Gothic VS Italian Armour

Throughout the 15th century, there were many different types of armour being used, which all came in their own stylistic, artistic flair, as well as varying intended functions. Iberian, English, or Flemish, but the two most common and well-known styles were the Gothic German and Milanese Italian. Today we are at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, the biggest museum dedicated to arms and armour with a specific focus on the 15th and 16th century harnesses in all of England. We will be taking a look at plenty of original pieces of both the Gothic and the Milanese style, as well as using several examples from the Wallace Collection and elsewhere. This will be an attempt to further understand each style, and be able to point out the key characteristics in both the German Gothic and Italian Milanese. Hopefully being able to better understand what we are looking at as we visit these beautiful surviving armours from the medieval period. Firstly, let's look at the fan favourite, the Gothic style. The term Gothic has a few different meanings depending on its context. In the middle ages, the main alternative medium which adopted the Gothic style was Gothic architecture. Gothic architecture became a very popular style for monastic buildings in Western Europe from the early 1200s onwards, replacing the earlier Romanesque style. The main purpose of Gothic architecture was to create artwork and beauty on every single crevice and on every piece of masonry possible, leaving almost no bare stone. Christianity during the middle ages was largely Catholicism, and one of the main things that Catholics promoted about Christianity throughout the medieval period is the beauty that man was able to create, saying that this gift of beauty and creativity was given to man from God himself. In reality, it was also likely a good way to spend a lot of money on fancy things, since the interiors of these giant Gothic churches and cathedrals would be adorned in all sorts of finery, from golden relics to fancy carved furniture and decorative drapes and tapestries. The Gothic style regarding armour became popularised in Germany in the mid-15th century, and appears to follow the same ideology as the masons who were responsible for developing the architectural Gothic style, where every surface should be adorned in some kind of decoration. For armour, this was primarily done by the use of fluting. Fluting is where you place a metal item over a specialised pointed stake, and lightly tap either side of the stake's pointed apex to effectively crimp in a raised kink in the metal. Armourers would create this effect in a series of repetitions, which resulted in the metal becoming ribbed with parallel ripples all over the metal surface. This was done for two main reasons. Firstly, the raised flutes improved the strength of the armour without adding any additional weight. A weapon would have a much harder time penetrating through the raised series of flutes rather than if the metal was a smooth surface. By contorting the metal in this way, it becomes a lot more rigid and hard to bend in certain directions, so it inevitably became more resistant to incoming strikes which attempt to cave in the metal surfaces. Secondly, the fluting looks appealing. By the late 14th century, armour had evolved to an extent where plate armour was now able to cover the entirety of the wearer's body. Due to this, workshops now began to develop their own personal trademark styles, and continue artistic trends throughout the various components of armour which were now all linking up together. We first see this with brasswork decoration being attached to edges of armour pieces such as fan plates on arm cooters and leg pollens. Then, later in the 15th century, we begin seeing some rather more experimental art styles develop, again usually with the fan plates on the armour and legs, and also the artistry covers across multiple components of armour, continuing the pattern throughout the entire harness. With Gothic armour, it seems that stylistic designs occurred in the civilian clothing first, and then were later adopted by armourers around Germany to create textile-like patterns but in metal instead. A good example of this would be the previously mentioned crimping, where many flutes were hammered in, all guiding towards a central point, like seen here on a backplate of a Gothic cuirass. This is caused in textiles when a person is wearing a coat or jacket, and uses a belt to cinch in the waist, which in turn makes the fabric bunch up around the waist area in this rather appealing fashion. 15th century armour, and Gothic armour specifically, favoured a small waist and an hourglass figure, which mirrored the cultural civilian clothing trends of the time period. An hourglass waist was seen as a very masculine figure which noblemen specifically strived to achieve, and so, field armour would also resemble this hourglass silhouette. Gothic armour also adopted scalloped edges on many of the pieces, such as the spaulders and the placard. Scalloping is where multiple crescent cutouts are made from point to point, as opposed to one continuous angle. The apexes of these curves generally set the central points of fluting as well. Specific pieces of surviving Gothic armour, like this gauntlet, is a perfect example of the pinnacle of the Gothic style. Every small articulated piece is adorned in fluting and scalloping, featuring tiny heart motifs which have been meticulously punched out one by one. The gauntlet also clearly shows an excessive amount of filework. Filework is where an armourer will use a series of steel files to carve tiny ripples into the metal edges, resulting in a decorative edge filled with crinkles and sharp changes in direction, very similar to the tracery in Gothic architecture found all over window arches and door frames. Functionally, Gothic armour generally preferred fingered gauntlets, or at least bifurcated gauntlets, where the four fingers are separated into a glove with two finger holes, so your index finger and middle finger would be together, and your ring finger and little finger would also be together. This helped with dexterity, but at the cost of heightened protection, which is what the Italian style of mitten gauntlet could provide, however it should be said that both styles of gauntlet were used with both the German Gothic armours and the Italian Milanese armours. As mentioned before, Gothic armour is generally considered the pinnacle of armour design, where utilitarian items used for battlefields were now being turned into highly unique works of art, with people of high status paying top dollar to own a harness from a certain armourer who excelled in their trade. The three main producers of high quality Gothic armour that we currently know of come from the German cities of Augsburg, Landshut, and the most notable one of the three, Innsbruck. Innsbruck became the main centre for producing armour in Germany due to its close proximity to plentiful mining industries, as well as its careful nurturing by notable figures of power such as Archduke Sigismund, and later Maximilian I. Although there were multiple different styles of German armour throughout the 15th century, the typical Gothic style that we've been seeing examples of here was largely developed by armourer Georg Trietz, who put Innsbruck on the map for Gothic armour design in the 1480s. The Gothic armour generally also preferred the spoulder over the pauldron. The pauldron was normally used for heavy mounted combat like shock lance strikes, although could be used in dismounted combat as well. Pauldrons offered more protection, which certainly would be needed when charging a horse straight into enemy ranks, however this came at the cost of mobility. You could still certainly fight effectively while wearing pauldrons, but they would be more awkward when fighting with a two handed weapon like a polax, which is why the spoulder became a popular alternative, a lighter and more often more articulated version of shoulder armour, which offered less protection, but more mobility. Although German armour certainly preferred spaulders over pauldrons generally, they were still used interchangeably and they would likely be switched out depending on what kind of combat the knight was planning to take part in on a specific day. You have likely heard that Gothic armour is also identifiable by the fact that the placard is attached to the breastplate by being riveted in place, although this is certainly the most common technique. It is not universal and there are many examples of Gothic armour with a buckle and strap to connect the placard to the breastplate. Also, it's worth noting that the rivet connecting these two components aren't always necessarily stuck in place. German armourers often used sliding rivets to allow more movement and flexibility in articulated pieces of armour that had to be attached to each other. And sliding rivets were also used to connect placards to breastplates in Gothic cuirasses. Gothic armour is generally considered the more advanced of the two armour types. One example of this is the use of gussets, which are, again, attached to the cuirasses by the use of sliding rivets. These metal gussets were designed to fold underneath the cuirass when the knight closes his arms together, allowing the gussets to underlap the chest and provide a higher freedom of movement. Again, this is not universal. Some Italian harnesses also include gussets, but they are much more commonly featured in German armour. In the latter end of the 15th century, often around 1480-1490, a rather unique style of helmet begins to make the rounds, known as the Black Salats. These infantry salats first appear quite crude in design, with elongated visor plates and tails over the neck, rudimentary oculars, and a lack of a central ridge over the crest of the helm. The Black Salats are a good example of the German utilitarian market, where mass amounts of simple helmets, and likely other armour components, were sold as stock to equip large armies relatively quickly. The skulls of these salats are believed to have been hammered out from two sheets of metal by the use of a power hammer, likely either powered by water or by mules or horses. The two halves would be forge-welded together, and then a crude visor would be attached. Or, in some cases, they would be fixed visor salats, meaning that the visor would not be an additional plate that's riveted onto the helmet, and therefore could not be raised. We often see artistic depictions of soldiers wearing salats with the entire helmet raised onto the back of their head if they wish to have better vision. Some of the Black Salats survive are notable for their wildly imaginative artwork, likely painted by soldiers during downtime whilst on campaign. Generally speaking, Italian armour of the 15th century was known for being very sleek, rounded, and polished, often referred to as white armour due to their notably highly polished finishes. Whilst the Germans preferred fluting on the majority of their armour components, the Italians often preferred large sweeping curves over their harnesses, designed specifically to absorb incoming strikes and deflect sharp points from getting into the vulnerable areas of the armour. Therefore, Italian armour would sometimes be seen as a much more simple in design, built for a much more utilitarian use as opposed to the creative artistic styles of Gothic armour. However, this isn't necessarily the case, as there are some decorative examples of Italian armour, most notably the Avant Harness currently on display at the Kelvin Grove Museum of Glasgow. Often, Italian armour was designed with more defence in mind, with equestrian armour specifically utilising large pauldrons, oversized couter plates on the elbows and heavy duty mitten gauntlets. Italian heavy cavalry of the 15th century were generally considered the tanks of the medieval period, and indeed were sometimes hired by the French to negate the powers of the English longbowmen. As we saw at the Battle of Benai in 1424, where some 2000 Milanese heavy cavalry were hired by the French to charge against the English longbowmen, and they successfully managed to survive against the fierce raining of arrows and force their way through the ranks of the English archers, cutting them down and forcing them to rout. Italy was most well known for dominating the export market in terms of arms and armour, where cities would be filled with hundreds of small workshops which would be all responsible for creating mass amounts of one single component of armour, such as a tasset, helmet skullcaps, visors, breastplates, or even singular lames of spaulders. Then these items would be collected and taken to the Armourer's Guild, where highly skilled master armourers would piece the harnesses together, providing the articulation and rivets essentially like one big model set. Once the master armourers had assembled the complete harnesses, they would be shipped off to various countries around Western Europe, with England being a major importer of Italian export armour throughout the late 15th century. This imported armour was used to equip the soldiers of both the Lancastrians and the Yorkists during the War of the Roses. Notably, there is no evidence of German Gothic armour in England throughout the War of the Roses. But a full Italian export harness was still certainly not cheap. For example, we have an account from Sir John de Cressy in 1441, where he paid £8 for a full Milanese harness, which would be around £9,000 in today's money. Coincidentally, this is similar to how much an armourer would typically charge for a completely tailored harness in the high-end re-enactment market today. The disconnect here is that armourers of today often work either solo or with a single apprentice in a workshop, whereas armourers of the Middle Ages could have between 30 to even 100 people or more working for them. City-states like Milan, Florence and Venice all became exceedingly popular as armour-making centres throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. Some of the main reasons for their prosperity were the city's locations, near the Alps where lots of mining industry took place, meaning that the raw materials such as iron and coal were plentiful. These cities were all also relatively close to the sea, and settlements like Genoa and Venice were already well-established trading hubs with busy ports and markets. The Italian method of having many workshops dedicated to making individual components to be assembled by master armourers allowed these armouries to stockpile complete harnesses by the hundreds, and in some cases, in the thousands. This meant that they could sell in bulk to lords and nobles, who quickly had to raise a fighting army when wars broke out, which they often did in these northern Italian city-states. All this stock meant that the Italian armouries were a reliable and cheap place to buy armour from, which led to their prosperity and success throughout the late medieval period. Of course, Germany was also a mass exporter of arms and armour, and the two armouring powerhouses would certainly have been in competition with each other during this time. One very interesting style of armour to come out of Italy due to this was known as Allatadesse. Allatadesse typically means Italian armour made in the German style. The armour would generally stay true to the classic Italian shapes for each component, but include hints of the gothic aesthetic through the use of minimal fluting and decoration. These were essentially gothic harnesses, but substantially pulled back in artistic flourish to keep the cost down and make them available for a wider clientele. The Royal Armouries in Leeds has some wonderful examples of Allatadesse armour, which clearly shows the efforts in mimicking the gothic look, but is still obviously mainly built for utilitarian use. Interestingly, the English style was also developing during the mid to late 15th century, and seems to be a bit of a Frankenstein's monster of the Allatadesse style. English armour was evidently heavily inspired by the Italian style, but the high end examples, which are usually found in funerary effigy monuments, often include deep fluting which is usually curved in design, known as a barley flute. This is a signature of the English take on gothic fluting, and was likely made for the same reasons. The deep ridges would increase the strength of the armour without increasing the weight. As mentioned before, but I feel this is a rather important point for re-enactors, we do not see any evidence of German gothic armour being used in England during the late 15th century. No effigies, no artwork, no invoices or receipts from the time exist, so it appears that Italy had a monopoly on the armour export market to England during this time period in history. England did have its own armouries, most notably the Greenwich Armoury in London, but this was a guild reserved for mainly high end bespoke armourers. It is also recorded that an English armour made in the Greenwich Armoury would typically cost three times more than its equivalent made in Italy. And the War of the Roses meant that both the House of York and Lancaster had to hire armies to equip them fast, so importing harnesses from Italy was evidently the most efficient way forward. It should be said that some of the items of armour I've shown in this documentary today are actually from French armouries, most likely from the workshops of Lyon. But French armour throughout the 15th century was also very similar to Italian, and seems to be a mix of English, Flemish, German and Italian all in one depending on the region. So, in summary, both Gothic and Italian armour certainly excelled in their individual fields, and were highly sought after throughout the 1400s and beyond. Gothic armour from Germany is generally regarded as the pinnacle of medieval armour creation abilities, and Italian armour certainly dominated the export industry. Whilst Gothic armour contained much more artistry and decoration, the Italian harnesses achieved elegance through pure utilitarian design and shaping, being made specifically to deal with the main battlefield hazards of the time. I hope you have enjoyed this documentary on the introduction of both Gothic and Italian armour of the late 15th century, pointing out their differences and various stylistic approaches. And of course, if you have any further questions regarding this subject which has not been answered in this video, please feel free to ask in the comments section below, and I am sure we can have a very productive conversation together and discuss things in more depth. But for now, thanks for watching.