CREST OF JOUSTING HELMET
(Royal Armoury, Madrid)
Thus, when the Romans entered Spain the natives of this country were experienced in the use of arms, and made their own from such materials as their own soil yielded. Their tempering was excellent, for Diodorus Siculus tells us that they had already discovered the secret of burying the metal in order that the moisture of the earth might eat away its baser portions. Besides the ancient Bilbilis in Aragon, a Spanish city famous for her faultless tempering of implements and weapons was Toledo. Martial,[103] the most illustrious son of Bilbilis, has sung the praises of the one; less celebrated poets, such as Gracio Falisco, of the other.[104] Even the armourers of Rome were found to be less skilful and successful swordsmiths than the Spaniards;[105] and so, before the second Punic War, the model or the models of the Spanish sword had been adopted by the Roman army.
Various of the native peoples of Iberia were distinguished by a special instrument or mode of fighting. Strabo says that the Iberians as a general rule employed two lances and a sword. Those of Lusitania were especially adroit in hurling darts. Each of their warriors kept a number of these darts contained within his shield. Upon the head they wore a helmet of a primitive pattern strapped beneath the chin. This helmet, called the bacula, protected all the wearer's face, and had a mitred shape, with three red feathers on the crest. Together with these arms, the Lusitanians used a copper-headed lance and the typical form of Celtiberian sword. More singular and celebrated in their mode of fighting were the Balearic islanders, who carried, through persistent exercise, the art of slinging stones and leaden plummets to the utmost limit of perfection. The beaches of these islands, we are told, abounded, then as now, in small, smooth pebbles, “weapons of Nature's own contrivance,” rarely suited to the sling.[106] These slings were of three patterns, severally designed for near, far, and middling distances. The lead or stone projectile sometimes weighed a pound. Accordingly—so strenuous was their zeal to be unrivalled in the practice of this arm—even as little children the Baleares went without their dinner, till, with the formidable funda in their hand, they struck the stick their parents planted for them in the soil. Pliny and Polybius, notwithstanding, state that the sling itself was not indigenous in this region, but imported from Phœnicia. However this may be, the islanders within a little time contributed to swell the power of the Roman legions.
The Visigoths continued using many of the Roman or Ibero-Roman arms. Nevertheless, the solid armour of the Romans, such as their greaves and thigh-pieces and breastplates, was now replaced by primitive chain-mail resembling scales of fishes. According to Saint Isidore, Procopius, and other writers, the favourite weapons of the Spanish Visigoths were the sword or spatha, long, broad-bladed, with a double edge; the hatchet, the bow, the sling, the lance, the scythe, the mace, the pilum or javelin (used extensively in Spain throughout the Middle Ages),[107] the dolon, a dagger which concealed itself within a wooden staff, and took the name of “treacherous” or “wily” from this circumstance; and the conto, a keenly pointed pike. We also find among the military engines of the Visigoths the balista, for hurling stones and darts of large size, and the ariete or battering-ram, constructed from a gnarled and powerful tree-trunk braced with iron and suspended by a cable. Their defensive body-armour consisted of a coat of mail composed of bronze or iron scales, and called the lóriga or perpunte. This was worn above the thorachomachus, a kind of tunic made of felt, in order to shield the body from the roughness of the mail. Upon their heads they wore an ample helmet.
SPANISH CROSSBOWMAN
(Late 15th Century. Royal Armoury, Madrid)
A fragment of stone carving preserved in Seville museum shows us two Visigothic Spanish warriors who wear a tunic and helmet of a simple pattern, and carry a two-edged sword and a large shield. García Llansó says, however, that the nobles of this people wore close-fitting mail tunics covered with steel scales, a kind of bronze bassinet, tight breeches, and high boots, and carried, besides the sword which was slung from their belts, a large, oval shield.[108]
From about the time of the Moorish invasion, the changes in the arms and armour of the Spaniards coincided in the main with those in other parts of western Europe. Nevertheless, as late as the eleventh century the Spanish sword retained the characteristic which had endeared it to the Roman legionaries—namely, a hilt of small dimensions and a broad and shortish blade. In course of time the blade grows narrower and begins to taper towards the point. The quillons or crossbars (Spanish arriaces, from the Arabic arrias, a sword-hilt) were originally straight or semicircular, and ended in a knob (manzana, literally “apple”; Latin pomum, English pommel). Thus, in the Poem of the Cid we find the verse:—
“Las manzanas é los arriaces todos de oro son.”