The late Herr Wendelin Boeheim thought that Jacobe could be identified with an armourer of Innsbrück named Jacob Topf, concerning whom he had made researches which had led him to suspect that from 1562 to 1575 he was absent from Innsbrück, and Viscount Dillon, although feeling that there were some difficulties about dates, adopted that identification. As a result, the Viscount's book was called "An Almain Armourer's Album," and of late years we have heard much of Topf suits, meaning those suits still existing in England which have been identified as having been portrayed in the MS.
Of late years doubt has arisen concerning the correctness of this identification of Jacobe with Topf. We ourselves think not only that this identification was never established, but that it never at any time rested on any serious foundation. Boeheim was a savant to whom armour-students are indebted for much excellent work; but he was very much given to jumping at conclusions arrived at on insufficient evidence, or on evidence incorrectly interpreted, and he was disinclined to discuss a view differing from his own. Having mentioned all that is known about Jacobe, we will now briefly state what Boeheim discovered concerning Jacob Topf. He was born in 1530, and is thought to have been absent from Innsbrück from 1562 until 1575, in which latter year he received payment for work done in that town. In 1581 he was in the employ of the Archduke of the Tyrol; but payments are recorded for work done by him in Germany in 1578, 1584, and 1587. After that we hear nothing more of him, and Boeheim supposes that he died in 1587.[1] There is a strange confusion in the account of Topf given in this book between Jacob Topf and a Caspar Topf. The account is headed Jacob Topf auch Topff und Dopf, and begins with Jacob, but it eventually deals with Caspar Topf as though he were the same man. We can only suppose that some part of the account was omitted by mistake.
If Jacob Topf really died in 1587 his identity with the "Jacobi" mentioned in Sir Henry Lee's letter would at once be disposed of. It is true that Sir Henry says that the trial of iron was made "in the time of Mr. Secretary who God hath latly called to his mercy." Mr. Secretary was Sir Francis Walsingham, Principal Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth, who died on 6 April 1590, six months before the letter was written; but the letter certainly gives the impression that Jacobe was living and working at Greenwich when it was indited. Viscount Dillon, in his introduction to his Album,
- ↑ Wendelin Boeheim, Meister der Waffenschmiedekunst vom XIV bis ins XVIII Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1897, 8vo, p. 217.
