Incidentally, also, are shown the costumes of the men-at-arms, with the small, round, close-fitting cap, and the various forms of shafted weapons. No one is in armour.
Mr. W. Laird Clowes, in “Social England,” describing this picture, says: “The ship is clincher-built (i.e., the planks overlap one another), with a rudder and roofed stern-cabin or round-house. In the bulwarks of the waist are apertures (not portholes), through which cannon are pointed. The mainmast has shrouds, a top and one large square sail. The mizen is much smaller, and has one sail, which is reefed. The top is ornamented with the Earl’s device, a ragged staff. From above it floats what in the bill (still preserved) of Seburg (painter)” and Ray (tailor) is described as “a grete stremour of forty yards length, and seven yardes in brede, with a grete Bear and Gryfon holding a ragged staff, poudrid full of ragged staves and a grete Crosse of St. George.”
[BRASSES.]
As many references have been made in this work to “Brasses,” and a number of the illustrations of armour and costumes are taken from them, it is fitting that a section should be devoted to so important a series of national records.
Monumental Brasses are plates of brass, embedded in stone slabs, which have been placed over graves in the floors of our churches and cathedrals.
Their use began early in the thirteenth century, and took the place of the carved stone slabs, which had, up to this time, served as sepulchral monuments. Their value is as great as their interest, for they represent very accurately, and with the weight of contemporary authority, the costumes and armour of our ancestors.
They are found from the reign of Edward I. down to the time of Cromwell, and may be seen in many churches throughout the length and breadth of the land. There are between three and four thousand that are known to exist at the present time, these forming, however, only a small proportion of the number originally existing. At the Reformation, particularly in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and during the time of Cromwell, when the fanatical Puritans ravaged our churches and cathedrals, many thousands were torn up and sold as old metal; while during the misguided “restorations” of many of our churches very large numbers have disappeared or have been destroyed. In most cases where the brasses remain they are in excellent condition, notwithstanding the fact that they have been trodden over by generations of worshippers. On account of the great hardness of the metal of which they are composed, they are almost as fresh and “sharp” now as when they left the hands of the engravers.
There is an additional advantage which the brass possesses over the stone monument, and that is that the brass is found as a memorial of members of every class of society—the knight, the noble, the bishop, the abbot, the priest, the nun, the lord of the manor, the judge, the lawyer, the University don, the merchant, the wool-stapler, the yeoman, women of every rank, and even the schoolboy, have their brasses.
In speaking of their value as historical records, Mr. Macklin says: “Brasses give a complete pictorial history of the use and development of armour, dress, and ecclesiastical vestments from the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth century.... All these (members of every class of society) we see, not in fancy sketches, but in actual contemporary portraits.” Perhaps one of the greatest values of the brass is that it is a great and authentic record of middle-class costume during the Middle Ages.