Part x

., and Boutell, page 113.

In this singular figure of a knight from Roy. MS. 2, A. xxii. fol. 219, the leg-defences are composed of a kind of Bezanted Armour: small roundels of metal, placed contiguously, appear to be rivetted to a fabric of cloth or to leather: forming a garment very similar to the "penny plate armour" of the sixteenth century. In the original drawing, the chausses are shaded with blue: but, singularly enough, the chausson is shaded with red, though it seems clearly to be intended for chain-mail. The date of the figure appears to be about the close of the thirteenth century. As a curious illustration of bezanted armour, the late Mr. Hudson Turner told the writer of these pages that he had seen in an ancient record an account of a hauberk of Edward III., studded with gold florins; though, with the usual caution of the antiquarian discoverer, he withheld the name and locality of the document.

[Illustration:

PLATE LXIII.]

In the engraving given overleaf, from Add. MS. 17,687, a German illumination of the end of this century, we have an example of Studded armour. Garments presenting an exterior sprinkled with studs are of frequent occurrence in the next age, and we shall therefore freely use the memorials of that time in illustration of our subject; and indeed we may gather some valuable evidences from existing armours of Eastern manufacture. Many a mystery of middle-age lore may be unravelled by an attentive examination of Oriental productions. As the surface only of the military studded garments is presented to our view in ancient monuments, we can seldom determine with exactness their construction: but, from the comparison of various examples, it seems probable that there were not less than four or five varieties of this kind of apparel. First, we have quilted-work, in which the studs appear to be used for holding together the component parts of the fabric. We have already noticed an example of the kind in our preceding division (woodcut, No. 37). The engraving now before us seems to represent a similar armour: the spots are coloured of a red-brown on a ground of light grey. In the fine manuscript of Meliadus, Add. MS. 12,228, not only parts of the knightly suit, but the saddles of the horses, are seeded with studs; which seems distinctly to imply a quilted covering. See also the effigies engraved by Stothard, (Plates LX. and LXIII.) And in the Tower collection will be found Chinese armour of modern date, formed of a quilted garment sprinkled with metal studs. The next kind of Studded armour is that of which a real specimen of the fourteenth century was found by Dr. Hefner in the excavations of the old Castle of Tannenberg in Germany: a relic which throws the clearest light on the costume of many a knightly effigy of that period. The defence is thus contrived: strips of metal, like hooping, are placed horizontally across the body, the upper edge of each splint being perforated for rivets. These strips slightly overlap each other: a piece of velvet, or other material of a similar kind, is then laid over the whole, and by rows of rivets fastened to the iron splints beneath. The velvet being of a rich hue, and the rivet-heads gilt or silvered, the garment presents exactly the appearance of those knightly suits in which spots of gold or silver are seen studding the whole superficies of a dress of crimson or other brilliant tincture. The relic in question is figured and minutely described in the admirable tract on the results of the find by Doctors Hefner and Wolf: "Die Burg Tannenberg und ihre Ausgrabungen." The Stapelton brass, of which there is a facsimile in the Craven Ord Collection in the British Museum, and an engraving in Stothard's work, and the brass at Aveley in Essex (Waller, Pt. 1), seem to exhibit the armour in question. Foreign examples occur in the figures of Conrad von Saunsheim and those in Bamberg Cathedral, given by Hefner in

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