Europe, a position which it held almost undisputed for quite two and a half centuries longer. "There are to be found in our territory immense numbers of workmen who make every manner of armour, as hauberks, breastplates, plates, helms, helmets, steel skullcaps, gorgets, gauntlets, greves, cuisses, knee-pieces, lances, javelins, swords, etc. And they are all of hard iron, polished so as to exceed a mirror in brilliancy. The makers of hauberks alone are a hundred, not to mention innumerable workmen under them, who make links for chain mail with marvellous skill. There are shield and buckler makers and makers of arms in incredible numbers. This city supplies all the other cities of Italy with armour and arms and exports them even to the Tartars and Saracens."[1] Most interesting in this passage is the proof that already in the XIIIth century armour of polished steel plate was extensively used in North Italy. In the next century we find evidence of the exportation of Milanese arms to France and England. Amongst the armour of Louis X in 1316[2] are two habergeons and a hauberk of Lombardy, and Robert de Béthune owned in 1322 a Lombard gorget. Christine de Pisan tells us[3] that Charles V provided himself, through his friendship with Bernabo Visconti, with a great quantity of habergeons, jazerans, and camails forged at Milan. In 1398 the Earl of Derby, afterwards Henry IV, sends messengers to Gian-Galeazzo Visconti to request a supply of armour of Milan for his proposed duel with the Earl Marshal. Visconti places his best harness at the disposal of the Earl's envoy. "Besides this, when the knight had examined and chosen from all the armours of the Lord of Milan, as well plate as mail, the said Lord of Milan voluntarily and to gratify the Earl, ordered four of the best working armourers in all Lombardy to go to England with the said knight, in order to arm the Earl to his wish."[4] In 1399 Philip, Lord Darcy, leaves to his son "unam loricam (hauberk) de Milayne." Weapons also were exported, for in 1365 Jean de Saffres owned a Lombard sword with the mark of the scorpion, which mark is still met with on Milanese hafted weapons of the end of the XVth century, and Eustache Deschamps a little later writes of "dondaines[5] et cousteaux d'acier qui à Milan se font." I must leave Milan for the moment to refer to Bordeaux, whence came the renowned swords and lance heads so vaunted by Froissart. It is in the middle of the XIIIth century that Henry III of England pays 40 livres for one hundred targes and one hundred lances made at Bordeaux by his order,[6] and about the same time we read, in a Chanson de Geste, that Milon d'Urgel carried a Bordeaux lance and shield.[7] Abulfeda (b. 1273, d. 1331), in his Geography, speaks of "Bordeaux, beyond Andalos
- ↑ Dottor Carlo Casati, Le antiche fabbriche d'armi Milanesi, in the Perseveranza of 1st and 3rd November 1871.
- ↑ Bibliothèque Richelieu, MS. français, 7855.
- ↑ Les faits du roy Charles.
- ↑ Froissart, bk. iv, chap. lxiii.
- ↑ Dondaines were large bolts for great cross-bows.
- ↑ Rôles Gascons, pub. par Fr. Michel.
- ↑ Gerard de Rossillon, Chanson de geste, ed. Fr. Michel, Paris, 1856.
