The casing of the body is a very curious subject of enquiry. The simplicity of ancient times, in using the skins of beasts, is marked in the word loricum, from the word lorum, a thong, and the word cuirasse is traceable to cuir, leather. Body harness has three general divisions; mail; plate and mail mixed; plate mail entirely. Rows of iron rings, sown on the dress, were the first defences, and then, for additional defence, a row of larger rings was laid over the first. These rings gave way to small iron plates which lapped over each other, and this variety of mail is interesting, for armour now resembled the lorica squammata of the Romans, and hence ancient mail of this description has generally been called scale-mail, while the ordinary appearance of armour being like the meshes of a net, gained it the title of mail from the macula of the Latins, and the maglia of the Italians. Sometimes the plates were square, and sometimes of a lozenge form: but it would be considering the matter much too curiously to divide armour into as many species as the shapes and forms which a small piece of iron or steel was capable of being divided into.[103]
All this variety of mail harness was sown on an under garment of leather or cloth, or a more considerable wadding of various sorts of materials, and called a gambeson. If the garment were a simple tunic or frock the whole was called a hauberk. The lower members were defended by chausses, which may be intelligible to modern understandings by the words breeches or pantaloons. When the mailed frock and chausses were joined, the union was called the haubergeon. In each case, the back and crown of the head were saved harmless by a hood of mail, which sometimes formed part of the hauberk or haubergeon, and sometimes was detached. In Spain, the hood and the other parts of the dress were united, if the case of the Cid be held as evidence of the general state of manners; for after his battles, he is always represented as slowly quitting the field with his gory hood thrown back. The mail covered also the chin, and sometimes the mouth; in the latter case the office of breathing being entirely committed to the care of the nose. Finally, the sleeves of the jacket were carried over the fingers, and a continuation of the chausses protected the toes.
“A goodly knight all armed in harness meet
That from his head no place appeared to his feete.”
It is curious that foppery in armour began at the toe. It was the fashion for the knight to have the toe of the mail several inches in length and inclining downwards. To fight on foot with such incumbrances was impossible, and, therefore the enemies of the crusaders (for foppery prevailed even in religious wars) shot rather at the horses than at the men. The fashion I am speaking of crossed the Pyrenees, for in the pictorial representation of a tournament at Grenada, between Moorish and Christian knights, the former are drawn with the broad shovel shoes of their country, while the latter have long pointed shoes, like the cavaliers of the North.
Such were the various descriptions of mail armour from the earliest æra of chivalry to the thirteenth century. They were worn at different times in different countries, and often in the same country at the same time by different individuals: but at length so excellent an improvement was made in chain mail, that military fashion could have no longer any pretence for variety. The different descriptions of mail armour show the skill of the iron-smiths among our ancestors, and that they were capable of inventing the next and last great change. But as it was made at a time when the Asiatic mode of warfare was known in Europe, and as the improvement I am about to mention was the general mode of the Saracenian soldiers, it is as probable that it was borrowed, as that it was invented. The rings of mail were now no longer sewn on the dress, but they were interlaced, each ring having four others inserted into it, and consequently the rings formed a garment of themselves. The best coats of mail were made of double rings.[104] The admirable convenience of this twisted or reticulated mail secured its general reception. A knight was no longer encumbered by his armour in travelling. His squire might be the bearer of his mail, for it was both flexible and compact, or it could be rolled upon the hinder part of a saddle.
Mail and plate.
Plate harness.
Before, however, this last great improvement in mail-armour took place, changes were made in that general description of harness which foretold its final fall, although it might be partially and for a time supported by any particular invention of merit. Plates of solid steel or iron were fixed on the breast or other parts of the body, where painful experience had assured the wearer of the insufficiency of his metal rings. The new fashion of reticulated mail added nothing to the strength of defence, and, therefore, ingenuity and prudence were ever at work to make defensive armour equal to offensive. New plates continually were added, and many of them received their titles from the parts of the body which they were intended to defend: the pectoral protected the breast, the cuisses were for the thighs, the brassarts for the arms, the ailettes for the shoulders, while the gorget defended the throat, and a scaly gauntlet gloved the hand. The cuirass was the title for the defence of the breast and the back. This mixed harness gained ground till the knight had nearly a double covering of mail and plate. The plate was then found a perfect defence, and the mail was gradually thrown aside; and thus, finally, the warrior was entirely clad in steel plates. This harness was exceedingly oppressive to the limbs, and therefore we find the circumstance so frequently mentioned in old writers, that when a knight alighted at his hostel or inn, he not only doffed his armour, but went into a bath. No wonder that it was necessary to keep changes of dress to present to the cavaliers who arrived. Plate-armour must have been as destructive of clothes as the old chain mail, and describing his knight, Chaucer says,
“Of fustian he wered a gipon
Alle besmotred with his habergeon.
For he was of late y come fro his viage,
And wente for to don his pilgrimage.”
The plate harness was in one respect far more inconvenient than the armour it superseded. The coat of chain mail could be put on or slipped off with instantaneous celerity; but the dressing of a plate-armed knight was no simple matter.
“From the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.”