Foot Combat with Awl Pikes c. 1512 - 1515

This drawing of foot combat with awl pikes was made by an anonymous artist using ink and watercolor on paper. These are the traditional materials of manuscript illumination, and the paper support also suggests a close relationship with the culture of the book. Yet the image also offers us insight into the production of armor. Consider, for example, the way in which the light plays on the rounded surfaces of the helmets and breastplates. This would have been achieved by repeatedly hammering the metal over a shaped form. In a society where skill at arms was paramount, armor-making was an industry of great importance, and the drawing allows us to see how the techniques of rendering metal armor were closely tied to the act of production. Drawings such as this remind us that the world of the illuminated manuscript was not separate from, but deeply implicated in, the material culture of its time.