subsequently seen by Christina of Sweden, so impressed her by their beauty that she offered to exchange for them silver vases of equal size.

It was at the manufactory of Deruta that imaginative subjects on majolica were first introduced; Bassano was famous for its landscapes with ruins; Venice became celebrated for delicate ware with _repoussé_ reliefs; Faenza is still proud of her Guido Salvaggio; Florence of her Flaminio Fontana, &c.

Majolica attained to its highest point of brilliancy under the Duke of Urbino whom we have already named, Guidobaldo II., who was ever ready to make any sacrifice in order that this art might be introduced into the manufactories under his patronage. He even obtained from Raphael and Giulio Romano some original drawings to serve as examples; and this feeling having once been inculcated, we soon find artists of renown, such as Batista Franco and Raphael del Colle, tendering their services for the ornamentation of majolica. Thus the productions of this period are distinguishable among all others for harmony of composition and accurate drawing, qualities which render them specially noteworthy (Fig. 36). Then, almost immediately, followed the decline of this art. While flourishing more and more until the middle of the sixteenth century, the art of making majolica had fallen, at the termination of that epoch, into a kind of degenerate industry, swayed by the caprice of fashion, and thereby reduced to mannerism.

Nearly at the commencement of the renovation of ceramic art, Italian artisans had established themselves in various places, which then became so many artistic centres. Eastern Europe had for its earliest instructors three brothers, Giovanni, Tiseo, and Lazio, who settled at Corfu. Flanders was indebted for the knowledge of these processes to Guido of Savino, who took up his abode at Antwerp. And about the year 1520 we find a manufactory at Nuremberg, of which the ware, though materially differing in character from Italian majolica, may still very probably have been derived from Italy.

We may add that letters of the King of France mention that from 1456 there were certain revenues derivable from the “Beauvais Potteries;” and in the twenty-seventh chapter of the first book of “Pantagruel,” published in 1535, Rabelais places among the various articles composing the trophy of Panurge, “a saucer, a salt-cellar of clay, and a Beauvais goblet;” which proves, as M. de Sommerard remarks, “that as early as this date, there were manufactured in this city vessels of clay sufficiently good in quality to be placed on the table with silver and pewter utensils;” but it does not naturally follow that France had not long to wait for the man of genius who would soon leave her nothing to covet from Italy.

About the year 1510, in a small village in Périgord, a child was born who, after receiving the rudiments of education, was obliged while still quite young to try to gain a livelihood by his own industry. This child’s name was Bernard Palissy. He first learnt the trade of a glazier, or rather of a glass-fitter and painter. This trade, while it initiated him into the principles of drawing, and gave him a certain insight into chemical manipulations, at the same time aroused in him a taste for art and the study of natural sciences. While “painting figures in order to gain his daily bread,” as he himself tells us in one of the works he has left behind him, and which gives us the highest opinion of his simple yet energetic nature, he applied himself to the study of the true principles of art in the works of the great Italian painters--the only artists then in repute. Owing to various circumstances the trade of glazier proving unprofitable, he at once began the study of geometry, and soon obtained credit, in the part of the country wherein he dwelt, as “a clever draughtsman of plans.” Such comparatively mechanical labour as this could not long suffice for the active vigour of a mind thirsting after progress and discovery. Moreover, Palissy, while employed on his calling as a land-surveyor, had never ceased to give close observation to the structure and composition of geological strata. With the purpose of dispelling the doubts in his mind, and also with the object of obtaining substantial confirmation regarding the system he had already originated, he began to travel. The result of his journeyings was the inauguration of a theory which, after having long been contemptuously rejected by the learned, was nevertheless destined to form the foundation of principles which are now considered as the basis of modern geological science.

But if the certain knowledge which Palissy thought he had acquired as to the early convulsions of the globe had succeeded in satisfying his own mind, the glazier-surveyor (who was now a married man with a family) still remained in straitened circumstances, and was obliged to find some means of avoiding actual want. We must refer to what he himself says more than a quarter of a century later, and when success had completely crowned his efforts, to learn what were his recollections of his early and hazardous experiments in a new channel. “Know,” says he, in his expressive language, “that it is twenty-five years since an earthen vessel was shown to me; it was turned, enamelled, and of such exquisite beauty, that from that very moment I began to argue with myself, while remembering observations made derisively to me by some persons when I was painting figures. And seeing that they were beginning to give up the use of these objects in the country where I lived, and that glazing also was not in great demand, I set myself to think that had I but discovered the art of making enamel, I might make earthen vessels and other articles of beautiful appearance; for God had given me the capacity to understand a little about ceramic painting, and from that instant, without in the least regarding my utter ignorance of siliceous substances, I set myself to discover enamels like a man groping in the dark.”

It has been much disputed, but we may as well say at once to no purpose, how to assign with certainty a particular locality whence came this object which inspired Palissy; but whatever may have been its origin, it seems to us to be a question of little moment, because at the time when Palissy must have seen it, the Italian manufactories, and even those which were afterwards established in various localities, had succeeded in disseminating their wares far and wide; and, besides this, the works of Palissy, which we still see, bear testimony to a style that was peculiarly his own, and in some measure original.

However this may have been, here we have him seeking out and grinding all kinds of substances, mixing them, and coating with them pieces of ware which he first subjected to the action of an ordinary potter’s oven, afterwards to the more powerful heat employed by glass-makers. Then we see him building an oven in his own house--taking into his service a working potter, to whom, on one occasion, when he has no money for the payment of wages, he is obliged to give his own clothes; again we find him turning, single-handed, a mill for grinding his materials which ordinarily required “two powerful men” to work it; then again, wounding his hands in repairing the oven that the fire cracked, and the bricks and mortar of which had become “liquified and vitrified;” so that he is obliged for several days “to eat his soup with his fingers tied up in rags;” pushing the conscientiousness and zeal of an experimentalist so far as to fall down in a state of insensibility on finding that the whole contents of an oven, on which he had been relying, proved to have numerous defects. In despite

Or Oiron fayence. (Pourtales’ Collection.) Now in the possession of J. Malcolm, Esq.]

of his poverty we see him destroying pieces of work that he considered were not quite perfect, though a fair price was offered him for them, merely because “they might bring discredit on him and loss of reputation;” and finally, we see him breaking up and putting into the fire, for want of other fuel, the flooring of his house and the furniture of his humble abode.

The magnificent discovery, brought about by the single initiative of an individual who had said that he would succeed, and who heroically endured all kinds of misery, privations, and humiliations, in order to attain his object, was the labour of not less than fifteen years.

“To console me,” relates Palissy, “even those from whom I had a right to expect help laughed at me” (he here alludes to his family--his wife, and children--who had not the same unbounded faith as himself in the ultimate success of his labours); “they paraded the town exclaiming that I was burning the woodwork of my house; thus was my credit injured, and I was looked upon as a fool. Others said I was attempting to make base coin. I went about quite humiliated, ashamed of myself. I owed money in several quarters, and generally had two children out at nurse, and not able to pay the cost. All ridiculed me, saying: ‘He deserves to starve, because he has given up his trade.’

“Struggling on in this way, at the end of ten years I became so thin that my legs and arms had no roundness of shape left about them; my legs were all of a size (_toutes d’une venue_); so that as soon as I began to walk, the garters with which I fastened my stockings used at once to slip down, stockings and all, on to my heels.... For many years, having nothing wherewith to cover my ovens, I was exposed all night long to the winds and the rains, without receiving any help or consolation, except from the screech-owls hooting on one side and the dogs howling on the other.... Sometimes I found myself, with all my garments wet through from the rain, going to bed at midnight, or at dawn of day; and when proceeding in this condition to bed, I went reeling along without a light, and stumbling from side to side, like a man drunk with wine; I was overcome by previous sorrow, the more so because after long-continued work I saw my labour lost. And on entering my chamber I found a fresh persecution awaiting me--the complaints of my wife--worse than the first, and which now makes me wonder how it was I did not die of grief.... I have been in such anguish that many and many a time I fancied I was at death’s door.”

At last, despite all these obstacles, disappointments, physical and mental suffering, the determined experimentalist succeeded in his anticipations, and gave to the world those works he called _rustics_, and which were so original and so beautiful that they had but to be seen in order to invite attention, and to gain for him all the praise, as well as the profit, he received.

We have just intimated it was at Saintes that Palissy, when in search of immortal fame, underwent his rude apprenticeship. A short time after he had attained these definite results, religious questions having caused some disturbances in Saintonge, the Constable de Montmorency, who had been sent to suppress the Huguenot rising, had an opportunity of seeing Palissy’s works: he requested that he should be presented to him, and at once declared himself his friendly protector. And we must take this word protector in its widest sense, for the potter, who had zealously embraced the doctrines of the Reformation, and who subsequently preferred to be imprisoned for life rather than abjure his faith (if he did not die in the Bastille, at least he was imprisoned there at the time of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew), indeed required protection, as much for the exercise of liberty of conscience as for carrying on his artistic labours. After Montmorency had commissioned him to execute some considerable works, which also gained him the patronage of several important personages, he obtained for him the favour of royalty. Palissy was summoned to Paris, and received the title of “inventeur des rustiques figulines du roi et de la reine-mère”--Henri II. and Catherine de Médicis. He was lodged in the Tuileries; and was not long there before he became renowned, not only for his ceramic productions, but also for his scientific knowledge.

In the recent building operations at the Tuileries, on digging a trench in the garden, the workshop of Bernard Palissy was discovered; being recognised by fragments and various pieces of enamelled pottery with figures in relievo. Among these was found a large fragment of the dish of Palissy, known under the name of the Baptismal Dish, on account of the subject represented thereon. In July, 1865, while excavating in the part of the palace where the “Salle des Etats” has been built, the workmen discovered, below the level of the surface soil, two ovens for baking pottery, in a tolerably good state of preservation. One contained pieces of those muffles (_gazettes_) Palissy is said to have invented, and which were employed in baking delicate pieces of work--imprints of various kinds of ornaments, and figures in altorelievo: two of these are described by Palissy himself in the “Devis d’une grotte pour la royne, mère du roy” (“device of a grotto for the queen, the king’s mother”), and which he thus indicates in the following sentence:--“I should wish to make certain figures from nature, following her so closely, even to the small hair in the beard and eyebrows, as to make them the natural size.” These peculiarities are to be seen in the fragments of the moulds which have been discovered. In the same page Palissy says, “Also there would be another, composed completely of sea-shells of different kinds; that is to say, the two eyes of two shells, the nose, mouth, and chin, forehead and cheeks, all made out of sea-shells, as well as even the remainder of the body.” This was found in fragments, as also a hand moulded from nature, and holding a sword of ancient make (Fig. 39). Among the fragments moulded from the naked and the draped form, is the one which we give (Fig. 40); it is thus described by Palissy:--“Also for the sake of astonishing mankind, I wished to make three or four (figures) draped, and with their hair dressed in quaint ways, whose dresses and head-dresses shall be of divers linen, cloths, or striped materials so natural that no man would think but it was the object itself which the workman had wished to imitate.”[4]

We thus see how Palissy, called “Maître Bernard des Thuilleries,” deserved the esteem of the sovereigns who desired he should be near them.

M. Jacquemart says of Palissy ware:--“It is remarkable in more ways than one--for its white paste with a shade of yellowish grey, for its hardness, and its infusibility, equalling that of fine earthenware or pipe-clay. These give it a special character, that distinguishes it from Italian productions, the clay of which is of a dirty and dusky red. The enamel has great brilliancy; it is hard, and is not unfrequently wavy (_tresaille_). The colours vary a little, but they are bright--pure yellow, yellow ochre, indigo blue, grey blue, emerald green produced from copper, yellow green, violet brown, and manganese violet. As for the white, it is somewhat dull, and cannot be compared with Luca della Robbia ware; wherefore the most persevering researches of Palissy, who invented all the processes which he employed in his work, aimed at the attainment of greater brilliancy. The under part of Palissy ware is never of a uniform tone of colour; it is spotted or tinted with blue, yellow, and violet brown.

“It would be exceedingly difficult, not to say impossible, to enumerate the various shapes he was able to give to his enamelled ware. Combining in

himself all the artistic talent of his day, he was at the same time a skilful designer and an intelligent modeller; and thus he discovered a thousand resources for the display of elegance and richness; sometimes in the multiplicity of relievos and in the outline of his vases, sometimes in the mere application of colour.... In many of his productions, particularly dishes and bowls, are seen natural objects represented with astonishing truthfulness as to form and colour; nearly all these are modelled from nature, and grouped with perfect taste; from the lower surface, rippled by streams of water in which fish of the river Seine are swimming, coiled reptiles rise gracefully from among fossil shells (we must remember that Palissy was a geologist), found in the tertiary strata of Paris; on the _marli_ (the sloping edge of the dish), amidst delicate ferns arranged in masses, lizards, crayfish, and large-bodied frogs climb and jump (Fig. 42). The accuracy of their movements, the truth of tones produced by a limited variety of colours--all indicate a close observer. We must not, however, form our opinion of Palissy from these _rustic_ works alone, but also from his vases, where he introduced all the ornamental richness of those times, and on which he took a pleasure in developing all his fertility of composition and his knowledge as a designer.... On this point Palissy followed the same law to which all artists of the sixteenth century were subject--he was a worker in precious metals. By their graceful originality, their fringed (_frangées_) borders, their figured accessories, these vases put us in mind of metal. How could it have been otherwise? Was not Benvenuto Cellini at that time, we will not say the object of all imitations, for this would be an insult to the skilful artists of that period, but at all events the ideal towards which the inspirations of others were directed? As regards the human figure, Palissy’s constant endeavour was to approach the Italian type; and as doubtless the school of Fontainebleau furnished him with most of his models, in the greater part of his figures we trace that graceful _elongation_ of form, that elegant simplicity, which, in the works of Jean Goujon, fall into mannerism (Figs. 43 and 44).

“Palissy did not limit himself to the production of small and moderate-sized vases for ornamenting sideboards, buffets, tables, and brackets; he raised pottery to the most gigantic proportions in his _rustiques figulines_, intended as ornaments for gardens, grottoes, fountains, and the halls of stately mansions. The castles of Nesle and of Chaulnes, of Reux and of Ecouen, and the garden of the Tuileries, contained some remarkable specimens. All have perished with the devastation of the buildings in which they stood; a single fragment of a capital, preserved in the Museum of Sèvres, proves the truthfulness of the writers of the sixteenth century regarding the monumental creations of the potter of Saintes.

“After the death of Palissy, in 1589, the art which he had created insensibly declined, until soon it almost completely disappeared in France.”

This latter remark has reference to the style which was peculiarly of Palissy’s own invention, and not to the production of ceramic works generally; though the art failed not to give evidence of a certain vitality,

it employed as guides or models the fanciful examples of Italian ware, in preference to the really masterly specimens of the French artist. Among the different centres of manufacture which, at that period, were deserving of notoriety, we must specially name Nevers, whence came numerous examples characterised by subjects taken from biblical narratives, as well as from Roman and contemporaneous times; Rouen, where the manufacture probably was not of an earlier date than the beginning of the seventeenth century, and which evidently had to provide its full supply of dishes for the table when, owing to the heavy expenses of war, the courtiers, following the example of Louis XIV., sent their plate to the mint, and “_se mirent en faïence_,” “took to earthenware,” as Saint-Simon says. Lastly we have Montreuil-sur-Mer, which, if we are to credit the specimens collected in the district by M. Boucher de Perthes, one of our most learned antiquarians, possessed a manufactory that produced some remarkable “open-work” vases.

Let us also mention the Dutch pottery, called _Delft ware_, which, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, began to find a place on all sideboards and dressers. According to M. Brongniart, these came from a manufactory founded prior, perhaps, to the sixteenth century. We also instance the fine earthenware, in relievo, manufactured with undoubted ability in Germany, especially in the town of Nuremberg. In the Louvre and in the Cluny Museums may be seen magnificent specimens of enamelled slabs and vases of architectural forms, ornamented with figures. Majolica was equally esteemed on the banks of the Rhine. Many specimens are found, dating from the latest years of the sixteenth century, in which identity of form or similarity of _sigles_ (earths or clays) to primitive works had led to their being, at first, classified among Italian majolica. However, the majority of these examples, ornamented with escutcheons and arabesques, combined generally with Latin or German inscriptions, bear on the reverse a cipher in Gothic letters, leaving no doubt as to the artist’s country.

Now a word on a question we ought not to pass in silence, though it yet remains unanswered, and doubtless will never be explained.

Why is this name of _faïence_ commonly given in France, almost from the revival of the ceramic art, to the productions of the new industry? Some say, “because Faenza was the first among Italian manufactories that introduced, generally, painted and ornamented potteries into France, where it acquired great reputation.” Others discover in France itself, a small town called Faïence, near Fréjus, in Provence, “where the manufacture of enamelled clays was in full activity before there was any evidence of it elsewhere;” and thus it gave its name to the pottery called _majolica_ by the Italians: this would be nothing less than to deprive Luca della Robbia of the merit, if not of the invention, at least of priority. Unfortunately for this last opinion, those who state it cannot bring in support of their assertion any certain details of the nature of the productions ascribed to that locality, and which by their very celebrity ought to have been safe from destruction. Thus it is evident there is here a point of dispute regarding which it is difficult to form a decisive opinion.

Though, in a certain measure, lying out of the province to which our observations have hitherto been limited, we have still to notice a small group of productions which are known by connoisseurs under the title of _faïences fines d’Henri II._; of these there are not more than forty authenticated specimens. The locality of this manufacture, which seems, so to speak, to have been isolated--for the ware is unlike any contemporaneous productions--is quite unknown. “We only know,” says M. Jacquemart, “that most of the examples came from the south-west of France, from Saumur, from Tours, and especially from Thouars. As to the date, it is indelibly inscribed on the vases, some having the salamander of Francis I., others the arms of France with three crescents interlaced, the emblem adopted by Henri II. They consist of cups, ewers, drinking-vases, oval sugar-basins, salt-cellars, and candlesticks. The form is ornate and pure, and is relieved by elegant mouldings. On the clay--a yellowish white, and covered with a crystallized varnish, the basis of which is lead, and consequently is transparent--wind bands of yellow ochre bordered with dark brown, and interlaced with all the inventive richness which characterized the period; small designs in green, violet, black, and occasionally in red, enhance this decoration.”

Much search has been made, but, as yet, without any reliable result, for the name of the artist to whom might be attributed the creation of these works, and of the individual style they denote.

However this may be, if England claims the first application of pipe-clay to fine earthenware, the French can, by showing her the _faïence d’Henry II._, prove that, two hundred years before, an unknown artist in France was setting an example in that art in which England now prides herself.

ARMS AND ARMOUR.

Arms of the Time of Charlemagne.--Arms of the Normans at the Time
of the Conquest of England.--Progress of Armoury under the
Influence of the Crusades.--The Coat of Mail.--The Crossbow.--The
Hauberk and the Hoqueton.--The Helmet, the Hat of Iron, the
Cervelière, the Greaves, and the Gauntlet; the Breastplate and the
Cuish.--The Casque with Vizor.--Plain Armour and Ribbed
Armour.--The Salade Helmet.--Costliness of Armour.--Invention of
Gunpowder.--Bombards.--Hand-Cannons.--The Culverin, the
Falconet.--The Arquebus with Metal-holder, with Match, and with
Wheel.--The Gun and the Pistol.

The most ancient and authentic document that presents to us a just and almost perfect idea of the arms in use towards the end of the eleventh century, is the celebrated tapestry of Bayeux, of which we have already spoken.

It is sufficient to examine with some attention that complex and illustrated narrative of the conquest of England in 1066, to learn what was the general aspect of war at that period. But any one who has at all studied the ancient historians and the annals of our earliest career as a people, will not fail to recognise, as so many constituent parts combining to form the equipment of war, most of those weapons that were adopted among various races, the contests and the union of which was to give birth to modern nations.

If we can rely on the testimony of some miniatures in manuscripts of the time of Charlemagne, Roman customs are constantly recalled in the costume and arms of the warriors of the eighth and ninth centuries (Fig. 46), “but with the modifications necessarily resulting from contemporaneous corrupt taste,” as observed by M. de Saulcy, whom, it may be remarked, we follow step by step, as it were, in the labours which he has conscientiously devoted to the history of warlike arms; “for at that time the helmets, the bucklers, and the swords had assumed forms very unlike the models whereof they were supposed to be an imitation. One can readily imagine that costume had become subjected to the same sort of change as language, corrupted as this was by the admixture of German manners with those of the nations subjected to Rome.”

In the middle of the ninth century the Normans disembarking, possessed themselves of Neustria, and introduced among the French nation, with which they at first contended, and at length concluded a peace, an entire series of defensive arms entirely novel in form, if not in their nature. It is then, according to certain learned men, that warriors are seen, in illustrated manuscripts, attired in dresses furnished with small rings or iron scales, wearing pointed helmets, and using shields cut horizontally above, and terminating at the base in a point more or less sharp.

In the Bayeux tapestry we see the army of William that fought the battle of Hastings composed of three different bodies of troops: the archers, light infantry, armed with arrows and darts; foot-soldiers, or Heavy infantry, using weightier arms, and clad in iron mail; and cavalry, in the midst of which figures the Duke William (Fig. 47).

The costume exhibits little variety; only two sorts of accoutrements are observable; one very plain, worn by men who have no helmet, is evidently that of an inferior soldier; the other, covered with iron rings, not interlaced, extends from the shoulders to the knees, and belongs only to warriors whose head-dress is a narrow, conical helmet, more or less sharply pointed, extending behind (_en couvre nuque_) to cover the nape of the neck (Fig. 48), and in front provided with a metal protector for the face, called the _nasal_.

Among the horsemen thus encased in iron, are some who have boots and stirrups, others are without them, and even wear no spurs. Their shields are convex, secured to the arm by a leather strap, generally circular at top, and terminating in a point below. Some, however, are polygonal and convex, and in the centre show a rather long point.

Offensive arms consist of swords, axes, lances, javelins, and arrows. The swords are long, of uniform width nearly to the extremity which comes abruptly to a point, and have heavy, strong hilts. The axes exhibit no remarkable peculiarity. The spears terminate in an iron point, probably sharpened, and equal in length to one-sixth of the handle. We see also clubs, maces, and, finally, pronged staves (_bâtons fourchus_), doubtless the earliest form of the weapon; these last were subsequently called _bisaguë_, and, with maces and clubs, were ordinarily used by serfs and peasants; the sword and the spear being reserved for freemen.

The sling is not to be found in the hands of any warrior; but it is remarkable that, in the border of the Bayeux tapestry, it is used by a peasant aiming at a bird; from which it may be inferred that the sling had become a mere weapon for field-sport. Moreover, this was also the case with the bow among the French; which was again held in honour after the advent of the Normans, especially since the latter could ascribe to it their success at the battle of Hastings, where Harold, the opponent of William, was killed by an arrow. Nevertheless, the statutes of the Conqueror, who himself excelled with the bow, did not include that weapon among those of the nobility.

From the conquest of the Normans to the Crusades, we scarcely find anything worth notice, except the adoption of a very murderous implement of war, which acquired the name of the flail, or armed whip (_fléau_, or _fouet d’armes_); it was formed of iron balls studded with points, and was attached to the end of a strong staff by small chains. But we come to a period when the events which occurred in Asia had a considerable influence on the arms and the military costume of Europe. The first and principal of the importations due to those distant expeditions was that of the coat of mail, then in common use among the Arabs, and which has since been discovered in the sculptures of the period of the Sassanidæ, a royal race that ruled over Persia from the third to the seventh century.

It is not affirmed that prior to the first crusade we had no knowledge of iron chain-work, of which the Orientals made defensive helmets; but we imitated it only in a heavy and clumsy manner. This armour, which was of ponderous weight, and, besides, was far from rendering invulnerable those who were burdened with it, had not displaced the _haubergeons_, the _jacques de fer_, the _brigandines_, the _armures à macles_ (Fig. 49), (such were the names given to the cuirasses of leather and of cloth covered with metal plates); but when such defensive armour came to be better known, with all its original good qualities; and when we had learned to make it according to the Oriental method, there was no further delay in adopting that network of iron (_tricot_) at once flexible, light, and, in some degree, impenetrable. However, since the manufacture of ancient armour was more simple, and consequently less costly, it was not altogether abandoned. It is only so late as the time of Philip Augustus and Louis IX. (the thirteenth century) that the use of coats of mail became general; to this some knights attached mail hose, to protect the thighs, legs, and feet (Fig. 50).

In the reign of Louis le Gros (twelfth century) we see the first attempt at a movable vizor adapted to the conical helmet of the Normans; and to the same period must be referred the invention of the crossbow: or, it may rather be said that a stock, or _arbrier_, was added to the bow, which afforded greater facility for stretching the string, and also aided in directing the arrow. This new weapon, after being exclusively used in the chase, appeared in warfare; but, in 1139, Pope Innocent II., confirming the decisions of the Council of Lateran, which had condemned it as too destructive, prohibited its use. The crossbow was not restored to military equipments until the third crusade, under Richard Cœur de Lion, who, having permitted his men to resume the weapon, was subsequently assumed to have invented it.

During the first crusade, barons and knights wore a hauberk of links of iron or steel. Every warrior had a helmet--silver-plated for royalty, of steel for nobles, and of iron for the private soldiers. The crusaders used the lance, the sword, a kind of dagger called _miséricorde_, the club and the battle-axe, the sling and the bow.

In the windows which Suger, minister of Louis VII., caused to be painted for the church of the abbey of Saint-Denis, and which represented the principal events of the second crusade, we see the chiefs of the crusaders still clothed in hauberks of links, or _macles_ (plates of iron); the helmet is conical and without the nose-piece (_nasal_); and, lastly, the buckler, formed like a scutcheon, covers the breast, generally suspended from the neck by a leather thong.

Towards the middle of the twelfth century, the iron breastplate is said to have been introduced; it was placed over the chest to support the hauberk, the direct pressure of which being found detrimental to health. But no description of it is to be met with in the romances of chivalry, that furnish the best documentary evidence regarding the armour of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Under Philip Augustus, who, as we know, was one of the leaders of the third crusade, the conical helmet assumed a cylindrical form; to this was occasionally added a vizor called _ventail_, intended to protect the face. Richard I., King of England, is represented on his seal with this kind of helmet; level with the eyes and also at the height of the mouth are two horizontal slits, which admit of seeing and breathing. Still the use of the conical helmet without vizor or nose-piece was retained even to the thirteenth century in Spain, as is proved by that worn by Jaime I., King of Aragon (Fig. 51), which is preserved in the Armeria Real, Madrid. It is of polished steel, is surmounted by a dragon’s head, and portions of it are richly ornamented.

Thus in the third crusade the use of the “coat-of-arms” became general,--a sort of overcoat, if we may so term it, of cloth or of silk stuff, and the purpose of which, at first, was only to mitigate the insupportable effect of the rays of an Eastern sun on metal armour. This new garment soon served, moreover, when made of various colours, to distinguish different nations marching under the standard of the Cross (Fig. 52). It became really a dress of military splendour, was made of the richest stuffs, and embroidered in gold or silver with excessive refinement.

The slingers, who had never been otherwise recruited than from the lower orders, disappeared from the French armies after the reign of St. Louis. As for the archers, those of England wore at that time, over the hauberk, a leather jacket, adopted subsequently by the French archers, and called _jacque d’Anglois_. An old author, in fact, thus mentions it:--

“C’étoit un pourpoint de chamois;
Farci de bourre sus et sous;
Un grand vilain jacque d’Anglois,
Qui lui pendoit jusqu’aux genoux.”

The _jacque_ having become the fashion in France was soon recognised in every kind of material more or less costly; it continued in use until the end of the fourteenth century; Charles VI. wore one of black velvet during a journey he made in Brittany.

The casque, or helmet, from that time enclosing the head entirely, assumed, under St. Louis, the form of two truncated cones “réunis par leurs grandes bases.” In addition to the helmet there was also worn at that time the _chapel de fer_, which at first was only a simple cap underneath the hood of the hauberk; but when, curtailing the hood, a brim was added to the cap, it thus became a hat almost of the form of the felts now in use. To protect the neck there was also attached to the rim of the hat a tippet of mail, falling on the shoulders, and called _camail_.[5] The iron cap then took

With and without vizors, from the Armeria Real at Madrid.]

the name of _coiffre_ or _cervelière_, and later it became a kind of reversed pot concealing the entire head, and kept in position by its weight only (Fig. 53).

Again; there had for some time been manifested a movement which gradually caused the knights to be entirely cased in iron. A king of Scotland, contemporary with Philip Augustus, is represented on his seal with a plate of armour intended to protect the elbow. The knee-cap followed. Under Philip the Bold, successor of St. Louis, the iron _grévières_ (greaves), or half leg-pieces, protecting the front of the legs, were adopted. In the reign of Philip the Fair we have the first example of an iron gauntlet with its fingers separate and jointed: previously it was merely an inflexible piece covering the back of the hand. About the same time the _cervelière_, either flat or spherical, became pointed at the top, and took the name of _bassinet_; but this bassinet was unlike the casque which, in the following century, retained that name and was made completely closed. The exact period of the transition from mailed armour to that of plain iron or steel, called also plate-armour, dates from the first thirty years of the fifteenth century (Fig. 55).

The annals of Florence contain a statute of 1315, requiring every horseman serving in a campaign to have a helmet, a breastplate, gauntlets, cuishes, and leg-pieces, all of iron; but in France and England the whole of these pieces were not adopted until somewhat later. In the reigns of Philip V. and Charles IV. we see the ventail of the helmet with a grating, and the vizor opening with a hinge. The bassinet, lighter than the helmet, was at first worn by the knight when no hostile encounter was anticipated; but subsequently, and at an early date, the vizor was added to the bassinet, as well as to the casque; and then it became as much used as the helmet, which, towards the end of the fourteenth century, was abandoned.

About the same period some portions of iron horse-armour began to make their appearance. We find entered in the inventory of the armour of Louis X., a _chanfrein_ (a plate of iron fastened on the horse’s forehead).

The crossbow, for some time prohibited by ecclesiastical authority, was the weapon most in use at the period spoken of; as having the double advantage of being drawn with more power than the ordinary bow, and of throwing its arrows to a longer distance with greater precision. Historians say that at Crécy, in 1346, there were fifteen thousand crossbow men in the French army. The Genoese were considered the most skilful in Europe; and next, those of Paris. A manuscript in the British Museum shows them wearing iron helmets, _brassières_,[6] and leg-pieces; and for body-covering, jackets with long, hanging sleeves. While the bowmen had both hands occupied in discharging their arrows, shield-bearers were employed to protect them by means of large bucklers (Fig. 57).

In the year 1338 the use of firearms is for the first time noted in France. But we think it right to reserve all we have to say of these modern offensive weapons until our history of the ancient system of armour is finished. Considering the early imperfections of firearms, the old system must have long continued, especially among combatants of noble degree--for they affected contempt for the new warlike equipments, by means of which personal valour became in a manner useless and could no longer ensure victory in battle.

Under John the Good, that is, in the middle of the fourteenth century, plain armour was generally adopted; the long coat of mail, heavier and less convenient, was entirely abandoned; but chain-armour still covered certain parts of the body not yet protected by iron plates. The _bassinet_, then very pointed, was furnished with mail, covering the neck and a portion of the shoulders. The upper part of the arm was protected by a half-armlet, called the _épaulette_, but the lower part was provided with mail.

Ornaments began to be introduced in armour in the reign of Charles V.; until that time it had a simple and plain appearance. For instance, the _camail_ of the _bassinet_ is embroidered on the shoulders with gold and silver, and the point surmounting it is decorated with an imitation of foliage--an ornament which, according to the “Chronicle of Du Gueslin,” had the disadvantage of presenting a kind of handle to an opponent. The cuirass, to which it was then deemed sufficient to impart a bright polish, or to paint in ordinary colours, sometimes bright, sometimes dark, began to be engraved and chased towards the end of the following reign.

In the time of Charles VI. there was introduced, for the first time, four or five flexible plates, called _faldes_, which protected the lower part of the stomach without impeding the movements of the body. A little later, _tassettes_ were added; they were attached to the top of the thigh to guard the hips and the groin. It appears that at this period the artisans of Milan, were especially renowned for the manufacture of armour; for Froissart relates that Henry IV., King of England, when Earl of Derby,[7] and preparing to enter the lists with the Duke of Norfolk, requested armour from Galeas, Duke of Milan, who sent it with four Milanese armourers. The swords and spears made at Toulouse and at Bordeaux were also held in great repute; so also were the double-handed swords in use from the middle of the thirteenth century, and manufactured at Lubeck, in Germany. The steel helmets of Montauban were also much in request.

Towards the commencement of the fifteenth century, engines of war, distinct from those in which powder was used, had attained a remarkable degree of perfection. When John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, marched upon Paris, in 1411, there was with his army a considerable number of machines called _ribaudequins_, a species of gigantic crossbow drawn by a horse, and which with enormous strength threw javelins to a great distance.

Under Charles VII., the breastplate of the cuirass was composed of two parts: one covered the breast; the other, reaching to the hips, protected the stomach, and was attached to the former by clasps and leather straps. Generally the breastplate was convex.

Taught by the disastrous defeat of Agincourt,--where ten thousand men, of whom eight thousand were of the nobility, had fallen, owing to the precision and the celerity of the fire of the English archers,--Charles VII. instituted in France the _franc archer_ (Fig. 58), who wore the _salade_ and the jacket or _brigandine_, and carried the dagger, the sword, the bow, the quiver or crossbow _garnie_. These archers were exempt from all taxes or imposts; their equipments were declared not distrainable for debts, and during war they received pay at the rate of four livres a month.

The _salade_, a part of armour which has remained particularly celebrated, and the name of which has been applied subsequently to helmets of divers forms, is pre-eminently the helmet of the epoch of Charles VII. At first it was a head-dress for war, composed of a simple cap (_timbre_), that covered the top of the head, with a pendent piece of metal of greater or less length at the back, which sometimes was made for protecting the neck, and

sometimes to guard a portion of the shoulders. Towards the end of the fifteenth century there was added to the salade a small vizor, that was gradually lengthened downwards to near the upper lip, and in which a narrow opening was then made for the sight. In the reign of Louis XII. the salade received a chin-piece, the lower part of which was a _gorget_, that surrounded and protected the neck. The top of the cuirass had a cord, to which was attached the salade; and this helmet, so different to the primitive salade, continued to bear the same name (Fig. 59).

The _brigandine_, recalling the early armour abandoned for the coat of mail, was composed of small plates of steel or iron arranged on a strong piece of leather, and stitched or fixed with wire, in the form of the scales of a fish. A decree of Peter II., Duke of Brittany, issued in 1450, ordered the nobles to equip themselves as archers, or in brigandine, if they knew how to use arrows; but otherwise, to be provided with _guisarmes_, with good salades, and leg-armour; each noble was to be attended by one _coustillier_, and to have two good horses. The _guisarme_ was a sort of two-edged and pointed javelin. The _coustillier_ was a foot-soldier, or a horseman, whose duty it was to act as a servant to the nobleman, and to carry the _coustille_, a long, slender sword, triangular or square, apparently resembling the foil in our fencing-rooms.

About this period French noblemen displayed much magnificence in the adornment of the _chanfrein_ of their horses. For instance, we know that at the siege of Harfleur, in 1449, the charger of the Count de Saint-Pol had on its head a massive gold chanfrein, of the most delicate work, valued at not less than twenty thousand crowns. In the same year, at the siege of Bayonne, the Count de Foix entered the conquered city mounted on a horse whose chanfrein of polished steel was enriched with gold and precious stones to the value of fifteen thousand gold crowns.

Half a century later--that is, in the reign of Charles VIII. and that of Louis XII.--chargers wore, besides the chanfrein, the _manefaire_, protecting the neck, the _poitrail_, the _croupière_, the _flancois_, which respectively covered the chest, the back, and the flanks of the horse; and to these was added another piece of armour placed under the tail.

Of the date of Louis XII., we still see embossed suits of armour ornamented with fluting, sometimes blended with beautiful engraved work executed in the metal by the use of aquafortis, or subjects in relievo produced by embossing: ornamentation of this nature elevated the equipments of the warrior to real works of art (Fig. 60).

Louis XII. was the first to admit Greek mercenaries into his army. These were named _stradiots_; they tendered their military services equally to both Turks and Christians. The armour of these troops consisted of a cuirass with sleeves and gauntlets in mail, and over this a jacket; on their head a vizorless helmet was worn. The stradiots were armed with a large sword, called a _braquemart_, much resembling the Turkish sword, but with a cross-handle; the sword and its scabbard were ornamented with Grecian devices. They carried in addition several small arms at the saddle-bow, and also a _zagaye_, a very long lance, tipped at both extremities with iron.

At this period also was introduced the _pertuisane_,[8] the blade of which, wider than that of the lance, formed a crescent immediately above the handle.

There were at that time two kinds of cross-bows--one for discharging bolts, the other for bullets. The bow was slung by means of a _moulinet_, a kind of hand-winch.

Embossed and fluted armour was not the only kind used in France and in Italy at the end of the fifteenth and the commencement of the following century. The monuments in the former country of the time of Louis XII., and on the other side of the Alps, show how prevalent was a peculiar description of plain armour, whereof the cuirass, which was longer than that of the embossed armour, had a rib or raised line in the middle. This rib, which completely altered the character of the cuirass, in that it served to turn aside the thrust of the lance, became increasingly distinctive as the seventeenth century drew near.

In the reign of Francis I. embossed and ribbed armour were equally

used (Fig. 61). In the Museum of Artillery, in Paris, is preserved the armour which that king wore at the battle of Pavia. The body is longer than in the cuirass of the preceding century, the rib in the centre is more raised, the gusset of the shoulder-piece is made of several movable plates, and of large size. The _casque_, a generic name given since those times to all descriptions of head-armour, assumed a comfortable and elegant shape, which was maintained as long as the use of armour continued.

Another cuirass of the same date, still longer in the body, was made to turn up towards the lower extremity, and then took an inward bend to fit the hip. It was made with movable plates overlapping from below; this allowed the wearer to stoop, which it was almost impossible to do when the breast-piece and the back-piece were in one. Sometimes these plates were only three or four in number over the stomach, and the others over the breast were only represented, not genuine plates.