Breastplate (body armour): M.13C-1941

Maker(s)

Production: Unknown

Entities

• Breastplate (body armour)
• breastplate with skirt

Categories

• Armour

Description

Breastplate with skirt, for infantry or light cavalry use. The breastplate is of rounded, medially-ridged, one-piece construction with bold, angular outward turns at the neck and arm-openings. A modern rivet secures a modern shoulder-strap terminating in a single-ended tongued, iron buckle within each shoulder. The rivet for the left strap is round-headed with a square, internal washer, while that for the right is externally-flush with a large, flat, internal head. The lower edge of the breastplate is flanged outwards to receive the skirt of four upward-overlapping lames decorated with a raised, medial rib. The lower edge of the lowest lame is cut out with a shallow, central arch over the crotch. The lames are connected to one another and to the breastplate at their outer ends by modern, round-headed rivets with circular or octagonal internal washers. The centre of the third lame is repaired by welding. The lower right corner of the third lame is damaged. Vacant holes occur near the connecting-rivets at the left end of the first lame, the right end of the second lame and half way along each side of the lower edge of the third lame. Four holes have later been plugged on the second lame, and perhaps as many as seven on the lowest lame. Part of the composite Spanish armour M.13A-K-1941.

Notes

History note: From the collection of Dr Bashford Dean, Riverdale, Long Island, New York. According to a manuscript note by F.H. Cripps-Day, dated December 1926, in his grangerised copy of G.F. Laking, A Record of European Armour and Arms, [section on jacks in volume titled 'mail'], now preserved in the library of the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, 'I exchanged [a jack] with Dean for a Gothic Spanish suit made up. I wanted a Gothic suit but parted with a rare piece'. The jack, from a house in Tonbridge, Kent, is now part of the Bashford Dean Memorial Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The breastplate may conceivably be one of a series of such pieces that were dispersed from the armoury of the Dukes of Ossuna at the end of the 19th century. Mr Francis Henry Cripps-Day.

Legal notes

Given by Mr F.H. Cripps-Day

Place(s) associated

• Calatayud ⪼ Spain

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (1941-06) by Cripps-Day, Francis Henry

Dating

16th Century, Early#
Production date: circa AD 1510

Note

Spanish, Calatayud

The breastplate and skirt are bright with light to medium patination overall. The metal of the breastplate shows evidence of delamination at several points.

The existence of unused and plugged holes in the skirt-lames suggests, in conjunction with differences in surface condition, that they have been altered and associated both with one another and the breastplate.