Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/48

 many of them have come down to us. It may be interesting to mention those I am acquainted with in chronological order, but first I will say something of the material of which armour and weapons were made.

Anyone who has carefully examined armour of the XVth and XVIth centuries, will have observed that there is a difference between the colour and texture of the metal in the finest German armour and that produced by the renowned Milanese craftsmen. This will be more particularly noticed by anyone who has had much to do with cleaning or polishing examples of the two. The Italian steel is usually darker in colour and more lustrous than the German. A similar difference will also be observed between the metal of a true Toledo blade and a Solingen imitation, and a Milanese blade is distinct in colour from a German one. This arises from the fact that the metal of which they were made came from different sources, and perhaps also from the various methods employed in smelting and converting the iron into steel. I may say in passing, that I think that it will always be found that where a great armour or arms industry arose, there was iron to be obtained not very far off. In former days the iron industry in Bavaria was much more important than it now is, and the great armourers of Augsburg, Landshut, and Nuremberg, as well as the sword-makers of Passau, were supplied by the mines of Sülzbach and Amberg, which places, as early as 1378, entered into a treaty with Nuremberg for the regulation of the iron trade. The Fichtelgebirge also supplied iron. The great sword blade industry of Solingen, from the XIIIth century downwards, drew much of its metal from the celebrated Stahlberg near Müsen in Siegerland (South Westphalia), and its mines still supply steel to Solingen. Iron also came from the county of the Mark and the Principality of Berg, where Count Adolf VII (1256-1296) had mining works undertaken between the Agger and the Drin. Austria at an early date obtained iron from the mines of Steiermark, Kärnten, and Krain, the chief centre being Erzberg, near Eisenberg, and in the XIIth and XIIIth centuries Trofajach and Judenburg were large iron centres. A smelting house on the Plahberge is mentioned in the Admont Chronicle as early as 1130. Where the metal used by the Milanese armourers came from is well known. It was all mined in the mountains near the Lake of Como and the Lago Maggiore. About 1300 it was got from the Monte Trona, near Gerola, east of the Lake of Como; in 1331 there were smelting forges at Soglia, near Premana, and mines at Monte Varrone, near Introbbio in the same district. About the same time Azzo Visconti granted special privileges to the forges in the Valsassina, and there were forges at Introbbio, Premana, Valle Averara, etc., all in the same neighbourhood. In 1400 an iron mine, known later as la Pina, was discovered in the Monte Artino, and in 1470 the men of Canzo, a little town between Como and