Aragon, thanks to its intercourse with Italy—to which country, as has been noted, swords were exported from Barcelona—led the van in armourership. The companions-in-arms of Jaime el Conquistador are nearly always represented wearing a considerable weight of plate armour.
Don Ramon Folch, Vizconde de Cardona, surnamed, on account of his commanding personality and abilities, el Prohom, is shown on his tomb at Poblet wearing jambs, or greaves of steel (it is difficult to say which), and at the neck a high mentonnière, which must have been worn with a heaulme, or visored salade. The close-fitting chapelle-de-fer is adorned with cardon flowers, the arms of his house. So also is the long and tastefully-embroidered surcoat with sleeves, which descends below the knees. Beneath this was worn a hauberk of mail, with articulated gloves. A broad decorated baldric supports a short sword. This monument dates from 1322.
No greaves or any plate armour, on the other hand, appear on the sepulchral monument, executed about twenty years later, over the remains of Don Rodrigo de Lauria, son of the famous Admiral. The warrior is clothed entirely in a suit of mail, with hood and camail, a graceful coronet with fleurs-de-lys encircling the forehead. The surcoat or tunic is, as in the other examples, charged with the armorial bearings of the deceased, and has three openings—at the sides, and in the middle—with a gilt fringe—“a fashion,” remarks Don Valentin Carderera, “which we have observed in Spain only on the statues of Aragonese knights.” The sword is much longer and narrower than usual, and reveals fine workmanship. The spurs are of the goad shape.
The Historia Troyana, executed in Castile about 1350, represents warriors clad in similar suits of mail, with pointed heaulmes with visors, but no chin-pieces. Greaves and genouillères are worn with the chausses. In one instance a surcoat is shown of scaled and studded pattern. This may have been some rare sort of gambeson, or again may have been made of the cuir-bouilli—boiled leather—common all over Europe and the East then and for centuries after. Banded armour is also shown.
The statue of Don Alonso Perez de Guzman, Captain-General of Jerez, who distinguished himself at the taking of Algeciras in 1344, is interesting technically as showing several new pieces of plate-armour. The jambs (leg-plates) are closed, and coudières are worn on the elbows and vambraces on the forearm. Defences of plate for the arm were coming into use about this time. The earliest examples date from 1328, but they occur very rarely prior to 1360. Yet this monument is believed to have been executed some years before the knight’s death in 1351. It is evident that the Castilians were not lagging behind in the arts and appliances of warfare. Don Alonso wears pointed sollerets of six plates, and the hauberk of mail beneath a surcoat. He clasps a long cross-hilted sword.
A decided impetus was given to the movement towards plate armour by the influx of English and French troops into Castile, incidental to the restoration and final deposition of Pedro the Cruel. Almost for the first time the Spaniards were brought face to face on the tented field with a foreign Christian soldiery, and that under leaders no less formidable than Edward the Black Prince and Bertrand Duguesclin. Against such doughty foemen stouter defences were needed than against the light-armed, leather-and-mail-clad chivalry of Islam. Though in Aragon the cuirass, or coracina, had already been worn, its introduction into Castile is generally ascribed to Bertrand Claquin and those who with him entered the service of Don Enrique de Trastamara. This tradition seems to be warranted by a sepulchral effigy of Don Pedro, described in Carderera’s Iconografia (see plate 6), though it should be said that this was not executed till seventy-six years after that King’s death. The components of the armour are: a hauberk of mail, reaching half-way down the thigh; a coracina or cuirass; vambraces, rere-braces,[D]
coudes, and genouillères. The surcoat and mantle which hide so much of the armour, are brocaded with gold flowers on a blue field.
The monument of one of Don Enrique’s partisans, Juan Alfonso, Lord of Ajofrin (see plate 3), was erected a year or two after his death on the field of Aljubarrota, in 1385. He wears a short hauberk with a sleeved surcoat, which probably concealed a cuirass. The leg-armour—jambs, genouillères, cuisses—is entirely of plate. The gauntlets are of extraordinarily delicate workmanship. The cuff and hand are of plate, richly chased; the fingers are articulated and composed of small annular plates, which must have allowed perfect freedom to the joints; the tips are shaped to imitate the nails; and the knuckles are furnished with gads or spikes, which served as offensive as well as defensive armour. Gauntlets of beautiful workmanship were not, of course, peculiar to Spain, but were adopted there as early as in any other country. The Lord of Ajofrin wears laminated sollerets, and carries a sword of unusual length, with drooping quillons, and a shield or escutcheon on the pommel.
Castile owed, not only the corselet, but an improved headpiece to the White Company, which crossed the Pyrenees to support the claims of Don Enrique in 1366. It should, however, be said that Don Pedro in his will, dated 1362, bequeaths his bascinet to his son, Don Juan.[E] “The heaulme,” says M. Mathieu Prou, “having become too heavy, was from 1300 onwards little more than a headpiece for parade. In action the knights preferred to combat with uncovered face, the head protected by a casque called bassinet or bascinet, which was without a nasal, round, at first rather low, but towards 1330 assuming an ovoid form. From the beginning of the fourteenth century it became the custom to fix to the iron cap a visor moving on pivots, or attached to hinges, and opening like a shutter. This visor was ordinarily pointed and elongated in muzzle form, and provided with two horizontal slits for the vision (occularia), and numerous holes for respiration. As this helmet did not protect the throat, to the lower part was soon added the piece called beavor, over which the visor fell when it was lowered.”
The celada or salade was also worn in Spain about this time. The collection of Don José Estruch, at Barcelona, contains such a headpiece of somewhat peculiar shape. The crest is very high and the brim very broad. To it is fastened a beavor in three plates, to which again is laced a covering of mail for the back of the neck. The bascinet is worn by the Lord of Ajofrin’s contemporary, Don Bernardo de Anglesola, of Aragon (see plate 8). It is encircled by a double band of ornaments and precious stones, and is worn over the camail, which falls like an ample tippet over the breast. The harness is composed of hauberk of mail, rere-braces, vambraces, coudes, gauntlets, cuisses, genouillères, jambs, and sollerets. The brocaded surcoat may be intended to conceal a corselet.