Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/296

 MAXIMILIAN SCHOOL—SUITS WITH PUFFED AND GROTESQUE DECORATION

When we come to consider that type of early XVIth century harness, both German and Italian, which under the style of grotesque Maximilian armour represents an attempt to imitate in the stubborn medium of iron the puffing and slashing of the civil costume of the day, we labour under the difficulty of having at the same time to appreciate a real excellence of workmanship and to deplore the introduction of those unnatural forms of decoration which in the opinion of the author are not appropriate to plate armour. We regard the grotesque forms so often adopted by the armourers of the first half of the XVIth century as only reflecting, especially in Germany, the curiously bizarre taste of the age. Just as a Japanese warrior of olden times, equipped in a suit which we should to-day condemn as eccentric and ludicrous, must have presented to his contemporaries an appearance of quite normal aspect, an appearance challenging respect rather than laughter, so what are to us the grotesque appearance of a visor of a helmet and the strange form of a suit of armour quite failed, we take it, to detract from the serious aspect of the warrior. The military caste demanded and received immense respect and the public looked upon this type of armour as the splendid garb of the knight, equipped in the fashion of the time.

It will perhaps not be out of place here to record an amusing story bearing upon the exaggerated slashing of a costume, a fashion that so manifestly influenced the decoration of this particular type of plate armour. The story is told by William Camden in his "Remains." A shoemaker of Norwich, named John Drakes, who, in the time of Henry VIII, coming to a tailor's, and finding some fine French tawny cloth lying there, which had been sent to be made into a gown for Sir Philip Calthrop, took a fancy to the colour, and ordered the tailor to buy as much of the same stuff for him, as would make him a "gown" of it, precisely of the same fashion as the knight's, whatever that might be. Sir Philip, arriving some time afterwards to be measured, saw the additional cloth, and enquired who it belonged to. "It is John Drake's," replied the tailor, "who will have it made of the self-same fashion as yours is made of." "Well," said the knight, "in good time be it; I will have mine as