That this excessive plainness was not always carried out, however, may be gleaned from a few effigies which display an almost lavish ornamentation. The genouillière of Sir Roger le Strange, 1506, Hunstanton, is given here ([Fig. 354]) as an example, where the spike and fluted reinforcements are a special feature, and also the right genouillière of Sir John Cheney, 1509, in Salisbury Cathedral, where the cusped reinforcements are noteworthy ([Fig. 355]).
Fig. 354.—Genouillière and reinforcements, Sir Roger le Strange, 1506, Hunstanton.
Fig. 355.—Genouillière, Sir John Cheney, c. 1509. Salisbury Cathedral.
Towards the end of the period, however, we find that although the salient points of this Transition Period in armour were retained, the taste for ornamentation led many knights to discard the extreme plainness of the mode, and to adapt a style of decoration which in many cases approached the graceful. Effigies of the years 1515 to 1520 show flutings upon the breastplate, taces, and tuilles; rosettes or other ornaments upon the splays of the genouillières and coudières, with fluted pauldrons of artistic shape spreading over the backplate and breastplate.
A suit of armour is preserved in the Rotunda Museum at Woolwich which is of unique interest, inasmuch as it is attributed to, and certainly is of the date of the redoubtable Chevalier Bayard. It was brought from the Château of St Germain, and is an object of profound regard to Gallic visitors. The armour is engraved, russeted, and partly gilt ([Plate VIII.], p. [64]), and dates from c. 1520 or earlier. In places it is fluted, but a marked peculiarity of the suit is the polygonal section of the cuissarts and jambarts, which may be discerned by a close inspection of the figure. The breastplate is globose and the left epaulière is furnished with a pike-guard, while the sabbatons are of the bear’s-paw pattern.