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Spenserian Armor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Allan H. Gilbert
Allan H. Gilbert*
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Extract

In the first edition of the Faerie Queene appeared a woodcut of the Red Cross Knight in combat with the Dragon. The Knight is clad in armor of the sixteenth-century type. In particular the iron skirt, or tonnlets, of the rider are like those in a suit of armor given by the Emperor Maximilian to Henry VIII in 1515. The artist, however, may not have been very familiar with armor, for the plates over the knees and elbows are not accurate. The plumes of knight and horse are suitable for pageantry rather than for serious combat. The knight's shield, with its red cross, is wholly unfitting, since shields were not worn with such armor in service, and shields such as were used in some types of jousting were of different shape. The horse wears armor on the head and neck, but not on the body, though the body is covered with cloth housing.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 57 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1942 , pp. 981 - 987
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1942

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References

Note 1 in page 981 Laking, A Record of European Arms and Armour, iii, figures 1003, 1016, 1017, 1017A.

Note 2 in page 981 Laking, ii, 165.

Note 3 in page 982 For other elaborate crests see 26.12; 46.38; 49.18; 62.34.

Note 4 in page 982 3.2.24.3; 5.8.12.5.

Note 5 in page 982 Ashdown, British and Foreign Arms and Armour, pp. 106, 114, 184; Laking, i, 57, 276; ii, 176. For helmets of this type illustrated in the manuscripts of romances, see Eugène Vinaver, Malory (Oxford, 1929), plates facing pp. 38, 58, 98.

Note 6 in page 982 Laking, ii, 102 ff.; Ashdown, pp. 223, 266, etc.; Laking, iv, 90.

Note 7 in page 982 Laking, ii, 137–138.

Note 8 in page 982 Orlando Fur., 41.98; 27.88. Cf. also, e.g., Tasso, Gerusalemme Lib. 11.75; Bojardo-Berni, Orlando Inn. 26.8.

Note 9 in page 982 E.g., 2.8.52.8.

Note 10 in page 982 Herbert Druitt, A Manual of Costume as Illustrated by Monumental Brasses (London, 1906), p. 149.

Note 11 in page 982 Book 13, chap. 17; bk. 17., ch. 1.

Note 12 in page 983 La Queste del Saint Graal, ed. Albert Pauphilet (Paris, 1923), pp. 56, 196: “la coife de fer.”

Note 13 in page 983 Laking, iv, 123–124.

Note 14 in page 983 Orlando Fur., 26.28.

Note 15 in page 983 Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War, The Middle Ages (New York, 1898), p. 486.

Note 16 in page 983 For an illustration, see Laking, iii, 179. This figure shows the use of a plate to strengthen the mail defense of the armpit. For a knight struck just as Spenser describes, see an illustration in the Miroir historial de Jacques, duc de Nemours, reproduced in R. Chantelauze, Memoires de Philippe de Commynes (Paris, 1881), p. 27. Tasso tells of a knight killed in battle in this way (Gerusalemme Lib., 6.44).

Note 17 in page 984 View of the Present State of Ireland (London, 1934), p. 93. In Gough's edition of the Fifth Book, Spenser's “iron plate” (5.12.14) is interpreted as mail.

In this context in the View Spenser is usually thought to have been mistaken about Sir Thopas' “shecklaton.” It seems, however, that Spenser did know what a hacqueton is, namely the “quilted jack” “worn in war under a shirt of mail.” If so, probably the word in Faerie Queene 2.8.38.7 is a slip of the pen for habergeon.

Note 18 in page 984 According to the N.E.D. the hauberk is always of mail. For the belief that it sometimes indicates plate armor, see Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, ed. by J. M. Manly (New York, 1928), the note on Sir Thopas, p. 633, lines 2050–58; and F. M. Kelley and R. Schwabe, A Short History of Costume and Armour (New York, 1931), i, 81.

Note 19 in page 984 Arthur wears a habergeon of mail (2.8.44.6) but elsewhere a “curat” (5.8.34.8).

Note 20 in page 984 Ashdown, pp. 101–110.

Note 21 in page 984 Orlando Fur., 27.78. Cf., e.g., 6.80; 26.84; 30.59; 31.21; 45.75. Likewise, Bojardo-Berni, Orlando Innamorato, 16.28.35; 18.18, and many other passages; Tasso, Gerusalemme Lib., 6.48.

Note 22 in page 985 Orlando Fur., 24.64. Similarly:

Gli passo la corazza e il soprappetto,
Ma prima un ben ferrato e grosso scudo (19.82).

See F. M. Kelley and R. Schwabe, A Short History of Costume and Armour, i, 60. In each instance Ariosto mentions the mail first; does he indicate the plate as worn under it? See Charles Oman, History of the Art of War, Middle Ages, p. 514, for the belief that plate was so used. The passage seems to mean that the plate is penetrated last, but it may be that the poet is not mentioning the exact order of layers as pierced by a spear.

Note 23 in page 985 Orlando Innam., 23.44. See, e.g., Druitt, Costume, frontispiece.

Note 24 in page 985 Druitt, Costume, p. 159.

Note 25 in page 985 1.6.41.8; 3.1.4.4; 3.4.16.3.

Note 26 in page 985 Iliad, 7.220; Ænead, 12.925; Ovid, Metamor phoses, 13.2; Bojardo-Berni, Orlando Inn., 65.5; Tasso, Gerus. Lib., 20.86.

Note 27 in page 985 For this in the illustrations of the MSS of romances see Eugène Vinaver, Malory, plates opp. pp. 58, 98.

Note 28 in page 986 1.5.6.3; 2.8.22.7; 3.9.22.8; 5.6.28.9.

Note 29 in page 986 Orlando Fur., 26.123; 41.96; Orlando Inn., 54.14, etc.; Sidney, Arcadia (Cambridge, 1922), p. 457. Laking, iv, 45.

Note 30 in page 986 Nichols, Progresses of Elizabeth, ii, 312. Cf. Sidney, Arcadia, pp. 285, 454, 455, 462. In the latter instances fancy armor is worn in serious combat. Cf. also Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveler, in Works (London, 1910), pp. 271–278.

Note 31 in page 986 Orlando Innam., 22.55; 36.14. In 11.29 Bajardo is spoken of as “bardato.”

Note 32 in page 987 Cesare Vecellio, Habiti Antichi et Moderni (Venice, 1598), p. 43. The preface, written for an earlier edition, is dated 1589.