The Armourers and Braziers Company possess one of the Jacobe suits in their small collection; the Benchers of the Middle Temple own some armour; and there are a few pieces in the United Service Museum in Whitehall. Mr. Leonard Brassey possesses a fine historic cap-à-pie suit of the hereditary challengers, the Dymoke family. Some of the Corporation Museums, especially at Edinburgh, comprise examples of armour and weapons.
It is unfortunate that nearly all the notable private collections made within the present century have been dispersed, either on the death of their owners, or before. The Walpole, Bernal, Meyrick, Londesborough, Shrewsbury, Coutts-Lindsay, Brett, De Cosson, and many other collections have been scattered far and wide under the hammer. The Warwick and others have suffered severely by fire; and of collections made by the past generation probably only that of Lord Zouche at Parham remains intact.
A great deal of armour is absorbed as decoration, not only in such stately homes of the nobility as Arundel, Eaton Hall, Hatfield, Knebworth, but in private houses. Armour is also hidden away in small and unknown collections, like two in the writer’s family, which would well repay careful examination. But undoubtedly the richest treasures are in the collections of wealthy amateurs, like Mr. David Currie, Sir Noël Paton, and above all in those of members of the Kernoozer’s Club. It is impossible to convey, in a slight sketch, any adequate idea of the wealth of armour in the country, the real extent of which is as yet only to be surmised; but in spite of sales it is doubtless increasing yearly.
The fact cannot be ignored that, of all this mass of armour, very little has been made in England. By far the larger part was indeed certainly made in Germany, a country devoted to metal-working from the earliest periods of its history.
The first dawning of anything like European reputation for the production of arms and armour, since the collapse of the Roman Empire, was achieved by Germany. Owing to its political constitution, and perhaps extent and population, its towns were more enterprising in mediæval ages than ours, and acquired a name for particular manufactures at a relatively early period. The necessity the trading towns were under of arming their citizens to defend their freedom and privileges, amidst the semi-independent princelings and nobles who kept armed retainers and combined to levy blackmail, induced many to take up the manufacture of arms in self-defence, for which they afterwards sought a market among neighbours and abroad. In the thirteenth century, when St. Louis bore a German sword to the Crusades, the names of Cologne, Passau, Heilbronn appear almost simultaneously as seats famous for the production of lethal weapons. Cologne soon assumed the ascendency, at least in English eyes, for its weapons are spoken of with respect in many an early ballad. Thus the battle of Otterbourne is fought “with swords of fyne Collayne,” and King Arthur’s sword hails from Cologne:—
For all of Coleyne was the blayde
And all the hilte of precious stone.
The Duke of Norfolk having sent for armour out of Germany proves that its armour was already regarded as of superior excellence in the time of Richard II. German armour might have been used more largely in England and at an earlier period, but for want of sympathy, perhaps inherited from the Crusades. These, which knitted so many of the races of Europe into close contact, happened not to promote any camaraderie between Germany and ourselves. Their Crusades were undertaken independently, or were ill-timed relatively to ours. The unfortunate differences between Richard and the Archduke of Austria, which drained our country of so much gold and silver that even the chalices were melted, rendered Germany unpopular, and the feeling was not improved by the further great loss of treasure on the abortive election of Richard of Cornwall as Emperor. Princely intermarriages were unable to effect a union of hearts, for the Kings of Almayne never come out well in contemporary poetry. Nor was the perpetual presence of enterprising Hansa merchants in factories, such as the London Steleyard, calculated to promote good feeling, though introducing a large bulk of German goods into the country. Steel, itself a German word, was certainly amongst the imports, probably not only as a raw product, but manufactured into articles such as the “Colleyne clowystes” and “Cullen cleavers,” and possibly sometimes defensive armour as well. Until late in the fifteenth century, however, the differences between the military equipment of Germany and England is more marked than between that of England and France, which country with the Netherlands formed a natural barrier that only strong common interests would effectively bridge. When bonds of trade began to knit peoples together, German armour, from its excellent quality, divided the market of the world with Italy. The accession of Henry VIII. opened the English market wide to it, his ambition to again dismember France, his alliance with Maximilian and relationship to Charles V. leading to distinct rapprochements. Natural inclination and political necessity strongly biassed him in favour of his wife’s kinsmen, until his unhappy divorce left him isolated.
Italy vied with Germany in the production of armour, Milan taking the lead. Matthew of Paris heard, in 1237, from a credible Italian that Milan and its dependencies could turn out 6000 men on iron-clad horses. An item in the inventory of Louis Hutin, 1316, is “2 haubergeons de Lombardi”; and that of Humphrey de Bohun, in 1322, mentions Bologna “un haubergeon qu’est apele Bolioun.” Italian armourers were established in Paris as early as 1332. Ancient British ballads abound in references to Myllan and Myllen steel. The Earl of Derby, afterwards Henry IV., sent to procure armour from Sir Galeas, Duke of Milan, and when he had selected all he wished for in plated and mail armour, the Lord of Milan ordered four of the best armourers in Milan to accompany the knight to England. In the fifteenth century Milan was able, after the battle of Macado in 1427, to furnish within a few days 4000 suits of armour for cavalry and 2000 for infantry. At a great Spanish tournament held in 1434, only Italian armour and weapons were permitted. Louis XI. and the Duke of Burgundy settled Italian armourers in their dominions. This king seized in 1481 a heavy convoy of cuirasses, sallads, etc., packed in cotton to prevent them rattling and imitating bales of silk, on the way to the Duke of Brittany, giving them to John Doyac as a reward for their discovery. Monstrelet mentions that the Milanese gave corselets and other armour to the Swiss, with the finest promises, before the battle of Marignano. Henry VIII. kept 1000 Myllen swords for the tourney in the Tower, and sent to Milan to purchase 5000 suits of “almain rivets.” The most eloquent testimony to the excellence of Milanese arms is, however, to be found in the pages of Brantôme, a very keen observer on all matters military. Milan furnished the finest engraved and most elegant corselets for hommes de pieds “tant de M. de Strozzi que de Brissac.” “Ce genre de cuirasse legère eut la plus grande vogue à la cour de France”; and “on y approuvoit fort les corselets gravés de Milan et ne trouvoit point que nos armoriers parvinssent à la mesme perfection, non plus qu’aux morions.” Strozzi, insisting that his armaments should be Milanese, “pria voire quasy contraignit tous ses capitaines de n’avoir plus autres armes, tant harquebuses, fourniments, que corselets de Milan”: while Guise wished his infantry to be armed not with muskets, but good harquebuzes de Milan—“de bonne trampe pour ne crever.” Milanese armourers, like the Gambertis, were enticed to Paris; Pompée a Milanese was selected to teach the King fencing, and Maistre Gaspar de Milan is pronounced “le meilleur forgeur qui jamais eut.” Brantôme further describes the troops on their way to relieve Malta, “portant sa belle harquebuze et son beau fourniment de Milan,” and adds, “car nous avions passé par Milan, où nous nous estions accommodez d’habillements et d’armes si superbement qu’on ne scavait pour quelz nous prendre, ou pour gentilshommes, soldats, ou pour princes, tant nous foisoit beau veoir.”