Fig. 15.—Pageant Shield, formerly in the collection of Prince Carl of Prussia.
CALTROP, OR CROW’S FOOT.
This, the Roman murex or tribulus, was a sharp point of iron standing upright, fashioned like a crow’s foot. They were strewn broadcast on the ground, for the purpose of maiming horses in a charge of cavalry, or placed on a moat filled up with fascines, or on a breach to resist an attempt at escalade. Knightly spurs have been known to have been used for this purpose. The name is an abbreviation for cheval-trap. There are some specimens in the Rotunda, Woolwich, varying in height from 1.25 to 2.5 inches.[30]
SPURS.
These goads were used by the Romans, and the gilded spur was one of the badges of the knight of mediæval times. The earlier are of the “goad” type, and fastened by a single strap; they were probably first used singly, and were called “prick spurs.” An example of the goad prick may be seen in the Daubernoun brass (1277). We get the rowel prick late in the thirteenth century. The D’Argentine brass (1382) furnishes an example of a spur of the fourteenth century. The number of points or pricks in specimens of the middle ages approximate the date. Early in the fourteenth century there are usually eight, but in the fifteenth as many as twelve points to the rowel, and spurs were long-necked. Later, the fashion in style and form was “legion.” In heraldry the knightly spur was a “goad” up to 1320, and called a “pryck-spur,” later the “rouelle-spur.” The tournament spur of the sixteenth century was straight and long in the neck. In the case of a knight’s degradation his spurs were hacked off by the king’s master-cook. During the fourteenth century it was usual, when orders were given to men-at-arms to fight on foot, for their spurs to be taken off, so as not to impede their movements; and these were then often used as caltrops. This was notably the case at the battles of Courtray and Poitiers.
PART IX.
“GOTHIC” ARMOUR, 1440–1500; AND SOME ARMOUR-SMITHS OF THE PERIOD.
The “Gothic”[31] school, as it is termed, exhibits the highest embodiment of artistic beauty as applied to defensive armour; and it inaugurated a new epoch in warlike panoply. The armour-smith’s best efforts were directed not only to give increased protection to the limbs and make the armour light, flexible, and impenetrable; but the flutings and escalloped edges were designed to produce beauty of form and outline, as well as with a view to deflecting the weapon of attack from vital points; and the armour was equally mobile for fighting on foot or on horseback. We owe its initiation doubtless to Italy, in which country, together with Germany, it reached its highest pitch of excellence; but the style itself is really a reproduction of the mediæval Florentine dress. Gothic armour is greatly associated with the sallad, large mentonnière, tuilles, and sollerets “à la poulaine.” The cuirass is decorative; the earlier form being somewhat short with many taces, and the later with a longer breastplate and fewer taces, thus exhibiting the evolution from the still earlier fashion. It has been fully described under the heading devoted to this piece. There is an English example of this style of armour shown on a brass in St. Mary’s Church, Thame, Oxfordshire, about 1460; and another in the effigy already mentioned of Sir Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in St. Mary’s Church, Warwick. There are only very few Gothic suits preserved in this country, our practical people having used up so many as old iron, just as they let the weather into our fine abbeys and churches by tearing off the roofing lead for the melting pot.
A few suits are attributed to particular ancestors in some of the castles of long-descended German families, but, in almost every case, with but slender foundation in fact; the only specimens in England that may be termed historic are those in the Rotunda at Woolwich, and these are only fragments. Few of the “Gothic” suits in this country, if indeed in any other, are quite homogeneous, and many of them are more or less made up of odd pieces. This is the case with the “Gothic” armour at Parham, which is said to have come from the Church of St. Irene at Constantinople. Many of the details of this armour are of the most exquisite and obviously authentic character, while pieces, such as the sallads, apparently never went with the other armour. Reliable armour of this period is very scarce, and difficult to buy. Four thousand pounds was recently asked in London for a suit! Fashion was as absolute regarding armour as in dress; and with the advent of the “Maximilian” period the “Gothic” form was greatly laid aside, for it could not be adapted, and therefore became obsolete. This is the main cause why so few specimens have been preserved. A historic example in the collection at Sigmaringen Castle, the cradle of the Hohenzollerns, is described in detail, and an illustration given ([Fig. 17]). Another example may be seen on the brass of Sir Robert Staunton at Castle Donnington (died 1458), on which the épaulières extend over the armpits. This brass probably presents the earliest English instance of the sallad. The “Beauchamp” effigy in latten, a “species of fine brass metal,” affords a beautiful example of the earlier Gothic school. The suit from which the models were taken is probably the work of Tomaso da Missaglia of Milan. This effigy, and its probable origin, raises the question as to which country we are indebted for the “Gothic” form until comparatively recently freely attributed to Germany; but it is tolerably certain that it originated with the Missaglias. There is a further interesting point brought out by the effigy itself, which was the work of an Englishman, viz.: that the smith who could copy a suit so faithfully would probably be able to make real armour of a high character. We read in Blore’s Monumental Remains all about the contracts for this truly magnificent monument, where it is stated that Dugdale, the historian of Warwickshire, has very fortunately preserved a recapitulation of the agreement between the executors of the Earl and the artisans employed in its erection. This document is given in extenso in Blore’s work, and, as he says, it throws considerable light, and affords some extremely important information, on the construction of ancient monuments in general. The original was found among the muniments of the bailiff and burgesses of Warwick, and bears the date June 13, 32 Henry VI. The Earl died in 1439, so that the contract for the monument was given out in 1454. Various subsidiary agreements of an early date are included in the main contract. The names of the contractors were John Essex, marbler; William Austin, founder; and Thomas Stevyns, coppersmith. The clause of the contract regarding the effigy runs as follows, viz.:—