Fig. 39.—Suit by Anton Peffenhauser, at Madrid.
This remarkable series is as valuable from an educational as from an æsthetic point of view; still, though the differences in points of detail, over the various periods, stand before you, it must not be forgotten that fashions were far from being contemporaneous over northern and central Europe, and that new departures of fashion in armour, as in dress, took long to travel and get generally assimilated—far longer in the sixteenth century than to-day,—hence one or two salient features cannot always date a suit, even within a couple of decades. There is a fine series of plain gilded suits at Dresden, which were worn with boots.
To give a completer series of examples of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century forms and fashions would make this work far too voluminous. Examples of pikemen’s later suits, etc., would make the chain more complete, but the varieties are so very numerous that it would be impossible reasonably to cover them without largely extending the size and scope of the work. Practically the illustrations close with the end of the sixteenth century; after which the general use of armour, from causes already referred to, rapidly declined. The interest in the later forms is comparatively far less to the student or collector, whether looked at from an artistic or historic point of view, than the grand period which has been imperfectly covered here.
SECTION II.
THE WEAPONS AND ENGINES OF WAR.
PART XV.
INTRODUCTORY AND GENERAL.
Dion Cassius refers to the armament of the Caledonians as being a buckler, dagger, and lance; while Tacitus says that the Britons used large blunt swords and small bucklers.
Excepting for a few specimens found in peat mosses and burial mounds, we are indebted to monkish chronicles for all our knowledge regarding the weapons of the “dark ages” of our era, together with a few glimpses and suggestions obtained from the “Sagas” handed down, partly vivâ voce, from generation to generation. There are many errors in the best classifications of arms, and many weapons in museums and private collections scheduled as belonging to the “iron age” are really of mediæval origin; still, this state of things has vastly improved of late years, and some of the newer museum catalogues leave but little to be desired, having been compiled by men who have made a close study of the subject, and who have had the advantages of ample opportunities for comparison in their surroundings.
Procopius, the secretary of Belisarius, gives some account of the arms of the Franks of the sixth century, whose weapons were the sword, the axe or francisca, and the spear. The ordinary battering-ram and the testudo, which was a movable shed containing a ram, were in use in this century, as well as a machine for boring walls.
The sources of information available from the seventh to the end of the tenth century are very scanty as far as Britain and the Germanic peoples are concerned; but more has been preserved relating to the Franks, a race also of Germanic origin, whose country, more than any other during the “dark ages,” seems to have been imbued with the continuity of Roman methods and traditions. This was indeed a barbarous nation, with the corrupt remnants of the Roman Empire grafted on to it; and the Frankish kingdom only became consolidated some time after the introduction of Christianity, which provided a much needed common platform in the teachings and example of the monastic orders. The monks wrote and preserved the manuscripts, without which the “dark ages” of our era would have left but little trace behind them.