ARMILLART SPHERE. 



ARMOUR. 



634 



British Museum, contain armillse in great quantities, and of almost 

 every variety of form, in gold, in silver, and in bronze. See the 

 Hamilton Room, Case 68; Mr. Knight's collection, Case 8; and the 

 Hamilton and other gems. 



In vol. xii. of the ' Archseologia,' pi. li., a bronze armilla is engraved, 

 found upon the wrist of a full-sized skeleton at Westwang Field in the 

 East Riding of YoAshire. See in the same work (vol. xxii. p. 285) 

 some observations upon an ancient bracelet of bronze, found on the 

 sand-hills of Altyre on the coast of Murrayshire ;' and also vol. xxvii. 

 p. 400. 



In the ' Journal ' of the British Arclueological Association, vol. ii., 

 are accounts of bracelets in bronze and mixed metal found at 

 Castlethorpe in Buckinghamshire, and at Colchester, Essex ; and in 

 subsequent proceedings of the Archaeological Association and Institute, 

 will be found other notices of similar discoveries in various parts of 

 the country. In the National Museum at Copenhagen, are some bronze 

 armlets found in Denmark, which appear to have been intended to 

 cover the whole arm, and which M. Worsaae (' Antiquities of Denmark,' 

 trans, by Thorns, p. 34) says belong exclusively to the bronze period. 

 He suggests that they were intended as a protection to the arm against 

 the blow of a sword. 



AliMILLARY SPHERE. The Latin word armiJla signifies a 

 bracelet, and the annillary sphere is one in which the principal circles 

 of the heavens are constructed of some solid material, and put together 

 into their relative positions ; thus presenting the appearance of a 

 hollow sphere, of which all the surface has been cut away except the 

 equator, ecliptic, colures, &c. This instrument is now little more than 

 a toy, the complete sphere being generally preferred for the purposes 

 of instruction ; but in the ancient astronomy, and even so late as the 

 time of Tycho BrahcS, an instrument, the simple description of which 

 ia, that it was the whole or part of an armillary sphere, was extensively 

 used in astronomical observation. On this point we refer the reader 

 to ASTROLABE. 



ARMINIANS are the followers of James Arminius, or those who 

 are considered to entertain his sentiments. A full account of his 

 doctrines will be found in the notice of ARMIXTOS in the BIOGRAPHICAL 

 DIVISION. 



ARMOUR is a term generally applicable to any defensive habit, used 

 to protect the person of the wearer from the attack of an enemy. The 

 English word for it in the aggregate, hi the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries, was harnttn. 



Among the more civilised ancient nations, brass, iron, and other 

 metals, were preferred for ita fabrication ; and in the time of Asiatic 

 magnificence, even gold was not spared. Herodotus (vii. 71) says that 

 the Libyans who assisted Xerxes in the great army wore leather armour, 

 or probably skins only is meant ; of which material, he adds (b. i. 71), 

 the armour of the ancient Persians also was composed. 



But for the earliest memorials of armour we must look to the sacred 

 writings, where we find the shield, the helmet, and the breast-plate 

 used by the Israelites. Goliath of Gath (1 Sam. xvii. 6) wore greaves 

 to defend the legs, which were also worn by the warriors of other 

 Asiatic nations ; and, at the siege of Troy, by the Grecians in general. 

 Homer's epithet of iummifuSfs'Ax<uoi (the well-greaved Achsei) is familiar 

 to every classical reader. His description of the thorax or breast-plate 

 of Agamemnon, at the beginning of the eleventh book of the ' Iliad,' 

 shows that decorated armour was used at this early period. The same 

 conclusion follows as a matter of course from the description of the 

 shield of Achilles, and it proves that occasionally great pains and skill 

 were employed in decorating armour. The golden armour of Glaucus 

 '' vi. -236) is stated to be worth a hundred oxen. Among the 

 Egyptians, armour of metal was confined to kings and nobles ; the 

 helmet of Psamiuetichus was of brass ; the common soldiery wore 

 quilted linen for helmets, and carried large wooden shields. (Xenophon, 

 ' Anab." i. 8.) The breast-plate which Amasis sent to Athenaea (Minerva) 

 at Lindos was made of linen, on which figures of animals were woven ; 

 the ornamental parts were of cotton-thread and gold. (Herod, iii. 47.) 

 As to Greek armour, several specimens of the helmet and cuirass occur 

 upon the frieze of the Elgin marbles; in one instance (slab 51) we have 

 a scaled cuirass richly ornamented. In the bronzes of Siris, purchased 

 frm M. Brondsted for the British Museum, the warriors have helmets 

 and shields only. One has a round, the other an oval shield : their 

 bodies are unclothed. [ALEXANDER, in BIOGRAPHICAL DIVISION, where 

 a representation is given.] 



The complete Roman armour consisted of the helmet, shield, lorica, 

 and greaves. The lorica was originally of leather, as we learn from 

 Varro ; in the time of Servius Tullius, according to Livy, the whole of 

 the Roman body armour was of brass. The laminated lorica was heavy. 

 Tacitus (' Hist." lib i.) informs us that its weight was made a subject of 

 complaint by some of the soldiers in the time of Galba ; and the emperor 

 himself, in hia old age, found the weight of his cuirass too much for his 

 feeble frame. (' Hist.' lib. i. c. 35.) The Roman lorica was frequently 

 enriched on the abdomen with embossed figures, on the breast with a 

 Gorgon's head by way of amulet, on the should er-plates with scrolls of 

 thunderbolts, and on the leather border which covered the tops of the 

 lambrequins (or pendent flaps) with lions' heads; and these were 

 formed of tin' prwiuiis metals. Each Roman legion had its own device 

 marked upon it* nhields. In the time of Trajan, as in exemplified in 

 the armour represented upon his column, the lorica was shortened, 



being cut straight round above the hips. A bronze breast and back 

 plate of this kind are preserved in the British Museum, upon the front 

 of the former of which one of the paps of the breast still remains, like 

 a high button, to which the shoulder-plates were fastened, which held 

 the back and breast together. 



From these facts a general notion will be gathered of the kind of 

 body-armour used among the ancient nations. But as to the minute 

 varieties of it, which are to be found in statues, or upon gems, coins, 

 vases, and other representations, exhibiting the differences and pecu- 

 liarities which existed, according to the time, the country, or the 

 progress of improvement among the people, the details would be 

 endless. Some of the most important facts will be mentioned under 

 the proper heads, such as SHIELD, HELMET, &c. 



Upon the history of defensive armour, as it was worn in England. 

 we shall be more minute. The early Britons are believed to have used 

 none except the shield. Sir Samuel Meyrick, on the authority of 

 Aneurin, the British bard, says, that the Anglo-Saxons under Hengist 

 and others, wore many of them loricac of leather and four-cornered 

 helmets. This armour, he thinks, was probably acquired through the 

 alliance of their fathers with the Romans, under Carausius and his 

 successors. Aneurin says that Hengist wore scale-armour. A very 

 early illuminated manuscript in the Harleian Collection, No. 603, 

 represents a warrior exactly answering this description. Drawings of 

 the 8th century represent the Anglo-Saxon soldier without any other 

 defensive armour than the shield and helmet, which latter, Sir Samuel 

 Meyrick remarks, seems, in general, to have been nothing more tlinu 

 leather, and is often omitted even in representations of battles. His 

 offensive arms are the sword and the spear. The form of the shield 

 at this period is always oval ; it is usually surrounded by a broad rim 

 on the outside, and has a sharp boss projecting from the middle, both 

 of metal ; the materials were wood, covered with leather. One of the 

 laws of jEthelstau prohibits the making of shields of sheep's-skin, under 

 the penalty of 30s. The helmet, as it is commonly represented iu 

 drawings of this sera, appears to have been either a cap of leather, with 

 the fur turned outwards, sometimes strengthened by a metal rim, or 

 of felt, the fetten host being often mentioned by Saxon writers, but 

 personages of rank had one of a conical form made of metal and gilt. 



When the tunic supplanted the lorica, Sir Samuel Meyrick observes, 

 the Roman pectoral was still retained, and called halr-beanh or beonj, 

 " neck-guard ;" bpeof t-beben, " defence for the breast ;" and bpeorc- 

 nocc, " breast-plate." It may be seen on a warrior in an illumination 

 in a manuscript of the Cottonian Library, marked Tiberius, B. v., in 

 which the resemblance to the Roman pectoral is quite manifest. The 

 Saxon authors, he continues (' Crit. Inquiry into Ant. Armour.' lutrod. 

 p. Lxiii.), are by no means explicit with respect to the form or materials 

 of the breast-guards, but the epithet applied to such as were of metal 

 is " rigid." Others are mentioned which are said to have been " rough 

 or shaggy," so that we may suppose them to have been formed of wool 

 or hair, or perhaps of undressed hides. 



Notwithstanding these remarks, the word lorica frequently occurs 

 in the writings of the most eminent Saxon authors, and sometimes is 

 mentioned in terms which might imply that it was made of metal. 

 Aldhelm, who lived in the latter part of the 7th century, iu some 

 enigmatical lines ('Poet, nonnulla,' 12mo. Mogtint. 1601, p. 51, 'Da 

 Lorica,' ), speaks of a warrior's vesture which feared not darts drawn 

 from the long quivers : 



" En ! vcstis vulgi sermonc vocabor : 



Spicula non vereor longis exeinpta pharetris." 



Whether this was the scaled-armour, such as worn by Hengist, or that 

 made of flat rings in the Phrygian style (as designated in Hope's 

 ' Costume'), is not quite clear. In an illumination, however, of the 

 8th century, a king habited in a tunic covered with flat rings occurs ; 

 and in another manuscript of that period similar armour occurs. (See 

 the Cottonian MSS., Claud. B. iv., and Cleopatra, C. viii.) The Saxon 

 authors call this jiehjiynjeb bynn, or " ringed byme." Some illumi- 

 nations seem to show that the rings were worn edgewise (compare the 

 MS. Cleopatra, C. viii.), and in either case the name -is equally 

 applicable. Poems of the 10th century mention the "shining iron 

 rings," but it is probable that it was not in general use till the inva- 

 sions of the heavier-armed Danes compelled its adoption. 



Towards the close of the 9th century, the corium, or corietum, was 

 the armour generally used, and appears frequently in the drawings of 

 that period. It was formed of hides cut into the resemblance of 

 leaves, and covering one another; sometimes all of one colour, as 

 blue, &c., and sometimes of two, as brown and orange ; the upper part 

 being of the one, while that which covers the thighs is of the other. 

 It should be observed, that the Saxon bynne, originally in shape like 

 a tunic, became in form afterwards a complete cuirass, sitting close to 

 the body, and generally terminating with it. Alcuin (' De Offic. Divin.') 

 speaks of the Anglo-Saxon military tunics of linen in the following 

 terms : " The soldiers are accustomed to wear linen tunics, so well 

 fitted to their limbs as to enable them, with the utmost expedition, to 

 direct the dart, poise the shield, wield the sword," &c. The weight of 

 the ringed byrne seems to have been found a great impediment to 

 activity. Hence, when Harold, in 1063, obtained immediate and 

 decisive success over the Welsh, it was owing to thu change of armour 

 among his soldiers. He had observed that these mountaineers could 



