Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/238

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(Figs. 199, a, b, c, d, e). On comparing this Beauchamp armour with that to be seen on other contemporary effigies, many differences become apparent, not only in details, but—what is more important still—in the general style and character of the harness. The details of a suit may have been suggested by the armourer who made it, or by the knight for whose wear it was designed; but it is more especially by variations in general physiognomy that the works of separate schools or countries can be recognized. The Earl of Warwick died in 1439, and the contract for the tomb is dated 1453. John Hewitt, feeling it difficult to imagine that so advanced a type of armour had been made in England in the Earl's lifetime, says: "The effigy appears to have been made about 1454, the fashion of that period being adopted for the armour." Now the contract between the Earl's executors and John Essex, marbler, William Austin, citizen and founder, of London, and Thomas Stevyns, coppersmith, expressly states that the effigy shall be made according to patterns. It is therefore somewhat difficult to suppose that the Earl's executors, having all his armour at their disposal, should have sought and procured a new model. However, thanks to the Baron de Cosson's intimate practical knowledge of Italian armaments, much of the difficulty disappears. The fact was that Hewitt had little opportunity of actually handling the very few mid-XVth century suits that exist, and so was unable in this connection to speak with anything like the authority of the Baron de Cosson, who, fully acquainted as he is with the very advanced forms and developments introduced into their work by Milanese armourers about the time of the death of the Earl, has no hesitation whatever in believing that even as early as 1438 the Milanese armour had attained to the perfection shown in the Warwick effigy. As a matter of fact the Earl of Warwick had travelled in Lombardy in his younger years, and so enjoyed an opportunity of appreciating the great excellence of the armour of Milan. It was in 1408 that he passed through the Duchy on his way to the Holy Land, and was challenged by Sir Pandulph Malacet, probably a Pandofo Malatesta, to a duel at Verona. Petrajolo da Missaglia, the earliest member of the family with whom we are acquainted, was then the Ducal armourer. What is more probable than the supposition that once acquainted with the excellence of Milanese harness, the Earl should have continued to order armour from Milan to the end of his life? It can be shown that great noblemen in other countries were doing so at the same epoch. We are therefore fairly justified in concluding that the splendid harness which the Earl is represented as wearing in the effigy