CHAPTER XXV
ARMOUR OF A TYPE NOW VAGUELY TERMED LANDSKNECHT AND XVIth CENTURY ARMOUR UNDER CLASSICAL INFLUENCE
At this point we find ourselves in an attitude of mental hesitation;
for, having now arrived at a period towards the close of the first
half of the XVIth century, we are in some doubt as to whether
we should follow our natural desire to march straight ahead in
order to carry on our sequence of suits directly influenced by the
later Maximilian feeling, or whether we should go back to the early years
of the XVIth century, so as to deal with those harnesses in which the
classicism of the Italian Renaissance made itself felt so strongly both as
regards decoration and even form. We have decided to proceed to the next
class of defence immediately evolved from the Maximilian style, viz.,
"Landsknecht" armour. We agree that the true Landsknecht soldier fought
on foot, but when we refer to this armour the reader will see that it is a type
suitable for both mounted and foot soldier. The term may seem to some an
unsuitable one, but to the author, who has lived, as it were, entangled in
armour jargon, and to all collectors, it connotes a definite class of harness. This
armour was in use in almost all civilized countries, and was less influenced
by the civil fashion in dress of the time than the direct Maximilian; though
that which we see to-day is, as a rule, the product of Germany. We wish
to imply by the term a class of armour which is of almost stock pattern
but which occasionally is distinguished by the work of the most skilled of
armourers. If we describe three suits of the class it will suffice; for these will
take us well into the second half of the XVIth century, and we shall have no
occasion to return to the type again.
Among the possessions of the Musée d'Artillerie of Paris is a fine suit of armour of this not uncommon type, but of the high class to which we have alluded (G 117) (Fig. 1048). It is a work wrought under the direct influence of Kolman of Augsburg, and belongs certainly to the so-called Landsknecht group. In this instance the suit is of fairly well established
