Armour & Weapons

CHAPTER II THE TRANSITION PERIOD (1277-1410) It will be readily understood that the change from mail to plate armour was not brought about at once. Difficulty of manufacture, expense, and conservatism in idea, all retarded the innovation. Some progressive knight might adopt a new fashion which did not come into general use till many years after, in the same manner that, from force of circumstances, or from a clinging to old methods, we find an out-of-date detail of armour like the coif of mail, shown on the brass of Sir W. Molineux, appear- ing in 1548, or the sleeved hauberk in the Dresden Museum which was worn without plate defences for the arms by Herzog August at the Battle of Mühlberg in 1546. Acting on the method adopted in the preceding chapter, we may first consider the'materials used during the beginning of the Transition Period, and afterwards we shall show how those materials were made up. During the fourteenth century iron, leather, whalebone, and quilted fabrics were all employed for defensive purposes. The illustration from the Romance of Alexander (Fig. 9) shows the gambeson still worn under the mail, and the legs are covered in one instance with a metal-studded or pourpointed defence ; a second figure wears what appears to be scale armour, while the third has no detail shown upon the legs, which may be an oversight on the part of the artist, or may suggest that plain hose were worn. Iron was used for the mail and scale armour and was also employed in making a pliable defence called Splinted armour, which at a later period became the Brigandine (Plate II). There are several of these brigandines to be found in the Armouries of England and Europe, but the majority of them date about the middle of the fifteenth century. As will be seen in the