Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/283

 period. During the last half of the XVth century, certainly as regards the decoration of plate armour, except that which had come under the influence of the early Renaissance, military harness was little affected by the civil dress of the time. But in the XVIth century matters were different. Fashion in costume is for many reasons always subject to change. In the first half of the XVIth century it is found exercising a decided influence on the armourer's craft, all the more so by reason of the fact that the primary use of armour, that of self-defence, became increasingly a secondary consideration, as the perfecting of offensive weapons developed.

The Rotunda, Woolwich

We shall divide the fashions broadly according to their distinct styles, asking the reader to remember all the time that one fashion overlapped another, the borrowed continental styles being superimposed one on the other in the most perplexing manner. We will start by taking the complete suits under the headings of their fashions of decoration, as in the case of modes in clothes, rather than under those illustrating various types of defence. We shall have to speak of the Maximilian style, of the grotesque Maximilian, of the simple Landsknecht (not applying to Germany alone), of armour under classical influence, of the Milan fashions and enrichments, and finally of that miscellaneous mixture of styles so difficult to put into any category which was characteristic of the third quarter of the XVIth century.

The fashion of armour made in parallel, or almost parallel, fluting would appear to have come from Milan, whence it was taken to Germany by the Emperor Maximilian—hence the name given to this fluted armour. At what