ARMET OF SIR HENRY LEE, BY JACOB TOPF, 1530-1597]
The most ingenious arrangement of sliding rivets, however, is to be found on the brassards of the late fifteenth to the seventeenth century. As has been noticed on page 6, the armourer had to consider in this case both the defensive needs of his patron and also the necessity for using his arm as conveniently as was consistent with safety.
Now the only actions needed for the right arm are those of holding the lance in rest and of striking with the sword. The arm-defence therefore had to be so constructed that the arm could be bent for the former and raised for the latter. To do this the lames of the rerebrace are joined with sliding rivets at the hinder corners, but at the front corners they are joined with a strap fastened vertically to the top plate of the brassart and riveted, when extended straight, to each lame.
This allows play for the lames in the two above-mentioned positions, but when the arm is dropped, after the blow has been delivered, the lames automatically close one over the other and completely protect the arm and allow no backward movement.
The same arrangement is found on the laminated cuisses and tassets, in which the inner edges of the lames are joined by a strap and the outer by sliding rivets. This combination of sliding rivet and strap is shown on Fig. 7 and on Plate IX.
Another ingenious arrangement on the brassard is the turned-over edge or the embossed rim fitting in a collar, both of which allow the lower part of the rerebrace to turn horizontally to adapt it to the outward action of the hand and arm. In most suits the bossings of the rims are outside, but on the “Engraved Suit” (II, 5) in the Tower they are inside. The former gives a smooth surface to the wearer’s arm and the latter presents a smooth surface to the opposing weapon (Fig. 31).
[Illustration: FIG. 31. Sections of Rerebraces.
1. “Engraved Suit,” Tower, II, 5, 1514. 2. Tower, II, 6, 1540. 3. Tower, II, 7, 1570. 4. Wallace Collection, 340.]
A similar rim and collar are found on close helmets and gorgets of the sixteenth century (Plate XIII). Meyrick,[75] misreading Fauchet’s[76] reference to the burgonet, considered this helmet with a lower edge fitting into the gorget to be the burgonet, but he brought no real evidence to support his assertion. Although the helmet and gorget fitted one over the other and therefore surmounted one of the chief dangers in war or joust, when the lance might penetrate the space between these two portions of the suit, it will be seen on examination of any suit of this kind that from the oblique position of the gorget the embossed rim of the helmet could not possibly turn in the hollowed rim of the gorget, so that it can only be considered as a defensive improvement which in no way added to the convenience in use, if anything it rather hampered the wearer, as he could only turn his head inside the helmet and that to no great extent. In some late suits a pin fixed at the back of the gorget comes through a hole in the lower edge of the helmet and _prevents_ any possible movement.
