Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/237

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Fig. 544. Brigandine

Early XVIth century. This is one of the brigandines mentioned in the 1547 inventory

Tower of London. Class III, No. 47

of radiating lines on the exterior. The scales are angular at the sides of the garment and rounded at the back and breast, and each iron plate has been tinned to preserve it from rust. From the fact that many of its scales have impressed upon them a fleur-de-lis this jacket has been considered to be of French origin (Fig. 542). We next give an illustration (Fig. 543) of a portion of a XVth century Portuguese picture attributed to Nuno Gonsalvez, Court painter to Alfonso of Portugal (1438-1481), and shown in the National Museum, Lisbon, which depicts two kneeling figures of armed noblemen, each wearing velvet-covered and studded brigandines of the same form as that of the Darmstadt example. In our Tower collection are the remains of several brigandines of which there are records in the 1547 inventory. The example we illustrate can be assigned to the early years of the XVIth century (Fig. 544). In the Brander MS. inventory of the armour and arms at Westminster, at the Tower, and at Greenwich, to which we have previously referred, there are constant allusions to the "Briggendines," some complete, having sleeves covered with crimson, some with sleeves covered with cloth of gold, and some with sleeves covered with blue satin. Items, too, in the same inventory described as "White lynnen clothe called millen