Armour & Weapons

At the request of many of those who attended my course of lectures, delivered before the University of Oxford during the Lent Term, 1909, I have collected and illustrated some of the more important notes dealing with the Development of European Defensive Armour and Weapons. These pages are not a mere reprint of those lectures, nor do they aspire to the dignity of a History of Armour. They are simply intended as a handbook for use in studying history and a short guide to the somewhat intricate technicalities of the Craft of the Armourer.

No work, even of the smallest dimensions, can be produced at the present day without laying its author under a deep sense of indebtedness to Baron de Cosson for his numerous notes on helms and helmets, and to Viscount Dillon for his minute and invaluable researches in every branch of this subject. To this must be added a personal indebtedness to the latter for much assistance, and for the use of many of the illustrations given in this work and also in my course of lectures.

CHARLES FFOULKES.

OXFORD, 1909.

The following works should be consulted by those who wish to study the subject of Armour and Weapons more minutely:--

A Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour, Sir Samuel Meyrick; A Treatise on Ancient Armour, F. Grose; Ancient Armour, J. Hewitt; Arms and Armour, Lacombe (trans. by Boutell); Arms and Armour, Demmin (trans. by Black); Armour in England, Starkie Gardner; Waffenkunde, Wendelin Boeheim; Guida del Amatore di Armi Antiche, J. Gelli; Dictionnaire du Mobilier Français (vols. ii and vi), Viollet-le-Duc; Encyclopedia of Costume, Planché; A Manual of Monumental Brasses, Haines; Engraved Illustrations of Antient Armour, Meyrick and Skelton; Monumental Effigies, Stothard; The Art of War, C. W. C. Oman; Archaeologia, The Archaeological Journal, The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries; the Catalogues of the Armouries of Vienna, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Turin, Dresden; the Wallace Collection, London and Windsor Castle.

The author is indebted to the publishers of Wendelin Boeheim's Waffenkunde for the use of the illustrations 33 and 35, and to Messrs. Parker, publishers of Haines's Monumental Brasses, for the figures on Plate III.

INTRODUCTION

As a subject for careful study and exhaustive investigation perhaps no detail of human existence can be examined with quite the same completeness as can the defensive armour and weapons of past ages. Most departments of Literature, Science, and Art are still living realities; each is still developing and is subject to evolution as occasion demands; and for this reason our knowledge of these subjects cannot be final, and our researches can only be brought, so to speak, up to date. The Defensive Armour of Europe, however, has its definite limitations so surely set that we can surround our investigations with permanent boundaries, which, as far as human mind can judge, will never be enlarged. We can look at our subject as a whole and can see its whole length and breadth spread out before us. In other aspects of life we can only limit our studies from day to day as invention or discovery push farther their conquering march; but, in dealing with the armour of our ancestors, we know that although we may still indulge in theories as to ancient forms and usages, we have very definitely before us in the primitive beginnings, the gradual development, the perfection, and the decadence or passing away, an absolutely unique progression and evolution which we can find in no other condition of life.