There are several of these brigandines to be found in the Armouries of England and Europe, but the majority of them date about the middle of the fifteenth century. As will be seen in the illustration, the brigandine was made of small plates of iron or steel overlapping upwards and riveted on to a canvas-lined garment of silk or velvet. The plates were worn on the inside in most cases, and the rivet heads which showed on the silk or velvet face were often gilded, thus producing a very brilliant effect.
Plate II
(Outside.) (Inside.)
Brigandine in the Musée d’Artillerie, Paris.
We find many references to these splinted defences in the Inventories of the period, which form a valuable source of information on the subject of details of armour. The Inventory of Humphrey de Bohun,[9] Earl of Hereford, taken in 1322, gives:—‘Une peire de plates coverts de vert velvet.’ Again, in one of the Inventories of the Exchequer, 1331,[10] is noted:—‘Une peire de plates covert de rouge samyt.’ The Inventory of Piers Gaveston, dated 1313, a document full of interesting details, has[11]:—‘Une peire de plates enclouez et garniz d’argent.’ The ‘pair of plates’ mentioned in these records refers to the front and back defences. In the accounts of payments by Sir John Howard we find in the year 1465, 11s. 8d. paid for 20,000 ‘Bregander nayles’.[12] Brass was employed for decorative purposes on the edges of the hauberk, or was fashioned into gauntlets, as may be seen in the gauntlets of the Black Prince, preserved at Canterbury. Chaucer writes in the ‘Rime of Sir Thopas’:—
His swerdes shethe of yvory,
His helm of laton bright.
Laton, or latten, was a mixed metal, much resembling brass, used at this period for decorative purposes.