PLATE 39.
(Fig. 1): Brass of Sir John Lysle, Thruxton Church, Hampshire, 1407 A.D. This is the earliest example of complete plate armour in existence in England, but the brass was probably made ten years after that date. (1) Gorget; (2) Beaver; (3) Roundles; (4) Taces (8 in number); (5) Fan 119shaped coudières. (Fig. 2): Front view of bronze effigy of Richard Beauchamp, K. G., Earl of Warwick, from his tomb in the Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick. The Earl died 1439 A.D., and the effigy was executed in 1453. The following points will be noted: (1) The head is bare, and rests on a crested helm; (2) the breastplate shoulder-guards are reinforced, the pauldrons having low, upright neck defences; (3) the coudières, or elbow pieces, are large, and of the same size on both arms; (4) there are five taces, showing a skirt of mail beneath them, and there are two large tuilles. (Fig. 3): Back view of the same. (Fig. 4): A skull cap of steel, called a casquetel, with large ear-pieces, of the reign of Edward IV. (Fig. 5): Basinet of the reign of Henry V. (Fig. 6): Basinet from the Register Book of St. Albans, A.D. 1417. It rises to a point, upon which is placed a hollow tube to receive the panache, or crest of feathers, and has a movable visor. (Fig. 7): Salade with movable visor. (Fig. 8): Round salade with a jewelled plume. (From Rouse’s Life of the Earl of Warwick.) (Fig. 9): Effigy of Sir Thomas Peyton, in Isleham Church, Cambridgeshire, of the reign of Richard III. The grotesque form of the enormous fan-like elbow-pieces and the large pauldrons reinforcing the shoulder armour are particularly noticeable. (Fig. 10): Figure of Sir Robert Wingfield in complete armour, from a painted window in East Herling Church, Norfolk, executed between 1461 and 1480. He wears a tabard, with his “arms” blazoned on the front and on each sleeve.
[DECORATED ARCHITECTURE.]
A.D. 1300 to 1377. Reigns of Edward I., II., and III.
The transition from the Early English, or Lancet style, to the Decorated was much more gradual than from Norman to Early English, so gradual that it is impossible to draw a line where one style ceases and another begins. There can be no doubt that in some parts of the kingdom, Early English was in use at the same time that, in other districts, the Decorated style was becoming general, and thus the terms adopted to denote the different periods must not be taken as definite or as commencing or closing at any particular date, but merely as indicating the broad classification of the styles and details, and for associating them with particular reigns for convenience of study. The divisions are arbitrary, but very convenient in practice. Structurally, there was not a great change in the buildings, but there was a more harmonious relation and development of all the architectural features in walls, piers, buttresses, windows, etc., both with regard to their size and their enrichment, and it was because of this general use of ornament or enrichment that it is called the Decorated Period. “It rivals the preceding style in chasteness and elegance, while it surpasses it in richness.”
Great progress was made in the reign of Edward I., and the Decorated work exhibits the most complete and perfect development of the Gothic arch, which in the Early English was not fully matured, and in the Perpendicular began to decline.
It is remarkable for its geometric tracery, its natural types of foliage, and the undulating character of line and form in its ornamental details.