“From the abbey of St. Geraldine, where Sir Tristan Druricom died and for three days, according to custom, lay in the church, on the day of St. Agates carried him out in a pine coffin on a rich gilded stretcher. They carried him in four rows, four people in a row, sixteen men, and yet they often had to be replaced, because the knight lay in a coffin in full armor, in chain mail with a hood, in armor, in a helmet with a casing, in iron gloves, yes, besides, in dead hands he held his long sword, and an ax was placed at his feet, as was customary."
("Jack Straw". Zinaida Shishova)
The history of weapons. Today we continue the theme of swords (and knightly armor, or armor and swords!) That were depicted on tombstones. However, I would like to start by referring to the epigraph. It is no coincidence that he is here. Probably, many in childhood read this romantic, touching and such a sad story of Zinaida Shishova about the love of a blacksmith's son for a noble lady and the uprising of Wat Tyler. The book is considered a classic, recommended for reading in 6th grade as additional material on the history of the Middle Ages, and it describes a lot of things completely correctly. Much, but not all! Nothing of which she wrote in the passage that is placed in the epigraph was not and could not be.
Nobody put the deceased knights in armor in a coffin, dragged them to the grave, and laid a wooden coffin in a stone one, and buried them. Because that would be unacceptable paganism. Death equated both the knight and the commoner, and the church followed this very strictly. A bare shroud and a candle in hand - that's all, in which both were sent to the next world. So everything written is an ignorant fantasy. However, understandable. She has not been abroad. Books about what was bad feudalism, read only ours, Soviet, and in them the topic of effigy for some reason did not find a sufficiently intelligible reflection. All tombstones were credited to tombstones or statues, but what, how, their features - all this was not reported. As was not reported about the difference between effigies and breaststrokes, which we will tell you about today.
Recall that effigies are gravestone figures carved from stone and located on a gravestone. That is, it is such a specific sculptural tombstone. Sometimes this statue is standing. Stands in full growth, and the grave itself is nearby. Or, on the contrary, it is very far away. But the sculpture of the deceased allows him to be remembered with prayer, which is always useful for him. For example, there are many effigies of Jeanne D'Arc: in the Cathedral of Reims, in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, and in many other places.
For a long time it was sculptural effigies that were in vogue in all European countries. But then it happened that the craftsmen learned how to make sheet brass. This material was expensive, but beautiful, and it immediately found its use on … tombstones. Increasingly, knights abandoned sculptures, instead of which a flat image of a sheet of brass, usually with an engraved design, was laid on the slab. Such flat memorial plates were called "breaststroke", that is, "brass".
Now it is difficult to say which breaststroke was the very first. But already in 1345 there were such tombstones. For example, in the same England. Of course, breaststrokes, due to their flat appearance, are less informative than voluminous ones. But they persist well. They are harder to damage, more accurately copied. So today breaststrokes are very important sources of information in the field of "knight's costume" and knightly weapons. And on none of the breaststrokes does the ax lie at the feet …
The study of breaststrokes, like other effigies, led to a very interesting conclusion. It turns out that around the last twenty years of the XIV century and the first XV knightly armor everywhere acquired a relatively uniform appearance. It was, if I may say so, the "final period" of the transition from mixed chain-plate armor to purely plate, "white armor".
See how similar breaststrokes from that time are. And not only breaststrokes, but also sculptural effigies!
As you can see, all these breaststrokes and Sir Cockayne's effigy are very similar: a bascinet helmet with a clip-on mail mantle, armor, over which a short jupon caftan is worn. The main thing that catches your eye is, of course, the chain mail mantle. The belt, decorated with square plaques, is lowered to the hips. In addition to the sword, the knight's weapon is the rondel dagger.
Pay attention to this tombstone, entirely of stone, the figure depicted on it is also practically flat, cut into its surface, also 1415. It depicts the knight John Woodwill in armor, which has an all-metal collar over his chain mail mantle.
And now, finally, we have a knight in typical "white armor"!
Interestingly, the first "white armor" was extremely functional. They had no frills, no decorations. Only one "white" polished metal! True, the sword sling has changed. Now it is no longer a belt lowered to the hips, but a simple belt on which a sword is hung. The scabbard of the dagger is most likely riveted directly to the stripes of the "skirt", assembled from overlapping plates, arranged like a tourist folding cup! At the same Henry Paris, we see the simplest round-shaped assagyu, a convex globular cuirass. The gunsmiths seemed to be trying on the possibilities of working with metal and therefore made only the simplest protective parts, without bothering themselves with special difficulties.
Throughout the 15th century, one might say, there was a process of developing the style of armor, which eventually took shape in two of the most popular: Milanese and Gothic, which spread in Northern Germany. Milanese armor appeared at the end of the 14th century and existed until the beginning of the 16th century. A feature of the Milanese armor was the large elbow pads, which even made it possible to abandon the shield, as well as the asymmetrical shoulder pads, which sometimes went behind each other on the back; plate mittens with long sockets and an armé helmet, although sallet (salade) was also used, like a barbut.
Gothic ones appeared in the second half of the 15th century and were distinguished by sharp angles, especially noticeable on elbow pads, sabatons (plate shoes) and gloves, as well as their helmet - salad. But again, all the armor of this era had no adornments. They were distinguished by polished metal and nothing else!
For a short time it became fashionable to wear heraldic robes over armor again, as this French tombstone tells us about …
In addition, for example, in England, the fashion spread for wearing tasset shields, which were suspended from the lower edge of the carapace "skirt", under which there was also chain mail as an additional reinforcement. There was no sense in such "booking", but judging by the large number of breaststrokes with knights in such armor, it was again another fashion that they tried to follow.
Someone had these shields more, someone less, but … the fashion for them and the chain-mail hem lasted quite a long time.
Another hundred years passed and the fashion for clothes (fluffy pants stuffed with cotton became fashionable) changed again, at the same time the armor changed. Even the position of the figure on the tombstone was different. Armor is increasingly decorated with a decorative strip along the perimeter of the details. The sword-epee with crosshair and rings was also very characteristic of this time.
In a number of European countries breaststrokes have not taken root. There they continued to carve tombstones out of stone. Moreover, the sculptors did not always succeed in depicting the deceased. However, since we are mainly interested in armor and weapons, body defects are not important to us.
At this point, our journey into the world of effigies and breaststrokes can be considered complete.
