Introduction

Until the establishment of Henry VIII’s workshops, the domestic manufacture of arms and armour has generally been written off as rather insignificant, the assumption being that there was a preference for purchasing both basic and fine-quality armour from Italy, Flanders or Germany. The establishment of his own armour workshop at Greenwich by Henry VIII shortly after his accession in 1509 has been identified quite rightly as one of the new king’s earliest ambitions. Emulating the court workshop of the Emperor Charles V established at Innsbruck in 1505, Henry VIII was able to create a domestic industry capable of producing fine-quality armour within a very short space of time. Armourers from Milan, the Low Countries and Germany were brought to England, where they set up the new workshop. Within fourteenthcentury studies, however, the king’s armour, its manufacture and custody have been investigated primarily within the context of massed quantities of armour stored at the Tower of London and elsewhere. There remains a limited understanding of the organization of the armourer’s craft, those armourers who were active in London, their relationship with the crown, and how they sought to meet the needs of the monarch.

Because the activities of armourers within England have been seen as insignificant in comparison to those of their European counterparts, little attention has been paid to those who did participate in the craft and trade. Consequently, any discussion of the office of king’s armourer, or strictly speaking armator regis, has been ignored, and T. F. Tout’s general observations that they had a permanent base in the Tower of London from the late thirteenth century, and that they were part of a group of craftsmen whose primary attachment was to the king’s household, have been widely accepted without further question or refinement. However, during this same period there is evidence to suggest that king’s armourers acted as an important link between the armourers’ community and the crown, supplying and manufacturing armour for the king, his household, and the royal forces.

In this article I will seek to demonstrate that the domestic industry was more advanced than previously thought. The following discussion will begin by looking first at evidence of the organization and activities of armourers in London in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.