of Arbois fifty war harnesses made after the fashion of Burgundy, consisting of armets, cuirasses, leg harness, one pair of grand guards, one pair of gardebras, and one of gauntlets. They appear to have worked at Arbois until 1509, and we find them again at Milan from 1524 to 1529.[1]
Armour of a different fashion from the Italian, but of very high quality and rare elegance of form, was being made in Germany during the last third of the XVth century, and Augsburg, Landshut, Nuremberg, and Innsbruck were the principal places of its production. Fine mail of Nuremberg is mentioned in a French document of 1488 as being purchased for the King,[2] and even in Italy the German fashion was becoming known, for in 1493 the Marquis of Mantua orders his treasurer to have made for him four or six breastplates of German fashion of various kinds as soon as possible.[3] There is a strange entry in the inventory of Charles VI of France in 1411 of a complete harness for man and horse made of Syrian leather, but whether it had been imported, or made of that leather in France, we cannot learn.[4] Paris during this century must have produced armour, for there is an ordinance of 1451 requiring that all white harness and brigandines should be stamped, those of proof with two marks and those of half proof with one.[5] In 1470 the city of Tours ordered punches for stamping all white harness and brigandines made or sold in the town, the punches being engraved with the arms of the city.[6] There must also have been a considerable manufacture of armour in Spain, but not much is known of it during this century except that a form of helmet resembling the chapeau de Montauban was made at Calatayud,[7] and took its name from the town. It is also known that there were armourers working at Marquina and Burgos[8] in the north of Spain and at Seville.[9]
Swords must have been largely fabricated in many places, but it was not until the XVIth century that the practice of signing the blades or inscribing on them the place where they were made became general, so that it is not easy to determine where they were principally manufactured in the XVth century. Some exist with the mark of Milan,[10] and that city no doubt produced them largely for Italy. Giovanni da Uzzano tells us the price of swords, probably ordinary ones, at Pisa in 1442: "Swords of Villa Basilica cost 208 florins the case and each case contains from 80 to 90."[11]
- ↑ Gelli e Moretti, I Missaglia e la loro Casa (Milano, 1903).
- ↑ Compte de l'écurie du roi (V. Gay, p. 695).
- ↑ Bertolotti, Arti Minori alla Corte di Mantova, p. 125.
- ↑ Inventaire de l'écurie du roi (V. Gay, p. 64).
- ↑ Recueil des ordonnances; Statuts des Armuriers de Paris, vol. xvi, p. 679.
- ↑ Grandmaison, Archives de Tours, vol. xx, pp. 268-9.
- ↑ Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España Armeria del Duque del Infantado.
- ↑ Saez, Monedas de Enrique III, 1796.
- ↑ Gestoso, Sevilla Monumental y Artistica, vol. i.
