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 A RECORD OF EUROPEAN ARMOUR AND ARMS THROUGH SEVEN CENTURIES

CHAPTER XXIX

ENGLISH ARMOUR OF WHAT WE NOW TERM THE GREENWICH SCHOOL.—ARMOUR MADE FOR ENGLAND

The time has now arrived in our chronological review of the complete suits of the XVIth century to describe a series of harnesses which we believe were made at the Greenwich Armoury, established about the year 1511 by Henry VIII, three years before Conrad Seusenhofer came over to England at the command of Maximilian I to add the finishing strokes to his masterpieces which Maximilian was presenting to Henry. Many of these harnesses are of great historical interest, and we may perhaps be forgiven if we attempt to deal at some length with the history of this Greenwich school of armourers. The author must here acknowledge the great help which the Baron de Cosson has given him, generously placing at his disposal his own researches on the subject.

All the harnesses, which we feel convinced came from the Greenwich Armoury, are of superb quality and bear a strong family likeness to each other, and are in configuration and in decoration different from the armours of any other school. The form as a whole cannot be said to be graceful. The construction of the close helmets shows a considerable fullness to the back of the skull, and the whole effect lacks elegance, but the general form is distinctly German in feeling, reminiscent of the work of Konrad Lockner. The top plates of the gorgets are usually high, and the pauldrons are of great strength and characteristic in form, giving an exaggerated breadth to the shoulders. The breastplates in the earlier suits are of robust and burly character, but gradually develop the peascod form until in the later suits they become flat-fronted with only the peascod survival. The shape of the tassets