Armour & Weapons

H INTRODUCTION is represented in the Tournament of St. Inglevert. Now this tournament took place in the year 1389 ; but Monstrelet tells us 1 that the tilt was first used at Arras in 1429, that is, some forty years after. This illustrated edition of Froissart was pro- duced at the end of the fifteenth century, when the tilt was in common use ; so we must, in this and in other like cases, use the illustrations not as examples of the periods which they record, but as delineations of the manners, customs, and dress of the period at which they were produced. The different methods of arming were much the same all over Europe ; but in England fashions were adopted only after they had been in vogue for some years in France, Italy, and Germany. We may pride ourselves, however, on the fact that our ancestors were not so prone to exaggeration in style or to the over-ornate so-called decoration which was in such favour on the Continent during the latter part of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. For a fuller study of this subject Sir Samuel Meyrick’s great work on Ancient Armour is useful, if the student bears in mind that the author was but a pioneer, and that many of his statements have since been corrected in the light of recent investigations, and also that the Meyrick collection which he so frequently uses to illustrate his remarks is now dispersed through all the museums of Europe. Of all the authorities the most trustworthy and most minute and careful in both text and illustrations is Hewitt, whose three volumes on Ancient Armour have been the groundwork of all subsequent works in English. Some of the more recent writers are prone to use Hewitt’s infinite care and research without acknow- ledging the fact ; but they have very seldom improved upon his methods or added to his investigations. For the later periods, which Hewitt has not covered so fully as he has the earlier portion of his subject, the Catalogues Raisonnés of the various museums of England and Europe will assist the student more than any history that could possibly be compiled. 1 yi- 333, trans. Johnes, 1810.