Iâve seen enough period art to convince me that âshining armourâ was often a lot darker than the chrome-plated image which the term suggests.
Iâve also long thought that the whole business of âknights in shining armourâ wasnât a medieval concept at all, certainly not the default one, but was a Regency / early Victorian fictional conceit from Romance poets and Sir Walter Scottâs historical fiction. (About 10 years ago an actual expert said more or less the same thing, leaving actual amateur me feeling rather smugâŚ) :->
This illumination features armour thatâs black or dark blue in colour, but with the carefully-delineated highlights of a shiny surface. There are many other like it.
Armour was coloured for both decorative and practical purposes; chemical blueing with acid produces a very dark, lustrous and effectively rust-resistant finish like the one in the medieval illustration. I once had an Arms & Armor rapier with that finish on the hilt: it looked like thisâŚ
Heat-blueing, which was more blue than black, was a popular treatment for Greenwich armour of the Elizabethan period, as was browning and russetting (all of which were and are used on firearms), processes which used heat, chemicals or controlled âgood rustâ to create colour and also prevent uncontrolled âbad rustâ.
Hereâs the helmet of Sir James Scudamoreâs Greenwich harness, which was once blued and gilt.
The image on the left is how it looks now, after being thoroughly scrubbed with wire wool, sand or other abrasives at some stage in the 19th century to make it âshining armourâ. The image on the right is a CGI restoration of its original appearance, based on still-visible traces of colour in the grooves beside the gold strapwork.
Hereâs the browned and gilt âgarnitureâ (armour with extra bits for different styles of combat, like a life-size action figure) of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. I donât think grinding this beauty down to bright metal would be an improvementâŚ
Henry VIIIâs tonlet (skirted) armour for foot combat at the Field of the Cloth of Gold now looks like this:
Originally it would have been shiny black or dark blue with gilt details and the engraved panels picked out in coloured paint or enamelling - red Tudor Roses, green leaves etc., but that wasnât âshining armourâ, soâŚ
This detail shot shows the fine score-marks left after it was sanded âcleanâ, with dark pigmentation in the grooves as a memorial of how it once looked.
This Renaissance painting, âPortrait of Warrior with Squireâ, shows black armour on the warrior and bare-metal armour on his squire, so itâs clear that armour in art wasnât painted black simply because artists couldnât properly represent burnished steel.
In this article, Thom Richardson, Keeper of Armour at the Tower of London and Royal Armouries in Leeds (the actual expert I mentioned at the beginning) comes straight out and calls Scott responsible for âshining armourâ vandalism:
The sets of armour are not in their original black and gold because of over-aggressive polishing in the 19th century when, said Richardson, âthey were polished with brick dust and rangoon oil to within an inch of their lifeâ to fit the aesthetic of what armour should look like, all shiny and silvery. âWalter Scott is to blame,â Richardson added ruefully.
Scott can also be blamed, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, for creating or at least popularising that clunky, inaccurate term âchain-mailâ. It cites the first appearance in 1822 (recent when talking about mail) when a character in âThe Fortunes of Nigelâ says:
ââŚthe deil a thingâs broken but my head. Itâs not made of iron, I wot, nor my claithes of chenzie-mail; so a club smashed the tane, and a claucht damaged the tither.â
Plate armour was also painted, either crudelyâŚ
âŚor with much more care (this style is actually called black-and-white armour); since the paint was oil-based, it also had a rust-proofing effectâŚ
I have a notion that the more white there was on black-and-white armour, and thus the more work (by servants, of course!) needed to keep it looking good, may have been an indication of rank, status or success. Just a guessâŚ
Armour left rough from the hammer - therefore cheaper than armour polished smooth, since every stage of the process had to be paid for - was also treated with hot oil in the same way cast-iron cookware is seasoned, again to prevent rust.
There were terms for bright-metal armour - âalwyte harnessâ and âwhite armourâ - but the existence of such terms suggests to me that they arose from a need to describe an armour finish which needed a tiresome amount of maintenance to keep it that way. Iâm betting that the last stage of a clean-and-polish was a good layer of grease, or even a beeswax sealant like the coatings used by museums today.
White armour may have been a demonstration of wealth or conspicuous consumption in the same way as black or white clothes: one needed servants constantly busy with polishing-cloths, the others needed really good colour-fast dye or lots of laundering, and all of those cost money.
One thing is certain: a knight in shining armour wasnât the one who sweated to keep it shining. Thatâs what squires were forâŚ
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