Armor as the mirror of luxury

Armour, the knight's equipment, must surely be the most splendid and costly men's fashion history has known, a fashion appearing between the middle of the fifteenth century and the second third of the seventeenth.

Originally, though, armour was not primarily intended to adorn the wearer. It was much more concerned with fulfilling the mounted knight's dream of "invulnerability" that is, protecting their bodies. In the 15th century, the armour workshops of Milan made this eternal dream come true by producing a completely flexible casting of steel. Because sheet armour only afforded real protection when fitted closely to the body, the garments underneath also had to be made tighter.

Already in the 16th century, though, armour began to lose its original protective function. Both technical and military innovations caused the idea of the horseman's invulnerability to be increasingly called into question. This did not make armour superfluous for the élite on the contrary, the expensive, intractable material in itself is best suited for ornamental purposes. The less effective armour became as a form of protection, the more it developed into an exclusive work of art, indeed a status uniform for those in a position to afford it.

As a status symbol, armour became the favourite toy of the European nobility, due to the way in which its splendour reflected the rank and status of the wearer. Every court festival, therefore, became a manifestation of social standing, an event of state confirming the legitimacy of the ruler, and commensurately lavish and expensive. Armour as a status symbol of the long-dismounted "ancient" chevalier continued, perhaps unconsciously, to embody virtues and ideals which were obviously endagered. Accordingly, there was no more impressive way for a ruler or prince to display his power than, for example, by means of an adequately costly and elaborate suit of armour. No other fashion could make him look so heroic and at the same time unattainable, as a symbol of power, in full possession of the ancient virtues enclosed in his casing as he advanced at a suitable pace.

Armour, whether intended for pageants, for tournaments, hastiludes in other words, or worn in connection with other political events, was always the centre of attention. From "Inventario Illuminado", which appeared in 1544, we can decude that the Emperor Charles V had to put on a new "steel suit" for every grand occasion. "Privately", it is true, he preferred "simplicity", but the garnitures made for him are among the most exclusive to be found anywhere, fully appropriate, both qualitatevly and quantitatively to his role as "ruler on whose lands the sun never sets". For the same reason, armour was immensely appreciated as a diplomatic gift. This, coupled with economic consideration, may have been part of the reason why Maximilian I, Charles V's grandfather, founded his own armour workshop, just as Henry VIII of England had done in Greenwich.

His gifts of armour were of course meant to be worn by the recipient with pride, and this donation role became all the more important when armour had ceased to be official costume and had been transformed into collector's items, no less appreciated, for art cabinets and princely collections. This passion for collecting was pioneered by the Archduke Ferdinand II of the Tyrol. His "Heroes' Armoury" at the castle of Ambras endowed armour with the new significance of status costume befitting a hero: judging by portrait art (Ferdinand also took pains to build up a collection of portraits of famous personages) armour now also served as a "memoria" to its wearer.

Armour as a collectable thus survived into the 17th century, symbolising national honour and commemorating proud ancestry. The Englightenment was a low-watermark in the appreciation of armour, save as the relic of an unenlightened but happily vanquished past. For a short time at the end of the 18th century, on the other hand, it took on a new lease of life as a fictional romantic heritage, proof that heroes of history and folk tale had really existed.

Armour was now par préference the costume used by the nobility in creating its memorials that is, when sitting for portraits: any man looked much more impressive and heroic in a splendid, radiant suit of steel, which often reflected the light in every direction, than in the textile equivalent, be it ever so elegant; so it was only natural that not only famous warriors and generals but also their princes and rulers made a policy of wearing this kind of "costume" when they had their portraits painted.

And the most renowned painters, such as Titian, Tintoretto, Cranach and Dürer, show in their portraits of famous persons clad in armour how the partly rerflective material, the metal, challenged their painterly skill as they created the realistic, sensuous illusion of it on the canvas. One is almost tempted to believe that this artistic interest and its impressive results are the main reason why armour as a feature of portraits be they full length, three-quarters or half-length survived for so long, well past the mid-18th century that is, into an age when it had long since fallen out of use. In these portraits, armours acquires a historical and symbolic function which is above all political. Many of the suits of armour in these paintings are no longer extant, or have only partly survived, but they tell us a great deal about the former quality of these luxury articles.

At the height of its importance, during the 15th and 16th centuries, armour signals the rapid changeability of aesthetic ideals and fashion, not least because, of necessity, it was closely related to the garments worn under it.

The close connection between fashion and armour at that time is reflected, for example, by Charles V's boyhood armour, with its tonlet by the Innsbruck master Konrad Seusenhofer (fl. 1500-1517, Vienna, Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer). Both masters display supreme control of the intractable material, steel, in their virtuoso imitation of, respectively, horseman's armour from the Low Countries and the costume of the German Landsknecht.

Just as the Parisian haute couture ateliers acquired monopoly status in Europe because of their unique creations, for generations during the 15th century the Milanese armourers' workshops dominated the European market as producers of luxury armour. Apart for a kind of off-the-peg armour manufacturing, the Milanese workshops produced various styles which are devolved in countries with differing tastes, complete armours "alla tedesca" or "alla francese", and in time they also established workshops in Spain, France and England. Competition was boosted by demand, and before long armourers in Germany were also aspiring to equal and, preferably, surpass the Italians in this field.

Augsburg was the leading city, especially for meiculous and elegant workmanship which is why orders were placed there even by Charles V and the royal court of Spain but workshops in other places were also appreciated for special qualities. Apart from Nuremberg, Brunswick and Landshut, Innsbruck had a particularly good reputation for the hardness of its products.

The guilds in Germany would not allow the kind of large-scale, almost industrialised enterprise existing in Italy. It would only sanction businesses run by masters with two journeymen and up to four apprentices, and so demand rapidly engendered innumerable armour workshops, most of which, however, were only capabe of manufacturing cheap, mass products or of carrying out maintenance work, as master armourers, on large collections.

Only a handful of masters were equal to the constantly rising technical and artistic criteria of fine quality work. In the ranking order of the guilds they occupied roughly the same status as goldsmiths or sculptors. The most talented of them received commissions from rulers and princes for exclusive models, and sometimes they behaved like celebrity designers. We are told, for example, that the famous Jörg Seusenhofer, having been commissioned to make a suit of armour for King Francis I of France, went to Paris to study his client's every movement. Normally sending measurements or pieces of fabric cut to size would be sufficient. So it is easy to understand why courts became very interested inacquiring production facilities of their own, capable of turning out everything from quality armour, for use at the court itself or for presentation purposes, to mass products.

The armourers, like tailors, started with patterns showing the customers' measurements, which they transferred to a sheet of armour plate. After the pieces had been cut out, they were first cold-worked with hammers on an anvil. If a more rounded shape was to be produced, as for example in the extreme case of fashioning a skull and comb from a single piece, the iron often had to be heated so as to avoid setting up stresses in the metal. Then, when all the parts had been cold-worked - and, in the case of a full armour including all the joints and rings down to the individual parts of a gauntlet, this could mean more than 170 different parts of the most varied sizes - they were sent to the grinding mill, where the innumerable hammer marks were evened out. Then it was the turn of the polisher, who burnished the different parts to a brilliant sheen.

Various similar craft techniques nearly all of them in the case of the most eminent luxury items were used for decorating fine products as contemporary taste required. Often an etcher was employed to incise a pre-drawn pattern in the metal, using acid. To highlight this pattern, the metal would be blackened or, in the case of very important commissions, partly or wholly mercury-gilded by the gilder. The latter decorative technique was based on applying an amalgam of gold and mercury and then using heat to drive off the (immensely toxic) mercury - an art for which the gilders paid a high price in the form of a much shorter lifetime. The many elaborate etchings (Eisenradierungen), were frequently commissioned from such outstanding masters as Daniel Hopfer the Elder, Hans Burgkmair, Hans Holbein the Elder, Ambrosius Gemlich, Heinrich Aldegrever or Albrecht Dürer. These and many others, at all events, provided the initial designs, even if they did not set their hand to the actual work.

Bluing or browning of the metal was not only a popular method of colour decoration but superimposed a protective chemical layer on the polished steel and was frequently combined with other techniques. Gold enamelling (Goldschmelz) was a particularly expensive form of decoration. The technique resembled champlevé, in which the engraved pattern was filled with gold, which stood out very effectively against the dark-blued background.

Costlier still was embossed work, which could be either blued or browned but could also be done in blank relief. Outstanding masters like Filippo Negroli, Giovanni Battista Serabaglio or Lucio Piccinino rank here on a level with the schools of the Flemish and German masters, among whom Elisäeus Libaerts and Jörg Sigman deserve special mention. Engraving, finally, in addition to gold and silver encrustation (with the rare metal either hammered on or inserted in cavities or applied as relief) was another of the decorative forms associated with armour. Not infrequently, the master craftsmen combined all or nearly all these possible methods in one and the same armour.

Finally, when the parts had been decorated as required, they were sent back to the armourer who assembled them, drilled the necessary holes and joined everything together with straps and hinges.

In the end the armour must not only fit, be pliable in all its cunningly worked parts and conforom to the most exacting of requirements, it also had to make up for all manner of bodily defects on the part of the wearer, give him a good appearance and like a sculpture comply with the contemporary sense of form and beauty.

The final stage of work was performed by an upholsterer who lined and padded the armour, often with very expensive silk or atlas.

No wonder, then, that a year or more could often elapse between the commissioning of an armour or garniture and its completion. And there were prices to match. Thus the "Adler Garniture" for the young Archduke Ferdinand in 1547 cost his father, Ferdinand I, the more than princely sum of 1,258 guilders, equalling twelve years' pay for a high-ranking courtier. This money went to his Innsbruck armourer, Jörg Seusenhofer. Another 463 guilders then had to be paid for gilding. This was an enormour amount of money to spend on equipment which was only used for a few years. But highly decorated "single armour" for man and horse was also expensive.

For example, the "Milanse armour" delivered to Ferdinand I in 1559 cost no less then 2,400 "Welschen Kronen". To earn that amount of money, a master mason at that time would had to work 21,840 days, i.e. 59 years, Saturdays and Sundays included. These examples have only been taken to convey some idea of the monetary value of the armours. Their value at the time was immensely greater: Titian, a master whose works today are almost invaluable, received, as payment for a portrait, roughly one-twelfth of what the armour alone had cost the subject. Today the money thus spent on a garniture or a suit of ceremonial armour can only be compared with such attributes also of sheet metal as luxury yachts, limousines or executive jets.