Transition Period The closed helmet (armet) came into more general use and a skirt of chain-mail (a characteristic of this period) was worn. The gorget was made up of laminated plates and extended over the chest and down the back. The °standard° or collar of mail came into vogue end of the period. The breastplate was aglobose,' usually with taces of one or more lames. Pauldrons were reduced, less angular and composed of over lapping steel lames, a pike guard (passe-garde) was usually on top. Brassards, vambraces, coudieres and gauntlets were of laminated steel; the coudieres were reduced in size. Cuissarts, genouillieres and grevieres were composed of plate. Taces and tuilles are super-imposed on the mail-skirt. In general the characteristic changes of this period are reduced dimensions of some former parts, rounding of points and angles.
Maximilian Armor (1525-1600).—So termed from the name of the emperor (1459-1519), also has been termed 'late Gothic?' The sur face is adorned with close, narrow flutings (after that day's fashion in dress) or channel ings. The vogue began to fall off after 1540. It is more solid and less flexible than the former style. Breastplates are shorter and rounded out more. The left pauldron is usually larger than the right. Sollerets are of the square 'bear paw' or (cow mouth' toe. The burgonet, morion, armet and cabasset (see HELMETS) were worn in this period. Maxi milian armor consists largely of decorative pageant pieces; it is a period of decadence. Breastplates with 'tapul,' sloping forward to a median line, and the 'peasecod' (bulging in an outward taper till! nearer the bottom when it recedes sharply to the waist line) belong to this period. A. frequent characteristic is the 'rope' pattern on the edges of pieces. Some of the harness suits have a flaring, fluted skirt (tonne let). Noted German armorers of the period were Kolman and Lorenz Helmschmidt, Mattheus Frauenpreis, Conrad Seusenhofer, Valentine Siebenburger, the Treyt family, etc. Tilting pieces were 'Grande garde' for the left shoul der and side; 'volante piece' to protect neck and face up to the eyes; 'manteau d'armes," left side protecting plate; 'polder mitten" or aepaule-de-mouton" (literally leg-of-mutton, its shape), attached to vambrace to protect inside the elbow; 'garde-bras' fastened to the con diere to protect the left arm. The shields were 'rondaches' (see Suirins) highly decorated. The decoration of this parade armor consisted of beautiful hammered (repoussi) work, gold or silver inlay, damascening, etc.
Half Armor Period (from defensive quality of armor had passed in the former period; this period shows no full pano ply but Just a few uncouth 'boiler-plate' pieces used as some protection against pistol shots, etc. The 'three-quarter' suit contained, how ever, much of the cap-a-pied set except leg armor (jambarts and sabbatons). Gradually armor parts were being discarded, some officers using only a cuirass over a 'buff' (leather) coat; this, in Charles I's reign, was so common for entire regiments as to cause them to be termed °cuirassiers.° Dragoons wore a buff
coat and metal hurgonet. Lance regiments wore close helmet, gorget, breast and back plates, pauldrons, vambraces, tassets, garde-de-rein and gauntlets. Arquebusiers wore triple-barred helmets, cuirasses with garde-de-rein, paul drons, vambraces. Pikemen wore morion-form of helmet, back and breastplates reaching to the waist, and tassets attached. In the Cromwellian period we get the with cheek guards added. Musketeers wore morions till 1725, then felt hats with feathers. The 17th century armor pieces were thick, or heavy, enough to withstand pistol shots at short range and the bullet test mark appears on each piece. Great collections of armor are exceedingly few; the most representative in Europe are in Paris, Turin, Madrid, Vienna, Nuremberg, and in England those of the Tower of London, Wind sor Castle, etc. America, in her New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, since the acquisi tion of the great Riggs collection, possesses as fine an assemblage of arms and armor as any in the world.
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(Oxford 1909) ; Gardner, J. S., (Armour in England from the Earliest Times to the Reign of James P (London 1897) ; id., (Foreign Armour in England) (London 1898) ; Gimbel, K. G., (Tafeln zur Entwickelunsge schichte der Schutz and Trutz Waffen in Europa' (Baden Baden 1894) ; Grose, F., (A Treatise on Ancient Armour and
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