Tea at Trianon: The Armor of the Maid

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, March 19, 2011

The Armor of the Maid

What St. Joan of Arc wore into battle. To quote:

Armor was a very important part of the 15th century soldier. It had gone from the days of the lorica segmentata through chain mail to what was in the time of the Maid to complete sets of armor which covered the entire body. However this type of armor was expensive therefore it remained in the hands of the nobility, and royalty. The basic soldier could count himself fortunate if he possessed even the most even the most rudimentary helmet and Gambeson. By the time of the Hundred Years War, armor making had developed into a highly skilled profession. The latest improvements were incorporated into armor as well as better steel. While we do not know with exactitude what the Maid's armor actually looked like the print above is a fairly excellent representation from contemporary sources that are in existence and those which were most common.