The Sabbatons.—These broad-toed sollerets were introduced during the later part of the previous period, those of Piers Gerard (date 1492) being illustrated on p. [232]. They present many varieties of form, but are not distinguished for extraordinary size, as they were during the Maximilian period.
The Skirt of Mail was a marked feature of the period, and one by which it may generally be recognised. At times it almost reached to the knees, but as a general rule it terminated a short distance below the middle of the thigh. It was of fine mail, and in all probability only a skirt fastening round or below the waist. Occasionally it is slit up a short distance back and front, in order to give facilities for riding. The mail skirt had been growing in favour for some time: Lord Audley, 1491, upon his brass in Sheen Church, Surrey, exhibits it, and Edward Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire, 1499, in Luffwick Church, Northants, has a similar skirt, namely to mid-thigh. Perhaps the earliest example is that of John, Lord L’Estrange, 1478, at Hillingdon, Middlesex, who has a mail skirt to the knees, one tuille in front and one on either side; sabbatons; a pike-guard upon the pauldron, and guards round the back of the knees: but all are very plain, similar to the Stanley brass.
The tuilles lying upon this skirt were generally of large proportions and suspended from the bottom tace; they did not reach, however, so low as the hem of the skirt. Wm. Bardwell’s brass exhibits no tuilles whatever over the skirt of mail, and Richard Gyll, 1511, sergeant of the bakehouse under Henry VII., shows upon his brass in Shottisbrooke Church, Hants, two almost ludicrously small tuilles, affixed to the lowest of four narrow taces. John Colt, 1521, of Roy don Church, Essex, has extremely small tuilles over his deep skirt of mail similar to the Gyll brass; he is habited in a tabard.
From the foregoing it will readily be gleaned that very important alterations occurred in armour of this period, differentiating it from that of the preceding. The great pauldrons, exaggerated coudières, and general angularity, and, one might almost say prickliness, of the later Tabard Period was modified to a smoother and rounder style, while it lost entirely that remarkable beauty of form which, however much distorted by fanciful additions, characterised the Gothic armour as a whole. The beautiful flutings and ornamental curves disappeared to make way for a heavy, cumbersome style indicative of German stolidity, and in direct antagonism to the mobile quickness and agility suggested by the majority of suits dating from the latter half of the previous century. These characteristics may be readily seen in the brass to Sir Humphrey Stanley in Westminster Abbey, [Fig. 352]; and also that to a knight, c. 1510, shown in [Fig. 353].
Fig. 352.—Sir Humphrey Stanley, 1505. Westminster Abbey.
Fig. 353.—Knight, c. 1510.