Boys' armour

Boys' armours occupy a special position among defensive arms - midway between fantasy and curiosity. Most of these armours are costly items of meticulous workmanship, with a purpose resembling that of parade armour: in principle they can withstand blows from weapons, but at the same time they are never really intended to receive any. Obviously, small boys did not take part in real combat, while on the other hand parade armours for adults may conceivably be worn for bellicose games.

There are, it is true, boys' armours which are plain and smooth, resembling ordinary warrior's armour, but the great majority are ornamental: richly engraved, chased and embossed, gilded, inlaid with gold and silver, blued, blackened etc. Nothing was too beautiful for the son of an emperor, a king, a man of noble birth or a wealthy officer! Most of these armours were made by the foremost armourers of the age, and like the armours worn by adults, their form and décor conformed to the civilian fashion of the day.

These armours are not expensive toys intended merely for the child's amusement in "war games". Above all they are meant to be seen and admired at important court ceremonies or on public occasions. At the same time they are an attempt to present the boy to spectators in his future role as military commander. Like other luxury weapons, boys' armours have secondary social purposes and connotations.

This could be taken to remarkable extremes, as in the case of the three sons of Philip III of Spain (1598-1612), whose armours have helmets coated with silver on the inside, whereas the inside of their father's helmet is coated with gold.

Most types of armour were made for children as well as adults: light and heavy field armours, armour with a tonlet, armour for foot-combat and combat over the barrier, and plainer armours consisting solely of helmet and cuirass. There do not appear to have been any boys' imitations of the armour worn for the joust or tournament, with all its reinforcing pieces.

Attaching such pieces to the armour would have impeded the child's movements and natural grace, the latter being heightened by facial expression. The child's head, after all, is part of the charm of his armour and, accordingly, we may presume that the tinies wore burgonet or cabasset helmets, which would leave their faces open to view, whereas closed helmets entirely covering the face were used far less often, although they could be worn with the visor lifted.

However this may be, these parade armours could very well be worn without a helmet, as is demonstrated by the many court portraits in which the helmet, open or closed, is positioned beside the subject, on a table together with his gauntlets. A point to be emphasised about these portraits is the ambiguity of some of them. One need only depict the head of a young man in boy's armour for the latter to take on a different appearance in the eyes of the beholder, and vice versa: armour for a full-grown man, but with a child's head, gives the impression of the perfect suit of armour for a boy.

Something like eighty boys' armours, complete or otherwise, are known to be extant. Most of them belonged to small princes between the ages of two and twelve. The oldest known pieces of armour for boys date from 1380-1400 and are now in the treasury of Chartres Cathedral. They form an incomplete ensemble consisting of a brigandine and a number of pieces to protect the arms and legs.

The youngest dated boy's armour is in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and was presented by Louis XIV to his great grandson, the future Louis I (1707-1724) of Spain when, at the age of five, he became Prince of the Asturias (i.e. Crown Prince). This magnificent armour consists of a burgonet, breast- and back-pieces, pauldrons, gauntlets and tassets. It is blued with gilded borders, covered with rivets of gilded bronze in the shape of fleursde-lis, castles and lions - heraldic emblems of the Spanish Bourbons - and the back-piece is inscribed: Drouar Ordinarie du Roy au Heume à Paris 1712.