The Defensive Armour and the Weapons and Engines of War of Mediæval Times, and of the "Renaissance."

by R. Coltman Clephan

THE CUIRASS.

The cuirass consists of breastplate and backplate, which pieces are usually fastened together by straps and buckles, but screws are sometimes used, especially for tournament armour. It was probably introduced into England in the reign of Henry V., and the form is an excellent guide as to date. The word, or rather its prototype “quirettæ,” occurs in a “Roll of Purchases” (1278) preserved in the Tower of London. The armour for the breast was considered next in importance to that for the head, and inventories of the fifteenth century frequently refer to “pairs of plates, large, globose,” which sufficiently indicate the period. Breastplates were used by the Franks in the eighth century, and probably by the Norsemen about the same time; that of the fourteenth century was without the salient ridge in front called the tapul. The Rev. T. N. Roberts, vicar of Cornforth, county Durham, to whom the author is indebted for several hints, reminds him that it is difficult to say whether it is correct to speak of the fourteenth century breastplate as a cuirass or not. In effigies, brasses, and illuminations this part of the armour is always concealed by the jupon. When the jupon disappeared (temp. Henry V.) the breastplate is revealed always in two pieces; afterwards (temp. Edward IV.) in only one piece, as a true cuirass. On a monument in Ash Church, Kent (dating about 1335), where the lacing of the surcoat at the side permits the body defences to be seen, “rectangular plates like tiles riveted into a flexible garment” are discernible. The only remains of an actual cuirass of fourteenth century date were found at the castle of Tannenberg. The figure of St. George in the Cathedral square at Prague has a flexible garment covered with very small rectangular plates like tiles, and over this a breastplate—not a complete cuirass. All this leads one to suppose that fourteenth century breastplates were not cuirasses so much as additional plates of various shapes over the hauberk, the skirts of which appear below the jupon on effigies, etc., of the fourteenth century. Still, it must be remembered that an effigy of the preceding century in the Temple Church exhibits both front and back plates. The standard of mail is a feature of the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. It was designed to protect the weak place between the gorget and top of the cuirass—it grew, in fact, out of the camail. Almost all effigies of the period exhibit these pieces. The tapul first appeared in the fifteenth century; this ridge after being discontinued reappears later, when it often swelled out to a hump, either over or below the navel. This, indeed, was a decided feature of the second half of the sixteenth century, when the cuirass had often one overlapping plate under the arm. Occasionally it was provided with transverse bars, forming a cross. The Gothic type is very beautiful, and is usually in two or three plates, the second rising to a point in the middle of the breast, and the third running nearly parallel with it and converging to a point below it. At the top of the breast is a socket for attachment to the mentonnière by a cusp-headed bolt. There are, however, exceptions to this, as shown in examples at the Dresden Museum, where the top of the breastplate projects in a piping. In one of these cases an open helmet had been worn, and the suit probably used by the leader of a company. A suit of which an illustration is given in [Fig. 18], shows how the mentonnière goes under the cuirass. The same would also be the case in [Fig. 19], but here the mentonnière is missing. The English form of the fifteenth century is usually in two plates, as in the Redmarshal and Downes effigies.[27] The first examples occur before the middle of the century.

The lance-rest is on the right breast, and on the left are screw holes for a tilting shoulder-guard when this piece is used, or for a grand-guard. The Maximilian form, which followed the Gothic, is sometimes in one piece with the taces—that is to say, riveted with them—and is more globular in character. In the sixteenth century the cuirass is lower and flatter, and cut straight at the top, and frequently had the tapul already mentioned. In the middle of the century it tends to lengthen somewhat, and is provided with a ridge along the top and round the arm-holes for turning a stroke, and has often, as already mentioned, a single lamination round the arm-holes. A feature of the breastplate about 1560 is the hump or projection over the navel; while usually a little later we have the “peascod” form, where the projection is found lower down. The “peascod” is obviously copied from the doublet of the period, but whence the idea of the middle hump sprang we cannot say. The cuirass made specially for tilting is fully described under the heading of “tilting suits.” In the seventeenth century the breastplate becomes very flat and very short.