Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages / Third Edition

by Edward Lewes Cutts

The offensive weapons used by the knights were most commonly the sword and spear. The axe and mace are found, but rarely. The artillery consisted of the crossbow, which was the most formidable missile in use, and the long bow, which, however, was not yet the great arm of the English yeomanry which it became at a later period; but these were hardly the weapons of knights and gentlemen, though men-at-arms were frequently armed with the crossbow, and archers were occasionally mounted. The sling was sometimes used, as were other very rude weapons, by the half-armed crowd who were often included in the ranks of mediæval armies.

We have said that there is a great scarcity of pictorial representations of the military costume of the thirteenth century, and of the few which exist the majority are so vague in their definition of details, that they add nothing to our knowledge of costume, and have so little of dramatic character, as to throw no light on manners and customs. Among the best are some knightly figures in the Harleian Roll, folio 6, which contains a life of St. Guthlac of about the end of the twelfth century. The figures are armed in short-sleeved and hooded hauberk; flat-topped iron helmet, some with, some without, the nasal; heater-shaped shield and spear; the legs undefended, except by boots like those of the Goliath on p. 322.

The Harleian MS. 4,751, a MS. of the beginning of the thirteenth century, shows at folio 8 a group of soldiers attacking a fortification; it contains hints enough to make one earnestly desire that the subject had been more fully and artistically worked out. The fortification is represented by a timber projection carried on brackets from the face of the wall. Its garrison is represented by a single knight, whose demi-figure only is seen; he is represented in a short-sleeved hauberk, with a surcoat over it having a cross on the breast. He wears a flat-topped cylindrical helmet, and is armed with a crossbow. The assailants would seem to be a rabble of half-armed men; one is bareheaded, and armed only with a sling; others have round hats, whether of felt or iron does not appear; one is armed in a hooded hauberk and carries an axe, and a cylindrical helmet also appears amidst the crowd.

In the Harleian MS. 5,102, of the beginning of the thirteenth century, at folio 32, there is a representation of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury, which gives us the effigies of the three murderers in knightly costume. They all wear long-sleeved hauberks, which have the peculiarity of being slightly slit up the sides, and the tunic flows from beneath them. Fitzurse (known by the bear on his shield) has leg defences fastened behind, like those in our next woodcut, p. 334, and a circular iron helmet. One of the others wears a flat-topped helmet, and the third has the hood of mail fastened on the cheek, like that in the same woodcut. The drawing is inartistic, and the picture of little value for our present purposes.

The Harleian MS. 3,244 contains several MSS. bound together. The second of these works is a Penitential, which has a knightly figure on horseback for its frontispiece. It has an allegorical meaning, and is rather curious. The inscription over the figure is Milicia est vita hominis super terram. (The life of man upon the earth is a warfare.) The knightly figure represents the Christian man in the spiritual panoply of this warfare; and the various items of armour and arms have inscriptions affixed to tell us what they are. Thus over the helmet is Spes futuri gaudii (For a helmet the hope of salvation); his sword is inscribed, Verbum di; his spear, Persevancia; its pennon, Regni cælesti desiderium, &c. &c. The shield is charged with the well-known triangular device, with the enunciation of the doctrine of the Trinity, Pater est Deus, &c., Pater non est Filius, &c. The knight is clad in hauberk, with a rather long flowing surcoat; a helmet, in general shape like that in the next woodcut, but not so ornamental; he has chausses of mail; shield, sword, and spear with pennon, and prick spurs; but there is not sufficient definiteness in the details, or character in the drawing, to make it worth while to reproduce it. But there is one MS. picture which fully atones for the absence of others by its very great merit. It occurs in a small quarto of the last quarter of the thirteenth century, which contains the Psalter and Ecclesiastical Hymns. Towards the end of the book are several remarkably fine full-page drawings, done in outline with a pen, and partially tinted with colour; large, distinct, and done with great spirit and artistic skill. The first on the verso of folio 218 is a king; on the opposite page is the knight, who is here given on a reduced scale; on the opposite side of the page is St. Christopher, and on the next page an archbishop.

The figure of the knight before us shows very clearly the various details of a suit of thirteenth-century armour. In the hauberk will be noticed the mode in which the hood is fastened at the side of the head, and the way in which the sleeves are continued into gauntlets, whose palms are left free from rings, so as to give a firmer grasp. The thighs, it will be seen, are protected by haut-de-chausses, which are mailed only in the exposed parts, and not on the seat. The legs have chausses of a different kind of armour. In the MS. drawings we often find various parts of the armour thus represented in different ways, and, as we have already said, we are sometimes tempted to think the unskilful artist has only used different modes of representing the same kind of mail. But here the drawing is so careful, and skilful, and self-evidently accurate, that we cannot doubt that the defence of the legs is really of a different kind of armour from the mail of the hauberk and haut-de-chausses. The surcoat is of graceful fashion, and embroidered with crosses, which appear also on the pennon, and one of them is used as an ornamental genouillière on the shoulder. The helmet is elaborately and very elegantly ornamented. The attitude of the figure is spirited and dignified, and the drawing unusually good. Altogether we do not know a finer representation of a knight of this century.

Knight of the latter part of the Thirteenth Century.

A few, but very valuable, authorities are to be found in the sculptural monumental effigies of this period. The best of them will be found in Stothard’s “Monumental Effigies,” and his work not only brings these examples together, and makes them easily accessible to the student, but it has this great advantage, that Stothard well understood his subject, and gives every detail with the most minute accuracy, and also elucidates obscure points of detail. Those in the Temple Church, that of William Longespée in Salisbury Cathedral, and that of Aymer de Valence in Westminster Abbey, are the most important of the series. Perhaps, after all, the only important light they add to that already obtained from the MSS. is, they help us to understand the fabrication of the mail-armour, by giving it in fac-simile relief. There are also a few foreign MSS., easily accessible, in the library of the British Museum, which the artist student will do well to consult; but he must remember that some of the peculiarities of costume which he will find there are foreign fashions, and are not to be introduced in English subjects. For example, the MS. Cotton, Nero, c. iv., is a French MS. of about 1125 A.D., which contains some rather good drawings of military subjects. The Additional MS. 14,789, of German execution, written in 1128 A.D., contains military subjects; among them is a figure of Goliath, in which the Philistine has a hauberk of chain mail, and chausses of jazerant work, like the knight in the last woodcut. The Royal MS. 20 D. i., is a French MS., very full of valuable military drawings, executed probably at the close of the thirteenth century, belonging, however, in the style of its Art and costume, rather to the early part of the next period than to that under consideration. The MS. Addit. 17,687, contains fine and valuable German drawings, full of military authorities, of about the same period as the French MS. last mentioned.