Master Armourer Chris Dobson

Two Early 16th Century Tonlet Armours

The commission from the Royal Armouries for two tonlet armours is a good example of having to combine a series of surviving pieces to create an armour from a certain period: in this case the English Royal Court in the early 16th Century, which would still have been using a lot of imported Italian armour, or armour produced in the Low Countries, either influenced by Italian fashions or made by Italian emigrè armourers. Tonlet armours were intended for a foot combat with pollaxes and swords. The helmet was rigidly bolted to the cuirasse to stop the wearer getting a broken neck, and the deep tonlet was worn, since the wearer did not have to sit a horse.

The first helmet was based on the Wimbourne Minster Bascinet, the cuirasse and vambraces were based on an armour in Mantua (Museo Diocesano, B11), the tonlet skirt, legharness and the pauldrons on the Tonlet armour of Henry VIII (Royal Armouries) and those of Claude Vaudrey and the Emperor Maximilian I (Vienna). The gauntlets were based on pieces in the Royal Armouries.

The second armour was meant to compliment the first, but be recognizably different to the public. Therefore the helmet was based on one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which has a completely smooth visor, and the pauldrons were given a lighter look, being fitted with besagews. However, the gauntlets are extremely heavy, and based on a pair on the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds. Otherwise, the armour is based on pieces in Mantua and Vienna as above.

Commissioned by the Royal Armouries, 1995-97.