Arms of Chivalry

Knighthood in all its panoply was on display again last week in Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art. To the delight of youngsters and oldsters alike, the Met's armor collection, second only to the great European collections in Vienna, Madrid and Paris, was back after five years in storage and on loan while the collection's ten galleries and corridors were being renovated. There was no doubt that the armor had been missed; up to 2,800 visitors a day thronged the main, banner-decked central court, to see the pick of an array that ranges from the earliest complete set of Gothic armor to the opulent Elizabethan harness once worn by the Queen's Champion, George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland.

As the Met's collection shows, the warriors of the Middle Ages accepted nothing but the best--and the best was cold hammered steel. Messire Olivier de la Marche, Captain of the Guards to Charles the Bold, wrote in its praise: "Steel is the most noble metal--of it one makes war harnesses, swords, daggers and other glaives by means of which-valor is shown by enemy against enemy." The tough steel plate gave helmsmiths and armorers a far harder task than was faced by earlier artisans, who worked in iron and bronze. But medieval and Renaissance craftsmen achieved results that for pure, functional beauty rank with the most remarkable workmanship ever done in metal.

Plumes for the Joust. "A homogeneous suit of medieval armor is much rarer than a medieval castle or cathedral," says the Met's Arms and Armor Curator Stephen V. Grancsay. But the few suits that have survived show that by the mid-15th century, armorers had achieved near perfection in their art. Making suits of as many as 120 separate pieces, they could completely sheathe a knight in skillfully molded armor, elegant in its burnished, plain surfaces, and so meticulously fitted that it followed the play of each muscle, the hinging of each joint. Viewed simply as objects of beauty, the massive helms are symbolic of the knight's dauntless courage, as the mailed fist is of his might.

As knighthood came to full flower, the well-equipped knight needed as many as six suits to fulfill his ceremonial and battle functions. His armorers replaced the earlier painted decorations by designs etched with acid, a technique used on armor long before it became an artist's medium. On his jousting armor, they added elaborate horned devices and feathered plumes, cushioning his stallion with heavy velvet "peytrels," i.e., chest protectors, and bedecking his lances with ribbons.

Cupids for Parade. For victory pageants, knights went all out for display, borrowing the services of such artists as Holbein, Dtirer. Leonardo da Vinci and Cellini for helmet designs and devices that were etched, gilded, embossed and damascened on the steel plate. The best Florentine painters of the day were called on to decorate ceremonial shields and banners. So dazzling were the results that one of Milan's great armorers, Tomaso Missaglia, was not only knighted but exempted from all taxes as well. Such splendid casques as Milan's other great armorer, Philip de Negroli, made for France's Francis I, with tendrils, flowers and cupids sculptured in cold steel, earned him the title. "The Michelangelo of Armorers."

The most striking single suit of armor in the Met's collection is the harness worn by Jacques Galiot de Genouilhac, Master of Artillery to both Louis XII and Francis I. Valued today at upwards of $250,000, it was not only triple-breastplated against musket balls, but etched and gilded from helm to toe. Genouilhac's armor, like that of another six-footer. Anne de Montmorency (named for his godmother. Anne of Brittany, Queen Consort of France), makes it clear that knights were no half-pint warriors. Says Curator Grancsay: "When it comes to putting on the old leg greaves, few of us can fit into them. But the men for whom this armor was made had broad shoulders, with slim waists and legs. They were riders."

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