Another shield, proceeding from the same monastery, dates from the thirteenth century. The material, here again, is wood and parchment; but in this hundred years formal heraldic ornament had superseded fancy or conventional devices. Accordingly, this shield is painted with a blazon, now much worn, of which, however, enough remains to show that it consisted once upon a time of four black chaperons crowned with gold fleurs-de-lis upon a gold ground—said to have been the arms of Don Rodrigo Gomez, Count of Bureba.

The scut, or polished metal shield, with painted blazonry or other decoration, was limited to Aragon and Cataluña.[128]

Among the smaller and more modern shields preserved in this collection are two wooden bucklers dating from the sixteenth century. One is in the Spanish-Moorish style and of a convex shape, with iron bordering and umbo, and a lining of yellow brocade. The other, of the Christian Spaniards, is small and lined with painted parchment, and was intended, so the inventory says, “for going about at night.”[129]

There is also a richly gilt and silvered buckler of the seventeenth century, made at Eugui in Navarre, and covered with a scene—decadent in design and workmanship—which represents the judgment of Paris. Defensive armour, chiefly of a highly decorative kind, was made all through this century at the capital of Navarre, Pamplona. The Royal Armoury contains a Pamplonese parade harness (Plate [lii].), offered as a gift to Philip the Third, as well as six diminutive sets of armour made to his order for the youthful princes Don Felipe, Don Fernando, and Don Carlos.

The adarga was a kind of targe used by the light cavalry, and had its origin in Africa. Those which were stored in the palace of the Nasrite sultans of Granada are described by Al-Makkari as “solid, without pores, soft to the touch, and famed for their imperviousness.” The material was strong leather, such as cowhide, often embroidered with a scutcheon or with arabesques. Two Spanish-made adargas in this armoury are particularly handsome. One is of Moorish craftsmanship, and dates from the end of the fifteenth century. The other (Plate [liii].), apparently the work of a Spanish Christian and dating from a century later, is embroidered in silver thread and coloured silk with arabesque devices and also with four coats of arms, one of which belongs to the noble family of Fernández de Cordova. The dimensions of this shield are a yard in height by thirty inches in breadth.

JOUSTING HARNESS OF PHILIP THE HANDSOME
(Royal Armoury, Madrid)

There also are preserved in this collection a shield (late sixteenth century) adorned by Mexican Indians with a most elaborate “mosaic of feather-work,” and a number of Spanish adargas of the same period, for playing the juego de cañas or “game of canes.” The armoury contained in former days as many as forty-two adargas; but the fire of 1884 completely destroyed sixteen and badly damaged twenty-three, obliterating their heraldic and other decoration. A yet more sinister event befell on December 1st, 1808, when the Spanish mob, exasperated by the French, broke in and seized three hundred swords, not one of which was afterwards recovered. Mention of these disasters leads me to recall the quantity of beautiful or historic military gear that Spain has lost through many tribulations and vicissitudes. Formerly her noble families had excellent collections in their palaces or castles. Such were the private armouries of the Dukes of Pastrana at Guadalajara, and of the Dukes of Alburquerque at Cuéllar Castle, near Segovia. Bertaut de Rouen describes the first as “une des plus belles qui se voyent pour un seigneur particulier. Il y a quantité d'armes anciennes, et l'on y void une épée qui s'allonge et s'accourcit quand on veut, de deux pieds et demy.”[130] The Cuéllar armoury was pulled to pieces by Philip the Fourth to arm his troops against the French. “Send me,” he wrote to the Duke from Madrid, in a letter dated April 16th, 1637, “all your pistols, carbines, harness for horses, breastplates and other arms for mounted fighting”; and the loyal nobleman complied upon the spot, despatching more than five hundred pieces, many of which were doubtless of the greatest interest.[131]

Had I the erudition and the time, I would attempt to write, as it deserves to be written, an introduction to the history of Spanish swords. Of all the objects mentioned in these volumes, here is the most inherently symbolic of the Spanish character and history. The Spanish Moors and Spanish Christians spoke of it as something superhuman. “Once the sword is in the hand of man,” observed, in solemn tones, the Wise Alfonso, “he hath it in his power to raise or lower it, to strike with it, or to abandon it.” The Spanish Mussulmans talked of putting “clothes and breeches” on a sword that had a sheath, as though it were a breathing person; while a Spaniard of the time of Gongora would often use such language as the following: “Truly in point of look there is as great a difference between a costly sword and a Toledan Loyalty or Soldier's Dream, as between a marquis and a muleteer, or a washerwoman and the Infanta. Yet every sword is virtually an hidalgo. Does not the basest of our Toledanas, even to the perrillos and morillos, which have no core, and cost a dozen reales merely, afford a chivalrous lesson to its wearer, as it bids him no me saques sin razon, ni me envaines sin honor?[132] The horse and the sword,” he continued, taking a magnificently damascened rapier, and stroking it caressingly, “are the noblest friends of man, albeit the nobler is the sword; for the horse at times is obstinate or faint-hearted, but the sword is ready continually. The sword, moreover, possesses the chiefest of all virtues—justice, or the power of dividing right and wrong; a soul of iron, which is strength; and, last and greatest, the Cross, which is the symbol of the blessed Catholic Faith.”[133]