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Welsh Bucklers
Ifor Edwards and Claude Blair
The Antiquaries Journal / Volume 62 / Issue 01 / March 1982, pp 74 - 115 DOI: 10.1017/S0003581500003991, Published online: 29 November 2011
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0003581500003991
How to cite this article: Ifor Edwards and Claude Blair (1982). Welsh Bucklers. The Antiquaries Journal, 62, pp 74-115 doi:10.1017/S0003581500003991
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By IFOR EDWARDS and CLAUDE BLAIR, F.S.A. I. Documentary Evidence from Medieval Welsh Poetry1 By Ifor Edwards
DESPITE certain variations from early times, the continuation of the traditional form of patronage of the Welsh poets into medieval times ensured a continuity of poetry which varied mainly in its subject matter and form of poetic conceit only. The pattern of Welsh life—of uchelwyr (noblemen) and beirdd teulu (family poets)—was a development over the centuries from the days of the Welsh princes through the period of the Norman Conquest, when the poets were absorbed into the changing fabric of the new society almost unaltered. Patronage by the uchelzvyr existed before 1282—a memorable year for Welsh history in the reign of Edward I—but was overshadowed by that of the princes. After that date the uchelwyr were not bound by law to support the poets, and hence the poets had no legal status. Poets often became peripatetic, although some attached themselves to one particular family when this was possible. As patronage became voluntary there was no legal obligation to bestow gifts. Patrons were praised in several ways: by direct eulogy or elegy (the patron need not be deceased), or by a new genre, the cywydd gofyn, a poem of asking. When a bard or a friend wished to obtain a gift, he would first of all make a request. If the request was granted, then the poet would produce a cywydd gofyn. Usually such a poem gave a detailed account of the patron's ancestors, extolling their noble birth and virtues. Then came dyfalu—a technical bardic term—implying a description of the object requested by comparing it with many, varied objects. This comparison not only implies similarity but the many associations related to that similarity. One of the poems of Guto'r Glyn, an ode 'To David, Abbot of Valle Crucis Abbey, to thank him for a buckler',2 written shortly before 1500, illustrates this point in the lines: 297 Pob gordd yn pwyaw heb gam Pricswng y siop o Wrecsam. (Every blow of the hammer was faultless The prize of the shop at Wrexham.) The prize, the pricksong {pricswng), meant a song/music pricked on to vellum. Guto'r Glyn compared the buckler to a finely executed medieval music manuscript, illuminated in various colours and gold. In the period 1475 to the second half of the sixteenth century many odes and elegies3 were written to the uchelwyr, and among the popular gifts requested were bucklers and swords. From the Welsh poets of this period we are able to elicit descriptions of the bucklers of the period. No doubt, certain regions of England and Wales had their own variations of bucklers. The examples from the poems quoted below instance some of the Welsh varia- WELSH BUCKLERS 75 tions and they serve to throw some light on the attractiveness and craftsmanship of the bucklers of this period. Guto'r Glyn, whose lines were quoted above, was probably a native of the Dee valley above Llangollen. Apart from performing his duties as a poet, he was a soldier and at one time was one of the personal bodyguards to Edward IV. Gutun Owain, whose poetry flourished between 1460 and 1503, was a native of St. Martin's, near Oswestry, about ten miles from Llangollen. Two of his descriptive odes are relevant here: (a) an ode asking for a buckler from John Puleston of Hafod y Wern in Wrexham on behalf of John, son of Elis Eyton of Watstay, Ruabon; and (b) an ode asking for a buckler on behalf of Humphrey Kynaston of Stokes, near Ellesmere, from Gruffudd of Morton, Ruabon, son of Hywel, who lived at Althrey, Bangor on Dee, near Wrexham.4 The poem (a) to John Puleston has a fine description of the buckler which is being requested: it is referred to as being like the Round Table of King Arthur at Caerleon with a boss of round steel, with the finger-lines like a crab.5 The poet was asking for a steel buckler worthy of a man as brave as Owain ab Urien (one of the traditional heroes), one decorative and as round as the moon. 102 A picture of the sun full of rivets A buckler with snowflakes or with flowers of steel scattered all over it. Fine silver dew sparkles in the splendour The rivets are sparks from the sun. Like a games6 table (inlaid) with fine crystal stones A steel frieze, a shield to excite one. 109 There are steel laths in the buckler And three rings on top of the ribs 112 Surround it and its boss hollow. In the ode written for Humphrey Kynaston by Gutun Owain we find the following description of a buckler: 27 A song to you will come from your relative, It was praise—asking for a buckler from him: A steel moon for the old (brave) soldier, It is an addition to a man's left hand. Hollow steel is found on its mantle, (It is very welcome on his white tunic;) With a hundred crosses on the white shirt, A token to be held, it will not allow a wound, (With) a nest for the fist behind the steel. The gown (covering) is moulded like a beehive, A curved cake over a man's limbs. Many ribs are found from its body, Wings to keep a soul. There is a precious stone on every rib, Small white ones like the gems of the swallow. The dew of the blacksmith, bright and beautiful are they, They are the beautiful flowers of the smithy. 76 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL (As beautiful) as the best in the shops of Cheapside,7 Stars as thickly powdered as on the Milky Way. It is likened to a thick bag, Give this, tall brave man, Your nephew desires to receive Your gift, brave, genial man. Give your golden buckler, 50 Your nephew and your gift will come to your aid. Another poet of the period, Tudur Aled, came from the same county of Clwyd but spent his last days in Carmarthen. He flourished from 1480 to the year of his death in 1526. The ode, where he asks the favour of four bucklers from the four sons of Elis Eyton of Ruabon for their uncle, Hywel, son of Jenkin from Tywyn in Gwynedd, has great des- criptive powers with cryptic sketches of the four sons in the opening verses.8 47 Four bucklers of Peredur, Planets in steel honeycombs; Where dwell twelve knuckles, Four bosses snug for the fist; Four balls like holly berries, The smith's pepper in white paper; Each buckler like a streak of lightning, With all its limbs pock-marked; They are leafy, glass honeycombs, Steel dice on the left hand of a man; Relics, stars, like the opening of a causeway; Frozen hurdles in an iron palm; Sparks of the three heavy anvils, Grains of pelting rain on white skin; The colour of stars, entirely sunlit, The eyes of a pike in the sun; 63 Wrought steel, fine, in heat. A second ode by Tudur Aled, an elegy, pays tribute to a renowned buckler maker of Ruabon, near Wrexham: he was Ieuan ap Deicws.9 The requested buckler was to be made by his two pupils who probably worked at the same smithy in Ruabon Parish, after the death of Ieuan. This would have been on the estate of John ab Elis Eyton, referred to above. Ieuan is described as: 10 Ieuan the father of smiths, 6 He was the prince of smithery, Principal author with steel and fire, A prophet in the forge hearth .... 19 A hand that instructs better than any, A hand which is the foundation of all skill.... The area around Ruabon, was renowned for its bloomery forges from early days. In it was an area known as 'Morton Fabrorum', as well as 'Morton Anglicorum' (as distinct from 'Morton Wallicorum', on the Welsh side of Offa's Dyke). In the bloomery forges the WELSH BUCKLERS 77 iron was smelted in the bloom hearth (fabrica bloomeria) and passed to the string hearth {fabrica operand) for working and stretching the iron. These were side by side. Early maps of the region of Morton near Ruabon show a number of small ponds which were probably connected with this early period of iron-making. An indenture of 1472 granted a lease of land to Ieuan ap Deicws for him to raise iron- stone from Ruabon Mountain, which suggests that he had not only a smithy but also a bloomery forge to make his iron.10 This may have been indicative of the pattern of iron- working in Wales at this time, until the 'indirect method' of iron-making arrived, using blast furnace and forge. In the case of Ruabon, a blast furnace was in existence here prior to 1634 when it was occupied by 'Roger Hill'.11 No doubt the siting of the furnace would have been influenced by the presence of cinders from the bloomery forges: these were considered to be an essen- tial additive to the iron ore in the blast furnace. More than one farm in this area still bears the name 'Cinders' to this day, and often iron cinders can be found as coping on the farm walls; and the village nearby has the name of 'Gefelia' (Smithies). This was the area where Ieuan ap Deicws worked, where the tradition of buckler making was once an important one. A similar style of poem of the period by Huw Cae Llwyd who flourished from 1455 to 1500 gives a similar description using different poetic imagery:12 3 I wish for a steel buckler from Blaenau,13 That is necessary, if it can be obtained with a hollow boss. A beautiful belfry above the wrist, A steel cloister, a good court for the fist. A bulging cover in swift combat, Speckled (work of) the wood turner, a fighter of blows. A cover as a gift against a red blooded wound, An eclipse of the sun against the blows of insults. The keeper from the striking of the ear, And the keeper of the eye and hand. It keeps the quarrel from blood and bustle, A layer of steel it is. It is a covering that carries easily. (It has) the eyes of the salmon of the ocean, The colour of the day on the fresh covering, And the colour of night on the boss and point. It is sad not to have steel and hilt (sword and buckler), A protector to me from a cold threat, 23 In my hand the same shape as the full moon. An ode by Rhys Nanmor asking for a buckler from Lewis Mon indicates, if the text is correct, that this buckler may have been fashioned in the forges of Kent, or Sussex, 'by the Strait of Dover'.14 The conceit of 'asking' is made for a gift which has already been received. 45 My gift was worked by the Strait of Dover The garb of the steel plate like a wafer, (Worked) into a fine shield as a New Year's gift, 78 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL (As beautiful) as a peacock, breast and beak ... It was likened to the cup of Tubal Among the men from the feast of blessed Arthur. A helmet, and a hollow wine bowl. And from the wine a beak for the lips. A circular splendid relic, An excellent craft around the relic. A defender for me against oppression, I can inflict a blow against another. Circles (made by) the smith around white skin, And the crown of the anvil under them, (they were worked on the anvil) Its back is rounded by the strength of hammers, Like a thick vault of dark green velvet. A brass fire-door, steel from brittle fire, Golden water boiling through the bars. Full of rivets like the Round Table of Winchester, 64 A grate full, they are like tears. Some of the lines of the poem refer to 'a precious stone for my great hand ... covered in rings ... a golden bell set in silver rings', and (ornamented with) 'small rowan berries in coral'. A number of the poems refer to a gold-chased (eurgrtoydr) shield; also to lumps of metal (bzvliwtis) being used as decorations as one would find on the cover of a medieval manuscript. The poets of the period would have associations with the monks of the monasteries and hence comparisons were often made with their books with their illuminated and decorated pages. It should be borne in mind when using the poems with their descriptions of bucklers that one cannot be too literal, as they present many difficulties of translation: one can never be too sure whether the descriptions are photographic, pure imagery of the poet, or whether they are traditional images that have survived down the ages, sometimes related to medieval or earlier carvings in stone or wood, or to medieval MSS. Since our knowledge of the period is so scanty, allowances have to be made with the descriptions. Yet, the poems serve, in some respects, as chronicles of the time—we can feel the pulse of the period. They provide an untapped source for accounts of many features and objects which, in some cases, would otherwise be unknown. In this sense, they may be regarded as a valuable source for descriptions of bucklers, many of which must have been purely decorative for ceremonial occasions. The last extract from the poems of Lewis Glyn Cothi seeks a gift of a buckler from Sion ap Dafydd for his nephew, Gruffudd Llwyd ap Maredudd.15 Lewis Glyn Cothi was a staunch Lancastrian, as were the men of the Cydweli region where he lived. Possibly this buckler was intended for purely functional purposes, in time of war. The descriptions are not as rich as in other poems: 29 This I would liken to a pax, (To defend) from challenger, from poleaxe. A buckler that is bigger than a basinet, That is like a clock .... The book explains it too On my hand to all the world. WELSH BUCKLERS 79 Of the same shape and colour as a planet, It is a ball of glass against plague A lantern from the fire of the smith's craft, Luna and Sol against the tip of an arrow. It is Mars under bindings of the stars, Mercurius above outlaws. The circle of the clock to prevent a sword becoming rusty, Is the Venus on my fingernails. I know by the tip of my finger The placing of fist in Saturnus. Circle and boss to lock fingers, And all silver on the cross-guard of a sword. Plums/berries close together on one lattice From nails that have been beaten. Three girdles as if around a maiden, Three strings there are through the glade. A short drinking horn like a pear, We find, with a white finger from its head. From one side, to be put in a man's hand One can hold the edge of the harp. Nothing will exert, nothing will flourish Except what an uncle and nephew will do. Sion's New Year gifts are, Because you love him, for you, Gruffudd. May a buckler come for my faith, By a sword, fashioned like a lock. May there come to you a sieve worth ten shillings, From Sion's hand, like the saint's dish. May there come to you a whirl better than eight, 64 Give to Gruffudd his three rewards. There are many other poems relating to bucklers from this period, many unpublished in the manuscript hand of writers of a later period; but as with the above poem the imagery is rather complex and one can derive nothing new in the way of direct description from them. Mention must, however, be made of the latest one recorded. This is by Sion Tudur of Wicwair, St. Asaph (d. 1602), and asks Robert Pilstwn (Puleston) of Plas-ym-Mers (Bersham), Wrexham for a buckler for Sion Wyn of Melai. Pilstwn flourished during the period 1562-81, and the earliest known copy of the poem was made after 1573, so a date of c. 1570-80 is a likely one for composition.16 The buckler described was clearly similar to those mentioned in the earlier poems.
II. The Interpretation of the Documentary Evidence By Claude Blair
THE purpose for which the poems quoted by Mr. Ifor Edwards in the first part of this article were written leaves no doubt that the descriptions, over-rich in imagery though 80 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL they may sound to modern English ears, do refer to actual bucklers. It is probable, there- fore, that some of them have survived until the present, and might be identified if their real characteristics could be disentangled from the imagery of the poems. It is my task here to attempt to do this.17 It should perhaps first be made clear that at the period with which we are concerned the term buckler referred to a definite type of shield with the characteristic feature of a transverse grip at the back, by which it was held in the hand instead of being strapped to the forearm.18 The buckler was used in the left hand, in conjunction with a sword held in the right, for fencing, and examples are therefore usually smaller than shields of other kinds.19 They are also usually circular—though other shapes do occur—and frequently have a central boss made hollow at the back to take the front part of the fist holding the grip. No European bucklers known to me are studded with precious stones, and it is unlikely that any shield intended for practical use—as most, if not all, the bucklers of the poems surely were—would have been so decorated, since stones would soon have been broken off and lost or damaged in combat, whether with serious intent or merely for practice or sport. The references to precious stones in the descriptions, therefore, are not necessarily intended to be taken literally. It is not certain that all the bucklers described in the poems were of the same form, but there are common features in the descriptions which suggest that this is probable. If we examine these features in turn we can, I think, build up a composite picture of a buckler of recognizable type. Firstly, it is clear that the bucklers were normally circular, made of steel and equipped with hollow bosses: 'A picture of the sun full of rivets . .. and its boss hollow' 'A steel moon for the old (brave) soldier' 'Four bosses snug for the fist . . . Wrought steel, fine, in heat' 'I wish for a steel buckler from Blaenau ... In my hand the same shape as the full moon.'20 In one instance we have an allusive, though clear enough, description of a hollow, pear- shaped boss with a projecting spike at the front and a grip at the back: 'A short drinking horn like a pear, We find, with a white finger from its head. From one side, to be put in a man's hand One can hold the edge of the harp.'21 In another passage, clearly referring to the boss, quoted below, it is described as 'a golden bell'. The boss was encircled by rings, which were sometimes associated with laths or ribs: 'There are steel laths in the buckler And three rings on top of the ribs Surround it and its boss is hollow' 'Many ribs are found from its body' 'Circles (made by) the smith around white skin' WELSH BUCKLERS 81 '. . . a precious stone for my great hand . . . covered in rings ... a golden bell set in silver rings' 'Three girdles as if around a maiden'22 It is reasonable to assume that the laths or ribs crossed the rings at right-angles to form a trellis pattern, for the surface of one buckler is described as a lattice, while the four bucklers of Tudur Aled's poem are compared to honeycombs.23 Another is described as being 'Like a games table (inlaid) with fine crystal stones',24 which again implies a chequered surface. The comparison might even have been intended to refer to a circular chess-board of the kind reproduced from an illustration in a medieval manuscript in the British Museum by Joseph Strutt in his Sports and Pastimes?5 Three references are clearly to bucklers of convex or concave form: 'The gown (covering) is moulded like a beehive A curved cake over a man's limbs' 'A bulging cover in swift combat' 'It was likened to the cup of Tubal ... a hollow wine bowl ... Its back is rounded by the strength of hammers'26 The first passage also perhaps throws further light on the construction of the bucklers, since the old-fashioned dome-shaped straw beehive had the appearance of being made of a series of close-set rings. Finally, nearly all the descriptions emphasize that one of the most striking features of the bucklers was the effect produced by many rivet-heads sown all over their surfaces. For practical reasons already given, I have little doubt that references to precious stones and gems, as also to berries, are poetic ones and not to be taken literally. The strong prob- ability is that they refer to rivets, and this view is supported by the metaphors 'dew of the blacksmith . . . flowers of the smithy' applied to them, since real precious stones were prepared, not by blacksmiths, but by stone-polishers or stone-cutters, and mounted by jewellers or goldsmiths. 'A picture of the sun full of rivets A buckler with snowflakes or with flowers of steel scattered all over it. Fine silver dew sparkles in the splendour The rivets are sparks from the sun.' 'There is a precious stone on every rib, Small white ones like the gems of the swallow. The dew of the blacksmith, bright and beautiful are they, They are the beautiful flowers of the smithy. (As beautiful) as the best in the shops of Cheapside, Stars as thickly powdered as on the Milky Way.' 'Grains of pelting rain on white skin' 'Full of rivets like the Round Table of Winchester' 82 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL 'Plums/berries close together on one lattice From nails that have been beaten.'27 There are many allusions in the odes which I cannot attempt to explain,28 and my choice of quotations has, of course, been selective. I do not think, however, that the passages that I have not considered contain anything that materially affects the picture of a Welsh buckler we can compose from the extracts I have quoted. That picture is of a circular steel buckler, either convex or concave towards the body, with a hollow pear- or bell- shaped boss from which projects a spike. The boss is encircled by rings, which may be set closely together, and, on some examples at least, these are set over radiating ribs so as to produce a chequered or honycomb appearance. The surface is thickly sown with rivets with prominent heads, which, it is reasonable to assume, serve to hold the rings and ribs together. Across the back of the boss is a handle like 'the edge of a harp'. The description fits precisely a type of buckler (pis. xm-xxi) which has been well known to students of arms and armour since Francis Grose published woodcuts of two examples in his Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons of 1786.29 Our late Fellow Dr. Richard Williams, in an article published in 195730 listed all the then known examples, but in his accompanying historical note rejected the suggestion 'that these bucklers have a Welsh, or at least a Border association'. His reasons for doing so appear to have been based on nothing more than his personal opinion, and it is quite clear that he was unaware of the documentary evidence, both Welsh and English, in favour of the suggested association. It is only necessary to read his general description of the bucklers—which, it should be mentioned, is not entirely accurate—to see how closely it fits our description drawn from the Welsh odes: Though every one of these shields has its origin from the same workshop, and their general construction is similar, each example shows minor variations in size, weight, technical construction and finish. Essentially, they consist of twelve to fifteen circular iron strips, overlapping from without inwards. These elements are retained in position by long-shanked pins. Inserted from behind, these pins pass in succession the wooden base, two to three layers of leather, the iron rings, and are finally capped with a brass globose head. It is a tribute to the skill of the craftsman that so few rivet heads have parted company in a period of 450 years. The central portion of the shield is occupied by a semi-circular umbo [boss] to accommodate the fist: this in turn is succeeded by a globose process, terminating in an aggressive point. Concave from an adversary's out- look, the piece is backed by a pig-skin lining, and a short circular grip of oak or beech. As a protection it inspires great confidence.
Dr. Williams's general description is incomplete in that it does not mention the form of buckler which, as he himself notes elsewhere in his article, has a surface that 'presents a webbed appearance caused by the insertion of light strips crossing the circular elements at right angles'. It is also misleading in several respects: at least three bucklers include brass rings of which one has brass strips also,31 the boss is always circular, some bucklers have as few as seven rings which do not always overlap, the base seems always to be several layers of thick leather, and not wood, and the grip is usually of rounded-oblong (not circular) section. What Dr. Williams calls 'a globose process, terminating in an aggressive point' could perhaps be described more intelligibly as a hollow onion- or pear-shaped WELSH BUCKLERS 83 knob with a projecting spike. The whole boss might also be likened to a hand-bell, with the spike representing the handle (pi. xva), so that if it were gilded and the surrounding rings polished, it could very aptly be described as 'a golden bell set in silver rings'.32 Finally, Dr. Williams might have mentioned that the boss was sometimes stuffed with tow or hair, and emphasized that the iron 'long-shanked pins', or rivets, which hold the elements together are set along the ribs and rings in great profusion, so that on some examples their hemispherical or ovoidal brass heads give the surface almost a granular appearance. None of the thirty-one recorded bucklers of this type33 has any known associations with any country but Britain, except for the finest of all of them (pis. xvife-xvma), now in the Mus6e de l'Arme'e, Paris (No. 1.6), which came from the old Montmorency-Cond£ col- lection at Chantilly.34 This, however, is etched with the arms of King Henry VIII, accom- panied by the pomegranate badge of Catherine of Aragon, so that there can be no doubt about its original associations with this country. Three bucklers were excavated in the eighteenth century, respectively at: Old Oswestry (Yr Hen Ddinas) (pis. xivi-xv), on the Welsh border of Shropshire; Battlefield, near Shrewsbury (also in Shropshire), the site of the battle of 1403, though it must have been lost a century or more later; and Caerhun, near Conway (Conwy), Caernarvonshire. Two others, now in Shrewsbury Museum, are from Moreton Corbet Church, Shropshire, and are said to have come originally from Battlefield also; and another (pi. xm), formerly in Dr. Williams's own collection and now in the Tower of London (No. V. 109), is from Hilton Park, Staffordshire.35 Portions of a buckler, four detached bosses and a detached rim, all found in London, are in the Museum of London, and another from the Thames,36 while eight out of the remaining eighteen bucklers recorded are known to have been in England in the eighteenth century or before.37 The early history of the others is uncertain. In his study of the bucklers Dr. Williams divides them into three types, all of which are of the same shape—though varying in size and degree of concavity—and of the same basic construction of metal rings held to a leather base by iron rivets with small hemispherical or ovoidal brass heads, and with a hollow central boss of iron. The characteristics of the types are as follows:
Type 1 (pi. xm). The rings are arranged in two layers, with those in the upper one over- lapping the two adjacent rings in the lower layer. The upper rings, which are the only ones to be riveted, serve to retain the lower ones. There are no radiating laths and the boss is formed as a low hemisphere with a simple, nail-like spike, and a flanged edge through which the rivets securing it to the leather pass.
Type 2 (pis. xivi-xvn). This has the characteristic pear-shaped central projection on the boss. The rings, which are narrower than those on Type 1 and are all riveted, are spaced out so that the leather foundation is usually visible between them, and crossed by narrow riveted laths which radiate from the edge of the boss and so give the whole surface a honey- combed appearance. On some examples the rings and laths are set close together and on others wide apart. The rivets are placed at the points where the rings and laths intersect, and also close together round the main edge and the edge of the boss. At least three bucklers incorporate brass rings or laths: the smaller of the two in the Shrewsbury Museum, on 84 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL which all the laths and rings are of brass except for the iron rim-rings; the Ashmolean Museum buckler which has brass rings and iron laths; and the fragmentary buckler in the Museum of London which appears to be of the same composition as the Ashmolean one, though the metal used for the laths is not certainly identifiable without analysis.38
Type 3 (pis. xixb-xx). This has a boss as on Type 2, but no radial laths, and the rings, which are all riveted, are arranged so that they overlap each other from the rim inwards, The rivets are set very close together. A variant, not mentioned by Dr. Williams, has a Type i boss, and I therefore propose classifying it as Type 3 a, and the original Type 3 as Type 3b. Type 3a is so far represented certainly only by a buckler in the collection of the late Sir James Mann38 (pi. xixb), though the circular shield carried by a figure in the right foreground of Joris Hofnaegel's Fete at Bermondsey of c. 1570 at Hatfield House appears to be of the same type (pi. xixa). This last is large enough to be a target, with straps for attaching it to the forearms (brasses) rather than a true buckler, but the same makers would almost certainly have produced both types.40
Dr. Williams implies in his article that the three types represent a progressive develop- ment in construction, from which it follows that Type 1 is the earliest, and Type 3 the latest. His only comment on the actual date, however, is to say that he believes 'that all belong to the early years of the sixteenth century'. He does not give reasons for this belief, but leaves it to the reader to deduce that it is based on the evidence of the Henry VIII buckler at Paris, and of the painting of Henry's embarkation for the Field of Cloth of Gold of 1520 at Hampton Court, mentioned below. This is altogether too facile: the bucklers are utilitarian objects of a kind not usually subjected to rapid changes in fashion, and are likely to have been used over a rather longer period than Dr. Williams suggests. An examination of the small amount of evidence available for dating them, in addition to the Welsh odes, indicates that this was, in fact, the case. Type 1 (pi. xm), which is so far represented only by the buckler from Hilton Park, now in the Tower, is of much less sophisticated construction than the other two. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that it is closely related to them, since the rivets holding it together and its grip are of the forms that are among the characteristic features of the group: also its boss is almost identical in design to that on the Type 3a buckler mentioned above. A less sophisticated construction need not in itself mean an earlier date, but there is evidence to suggest that it does in this particular case. Carved on one of the misericords of 1447 in the parish church of Ludlow, Shropshire,41 is the figure of a man holding a buckler which, apart from the fact that it has fewer rings and no spike, is of very similar design (pi. xiva). It is, of course, impossible to say whether or not the rather simpler construction is the result of a natural simplification of detail by an artist working to a very small scale in fairly intractable oak and merely seeking to give a general impression of a buckler of a particular type, though it is likely enough that it is.42 In any event, it is sufficiently similar to the Hilton Hall buckler to justify using it as evidence to date the latter within the fifteenth century, and perhaps to its middle years. Dr. Williams points out in his article that in the foreground of the well-known painting at Hampton Court of Henry VIII's Embarkation at Dover for the Field of Cloth of Gold is a page carrying a buckler that 'is the counterpart of our illustrations' (pi. xxia). He might WELSH BUCKLERS 85 also have pointed out that the buckler belongs to his Type 2 (the lines of rivets radiating from the boss are depicted very clearly), and that the page's master, on whose heels he treads, is one of a group of Yeomen of the Guard whose leader has a Type 3b buckler hung over the hilt of the sword he wears, presumably on a thong looped through the grip like that surviving on one of the Shrewsbury bucklers (no. 2:2). On the companion picture at Hampton Court, The Field of Cloth of Gold, another Type 3b buckler is shown carried by a page, again walking behind his master (pi. xxii), who appears to be about to join the group of people watching the arrival of Henry VIII and his company in the centre foreground. The date when the two pictures were painted has been the subject of dispute, but there seems to be no obvious reason why they should be very much later than the events they commemorate.43 They therefore provide evidence for the use of both Type 2 and Type 3b bucklers in the period round about 1520. Two other illustrations of bucklers of approxi- mately the same period are respectively in the St. Nicholas glass in Hillesden Church, Buckinghamshire (Type 2),44 and in a miniature added 'early in Henry VIII's reign?' to a manuscript copy, dated 1455-62, of John Lydgate's Troy Book in the British Library (Type 2 or 3b).45 The representation of Welsh bucklers in English art, like the discovery of fragments of them in London, is not in any way surprising. Quite apart from the probability of an export trade into England, we know that one or two makers (perhaps more) moved to London to work during Henry VIII's reign. The manuscript copy of the ode by Rhys Nanmor asking for a buckler from Lewis Mon, quoted by Mr. Edwards on p. 77 above, bears a note to the effect that Lewis Mon was a smith staying at Temple Bar, London, while the text of the ode indicates that he worked for Henry VIII. I have been unable to discover any further information about his activities in London, but an interesting specula- tion is that he was the anonymous buckler maker at the 'sign of the coppe' in Fleet Street (where, of course, Temple Bar is situated) from whom in 1520 bucklers at us. each were purchased for the Yeoman of the Guard who were to accompany Queen Catherine to the Field of Cloth of Gold.4e In 1519 a buckler maker with the very Welsh name of Roger Morgan was living in Tothill Street, Westminster,47 while from an uncertain date in the 1520s a buckler maker known certainly to be Welsh was working for the King. This was Geoffrey Bromefeld, who came from near Ruabon (Rhiwabon), a village, some \\ miles from Wrexham, in Clwyd (formerly Denbighshire).48 As Mr. Edwards has shown, Ruabon and Wrexham were the main centres in a buckler-making area, and of these the latter appears to have been the more important. John Leland, who barely mentions Ruabon in his notes on his intinerary in Wales of c. 1536-9, says of Wrexham that 'There be sum marchauntes and good bokeler makers',49 while the great inventory of Henry VIII's possessions drawn up after his death in 1547 includes, amongst things at Westminster, 'twoo wreckesham Buckelers'.50 The last entry—which may well refer to some of Bromefeld's products— suggests that Wrexham buckler was a term applied to a specific kind of buckler, and it can hardly be doubted that it was the type that forms the subject of this paper. Wrexham, it should be noted, was also the centre of an important and ancient leather industry,51 which no doubt had much to do with the distinctive construction of the bucklers. The family of Bromefeld (or Bromfield) of Bryn y Wiwer in Bodylltyn, in the old parish of Ruabon, to which Geoffrey Bromefeld belonged derived its name from that of the 86 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL lordship in which Wrexham and Ruabon are situated,52 and Bryn y Wiwer is near Morton Fabrorum which, as Mr. Edwards has pointed out, was famous for its bloomery forges. He was the eldest (or eldest surviving) son of Tudor Bromefeld of Bryn y Wiwer and his wife Margaret, daughter of Jenkyn ab Y Bedi of Yale (Ial), and himself married Margaret, daughter of Thomas ab Ieuan ab Jenkyn of Ruabon. I have been unable to trace the dates either of his birth or his marriage, or any other information about his career before ist January 1528-29, when his name appears in the accounts of Henry VIII's Treasurer of the Chamber53 amongst those rewarded for New Year gifts to the King: 'Item to geffrey bromefeld for a buckeler—xxs.' Unfortunately, the entry appears near the beginning of a volume of the Chamber Accounts which starts in October 1528 after a gap of just over seven years in this series of records. We have no means of knowing, therefore, if this was the first time Bromefeld had made a New Year gift to the King, or if he had supplied him with bucklers on previous occasions. All that we can say is that his name does not appear in the Accounts prior to Easter, 1521, when the seven-year gap in the series begins,54 so that he almost certainly started working for the King during the period 1521-8. We know that Henry VIII was in the habit of using a buckler, for on 31st May 1525, Thomas Magnus wrote to Cardinal Wolsey from Scotland to say that the young James V wished to have a buckler, and very much admired the London ones carried by Magnus's servants, and had 'heard that the King's highness, his said uncle, at some times weareth and useth a buckler, and that maketh his said Grace to be the more desirous thereof'.55 Rather surprisingly, there is no record of an official buckler maker to Henry before Feb- ruary 1530-31, when Bromefeld was himself appointed to the office.56 It is at least possible, therefore, that he was already supplying the King with bucklers at the time of Magnus's letter. Whether this is so or not, there are no references to the actual purchase of bucklers from him in the surviving Chamber Accounts. On ist January 1529-30 an exactly similar entry to that of the previous January referring to the gift of a buckler from him appears:57 he is not, however, mentioned in the lists of rewards for New Year gifts in 1530-31, though there is a payment to an unnamed person who gave a buckler, which may refer to him.58 The next record of him I have been able to trace is the following entry amongst payments made in March, 22 Henry VIII (1531),59 which follows the normal form for the record of the first payment made to someone just appointed to an official post:
Item to Geiffrey Bromefelde the kinges boucler maker vpon a warraunt bering date the xj day of ffebruary anno xxijd0 for his wages after the rate of ijd by day to be paid vnto him frome Candilmas vnto our ladis day in lent being viijs viijd lij daies and so afterward to be paid by evin porcons quarterly during his liffe as it aperithe by the said warrant Bromefeld was still being paid the same salary for the same office until after 20th November 1552, the date of the latest list of wages to be paid from the Chamber Account I have been able to trace.60 In the intervening period, however, he had, in the normal manner of royal servants of the period, received other grants and offices from the King. On ist July 1535, he obtained the office of clerk of the creeks and passages belonging to WELSH BUCKLERS 87 the town and port of Bristol, with fees of ten marks a year.61 On 12th April 1536 the reversion of this office was granted to John Bromefeld, a Yeoman of the Guard,62 who must have been a relative, though he does not appear in the Bromefeld pedigree. On 4th April 1539, Geoffrey, who was now one of the yeomen of the King's Chamber, was appointed keeper of the wood growing in 'le litle parke' near Chirk Castle (six miles south of Ruabon), at a salary of 40*. a year together with the herbage and pannage of both the wood and park.63 On 10th March 1539-40, in a grant in which he is described as a Yeoman of the Crown, and also as residing in Westminster, he was awarded the tithes of Bincknoll manor, Wilt- shire, for twenty-one years.64 On 14th November 1541 he and Geoffrey Jones, a Yeoman of the Guard, were granted, in survivorship, the office of keeper of the county gaols of Ilchester, Somerset and Dorchester, Dorset, on the surrender of the same office by Jones, who had been awarded it in 1537.65 In October, 1545, a grant of various reversions of leases to one John Pope, included messuages etc., at Tormarton, Gloucestershire in the tenure of Bromefeld,66 while in May 1546 'A bill for Jeffrey Bromefelde, of Wales, gentle- man usher, of the gift of the bailwick of Savoy', preferred by 'Mr. Hare', was signed with the royal stamp.67 It is probable that Bromefeld had gone back to Wales to live before 1544, for in a muster book showing what soldiers were to be furnished by the gentlemen of England (sic) for the invasion of France in that year he is listed under Denbigh.66 On the 12th November 1549 and again on the nth November 1550 he was amongst those nominated for election to the office of Sheriff of Denbigh,69 though he appears to have escaped election on both occasions, while in 1551 he was one of the Denbigh commissioners for the collection of the third instalment of the relief granted by Parliament to the King in 1547, and also, in November of the same year, escheator for the county.70 These are the last references to his activities I have been able to trace, but on 21st July 1558, the office of keeper of the park at Chirk, 'which office Geoffrey Bromefeld, deceased, lately held', was granted on the same terms to John Roberts, one of the Yeomen of the Queen's Chamber.71 Bromefeld must have died, therefore, between November 1551 and July 1558, and probably nearer to the latter date than the former, for obvious reasons. The outline of Geoffrey Bromfield's career just given leads, of course, to the question of whether or not he was actually a buckler maker. At the period when he lived it would certainly not have been impossible for a member of the minor gentry, such as he was, to have worked at a craft. One cannot but feel, however, that the nature of some of the appointments and grants he obtained from Henry VIII points to his having been the purveyor of bucklers to the King, rather than a working smith. He was probably an entrepreneur who organized a trade in bucklers between Wrexham and London, though until further evidence about him is discovered we cannot be certain of this. It is perhaps an indication of his close links with the Wrexham ironworking industry that his son Martin should have married Elizabeth, the only child of William Eyton of Ruabon,72 who must have been related to the Eyton family on whose estate Ieuan ap Deicws worked. It is thus likely that Bromefeld was not employed merely to provide bucklers for the King's own use. His main role was probably to supply them for the Yeomen of the Guard and other royal servants, and for these he would almost certainly have been paid out of one of the accounts of the Master of the Armouries, which do not appear to be extant. One buckler that may have been supplied by him for Henry himself does, however, survive. 88 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL This is the buckler now in the Musee de l'Arme'e, Paris (No. 1.6), mentioned earlier in this study, which we must now consider in more detail.73 The Paris buckler (pis. xvi&-xvma) is of Type 2, and the boss is gilt and etched with designs against a cross-hatched ground. On the knob, round the base of the spike, is a sun in splendour, while on the boss proper are the following main devices: a crowned shield .bearing the Tudor royal arms with the usual supporters: a dragon and a greyhound; a pomegranate slipped; a crowned Tudor rose; a portcullis. The devices are framed in scrolling foliage (perhaps a conventional representation of hawthorn),74 that round the royal arms bearing four strawberries and a pomegranate (?). The devices on the buckler are, of course, those of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, which means that it must date from after their marriage in 1509 and before their official separation in 1531, and probably not later than 1529, by which date the Queen was clearly out of favour.75 Nothing is known of its history before 1783, when it was recorded at Chantilly by the French antiquary J. B. L. Carre,76 but the fact that it was in this famous collection is in itself evidence for a long association with France, probably one going back to the time of Henry VIII. So far as I am aware, nothing has ever been published on the early history of the Chantilly armoury, but it is clear from the information available about its contents, including that provided by surviving pieces, that it comprised both the residue of the armouries of the two great families associated with the house, the Montmorencys and the Condes, and historical pieces unconnected with either, for example, the alleged armours of Joan of Arc, Charles the Bold, and Henry IV (actually Francis I) of France.77 Thus the fact that the buckler was in the collection—where, incidentally, it was ascribed in the eighteenth century to Henry VII78—does not necessarily mean that it had any specific association with a Montmorency or a Conde, though it is probable enough that it did. The nature and quality of the decoration on the buckler point to its having been made originally for Henry himself, rather than one of his servants. As we have seen, he is known sometimes to have worn and used a buckler, while fifteen bucklers of various kinds are listed in his wardrobe and private apartments at Westminster in the inventory of his possession drawn up after his death.79 The Paris buckler might conceivably be included in the following entry, but the fact that the royal arms are not mentioned—though heraldry on bucklers is noted elsewhere80—and the description of the decoration as wrought, rather than graven, makes this improbable: 'Item viij bucklers of steele vij gilte and wrought the other white'81 The only buckler with the royal arms mentioned in the whole inventory is simply des- cribed as 'A Buckeler of Silver with the kinges Armes',82 and is probably the same as the silver-gilt buckler with the arms of England, roses, castles and pomegranates included in two lists of royal jewels, one dated 1519, and the other dated to 1530.83 It cannot be the Paris buckler, which does not include castles in its decoration and is made of iron.84 The inventory therefore provides negative evidence to suggest that this had already left the royal stores before 1547. The most obvious explanation for the presence in France at an early date of a buckler once the personal property of Henry VIII is that it was presented by him to some important Frenchman. The personage and occasion that immediately spring to mind are, of course, o c
m en O a z
w a. and 6. Type i buckler (No. i) at Hilton Park, Staffordshire. Tower of London Armouries (V. 109) X Photographs: Tower of London PLATE XIV THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL
Photograph: C. Blair a. Detail of misericord, 1447. Parish church of St. Lawrence, Ludlow
b. Engraving by James Basire, 1763, of a Type 2 buckler (No. 6) found at Old Oswestry (Yr Hen Ddinas). Present location unknown. After Vetusta Monumenta, II. THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL PLATE XV
'm Ml.
'/.Jr,l/,f f>,•„„„„•„/
a. and b. Engraving by James Basire, 1763, of a Type 2 buckler (No. 6) found at Old Oswestry (Yr Hen Ddinas). Present location unknown. After Vetusta Monumenta, II PLATE XVI THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL
a. Type 2 buckler (No. 5). Collection of W. Reid, F.S.A.
b. Type 2 buckler (No. 1) of King Henry VIII. Musee de l'Armee, Paris (1.6) THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL PLATE XVII
c
3!
3o D-a
T3
C3 PLATE XVIII THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL
a. Detail of the etching on the boss of the Henry VIII buckler
Photograph: Tower of London b. Detail of the Garter Collar etched on the basnet of tonlet armour of 1520 (?) associated with Henry VIII. Tower of London Armouries (II.7) H x w
O
en
O C SO
Photograph: Tower of London Type 3a buckler (No. 1). Collection of the late Sir James Mann, F.S.A. a. Detail of J. Hofnaegel's Fite at Bermondsey, c. 1570 Collection of the Marquis of Salisbury, Hatfield House 1-3 w
X PLATE XX THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL
a. Type 3b buckler (No. 1). Collection of C. Blair, ' F.S.A.
b. Back of Type 3b buckler (No. 10). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (45.160.1) H a w
a
en
O G
a. Detail of the Embarkation at Dover for the Field of Cloth of Gold b. Detail of the Field of Cloth of Gold Collection of H.M. the Queen, Hampton Court
Reproduced by gracious permission of H. M. the Queen r > H m X WELSH BUCKLERS 89 King Francis I of France and the Field of Cloth of Gold, but there is no real reason why the buckler should have had anything to do with either. Between 1518 and 1532 there were a number of other special diplomatic exchanges between England and France, and in October 1532 the two kings met again in the area of Calais and Boulogne.85 There were many members of Francis's Court to whom Henry might have presented a buckler during this period, but one stands out above the others as the most probable recipient, since not only did he have the necessary close personal contacts with the English King, but he was also the founder of the Chantilly collection. This is Anne de Montmorency (1493-1567), Grand Maitre et ConnHable de France and one of the outstanding European political figures of his time.86 He visited the English Court, probably in 1518, and certainly in 1519, was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, and in October 1527 led a major diplomatic mission to London, during which he invested Henry with the Order of St. Michel and received the Order of the Garter on behalf of Francis I. From this date until 1533 he played a leading role in fostering an Anglo-French alliance against the Emperor, and, as part of this, tried to use his influence, both in France and with the Pope, in support of Henry's divorce proceedings against Catherine of Aragon. He was so much in Henry's favour at this time that the King invested him with the Garter during his visit to France in I532- Chantilly was Montmorency's principal residence, where he kept his important art collections, including an armoury,87 and this, taken in conjunction with the details of his association with Henry VIII outlined above, makes it virtually certain, I suggest, that the buckler was a gift to him from the King. At the time of his earliest contacts with the English Court he was still fairly junior, so he is most likely to have obtained it either on his visit to London in 1527 or when he met Henry in France in 1532. Regrettably, even to establish this beyond doubt would not also establish a precise period of manufacture for the buckler, since there is no certainty that it was new when it left the King's possession. A clue to its date is perhaps provided by the style of the etching on the boss, which might be by the same hand as the etching on a tonlet armour long believed to be Henry's in the Tower of London Armouries (No. II.7) (pi. xvmi).88 This is usually dated to c. 1512, but our Fellow Mr. A. V. B. Norman, Master of the Tower of London Armouries, has recently pointed out to me that it appears to have been rather hastily put together from different elements for use, presumably at the time when the etching was carried out. A possible explanation for this is to be found in an undated memorandum from Sir Richard Wingfield to Henry, which is clearly the one mentioned by Wingfield in a letter to Wolsey of the 16th March 1520 as having been sent to the King by the same post.89 This gives Francis I's views on the articles of challenge for the tournaments to be held at the Field of Cloth of Gold meeting, three months later, amongst which is the one that for the foot-combat at the barriers 'tonnelett and bacinet' should be substituted for armour 'with pieces of advantage' (that is ordinary armour with reinforcing pieces), on the grounds that those challenged (the French) would be in doubt about what this meant. It is likely, therefore, that the Tower armour—which is certainly a tonlet with a basnet90—was hastily put together in response to this modification of the articles of challenge. It is thus possible that the buckler was decorated by an artist who was working for the King in the period round about 1520, and who might, of course, have continued to work for him for a long time thereafter. The probability that it was supplied by Geoffrey Brome- 90 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL feld is therefore a strong one, though there is no reason to think that he had anything to do with its decoration. This must have been carried out by a specialist engraver working for the King, probably, though not certainly, in association with his armouries.91 The account of the Paris buckler concludes the survey of the evidence available from English sources about the origins and period of manufacture of these bucklers. We can now turn to a brief consideration of the conclusion to be drawn from both it and the evidence put forward by Mr. Edwards in the first part of this paper. It can, I think, be accepted as established beyond reasonable doubt that the type of buckler under discussion originated in Wales, where the main centre of manufacture, and perhaps ultimate place of origin, was in the area of Ruabon and Wrexham in Denbighshire. The bucklers made there were almost certainly marketed mainly in Wrexham and, probably for this reason, were sometimes known as Wrexham bucklers. They also appear to have been exported to London and other parts of the country for sale, but some of the makers also worked in London, and perhaps elsewhere in England. The precise period during which the bucklers were made is uncertain. The evidence of the Ludlow carving indicates that Type i, which Dr. Williams was probably correct in regarding as the earliest, was already being made in the 1440s, and what may be a proto- type is depicted on one of the misericords of c. 1380-90 in Chester Cathedral.92 Leland reported that Wrexham was still a noted centre of buckler making in the late 1530s, and we may assume that the bucklers that Geoffrey Bromfeld was presumably continuing to supply to the Crown until the 1550s, and the buckler mentioned in Sion Tudur's poem of c. 1570-80 were Wrexham ones, especially in view of the evidence of the Hofnaegel picture of c. 1570 at Hatfield. We thus arrive at c. 1440-C.1580 as the period during which we can be reasonably certain Wrexham bucklers were being made. The actual period of manu- facture may, of course, have been very much longer, but it is likely to have come to an end before the Civil Wars, since the use of bucklers in this country, other than for gladiatorial contests, seems already to have been dying out by the early seventeenth century.93 The problem of the chronology of the main types of Wrexham buckler appears to be insoluble from the evidence for dating at present available. All that can be said is that Type 1 was already in existence by the 1440s, that Lewis Glyn Cothi, who flourished c. 1447-86, described bucklers of Type 2, that the Hampton Court paintings show bucklers of both Type 2 and Type 3b in use in the 1520s, or shortly after, and the Hatfield painting probably a buckler of Type 3a in use in c. 1570. Clearly, therefore, variations in type are no guide to chronology, and no undecorated Wrexham bucklers can be dated precisely within the period mentioned above on stylistic grounds alone. Unfortunately, only two decorated examples have been noted so far, of which one is, of course, the Henry VIII buckler in Paris. The other is the Type 2 buckler in the Shrewsbury Museum (no. 2) which has a pounced scale pattern on its boss of a kind that could have been produced at any time during the period when the bucklers are known to have been made.
The main purpose of this study has been to establish the origins of this group of bucklers and to bring together such information as is readily available about their history. I have not been able to make any detailed technical analysis of any of them, though this is clearly something that needs to be done, since we still have no precise scientific information about their construction and the materials from which they are made. I have, however, made WELSH BUCKLERS 91 some suggestions about technical matters, and also provided a list of all recorded bucklers and parts, in Appendix IV. In conclusion, some account must be given of Wrexham bucklers as objects of antiquity. The first to be publicly described as such was a buckler from the Tradescant Collection, still in the Ashmolean Museum, which is the subject of the following entry in the catalogue of i68s:94 Clypeus alter parvus, rotundus, in convexa parte magna est ansa lignea, totam circumferentiam ambit lamina ferrea, pars concava aereis clavis munita The cataloguer, who presumably knew nothing of the origins or date of the buckler, wisely refrained from commenting about either. A few years later, the distinguished Yorkshire antiquary Ralph Thoresby was less cautious. On the 26th February 1697-8 he wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Royal Society giving a detailed account of two 'Roman' shields in his possession, accompanied by a drawing of one of them which had been 'found lately in Yorkshire*. These were brought to the attention of members of the Society at their meeting on the 29th June 1698 and subsequently published in the Philosophical Transactions,,95 Thoresby's detailed descriptions, to say nothing of the illustration, leave no doubt that the shields were Wrexham bucklers of Types 2 and 3b. Hardly surprisingly, therefore, he found some difficulty in identifying them precisely in any of the ancient Roman sources with which he was so familiar. He was, however, inclined to regard them as a type oiparma (rather than clipeus or scutum) and he offered the conjecture that they had belonged to the equites and not to either the velites or the hastati. The possibility that they might not be Roman obviously never received the slightest serious consideration from him,96 even though 'a Scotch Gentleman' present at the Royal Society meeting said that the drawing exhibited 'was Exactly of the Form of the Targett used among the Highlanders with the same Circles of nails as this was described with'.97 The Scotsman's comment was not published in the Philosophical Transactions, a fact that is itself a comment on the antiquarian prejudices of Augustan England! Thoresby, had he lived, would have been delighted to have his theories apparently confirmed by the publication in 1763, in Volume II of Vetusta Monumenta, of a beautiful engraving by James Basire (pis. xivfr-xv) of another buckler 'found under ground within the Area of the Camp at Hendinas, a Hill which lyes to the North-west of Oswestre in Shrop- shire'. This was the well-known Iron Age hill-fort, which, at that time, was no doubt thought to be Roman. In 1786 Francis Grose, as already mentioned, illustrated two Wrexham bucklers in his Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, but he made no comments on their probable origin or date. The fact that he did not include them with the few pre-medieval pieces he illustrates, suggests, however, that he regarded them as medieval or later.98 Whatever Grose's views may have been, the ancient Roman origin of these bucklers seemed yet again to be confirmed in 1799 when, on 9th May, an example found shortly 92 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL before near the site of the Roman fort at Caerhun (Canovium), near Conway, Caernarvon- shire, was exhibited to this Society by the Hon. Robert Fulke Greville." It was naturally assumed to be contemporary with the fort, and in 1892 was the subject of a paper entitled 'A Romano-British Shield' read to the Chester and North Wales Archaeological Society by the Rev. Canon Rupert Morris, D.D.100 Canon Morris, in a dissertation worthy of Thoresby two hundred years earlier, came to the conclusion that the buckler was 'most like the cetra, used by the Oscans and people of Spain and Mauritania'! When the Cambrian Archaeological Association visited Caerhun on 17th July 1895, doubts were expressed about Canon Morris's conclusions, and the author of the report on the visit published in Archaeologia Cambrensis in the same year101 wrote that the buckler 'appears to be much later, and probably of Eastern origin'. Despite this, Willoughby Gardner, in his account of the fort at Caerhun published in the same journal in 1925,102 still described it as Romano-British, but commented that 'somewhat similar shields were used by the Welsh as late as mediaeval times'. Only in 1931, with the publication of a note by T. A. Glenn in Archaeologia Cambrensis,103 was it pointed out in print that the buckler unquestionably dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The story of the Caerhun buckler of course provides an excellent example of the familiar archaeological trap of assuming that everything found on a site must be contemporary with the most important event or construction associated with it. Also, like the story of Thoresby's bucklers, it demonstrates the dangers of over-narrow specialization. In 1850 an illustrated note on the Hilton Park buckler by William F. Vernon was published in the Archaeological Journal,104 in which it was ascribed to the fifteenth century on the evidence of the buckler, in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland, found on the site of the Battle of Shrewsbury.105 Vernon drew attention in a footnote to the illustration of the similar buckler from Hen Ddinas in Vetusta Monumenta. On 27th March 1855, a Type 3b buckler (now No. V.21 in the Tower Armouries)106 appeared as Lot 2395 in Christie's sale of the famous Bernal Collection. The catalogue entry concludes 'This buckler is similar to those born by the royal guards in the picture at Hampton Court, of the embarka- tion of Henry VIII*. In 1856 the Duke of Northumberland's buckler was included in the exhibition of antiquities held in Edinburgh by the Archaeological Institute107 when it was, of course, ascribed to the period of the Battle of Shrewsbury. In the catalogue Albert Way not only compared it with the HSn Ddinas and Hilton Park bucklers, but also with the Chan- tilly one. Thus from at least as early as 1850 arms and armour specialists, and probably most medievalists also, were well aware that these bucklers were not Roman. It is difficult to understand how the classicists could have continued for so long to be ignorant of this.
APPENDIX I
THE ORIGINAL TEXTS OF THE EXTRACTS FROM WELSH POEMS QUOTED IN TRANSLATION IN THE BODY OF THE ARTICLE
(p. 75) Cywdd i ofyn Bwcled i Si6n Pilstun dros Sion ab Elis Eutun o Watstay 97 Bwcled rhodded o'r eiddaw, Bord Gron Caer Llion i'r Haw Bos o ddur crwn, bysedd crane, WELSH BUCKLERS 93 Balain nai Owain ieuanc; Llydan grair, lleuad yn gron, Llun haul yn llawn o hoelion. Bwcled ag od neu flodau Dur ar ei hyd wedi r'hau. Gwlith man arian mewn araul, Gwreichion yw'r hoelion o'r haul; Ffristial o'r main grisial man, Ffris dur, cyffrous darian. Aeth dur wiail ar falain A thair rhod ar wartha' rhain; Tri chwmpas tros ei asau 112 Sy'n ei gylch, a'i fos yn gau. Gutun Owain
(p. 76) Cywydd i ofyn Bwcled, a Marwnad Ieuan ap Deicws 10 Iefan dad gofaint, 6 Pennaeth ar ofanaeth fu, Prif awdur wrth ddur a than, Proffwyd am aelwyd melan! ... 19 Llaw un yn nysg well na neb, Llaw grwndwal holl gywreindeb ... Tudur Aled
(Po6mes de Demande, XV) (P- 75) Cywydd il ofyn Bwcled dros WmfFre Cinast i Ruffudd ap Hywel ap Morgan o Faelor 27 Kerdd ywch gan ych kar a ddaw, klod oedd, am vwcled iddaw: Lleuad valen llwyd vilwr, Lluosoc yw'n llaw asw gwr. Kair dur kav ar i dorynn, Kroessav gant ar y krys gwynn; Nod y'w ddaly ni ad ddolur, Nyth i'r dwrn yn eitha'r dur. Molt y gwnn mal ty gwenyn, Moel dorth dros gymylau dyn; Ais o'i gorff lwyrwys a gaid, Adanedd i gadw ennaid. 'Mae main ar bob adain bol Man gwynion val main gwennol: Gwlith y gof, gloyw a thec ynt, Gwiw vlodau gevail ydynt, Siop o vronn y Siep y'w vric, Ser yn bowdriad Sarn Badric. I dew vyly i dyvelir, Dyro hwnn, y gwr dewr hir! Dy nai a eiddvnai i ddwyn, Dy rodd, y gwr dewr addwyn. Dyro dy vwkled euraid, 50 Dy nai a'th rodd ddn i'th raid! Gutun Owain 94 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL (p. 76) I Ofyn Pedwar Bwcled i Bedwar Mab Elis Eutun Dros Eu Hewythr Hywel Ap Siencyn O Dowyn 47 Pedwar Bwcled Peredur, Planedau mewn diliau dur; Pie trig y deuddeng migwrn? Pedwar bos diddos i'r dwrn; Pedair pel fel grawn celyn, Pupur gof mewn papur gwyn; Pob bwcled fal llucheden, A'i freichiau oil o'r frech wen; Diliau gwydr deiliog ydyn, Disiau dur ar du asw dyn; Creiriau, ser, fal cyrrau'r sarn, Clwydau rhew mewn cledr haearn; Gwreichion y tri einion trwm, Grawn curlaw ar groen carlwm; Lliw'r ser, yn Llwyrwys araul, Llygaid penhwyaid mewn haul; 63 Braenar dur, burion, ar des,— Tudur Aled
(p. 77) I Erchi Bwcler. 3 Bwcler balaen o'r Blaenau Oedd raid, bes caid, a bos cau. Clochdy hardd, uwch yr arddwn, Clawstwr dur, clos da i'r dwrn. Torrog glawr mewn taro clau, Turniwr brith, triniwr brathau. Clawr rhodd rhag gweli rhuddwaed, Clyps yr haul rhag clap sarhaed. Ceidwad clust rhag y ffustaw, A cheidwad llygad a Haw. Ceidw'r ffrae rhag gwaed ar fFrwst, Caen ar falaen yw'r folwst. Lien a ddwg yn llonydd iawn, Llygaid eogiaid eigion. Lliw'r dydd ar y lien wrenig, Lliw'r nos ar y bos a'r big. Blin na chaid balen na charn, Bugail hoyw, bogail haearn, Bugail imrhag bwgwl oer, 22 I'm Haw unllun a llawnlloer. Huw Cae Llwyd
(p. 77) Cywydd i ofyn Bwcled i Lewis M6n. 45 Gweithiodd fy rhodd wrth Ddofr Hafn Gwisgiad afrllad gwisg durllafn Yn darian glan gylennig, Fry yn baun, fron a'i big. Ysgal Tubal y tybiwyd Wrth wyr o wledd Arthur Lwyd. Ysgwl a gwin ddesgil gau Ag o'r gwin big i'r genau. Yn gwmpasgrwn gampus grair. WELSH BUCKLERS 95 Ceidwad trosof rhag treiswall, Caf roi Hid cyfair y Hall; Amgarnau gof am groen gwyn A siad Einion sy danun, Mae'n grwn i gefn mewn grym gyrdd Mai fowt tew melfed duwyrdd, D6r dan bres, dur o dan brau. Dwr aur, berwi drwy'r barau. Llawn hoelion Bord Gron Caerwynt,
04 Llonaid grat Hun deigr ydynt. Rhys Nanmor Short biographies of the poets are given in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (London, 1959).
APPENDIX II FROM THE Poems of Sion Tudur (EDITED BY ENID ROBERTS)
(There are only 12 xerox copies available in various libraries)
Sion Tudur, of Wicwair, St Asaph, Clwyd, was yeoman in Edward VI's household when he was Prince of Wales, and was retained when Edward became king; he was also yeoman of the crown in the early years of Elizabeth I's reign, and followed her on some progresses. He died Easter 1602. In the cywydd below a buckler is asked from Robert Pilstwn (Puleston) of Plas-ym-Mers (Bersham), Wrexham, for Sion Wyn of Melai. Robert Pilstwn, flourished 1562-81, was one of the men of Denbighshire selected for the Commission for Musters 'partly for their reputation in the county, partly for their knowledge of martial sciences'. The earliest known copy of this poem was written after 1573.
To request a buckler from Robert Pilstwn for Sion Wyn Tarian ais arian y sydd, A silver ribbed shield it is, Trwn yw fel Troea Newydd; Cut like New Troy; Drych yw lie bai daro chwyrn, It is a mirror where there is fierce striking, Drych cad yn dorchau cedyrn; The mirror of battle in strong rings; Egroes dur ar grest arian, Steel hips on a silver crest, A chant oil o wreichion tan; And a hundred sparks of fire; Perl aur dros y purlawr draw, A golden pearl over the pure floor yonder, Pur lawnter a'r perl yntaw; A real lantern with a pearl in it; Mwrai mil a mwyar man, A thousand mulberries and small blackberries, Mesyryd mewn maes arian; Abundant acorns in a silver field; Pupur un waith, pob rhai'n wych, Just like pepper, each one splendid, Pys dur mewn pastai eurych; Steel peas in a goldsmith's pasty; Bos draw a Hun o'i drwyn, A boss yonder with the shape of a finger from Bryn mawr megis bron morwyn; A big hill, like a maiden's breast; [its nose A maen gwyn mewn ei ganol, And a white stone in its centre, A nyth i'r bigwrn yn 61. And a nest for the knuckles behind it. Bwcled drych, big galed draw, A mirror of a buckler, with a hard beak/point Bronddor a bariau ynddaw; A shield/defence with bars on it; [yonder, Tarian a drych, teyrn y drin, A shield & a mirror, king/tyrant of battle, 96 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL Twr a nawcant o eirin. A tower with 900 plums/berries. Mae asgell aur ymysg llu, It is a golden wing among the host, Oes glwyd tes a'i 'sglatysu; Yes, lattice in heat, and salted. Troi osglau aur tros y glwyd, Branches of gold are turned over the lattice, Torth genllysg fel traeth gwnllwyd. A loaf of hailstones like a grey-white beach. Llun nadroedd lluniai wydrwr, The glazier has drawn snakes, A lliwiau gant yn Haw gwr. And a hundred colours in a man's hand. Teisen ddur at Si6n a ddaw, A steel cake will come to Si6n, Aur fwyd, wedi'i ryfediaw. Golden food, riveted. Lliwiau'r ser ar llawr sirian, The colours of the stars on a cerise ground, Llygaid brithylliaid a thin; The eyes of trout and fire; Gwlith a ser, gloyw waith eres, Dew and stars, a strange shining/bright work, Gwlith glaw ar ffrith eglur, ffres; Rain-dew on a clear, fresh moor; Hoeliaw mor wych, helm aur oedd, Nailed so well, it was a golden helmet, Hoelion afaelion filoedd; With thousands of nails holding it; Gwns i gadw oes, gwisg y dwrn, Gowns to keep life, the dress of the fist, Gwasgod i fraich ac asgwrn; A shelter/defender for arm and wrist; Gogr man neu gawg aur a moes, A fine sieve, or a crock of gold and virtue, Gograid o yd ac egroes; A sieving of corn and hips; Egin dur o ugain darn, Steel shoots/blades of twenty pieces, Egin tew o gnwed haearn; Thick shoots/blades of an iron crop; Eurdroell wen, ordr o'i lluniaw, A white-golden circle, order from its shaping, Euro dellt drwy ridyll draw; Lattice has been gilded through a sieve yonder; Ac agwedd chwrli gwgon, The appearance/attitude of a whirligig, A grawn pysg ar wyneb hon; Dur brith, o bai daro brau, And fish roe on its face; Deiol a'i big i'r deau; Speckled steel, should there be keen fighting, Had Durandardd, het drindarf, A dial pointing to the south; Heulrod rhag cael dyrnod arf. The seed of "Durandardd, a hat to scare battle, Mefus graig am y fos gron, A circle of sun against the blow of a weapon. Mai haul a mil o hoelion. Rock strawberries around the circular boss, Like a sun with a thousand nails. SlON TUDUR * Roland's sword.
APPENDIX III (The free translations of two cytoydd poems referring to Ieuan ap Deicws were made by Mr. Eurys Rowlands and arrived late for inclusion in the original paper. They are most interesting and worthy of adding in this way).
To Solicit a Buckler—and an Elegy on Ieuan ap Deicws. You steal what has been given to us; God, holy God, you are unique— Stealing the one who will not be be forgotten; Yesterday, saints got the son of Deicws the smith. Why did Jesus invite him? He had been a chieftain in the smith's craft, A chief author at steel and fire, A prophet for a milan (i.e. steel) hearth. Yesterday, on a Sunday, he went—the fine of saints— Yesterday, he bore away Ieuan, the father of smiths. WELSH BUCKLERS 97 God was a good lord to him: It was St. Lo that put him in His hand. Let him take him/He was taken as far as his sanctuary, Never did there go a better master. Vain was all education concerning fire, And workmanship too in comparison with Ifan's, A hand of one better educated than anyone else, A hand which was the foundation of all skilled workmanship. His hand, I would deem it Tubal's, Will there ever again be a smith equal to him? I give you two smiths, with his part/share In his book, after Ifan; A grandson to the man who gilded the work Is Robert of the proverbial workmanship. I do not know anyone who knows of a better man Than the son of Sidn in every sense. As for the purity—the praising of one man— Of Maredudd Haw, this was my ideal; At no time was there born a better smith Except for the smith who has gone to the sanctuary. It is for his sake that I would plead That a gift like what he gilded should be given. A fist's bonnet, it had been in the fire; A buckler, as if milan (steel) were a hurdle; A tower, against one wound from sixty arms, Fair, without a single frailty, at the end of an arm; A cake, slated; A loaf which had been on Arthur's table; Rounds of ink roofing my hand; The fist's house, and the turret upon it; A bare rounded apple on a milan (steel) belly, And then a beak at the head; Steel plaited/fashioned like a bird, And the smith's thorns through its white gown, Vitreous veins—the workmanship of its concavity— Rain through sunshine on the pale (lattice-work?) of the circle: Azure grains, garnished, The look/eye of the sea from an eye-corner of shingle, A door and a moon for the sleeve, Is the steel hill with the sunny cloud. The strange pox of the bearer's arms, To bar the skins like the crab's legs, A chessboard or a dice-top; The sky's breast bells, as a palisade, Daisies—a place to put the fist— Where a bone is worn about the hand, The form of a gun out of its centre And the form of a joke in the hand behind. The colour of the pox completely on its arms, The form of a crop of kernels of nuts, Its white colour like the crust And its form like the cart's wheel; A rose like azure ice, The place for a fist was put in a steel grille 98 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL To give a sun-fortress against a sharp spear Is to give a long life to him who gave it to me. Tudur Aled (nourishing circa 1490-1525) Translated from T. Gwynn Jones, Gwaith Tudur Aled (Caerdydd, 1926) pp. 449-51.
Cywydd—Asking for a sword and buckler from Ieuan ap Deicws on behalf of Dafydd Llwyd ab Ieuan. There is a hearth in MaelorW like that in great Milan; tongs-work by a smith is greater its learning while its day lasts. There is much talk there about the son of Deicws in his office: God did not give at the fire-tempering a thousand smiths comparable to Ifan. There isn't an author, and I do not know one, except the lad at steel and stone. In return for passion at his anvil the name would remain in this island. 13 His work—it wasn't (preparing) a tasty dish— is gilding the sword on my thigh: and the w—a sun if this one gilds it— I tie on its edge (? end) (A sword knot) A buckler like a Paris partition-wall, and on its forehead twenty dice; and the same width are the twenty lines which grow from its boss as far as its edge; 21 and in the very middle is the nest for the fist behind; and on my hand yonder in battle can be seen a vitreous fort. The bond is clean/handsome: gems run along it, holly-berries on hard skin. 27 An angel-bridge from the hollow nearby cuts across the bond in three arches. Like a circle with its belly hollow/closed was bound a bolt/lock/cluster of gems. As one causeway foam and stars are a pale tore under three collars, 31 Gem-studded like the holly-bush was gold put on the white wheel/circle. Shining white in the fray with sun-knots above my head will the wheel come after being constructed, there is steel on its forehead in three roofs. Dafydd Llwyd(D), under red-gold gems, will wear the golden moon. There is on the sword of Ieuan's son much gold and fine honeycombs: 37 it is on the thigh of Rhun's son a long time pale and rod-like. WELSH BUCKLERS 99 If Lawnt<°> comes to the land of the feast 0 able 'milanist' from Gwynedd, a buffalo from Powys will repay every nail, without the workmanship of every finger, 1 owe for his travail wine to the generous son of Deicws.
Owain ap Llywelyn ab y Moel (floruit c. 1470-1500). (a) Maelor is the Welsh name for Bromfield, the hundred where Wrexham is situated. The new borough council has assumed the name Wrexham Maelor Council. (b) Possibly Dafydd ab Ieuan ab Rhun. (c) 'Lawnt' the home of Dafydd Llwyd.
The Welsh extract shown below was formed from the original text, in modern spelling and punctuated, by Miss Enid Roberts: it forms part of the above translation by Mr. Rowlands. There are two known copies of the original in the National Library of Wales: A—Peniarth 86,271-3, mid sixteenth century; B—NLW 6681,83-5, in the hand of John Jones, Gelli- lyfdy, sometime in the first half of the seventeenth century. 13 [ ] waith, nid oedd amheuthun, Euro fy nghledd ar fy nghlun, 15 Arw haul os eura hwn Ar ei ymyl a rwymwn 17 Bwcled fal parerf Paris, Ac yn ei dal ugain dis; 19 Ac un lied yw'r ugeinllin A dy' o'i foth hyd ei fin. 21 Ac union yn ei ganol Ydyw'r nyth i'r dwrn yn 61. 23 Ac ar fy llaw draw'n y drin Y cair edrych caer wydrin. 25 GISn yw'r rhwym, gleiniau a'i rhed, Grawn celyn ar groen caled. 27 Pont/Pond angel o'r pant yngod A dorrai y rhwym yn dair rhod, 29 Yn un sarn ewyn a ser, Yn dorch welw dan dri choler. 31 Gleiniawg fal y gelynnen Y rhoed aur ar y rhod wen. 33 Dafydd, dan enw rhuddaur, Llwyd a wisg y lleuad aur; 35 Mae ar gleddeu mab Ieuan Dalm o aur a diliau/doliau man. 37 Mae ar glun mab Rhun yrhawg Yn welw ac yn wialawg . . .
Owain ap Llywelyn ap Moel y Pantri ioo THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL APPENDIX IV RECORDED BUCKLERS AND PARTS OF BUCKLERS By Claude Blair
As mentioned in the text, the main purpose of this paper is to publish evidence for the attribution and general dating of these bucklers. I have not attempted a detailed technical analysis of any of them, chiefly because I am not qualified to do so, but also because the organization of the necessary scientific tests would have delayed the publication of the more important historical material. Some comments about their construction and form, based both on previous accounts and on mere observation,108 are, however, possible. The foundation of all the bucklers appears invariably to be leather only (not wood and leather as stated by Williams). The only two writers to give information about their con- struction, Basire and Thoresby (2:6 and 8),109 agree that the foundation is two thicknesses of 'hard' leather (Thoresby also says that it is 'whitish'), through which pins or rivets securing the metal parts pass. These have domed brass heads—those round the rim often larger than the others—and iron shanks that are secured by being bent over at right- angles and hammered flat against the leather. The leather used for 3b: 10 is identified as pigskin in the manuscript catalogue of the Arms and Armor Department of the Metro- politan Museum of Art, New York, but no authority is given for the statement. The leather foundation was probably shaped before the metal reinforcements and other fittings were attached. The forming method most likely to have been used is that suggested by John M. Coles for the manufacture of Bronze Age shields, in which the leather, having been thoroughly soaked in cold water, was beaten over a wooden mould on which it was left to dry. It was perhaps subsequently hardened with wax or heat in one of the ways also described by Coles.110 Of the metal reinforcements, the boss is invariably of iron, though sometimes fitted with a brass point-protector or ornament (2:2 and 6). It has a flanged rim through which pass the pins securing it over a central hole in the leather foundation. The hollow interior was sometimes—probably always—stuffed with tow or hair to protect the user's knuckles (3b: 2, 3 and 12). On Type 2 bucklers, the rim-ring, which is usually wider than the rest, is invariably of iron; the remaining rings and laths can be entirely of iron, entirely of brass, or a mixture of brass rings and iron laths. The laths seem always to be made separately from the boss, and have their inner ends riveted under its flange, the rivets having the same form as those used elsewhere. All the Type 3 bucklers noted so far have rings entirely of iron. Each overlaps the outer edge of its neighbour (that is they overlap inwards towards the boss), and they seem always to be pinned only to the leather foundation and not to each other as well. The rim-ring is often, but not invariably, wider than the others. The backs of all the bucklers—which on surviving examples are often in worse condition than the fronts—were covered with a further layer of leather and sometimes linen or flannel. Basire ( (2:6) refers merely to a piece of softer leather, Thoresby (2:8) to linen backed with softer leather (cf. 3b: 7), Morris to flannel (3b: 3), and the Metropolitan Museum catalogue to 'flax fibre' under 'a cover of green linen' (3b: 10). An iron rim-ring, corres- ponding to the one at the front, is invariably pinned to the back. It is bent up at two oppos- ing points to form angular loops in which the tips of the yoke-shaped wooden grip are secured. Some bucklers have one or more additional concentric iron rings on their backs, and where these impinge on the grip they are similarly shaped to form loops. Whether WELSH BUCKLERS 101 extra rings exist or not, the grip is additionally secured by separate iron bands, shaped like staples, and firmly pinned to the foundation. On one buckler (2:2) the grip retains a leather thong which must have been used to hang it on the owner's sword-hilt as shown on pi. xxi. The bucklers of each type are all of the same basic construction, but they vary in size and detail. Type 2 bucklers vary from iof in. to 15 in. in diameter, and Type 3b from 11 in. to 18 in., but the majority of both types fall more or less within the range 11 U1.-14 in. Other variations are in the degree of concavity (which is always towards the opponent), in the exact form of the boss and spike, of which the latter can be sharp or blunt, and in the relative numbers and spacing of rings and laths on Type 2, and the number of rings on Type 3b. One buckler also retains traces of tinning (1:1) {cf. also Boss 3), and two are etched or incised with decoration (2:1 and 2). The Type 2 buckler described by Ralph Thoresby in 1698 was apparently unique in having an exceptionally wide rim-ring held by two rows of pins instead of the normal single row (2:8). His Type 3b buckler is shown with an identical rim-ring in the woodcut in the catalogue of his collection, but this conflicts with his written description of the buckler and can almost certainly be regarded as an artist's error (3b: 8). The variations do not seem to form any pattern from which deductions can be made about workshops or chronology. The evidence of the three finest surviving bucklers (2:1, 2 and 3) points, however, to the conclusion that the better the quality, the more laths or rings there were to the inch.
The following list of recorded bucklers and fragments of bucklers is based on that published by Dr. Williams in the article on early Tudor bucklers mentioned more than once in the main text of this paper. I have, however, made a number of amendments and additions, and also provided (under the heading 'Comments') basic information about construction and features of special interest. It will be noticed that more examples of Type 3b survive than of any other. LIST OF RECORDED WELSH BUCKLERS AND FRAGMENTS o (The numbers in brackets at the ends of some entries refer to Williams's list, cited in n. 30) to
History, starting with Present location earliest known location Diameter Comments References Type 1 1. Tower Armouries, Hilton Hall, Staffs., 1850. i6£ in. 7 rows of rivets. Grip. The See pp. 83, 84 V.i 09 (ex R. In R. Williams collection by surface retains traces of PI. XIII. Williams) tinning. (1) Type 2 1. Mus6e de 1'Armee, King Henry VIII. At 11 in. 25 rows of rivets. 24 iron See pp. 88-90 Paris, 1.6 Chantilly, France, by 1783. rings over approximately Pis. XVI-XVIII. a 184 iron laths. The boss w is etched with the Tudor royal arms etc. The blunt spike is writhen. Grip. (3) S 2. Shrewsbury Said to have come from iof in. 13 rows of rivets. 11 brass Catalogue of the Loan £ Museum (I). Battlefield (the site of the rings and an iron rim-ring Exhibition of Shrop- 11 Printed catalogue Battle of Shrewsbury in over 99 brass laths. Writhen shire Antiquities. W of 1881, no. 470. 1403), and Moreton Corbet brass spike-cover or orna- Music Hall Build- CO <—1 Church, Shropshire. Given ment, its method of attach- ings, Shrewsbury, O to the Museum, with no. ment unclear. The boss is May 10-12 i8g8 a 3b: 2, in 1866 by Sir Vincent decorated with a scale-like (Shropshire no R. Corbett of Acton pattern formed of pounced Archaeological Reynald. concentric lines, of which the Society), p. 9, no. I two nearest the base of the 137 and frontispiece. spike are nebulee and the remainder indented. Grip, with a leather thong wrap- ped loosely round it twice, its end stitched together. This must have been for hanging the buckler on a sword-hilt (cf. p. 85). The whole buckler is bent along a central axis as if by a cart- wheel. Cf. also nos. 3b: 2 and 4. (5) 3. Ashmolean In Tradescant collection iof in. 23 rows of rivets. 21 brass See p. 91. Museum, Oxford. before 1685 rings over 150 iron laths set so closely together that they almost completely cover the leather base. This arrangement of the laths, which is unique on recorded bucklers, gives it a superficial appearance of belonging to class 3b. Remains of grip. (7)
4. Brecon Cathedral Bequeathed to the 11^ in. 9 rows of rivets. 8 iron Hereford Times, (on loan to Tower Cathedral in 1931 by Sir rings over 52 iron laths. 10th October 1931 Armouries) Charles P. Lucas with a Grip missing. (report of the seventeenth-century sword, bequest). 3 an eighteenth-century sword and a seventeenth- century pikeman's armour, all said to have belonged to td Sir David Gam who was killed at Agincourt in 1415! (6) w 5. W. Reid Collection Bought from an arms and 13J in. 6 rows of rivets. 6 iron PI. xvia. CO armour dealer in Portobello rings over 83 iron (?) laths. Rd., London, 1967. Grip missing.
6. Unknown '.. . found under ground in. 11 rows of rivets. 10 rings Engravings, with within the Area of the Camp over 84 laths, all of iron. cross-section and at Hendinas . . . ', Oswestry, Brass point-guard other details, by Shropshire, before 1763. (incomplete). Grip James Basire, 28th missing. April 1763, in Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. II, plate xx. See also p. 91 here. Pis. xrv-xv. (2) History, starting with Present location earliest known location Diameter Comments References *•
7. Unknown. In Dr. Green's Museum, 13 6 rows of rivets. 5 rings F. Grose, A Lichfield, Staffs, in 1786. over 72 laths (?). Treatise on Ancient Later in Bullock's London Armour and Museum where it was called Weapons, London, 'Norman'. 1786, plate 34. The woodcuts of the shield are almost certainly unreliable in detail. Cf. note 98. (4) 5
8. Unknown. In the possession of Ralph 15 in. 11 rows of rivets. 9 rings See p. 91 and Thoresby, the Leeds (Thoresby, over 86 laths, all of iron. notes 95^7. H antiquary in 1698. Given however, The rim ring was exceptionally 1—1 to the Museum of the Royal gives the broad and had two rows of O Society, but no longer in circumference rivets (cf 3b: 8). Grip missing. the Society's possession. as 3 ft. 9 in. Thoresby describes it as 2 Possibly passed to the which cor- 'flat' and composed, under 5 British Museum, but, if so, responds to a the rings and laths, of two CO not traceable there. diameter of thicknesses of hard strong <—oI 14-32 in.) leather through which the nails passed, backed by c linen cloth covered by softer leather. 1
9. Unknown In the possession of I. Fenn 8 rows of rivets. 7 rings over Drawings by J. of East Dereham, Norfolk, an uncertain number of Carter in British in 1786 laths. Grip. The drawings Library, Add. Ms. by Carter, which are the only 29927, f.78. In a record, merely show the section dated (f.i) outline and certain details of 1786. the front and back. In the caption it is described as 'an iron shield'. 10. Museum of Unknown, but presumably Approx. 8 in. The skeleton of a buckler, London, 7606. in London. lacking its boss and all leather and wooden parts. Its very fragile and muti- lated condition makes it difficult to examine properly. It now has 13 flimsy brass rings over numerous flimsy laths (? of iron), and the usual pair of inner and outer iron rim-rings.
11. Unknown. From the River Thames. 8 in. The incomplete skeleton of a Illustrated in W. O. Advertised in an undated, buckler with iron boss and Oldman Sale inter-War catalogue of objects laths, and two brass rings. Catalogues, Reprinted offered for sale by the dealer Remains of leather. 1976, no. 79/7 W. O. Oldman, of 77 Brixton (21512). s f Hill, London. CO X Type 3a CO 1. J. G. Mann Lord Londesborough i6| in. 14 rows of rivets. 13 rings. See p. 84 oG Collection Collection: Christie's, Grip. PI. xixb. July 1888, Lot 393. Bought w Pitt Rivers. Acquired by Mann from the Pitt Rivers family. CO (Note amongst Mann papers in the Tower Armouries.)
Type 3b 1. C. Blair Collection. Sold by Bearnes', Torquay, : 10 rows of rivets. 9 rings. Art & Antiques 13th December 1967, Lot 603, Modern grip. The boss is Weekly (London), as part of the contents of a brazed together. 27th February 1971, private museum built by pp. 1-2, 5. Identi- Richard Hall Clarke of fication of source of Bridwell, Uffcumbe, Devon, the Bearnes' sale, to house many pieces bought which was on his behalf at the Ashton Lever anonymous. sale (London, June 1806) by his PI. xxa. brother-in-law John Rowe. It History, starting with Present location earliest known location Diameter Comments References was presumably part of Lot 4808, 'An ancient shield and sword', which is the only appropriate one marked 'Rowe' in the annotated copy of the sale-catalogue in the British Library, (728.11.37). The same copy also bears the note 'The shield Norman', which accords with W. Bullock's dating of H buckler 2:7 (q.v,). X W
2. Shrewsbury Same as for no. 2:2. 13 rows of rivets. 12 rings. Same as for 2:2. t4 in- O Museum (II). Grip. The boss is stuffed d Printed catalogue of with tow. > 1881, No. 471. (12) H1 w CO Rapello House Excavated shortly before 13 in. In bad state. 8 rows of See pp. 91-2. Museum, May 1799 near the site of rivets. 7 rings. Reverse Llandudno. the Roman fort at Caerhun, lined with flannel. Boss stuffed near Conway. with 'coarse reddish hair' (Morris). Remains of grip.
4. Duke of North- Found on the site of the 14 rows of rivets. 13 rings. J. C. Bruce, A umberland, Battle of Shrewsbury (1403), A few incised lines on the Descriptive Catalogue Alnwick Castle. near the 'seat of Col. spike. Grip. Cf. nos. of Antiquities, Congreve, R.A.', who 2:2 and 3b:2. Chiefly British, at presented it to the Duke of Alnwick Castle, Northumberland. Newcastle-upon- Tyne, 1880, pp. i84-5- (9) Tower Bernal Collection: 14 in. 14 rows of rivets. 13 rings. J. Hewitt, Official Armouries, V.21. Christie's, 27th March Grip. Catalogue of the 1855, Lot 2395. Bought by Tower Armouries, Pratt (the London armour London, 1859, No. dealer). In the Tower by V.17; CJ. ffoulkes, 1859. Bohn's reprint of the Inventory & Survey Bernal sale-catalogue gives, of the Armouries erroneously, Lord of the Tower of Londesborough as the London, London, purchaser. 1916, No. V.21; European Armour in the Tower of London, London, 1968, pi. cxxxix. (10)
6. Tower Armouries, Sotheby's, 25th July 1947, 18 in. 14 rows of rivets. 13 rings. See under 8. V.108 (ex. R. Lot 104, with a group of Grip. Larger by over 2 in. r Williams). arms sold as the 'property than any other Type 3b CO of a gentleman'. Bought buckler recorded except for X R. Williams. Perhaps the no. 8. a same as no. 8. a a 7. Royal Ontario Archibald Lamb Collection, 13! in. 14 rows of rivets. 13 rings. Museum, Toronto, Christie's, 15th May 1922, Reverse retains traces of 934-33-1 (old Inv- Lot 2. Farnham Burke having been lined with No. M.1357). Collection, Christie's, 5th canvas covered by a layer May 1931, Lot 66. Bought of thin leather. (under the name of Brown) by the London armour- dealer H. Furmage, who sold it to the R.O.M. in IQ34-
8. Not known, but In the possession of Ralph Thoresby Known only from See p. 91 and perhaps the same Thoresby, the Yorkshire records the Thoresby's description and notes 95-7. See as no. 6. antiquary from before 1698 circumference a woodcut in the catalogue of also the second until after 1715. By 1816 as 4 ft. 9 in., his collection of anti- edition of Thores- History, starting with Present location earliest knozon location Diameter Comments References in the possession of 'Dr. which gives a quities. The description by's Ducatus Burton'. diameter of gives 14 rows of rivets, as Leodensis, Leeds just over 18 in. on no 6. (the number of and Wakefield, 1816, rings is not given), but the caption to plate woodcut shows 15 rows, of opposite p. 116, which two are on an excep- where it is des- tionally wide rim-ring cribed as being in identical to that on the possession of Thoresby's other buckler 'Dr. Burton'. (2:8), making 13 rings. It seems too much of a coinci- H dence for the only two bucklers with this form of rim-ring to have been in Thoresby's collection (both 11 acquired from different O sources) and it seems likely, therefore, that the discrep- >
ancy between the description >4 and the woodcut is the result W of an error on the latter. If CO so, it is possible that the o buckler is identical with no. c! 6, which is the only other of its size recorded.
9. Unknown. 'Private Collection in 14 m. 13 rows of rivets. 12 rings. Bashford Dean, The England' (according to Mr. In poor state, the boss Collection of Arms Stuart Pyhrr of the Metro- roughly patched, apparently and Armor of politan Museum, New York, during its working life. Rutherford this was the C, A. de Stuyvesant, 1843- Cosson collection). By 1909 igog, privately in the Rutherford printed, New York, Stuyvesant Collection, New 1914, No. 42. York. io. Metropolitan Laking illustrates it in his in. 10 rows of rivets. 9 rings. G. F. Laking, A Museum of Art, Record (1920) without giving Grip. According to the Record of European New York, 45. a provenance (which Museum's card catalogue: Armour and Arms, 160.1. probably means that it was the ball of the boss is made II, London, 1920, then in the trade) and says in two parts brazed to the p. 245, fig. 616; it 'made its appearance a boss proper; the leather base Metropolitan few years ago in some is pigskin 'formerly covered Museum of Art. country sale, and was by flax fibre, some of which Loan Exhibition of catalogued as "Soudanese".' remains; over this is a cover European Arms and In the possession of of green linen, one half of Armor August 3 Alexander McMillan Welch which is still present.' to September 27 of New York by 1931. 1931, No. 104. Given to the Metropolitan PI. xxb Museum in his memory in IQ45- (H) 3 W 11. British Museum, Unknown. Very corroded and encrusted r OA 4709. At with what appears to be w present on loan to sand. Number of rows of X the Tower rivets uncertain, but probably w Armouries. 10. Probably 9 rings. Grip O missing. w 5
12. Unknown. In 1786 'late in the 12 in. 10 rows of rivets. Number Grose, op. cit. collection of the Rev. Mr. of rings uncertain, but (under 2:7), pi. 37. Gostling of Canterbury'. probably 9. Remains of grip. Boss 'stuffed with hair". (8)
13. Unknown. In 1712 'lately sent [to Approx. Described by Thoresby as As under 8 above. Ralph Thoresby] from the 14J in. (?). being 'more than a foot less North, by the Rev. Mr. in Circumference' than no. Coningham'. 8, but with 'an equal Number of Circular Rows of small Brass Studs', that is, presumably, 14. DETACHED PIECES Bosses (all are of the 'pear-shaped' form found on Type 2 and 3b bucklers)* History, starting with Present location earliest known location Diameter Comments References 1. Museum of From London Wall. Incomplete. M. R. Holmes, London, A5261. Arms & Armour in Tudor & Stuart London, The London Museum, H.M.S.O., 1970, P- 9- (13) H X w 2. Museum of From the River Thames. Incomplete. The lower edge Ibid. London, A5880. of the knob is split into tongues turned under the edges of the central hole in the boss proper and riveted. o a Museum of From Camomile St. The lower edge of the knob is W London, 217. merely flanged to fit under CO the edges of the central hole O in the boss and brazed. Traces of tinning inside and a on surviving rivets.
Museum of From Moorfields. Very fragmentary. London, 192.54.
External rim-rings 1. Museum of From Bull Wharf. 11* in. The inner and outer rim- London, 80.65/38. rings held together by rivets with large, domed brass heads.
* The measurements of these are not given, since they are of no significance to this study. WELSH BUCKLERS in SUMMARY The paper deals with a well-known group of Tudor bucklers (once thought to be Roman), made of leather reinforced with riveted iron or brass rings, sometimes accompanied by radiating strips. The evidence of a group of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Welsh poems and other records is used to establish that they originated in Wales, and that Wrexham was a noted centre of production. A corpus of recorded examples is given.
NOTES 1 A reference was first made to descriptive 4 Cywyddau 0 waith Gutun Owain, gw. E. passages relating to bucklers in medieval Bachellery (gol), L'Oeuvre Poitique de Gutun Welsh poetry in the Introduction to my book Owain, 95-9, 'Cywydd i (a) ofyn Bwcled i The Davies Brothers, Gatesmiths, one of which Si6n Pilstwn dros Si6n ab Elis Eutun o Wat- interested Mr. Claude Blair, the Keeper of the stay'. (Ap or Ab = son of.) N.L.W. 359. (b) Metalwork Department of the Victoria and 'Cywydd i ofyn Bwcled dros Wmffre Cinast i Albert Museum. He suggested that this source Ruffudd ap Hywel ap Morgan o Faelor'. deserved a more careful investigation. This I N.L.W. 18364. Other MSS. sources are: was able to do with the assistance of Miss BL Add 14967, poem begins p. 63. MS. temp Enid Roberts of the Welsh Department of the Henry VIII, possibly written by one of Gutun University College of North Wales, Bangor: Owain's pupils. Mostyn 147, poem begins without her help this would not have been p. 78; early seventeenth-century hand, BL Add possible. Also, I tender my thanks to Mr. 14976, poem begins p. 231; early seventeenth- Dennis Davies for further assistance. For the century hand. original Welsh of the quotations given in 5 King Arthur's Round Table is referred to translation in the text of the article see the in the ode to Rhys Nanmor (see p. 78 below) Appendices I—II on pp. 92-6. as being covered with rivet heads. 2 Cywydd o waith Guto'r Glyn, 'I Ddafydd 6 The ffristial, according to Geiriadur Prifys- Abad Pant y Groes, i ddiolch am Fwcled'. gol Cymru (University of Wales Dictionary) can Gw. Ifor Williams a J. LI. Williams, (gol), mean 'dice, dice-box, backgammon' and boards Gwaith Guto'r Glyn, 296-8. 'To David, Abbot for other games. Games-boards would be of Valle Crucis Abbey, to thank him for a acceptable, to illustrate the decorative qualities Buckler'. The best MSS. sources are: BL Add of the buckler. It had inlaid squares of coloured (British Library Additional) 14866, poem woods. The word eurgrwydr was also used begins p. 408. This MS. is in the hand of frequently in describing bucklers, meaning David Johns, Vicar of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, 'gold-chased'. It was a stock-description used 1573—?g6. Peniarth 99, poem begins p. 215. from the beginnings of Welsh poetry—from MS. written by one of Dr. John Davies's the end of the sixth century. The second clerks (late sixteenth century). Mostyn 146, element, crwydr, means 'sieve', i.e. powdered, poem begins p. 196, late sixteenth-century speckled. hand. (Mostyn and Peniarth in the National 7 In his famous poem to Owain Glyndwr's Library of Wales.) court (early fifteenth or late fourteenth century) 3 The National Library of Wales has recently Iolo Goch speaks of chapels, houses and shops bound a first-line index to the Welsh strict like those of Cheapside, although there was metre poems in manuscript form in the N.L.W. only one medieval hall with one other small and other repositories (Bangor, Cardiff, Lon- building. But the windows reminded the don, Oxford, etc.) which has been completed poet of chapel windows and the contents of by the Board of Celtic Studies and the N.L.W. the hall were like the merchandise of the shops This consists of 4,500 typescript pages. The in Cheapside. poets are listed alphabetically and likewise the 8 Cywydd o waith Tudur Aled, gw. T. first lines of their poems (together with title Gwynn Jones (gol), Gwaith Tudur Aled, where available). From this vast collection Cyfrol II, 452-4, 'I ofyn Bwcled i bedwar historians may glean many untapped sources mab Elis Eutun dros eu Hewythr Hywel ap of historical material. Siencyn o Dywyn'. Written before 1494. 112 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL 9 Ibid. 449-51, 'Cywydd i ofyn Bwcled, a !6 See Appendix II. Marwnad Ieuan ap Deicws'. Also: Cardiff 17 I owe a special debt of gratitude to two 11, poem begins p. 93; late sixteenth-century people for help in preparing this study: hand. Llanstephan 39, poem begins p. io6b; firstly, my co-author, Mr. Ifor Edwards, written 1560-80. BL Add 14971, poem begins whose Davies Brothers, Gatesmiths (Welsh p. i37b; in the hand of Dr. John Davies. Arts Council/Crafts Advisory Committee, 1977) (Llanstephan MS. also in N.L.W.).. provided me with the key to the problem of 10 Pedigrees of the family of Ieuan ap Welsh bucklers for which I had been searching Deicws show that he was from 'Y Llanerchru- since 1958; secondly, Miss Enid Roberts of gog', a name which persists in the old parish of the Welsh Department of the University College Ruabon. Vol. Ill of J. Y. W. Lloyd (Chevalier of North Wales, Bangor, who has patiently Lloyd), The History of Powys Fadog, 55-8, a answered innumerable questions about the pedigree copied from the Cae Cyriog MS., the interpretation of Welsh texts. I must also work of John Griffith, genealogist, of Ruabon. record my thanks to the following for help of His work in turn was based on Peniarth 128, various kinds: Dr. Sydney Anglo, F.S.A.; compiled by Edward ap Roger (b. c. 1527, d. Mr. Geoffrey de Bellaigue, F.S.A., Surveyor 1587) of Ruabon, a reliable genealogist. of the Queen's Works of Art; Mr. W. J. Blair; N.L.W. 'Ruabon MS.' by A. N. Palmer, p. 42: Miss M. L. Campbell of the Victoria and A lease from the lords of Bromfield and Yale Albert Museum; Mr. John Cherry, F.S.A., of to Robert ap Griffith ap Howell and Ieuan ap the British Museum; Mrs. G. Cousland of the Deicws ap Deio, dated 16th June, 12 Edward IV Lord Chamberlain's Office; Professor A. H. (1472), for eight years from the ditch called Dodd; Mr. Ian Eaves of the Tower of London 'Claughwad' (Clawdd Wad or Wat's Dyke) to Armouries; Mr. M. Bevan-Evans, formerly the mountain of Glasffrey in the parish of County Archivist of Flintshire; Miss Nia Ruabon, at an yearly rent of 3s. ^d. Henson of the National Library of Wales; 11 Ifor Edwards, 'The charcoal iron indus- our Librarian Mr. John Hopkins; Mr. D. try of east Denbighshire', Trans. Denbighs. Ifans of the National Library of Wales; Mrs. Historical Society, ix (i960), 29. A. L. Kaeppler of the Smithsonian Institution, 12 Cywydd o waith Huw Cae Llwyd, gw. L. Washington; Mr. K. Corey Keeble of the Royal Harries (gol), Gvmith Huw Cae Lhoyd ac Ontario Museum, Toronto; Mr. R. W. Light- ercn bown, Sec. S.A.; Mr. Michael Keen of the Eraill, pp. 103-4, 'I i Bwcler'. (No. XLII.) 13 'Blaenau' denotes the upper regions of a Victoria and Albert Museum; Mr. A. V. B. valley; and in this instance, since the donor Norman, F.S.A., Master of the Tower of is from the Lampeter area in South Wales, it London Armouries; Mr. A. R. E. North of the probably refers to the upper reaches of the Victoria and Albert Museum; Mr. Stuart Pyhrr Teifi where he dwells. The poet, Huw Cae of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Llwyd, was a native of Llandderfel, in the Mr. Williams Reid, F.S.A., Director of the upper regions of the River Dee, but he spent National Army Museum; Monsieur J.-P. the greater part of his working life in South Reverseau of the Musde de PArm6e, Paris; The Wales. Rev. Canon M. H. Ridgway, F.S.A.; Mr. 14 Unpublished M.A. Thesis (Bangor, 1938) Eurys Rowlands; Miss E. Simpson of the by Mary Gwendoline Headley: 'Barddoniaeth Cheshire Record Office; the late Mr. Albert Llawdden a Rhys Nanmor'. No. 50, 'Cywydd Tilley of Brecon Cathedral; the late Dr. i ofyn Bwcled i Lewis M6n'. The poet, Rhys Richard Williams, F.S.A.; Mr. Guy Wilson of Nanmor, seeks the gift from Lewis Mon, a the Tower of London Armouries; the staffs of smith, living in Temple Bar, London, working the Public Record Office, the Manuscript for Henry VIII, and acting as 'a squire for him Students Room of the British Library, the over Canterbury'. He may have had a forge Museum of London, and the Library of the somewhere near the coast of Kent, or Sussex, Royal Society. near the 'Strait of Dover'. 18 'Those Shields or Targets which had 15 Cywydd o waith Lewis Glyn Cothi, gw. double stays for the Arms and Hand were for E. D. Jones (gol), Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi Horsemen; but such as had only one handle (1953), pp. 157-8, beginning with line 29: were Bucklers for Foot-men. As the Figures 'Cywydd i ofyn Bwcled gan Si6n ap Dafydd'. doth manifest.' Randle Holme, The Academy WELSH BUCKLERS of Armory and Blazon (Chester, 1688), p. n for the arms, is visible. See Th. M. Chotzen and figs. 62 and 64 on p. 7. Cf. also Donald and A. M. E. Draak, Beschrivning der Britische McBane, The Expert Sword-Man's Companion Eilanden door Lucas de Heere (Antwerp, 1937). (Glasgow, 1728), pp. 65-6. 41 It belongs to the misericords at Ludlow 19 The only general history of the buckler which are associated with a payment made in available appears to be the one given by Sir Guy 1447 by the local Palmers' Guild for 100 F. Laking in his Record of European Armour planks bought in Bristol for new choir-stalls. and Arms (London, 1920-2), vol. 11, pp. 242-9. See D. H. S. Cranage, An Architectural Account For the use of the bucklers see Egerton Castle, of the Churches of Shropshire, vol. 1 (Wellington, Schools and Masters of Fence, 2nd edn. (London, Shropshire), p. 117. G. L. Remnant, A 1892), pp. 22-4, 26, 34, 59. Catalogue of Misericords in Great Britain 20 Above pp. 75, 76, 77. (Oxford 1969), p. 135 gives the 1447 reference 21 Above p. 79. but dates these stalls to 1435 without explaining 22 Above pp. 75, 78, 79. why. 23 Above pp. 76, 79. 42 Cf., for example, the buckler held by the 24 Above p. 75. so-called figure of a jester on one of the late 25 J. Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century misericords . People of England, reprint of the 3rd edn. at Christchurch Priory. See Pictorial Guide. (London, 1867), p. 311. The original, in the The Choir Stalls and Misericords, Christ- British Library (Cottonian Ms. Cleopatra Bn) church Priory, Hampshire, n.d., pi. 14, where dates from the late thirteenth century. the buckler is incorrectly called a platter. 26 Above pp. 75, 77, 78. 43 See: Oliver Miller, The Tudor, Stuart 27 Above pp. 75, 76, 78, 79. and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection 28 For example, the reference to a work- of Her Majesty the Queen, 2 vols. (London, shop 'by the Strait of Dover' in one of the 1963), nos. 24 and 24; S. Anglo, 'The Hampton poems. Above p. 77. Court painting of the Field of Cloth of Gold 29 Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient considered as an historical document', Antiq. Armour and Weapons (London, 1786), pis. J. xlvi (1966), 287-307; J. B. Trapp and H. S. 34 and 37. Herbriiggen, 'The King's Good Servant'. Sir 80 Richard Williams, 'Early Tudor bucklers Thomas More 1477I8-1535 (National Portrait with a note on an exhibit in Brecon Cathedral', Gallery, London, 1977-8), no. 67. The Transactions of the Radnorshire Society, 44 M. D. Anderson, Drama and Imagery in xxvii (1957), 12-19. Since the article is such a English Medieval Churches (C.U.P., 1963), short one I shall not give the page numbers pi. 21b. See also John Baker, English Stained. of further reference to it. Glass (London, 1961), pp. 225-7. 81 See below pp. 83-4. «Roy. MS. 18D.II, f.148. Sir G. F. 82 Above p. 78. Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western 88 Appendix IV. Manuscripts in the old Royal and King's Collec- 34 Discussed below pp. 88-90. tion (British Museum, 1921), vol. II, pp. 35 Appendix IV, nos. 1:1; 2:2 and 6; 3b: 2-4. 308-10, vol. iv, pi. 105b. 36 Ibid.,nos.2:10-11;Bosses 1-4;Rim-rings 1. 46 J. S. Brewer, Letters and Papers of Henry 37 Ibid., nos. 2:3, 7-9; 3b: 1, 8, 12, 13. VIII, vol. 3, pt. 1 (London, 1867), p. 295. 38 Ibid., nos. 2:2, 3 and 10. It is possible The record of payment is contained in an that other bucklers in this group (e.g. no. 5) account for stuff provided for the Queen by include brass rings and laths. Elys Hylton. 39 Ibid., no. 3:1. It is at present on loan to 47 Ibid., p. 128. He is mentioned merely in the Tower of London Armouries. connection with a search made for suspected 40 E. Auerbach and C. Kingsley Adams, persons. Paintings and Sculpture at Hatfield House 48 See below pp. 86-7. (London, 1971), no. 49. Cf. also the possibly 49 Lucy Toulmin Smith (ed.), The itinerary related drawing by Lucas de Heere in the in Wales of John Leland in or about the years University Library, Ghent (MS. 2466, f.70). 1536-g (London, 1906), pp. 69-70. This shows a similar figure carrying a circular 50 British Library Harleian MS. 1419 B., f. shield of which only the inside, with two brasses THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL 51 A. H. Dodd, A History of Wrexham, 77 See: ibid., pp. 437-43, pis. xxx-xxxi; Denbighshire (Wrexham, 1957), pp. 26, 32, 36. Charles Buttin, Une pritendue armure de 52 For a pedigree and other information Jeanne d'Arc (Paris, 1913) (reprinted from about the family see J. Y. W. Lloyd, The Mitnoires de la Socidti nationale des Antiquaires History of the Princes, the Lords Marcher and de France, vol. LXXII), p. 22; idem, 'L'armure the Ancient Nobility of Powys Fadog, vol. 11 aux lions', Revue de I Art, liv (1928), 156. (London, 1882), pp. 184, 193-4, 326-9. 353- 78 Carr6, he. cit., n.76 above. Cf. also Leland, he. cit. 79B.L. Harleian Ms. 1419 A, ff.55, ii7v, 53 P.R.O., E101/420/11, f.16. i56v; 1419B, 5.413^414. The second and 54 P.R.O., E36/216, ends at Easter 1521. third references are duplicated in i4igB, f.469. 55 L. & P.H. VIII, vol. 4, pt. 1 (1870), p. 606. It is an indication of the essentially civilian 56 See below. character of the buckler that only two are 57 P.R.O., E101/420/11, f.74. listed in the volume of the inventory covering 58 Ibid., f.149. the royal armoury. See H. A. Dillon, 'Arms 59 Ibid., f.is6v. and armour at Westminster, The Tower and so P.R.O., E101/424/9, pp. 1S3-64. Greenwich', Archaeologia, li (1888), 267. 61 L. & P.H. VIII, vol. 10 (1887), p. 328. 80 'Item one other Buckler guilte with the 62 Ibid. late Marqueis of Exeter his Armes' (Harl. 63 Ibid., Vol. 14, pt. I (1894), p. 418. 1419B, f.414). This must have belonged to the 64 Ibid., vol. 15 (1896), p. 566. Cf. also vol. first Marquis who was attainted and executed 18, pt. 11 (1902), p. 281; Patent Rolls Edward VI, in 1538. See also the reference below to a vol. in (London, 1925), p. 356. silver buckler with the royal arms. 65 L. & P.H. VIII, vol. 16 (1898), p. 642. gi Harl. 14196, f.469. This duplicates Cf. also Patent Rolls Elizabeth, vol. 1 (1939), Harl. 1419A, f.ii7v. 82 v P- 325- Harl. 1419B, f.4i3 . 66 L. & P.H. VIII., vol. 20, pt. 11 (1907), ™L& P.H. VIII, vol. 3, pt. 1, p. 165; vol. 4, P- 323- pt. in, p. 3071. 84 67 Ibid., vol. 2i, pt. 1 (1908), p. 475. 1 am grateful to M. J.-P. Reverseau, 68 Ibid., vol. 19, pt. 1 (1903), p. 156. Conservateur au Mus6e de l'Arm6e, for making 69 Patent Rolls Edward VI, vol. v (1926), pp. a special examination of the buckler at my 339. 348. request and confirming that it is, in fact, iron. ™ Ibid., pp. 363, 375. 85 See Francis Decrue, Anne de Mont- 71 Patent Rolls Philip & Mary, vol. iv (1939), morency, (2 vols, Paris, 1885 ana^ l%%9)> vol. 1, p. 400. pp. 195-201. 72 Lloyd, op. cit., p. 328. 86 Ibid., passim. For his relationship with 73 Appendix IV, no. 2:1. For the best pub- Henry VIII see especially vol. 1, pp. 13, 14, lished account of it see Le G6n6ral Niox, Le 97-9, 182-5, 195-201. Musde de VArmie. Armes et Armures Anciennes, 87 Ibid., vol. 11, p. 416. vol. 1 (Paris, 1917), pi. Li. 88 C. J. ffoulkes, Inventory and Survey of the 74 Cf. the foliage decorating the initial letters Armouries of the Tower of London, vol. 1 of some Tudor official documents, for example, (London, 1916), pp. 105-5; A. R. Dufty E. Auerbach, Tudor Artists (London, 1954), (ed.), European Armour in the Tower of London p. 25, pis. 3, 7-10, 12. The hawthorn was one (London, 1968), pis. x-xi. of the national emblems in the early sixteenth 89 P.R.O., S.P.I: vol. 19, ff.229-30; vol. 20, century, because, it is said, Henry VII found ff.44-7. See also L. & P.H. VIII, vol. 3, pt. 1 his crown under a hawthorn bush: see, for (1867), PP- 227, 283, where the two documents example, J. G. Russell, The Field of Cloth of are calendared separately and the memorandum Gold (London, 1969), p. 112. misdated. The connection between them has 75 See K. P. Harrison, 'Katherine of Aragon's subsequently been noted on the originals. pomegranate', Transactions of the Cambridge 90 The tonlet was the skirt of overlapping Bibliographical Society, ii, pt. 1 (1954), hoops attached to the bottom of the cuirass. 88-92. The term was applied particularly to the very 76 J. B. L. Carre, Panoplie (Paris, 1797) deep, almost knee-length, skirt fitted to some [written in 1783], pp. 392, 395 and pi. xvi. foot-combat armours like the one at the Tower. WELSH BUCKLERS See Dillon, op. cit., p. 258; ffoulkes, loc. cit; that he had 'apprehended' that the bucklers Victor Gay, Glossaire archiologique du moyen were Roman, but now has doubts because of age et de la Renaissance, vol. 11 (Paris, 1928), the softness and pliability of their leather and p. 407; J. B. Giraud, Documents pour servir absence of any references to iron-faced shields a Ihistoire de Varmament au moyen age et a in antique sources. He is now 'ready to think la Renaissance, vol. 11 (Lyon, 1899), pp. 10, 13, that they belong to some later Northern Nations'. 3i. 34. 47i- 97 91 The only artist known certainly to have Royal Society Library, Journal Book of the Royal Society (copy), vol. ix, p. 100. engraved armour for Henry is Paul van Vreland 98 who is first recorded in his service in 1514, and See n. 29 above. One of the bucklers, was still employed by the crown at the time then in Dr. Green's Museum, Lichfield (no. of his death in 1551. The etching on the Paris 2:7), was later in William Bullock's London buckler and the Tower tonlet armour is not Museum. It was called 'the Roundel Rondache, like any of his identified engraving, but he may or Norman Shield' in the Companion to the Museum (12th edn., 1812, p. 25). of course, have used a different style for etch- 99 ing. See C. Blair, 'The Emperor Maximilian's He said that it had been found 'a very gift of armour to King Henry VIII and the small Distance, eastward of its [Canovium's] silvered and engraved armour at the Tower site, in opening an old Drain, and was then of London', Archaeologia, xcix (1965), 20-31. about two feet below the common surface . . . Cf. also the engraving on an early sixteenth- the two Leather Clasps or loops for the Arm century dagger bearing the Tudor royal arms were entire, but these on Exposure to air, soon in the Musee de l'Armee, Paris (P.O. 1125): mouldered away', [Minute Book, vol. XXVII, J. G. Mann, 'A kidney dagger with the royal pp. 338-40). Two drawings of the buckler by arms', The Connoisseur (March, 1932), 158-60. J. R. Underwood are preserved in the Society's 92 Remnant, op. cit, pi. 6d. Library (Primeval Antiquities, vol. i, £.163). 93 See A. V. B. Norman, The Rapier and See also Archaeologia, xvi (1809), 128. The Small-Sword (London, 1980), pp. 24-5, 47; reference to 'two Leather ... loops for the F. W. Fairholt, Costume in England, 4th edn. Arm* must be a mistake, since the buckler, (London, 1896), vol. 11, p. 98; J. D. Aylward, which is of Type 3b (no. 3), has attachments for The English Master of Arms (London, 1956), a normal wooden grip. 100 pp. 118, 124-9, X72- Journal of the Chester and N. Wales Arch. 94 Quoted by C. J. ffoulkes in European Soc. v (1895), 66-71. 101 Arms and Armour in the University of Oxford 5s., vol. XII, p. 141. (Oxford, 1912), p. 58, no. 162. I am grateful 102 7s., vol. v, pp. 311, 321. to Mr. A. G. MacGregor of the Ashmolean 103 T. A. Glenn, 'Buckler Found at Caerhun', Museum for checking the text with the original Arch. Comb, lxxxvi (1931), 365. He calls it manuscript (1685 B.14). Tudor, and 'not even necessarily Welsh'. 4 95 Philosophical Transactions Royal Society, i° Vol. VII, p. 181. London, vol. xx, (1699), pp. 205-8; Cf. also 105 Appendix IV, no. 3b: 4. J. M. Levine, Dr. Woodward's Shield. History, 106 Appendix IV, no. 3b :$. Science and Satire in Augustan England (Univer- 107 Catalogue of Antiquities, Works of Art sity of California Press, Los Angeles and Lon- and Historical Scottish Relics Exhibited in the don, 1977), pp. 167-8, to which I am indebted Museum of the Archaeological Institute of Great for drawing my attention to Thoresby's Britain during their Annual Meeting, held in bucklers. Edinburgh, July 1856 (Edinburgh, 1859), p. 68. 96 He was, however, beginning to have 1081 have inspected all the bucklers of second thoughts by the time he had prepared which the present location is known with the the catalogue of his collection of antiquities for exception of nos. 3b: 3 and 4. publication. This is dated 1712, but was 109 The numbers refer to thelist on pp. 102-10. actually published three years later as an 110 John M. Coles, 'European Bronze Age appendix to his Ducatus Leodensis (London, Shields', Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxviii (1962), 1715). In it Thoresby comments (pp. 564-5) 175-9-