In the workshop the first stage in producing armour would have consisted mainly of planning. This may be simple or very detailed, and includes not only the decisions regarding the physical appearance size of the finished object but also the supplies which will be required to make it. If made for a specific individual this will require
consultation and measurements in much the same way as bespoke tailors work today. It is also perhaps the most difficult stage to document because it comes before physical work has begun and therefore has no distinctive marks or other material evidence. The traces of this stage are found in documentary rather than material sources, including bills and correspondence.
Specific orders for armour for individuals are perhaps the most revealing when there is surviving documentation between armourer and patron in the form of letters or bills. An excellent example is found in a letter from1473 from Martin Rondelle, an armourer, to John Paston, who had dealings with Rondelle previously as indicated by the opening of the letter which pertains to a dispute between the two which resulted in Rondelle’s not delivering certain pieces due to non-payment. The second part of the letter refers to a new order for armour,
..Moreover, I have heard that you would like to have a full armour. As I recently took your measurements when you were in this town of Bruges, you know that I still have them for all pieces. For this reason, if you would like
214
me to make it for you, I will do it willingly and all the elements that you would like made. With regard to the price, I shall ensure that you shall be satisfied with me. So, when you know what pieces you would like to have and the style and the day you would like to receive them through someone with whom I can deal in your name and who will pay me a deposit, I will work so well that, God willing, you will praise me.215
There are several interesting points in this letter, particularly with regards to
measurement and appearance. Rondelle himself took Paston’s measurements some time previous to writing the letter and was able to use them for making the armour.
Measurement is extremely important for the fit and functioning of armour, and Rondelle stressed that the measurements were recent because old measurements would not
provide as good a fit due to changes in weight or muscle tone.216 The ‘style’ of the armour, la faisson [sic] in the original document, refers to how Paston wished the
armour to appear in terms of design and decoration, be it in a German, Italian, or English style.217
There are other references to measurements, which include several different methods of taking them. The best way for an armourer to get measurements was to see the patron in person, as in the case of Rondelle and Paston. This allowed more than simple measuring, though, which could quite easily be done by an agent of the armourer. In 1466 Francesco Missaglia visited Louis XI of France for the purpose of studying the king. During his stay, ‘many times the King had caused him to go into his room by day
215
Translated by Karen Watts, in Karen Watts, ‘The Arts of Combat’, in Gothic: Art for England 1400-1547, ed. by Richard Marks and Paul Williamson (London: V&A Publications, 2003), pp. 192-208 (p. 192), from J. D. Gairdner, ed., The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422-1509, 6 vols (London: Chatto and Windus, 1904), III, 95-96.
216
The effect of a patron’s changing shape on his armour is most dramatically displayed in the surviving armours of England’s Henry VIII, as he became progressively heavier.
217
and by night, even when he was going to bed, so that he might study his person and know his desires, and in what way his armour should be constructed so that it might not hurt him in any way, as his body was very delicate’.218 The advantage of this method was that the armourer could not only take all the measurements he needed but would also be able to observe the bearing and carriage of the patron which would have an impact on the shape of the armour.
If the armourer could not see the patron, although a third party could be used, sending a mock-up was also an option. In 1386 Louis, Duke of Touraine and son of King Charles V of France, purchased three ells of Rheims linen to make a doublet, which was ‘sent to Germany as a model for a pair of plates to be forged for his
person’.219 Because of the close-fitting nature of a doublet it could be used to determine not only size but also the curvature of the breast, back, and shoulders, allowing a better fit than from measurements alone.
At the opposite end of the spectrum only general sizes would have been required for munitions armour. Fit could be adjusted with straps or by moving internal leathers, a simple process for an armourer, or by changing the tightness of arming points. These low quality armours could not fit the wearer as well as the high quality armours, but since they were rarely full harnesses requiring the more complex interaction between plates and body this would not have been as much of an obstacle.
The specific style of the armour would also be determined before work began. A passage in Baldesar Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier is indicative of the range of
218
Laking, Record, I, p. l. As Laking points out, this particular encounter is somewhat unusual and reflects royal patronage, but even on a shorter meeting an armourer could assess the physique and characteristics of a patron.
219
‘A Guill. Gallande, marchant de toilles, demourant á Paris pour 3 aulnes de toilles de
Reins...pour faire un patron á un petit pourpoint pour Mds. le duc de Thouraine, pour envoier en Allemaigne, pour faire et forger unes plates d’acier pour son corps’. Compte royal de
Guillaume Brunel, fol. 25v, quoted in Victor Gay, Glossaire Archéologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (Paris: Société bibliographique, 1887), p. 24, and Laking, Record, I, xlviii.
choices a patron would have as regards the final product, ‘Let it suffice that just as a good soldier knows how to tell the smith what shape, style, and quality his armor must have, and yet is not able to teach him to make it, nor how to hammer or temper it...’220 By the time Castiglione was writing it was possible for patrons to choose their armour from pattern books such as the one made c.1554 by Filippo Orsoni, an Italian artist working in sixteenth-century Mantua, but this does not appear to have been the practice during the fifteenth century.221
The earliest known pattern book, the Thun Sketchbook, ‘was probably some kind of pictorial record of the work of the armourer Lorenz Helmschmid’, as well as his son Coloman, and is from the first half of the sixteenth century.222 According to Alexander von Reitzenstein the style of the Sketchbook was a result of the close association of the Helmschmied and Burgkmair families, and suggests that the designs were made before the armour.223 Tragically the Thun Sketchbook was destroyed by the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945, but parts of it were photographed before it was burned and there are several extant pieces which can be matched to drawings in the Sketchbook, so there is no doubt that it was used.224
Another example of a pattern book, which is perhaps more typical, is the Stuttgart Codex of Jörg Sorg, dating between 1548 and 1563.225 This manuscript
220
Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, ed. by Daniel Javitch (New York: Norton, 2002), p. 31.
221
James G. Mann, ‘The Lost Armoury of the Gonzagas’, Archaeological Journal, 95 (1938), 239-336 (pp. 264-73), and Pfaffenbichler, Armourers, p. 6. Orsoni’s book is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, E.2031-1929.
222
Pfaffenbichler, Armourers, pp. 5-6, and Ortwin Gamber, ‘Kolman Helmschmid, Ferdinand I. und das Thun’sche Skizzenbuch’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 71 (1975), 9-38 (pp. 10-18).
223
Alexander von Reitzenstein, ‘Die Plattner von Augsburg’, Augusta (1955), pp. 265-72 (pp. 265-66).
224
Ortwin Gamber, ‘Kolman Helmschmid, Ferdinand I und das Thun’sche Skizzenbuch’, pp. 24 and 29, and Karen Watts, personal communication, 2010.
225
records the work of ten different master armourers, including the name of the patron each armour was made for.226 This is similar to the Almain Armourers Album of Jacob Halder, recording armour made at the Greenwich workshop for the Elizabethan court.227 Albrecht Dürer was also a designer of armour and its decoration.228 While it is possible that a patron could have used these records as a guide for choosing their armour, it is likely that in most instances armourer and patron would discuss and come to an
agreement on style in the manner of a modern tailor, as indicated in Rondelle’s letter and The Book of the Courtier.