The small, plain knife, also preserved among the spoil, was carried in this sheath, together with the dagger.[123]

The Royal Armoury at Madrid is often thought by foreigners[124] to contain a representative collection of the arms, offensive and defensive, used by the Spanish people through all their mediæval and post-mediæval history. This is not so. Although it is the choicest and the richest gallery in Europe, the Armería Real was formed almost entirely from the cámaras de armas or private armouries of Charles the Fifth and of his son, and is, as Mélida describes it, “a splendid gallery of royal arms,” dating, with very few exceptions, from the sixteenth century.

The greater part of its contents were made within a limited interval, as well as not produced in Spain. Such are the glittering and gorgeous harnesses constructed for the actual use of Charles the Fifth by celebrated German and Italian armourers, ponderous suits for jousting or parade, or lighter suits for combat in the field, whether on foot or horseback (Plate [xlviii].), fashioned, chiselled, and inlaid by craftsmen such as the Negroli and Piccini of Milan, Bartolommeo Campi of Pesaro, or Kollman of Augsburg, bombastically called, by a Spanish poet in the mode of Gongora, “the direct descendant of Vulcanus.”

This German and Italian armour, with its multitude of accessorial pieces,[125] falls outside the province of a book on Spanish arts and crafts. Nevertheless, I reproduce, as being too little known outside Madrid, the sumptuous jousting harness (Plate [xlix].), of Charles the Fifth, made for the emperor when he was a lad of only eighteen years by Kollman Helmschmied of Augsburg.[126] Laurent Vital, describing the royal jousts at Valladolid in 1518, relates that “après marchait le Roy bien gorgiasement monté et armé d'un fin harnais d'Alemaigne, plus reluisant que d'argent brunti.” This is the very harness told of by the chronicler. The helmet turns the scale at forty pounds; the entire suit at two hundred and fifty-three pounds; and the length of the lance exceeds eleven feet.

There is, however, also in this armoury a jousting harness (Plate [l].) formerly the property of Philip the First of Spain, a part of which, including the cuirass, is known to be of Spanish make. The cuirass in question bears the mark of a Valencia armourer, and the harness generally dates from about the year 1500, at which time Gachard tells us in his Chroniques Belges that Philip was learning to joust “à la mode d'Espaigne.” Besides the enormous helmet and the Spanish-made cuirass, covered with gold brocade, this ornament includes a tourneying lance with a blunt three-pointed head,[127] and a curious form of rest, said by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan to be peculiar to the Spaniards and Italians. This rest is stuffed with cork, on which, just as the fray began, the iron extremity of the lance was firmly driven. Another interesting detail is the cuja, fastened to the right side of the cuirass, and also stuffed with cork, made use of to support the lance upon its passage over to the rest. Nor in this instance was the cuja a superfluous device, seeing that the lance is over fifteen feet in length.

JOUSTING HARNESS OF CHARLES THE FIFTH
(Royal Armoury, Madrid)

These are the principal portions of the harness. The seemingly insufficient protection for the arms is explained by the fact that the solid wooden shield completely covered the fighter's left arm, while the right would be defended by the shield-like disc or arandela of the lance.

Spanish shields and swords of great antiquity and interest are also in this armoury. The oldest of the shields dates from the twelfth century, and proceeds from the monastery of San Salvador de Oña, Burgos. The material is a wood resembling cedar, although much eaten by moth, and is covered on both sides with parchment bearing traces of primitive painting of a non-heraldic character. Inside the shield, this decoration consisted of a black ground crossed diagonally by a broad red band, and outside, of a red ground covered with rhomboid figures, some in gilt and some in colour. Such figures were a popular pattern at this time and on this class of objects. The general stoutness of this shield shows that it was meant for war. It still retains the strap which slung it from the warrior's neck, as well as fragments of the braces—made of buffalo leather covered with crimson velvet—for the hand.