Froissart throws some light on the military equipment and peculiarities of the Castilians of his day. From more than one passage in the Chronicles it is evident that the sling, a weapon long discarded by other Western nations, was still esteemed in Spain, where the javelin also was a favourite weapon. We read, “ ‘By my faith,’ said the Duke of Lancaster, ‘of all the arms the Castilians and your countrymen make and use, I love the dart best, and love to see it used; they are very expert at it; and I tell you, whoever they hit with it, he must be indeed strongly armed, if he be not pierced through and through.’ ‘You say truly,’ replied the squire, ‘for I saw more bodies transfixed at these assaults than ever I saw before in all my life. We lost one whom we much regretted, Senhor Joao Lourenço da Cunha, who was struck with a dart that pierced through his plates and his coat of mail and a gambeson stuffed with silk, and his whole body, so that he fell to the ground.’ ”
The address of the Castilians with the dart or javelin is again referred to at the attack on Vilha Lobos in 1386; while, at the battle of Najara, “the Spaniards and Castilians had slings, from which they hurled stones and crushed heaulmes and bascinets; in which manner they wounded many.” In another passage we are told that the troops were armed according “to the usage of Castile, with darts and archegayes (assegais) and throwing stones from slings.”
There is a tendency among certain historians to exaggerate the influence exercised by the Moors on the applied arts in Spain. So far as armour was concerned, it is clear that the Christians of the Peninsula, where they did not originate fashions, followed those of Italy, or in later times of France. They certainly did not look to Granada for a lead. And if the Spanish Moors had been such skilful armourers as some would have us believe, it is hardly likely that their kinsmen and neighbours, the Moors of Barbary, would have gone so poorly equipped as they seem to have gone in Froissart’s time.
“For,” says Messire Froissart, “they are not so well nor so strongly armed as the Christians; for they have not the art nor the method nor the workmen to forge armour as the Christians do. Neither is the material, that is, iron and steel, common with them. Their armour is usually of leather, and at their necks they carry very light shields, covered with cuir-bouilli of Cappadocia, which, if the leather has not been overheated, no weapon can penetrate.”
On the other hand there can be no doubt that the conquest of Andalusia had let the Castilian artificers into the secrets of many new methods, such as damascening and enamelling, by which they were not slow to profit. The traditions of the goldsmith’s craft, handed down from Visigothic times, had never been lost; and certain it is that in the fourteenth century, when the conquerors had had time to assimilate the arts of the conquered to their own, armour and metal work of all kinds began to assume a rich and elaborate character. The goldsmiths of Barcelona, Toledo, Valladolid, and Seville enjoyed a European reputation. They worked in close co-operation with the armour-smith. In the example of a fourteenth-century harness we have just considered—that of Don Bernardo Anglesola—not only bascinet, gauntlets, coudes, and genouillères are chased, and in some cases set with precious stones, but the hauberk has a rich fringe of gilt, and each plate of the rere-braces has a decorative band at the lower border. The baldric is adorned with studs and fleurs-de-lys. In the statue, at Seville, of Don Alvaro de Guzman, Admiral of Castile, who died in 1394, the same elaboration may be noticed in the roped edges of the genouillères, the gauntlets, and the tasteful floral devices, alternating with rows of studs, in the ornamentation of the baldric. The pommel of the sword, as was customary, is emblazoned with the arms of the owner. According to Froissart, the bascinet of the King of Castile (1385) was encircled by a fillet of gold and precious stones—“qui bien valoient vingt mille francs.”
Helmets at the close of the fourteenth century were not only richly, but, as was often the case in preceding ages, fantastically decorated. We have an excellent illustration in the Armoury (plate 9) in the crest of King Martin of Aragon (1395-1412), formerly attributed to Jaime el Conquistador, and carried for many years in the procession of the “Standart,” at Palma (OII). It represents the head, neck, and wings of a dragon—the Drac pennat, the device displayed in field and tilt-yard by the Princes of the House of Aragon from Pedro IV. to Fernando II. (1336-1479). As was generally the case, it is made of boiled parchment and gilded plaster, and was set on the crest of the helmet, encircled by the crown or coronal, amid dancing plumes. The cap on which the Drac pennat is mounted was added in the first years of the fifteenth century, that it might be worn by the man who carried in the procession the standard of Jaime I. At the renowned and honourable passage of arms of Don Suero de Quiñones (1434), the crest of one of the knight’s helmets was in the shape of a golden tree, with green leaves and golden fruit; round the trunk was coiled a serpent, and in the middle was a naked sword with the device—Le vray amy. (True friend).
To the last year of the fourteenth century belongs the effigy of a knight of the Anayas family in the Cathedral of Salamanca, described by Carderera. French influence is attested by the corselet and by the brigantine or hauberk of metal discs which was in very general use and esteem in France at that time. The legs and arms are, as now customary, sheathed in plate, the coudes being of tasteful design and sharply pointed. The transition from mail to plate is well illustrated by a medallion which represents Alfonso V. of Aragon, when a youth (about 1416), in a coat of mail, and a bas-relief portraying him as a man of mature years in a complete harness of plate, mail only appearing as gussets at the armpits.
The reign of Juan II. of Castile (1406-1454) is extolled by Spanish writers as the golden age of chivalry. Knighthood was in flower, in fact, somewhat later in the Peninsula than in the rest of Europe, though I can find no adequate reason for ascribing the introduction of chivalry, as an institution, to the Black Prince and Duguesclin. Such enactments as that of Jaime II. of Aragon (1291-1327), which ordained that any cavalier escorting a lady should be secured from any kind of molestation or hindrance, and given a free passage from one end of the kingdom to the other, show that the spirit of chivalry was certainly understood South of the Pyrenees many years before the battles of Najara and Montiel. But it is likely enough that warfare with a Christian foe may have put a finer edge on the Spaniards’ sense of honour—blunted, perhaps, by their relations with the infidel, to whom it was deemed unnecessary to extend all the courtesies of war. The lull, too, in that long conflict caused men to find an outlet for their energies in tourney and tilt-yard, where the atmosphere was more favourable to the generous emotions than was the field of actual battle. Juan II. and his all-powerful minister, Alvaro de Luna, Constable of Castile, delighted in jousts and tournaments, and encouraged the sentiment and exercise of chivalry by all the means in their power. The Constable himself often appeared in the lists as a mantenedor (or challenger), or aventurero (or respondent). The spirit of the age is exemplified by the famous passage of arms, to which I have already made reference. In 1434, Don Suero de Quiñones, a knight of good family, besought the King to grant him release from a vow he had made to his lady, by allowing him to hold the Bridge of Orbigo, near Leon, with nine friends, for thirty days against all comers. His Majesty convoked the Cortes to deliberate upon this grave proposal, with the result that a large sum of money was voted to defray the expenses of the tournament, and invitations were sent to all the Courts of Europe. Knights flocked from all parts of the Continent. Nothing was omitted that could lend dignity and splendour to the scene. There were in all sixty-eight competitors, and seven hundred and twenty-eight courses were run. One Aragonese knight having been killed, and several champions seriously wounded, among them Suero de Quiñones himself, the latter was adjudged to have fulfilled his vow, and to have honourably discharged his duty to his lady. This memorable contest was considered to have reflected immortal lustre on Castilian arms, and King Juan no doubt felt prouder of himself, his knights, and his kingdom than if he had driven the Moors from Spain. The Honroso Paso de Don Suero de Quiñones is set forth in minute detail in a special chronicle, and is frequently and lovingly referred to in Spanish history.
Stimulated by such public displays of prowess and knightly address, and despite severe sumptuary laws, armour and military gear became more ornate and costly every year. In the chronicle of Don Alvaro de Luna, in the account of the battle of Olmedo in 1445, we read:
“So long had the wars in Castile lasted, that the greatest study of everyone was to have his armour well decorated and his horses well chosen; so much so that it would scarcely have been possible in all the Constable’s host to find one whose horse had no covering, or the neck of whose horse was without steel mail. Thus all those noble young gentlemen of the Constable’s house, and many others, were very richly adorned. Some had different devices painted on the coverings of their horses, and others jewels from their ladies on their helmet-crests. Others had gold and silver bells, with stout chains hanging to their horses’ necks. Others had badges studded with pearls or costly stones around the crests. Others carried small shields, richly embellished, on which were strange figures and inventions. Many different things were put on the helmet-crests, for some had insignia of wild beasts, others plumes of various colours, and others had plumes both on their helmet-crests and on the face-covering of their horses. Some horsemen had feathers that spread like wings against their shoulders; some affected simple armour; others wore plated coats over the cuirass; others rich embroidered tunics.”