The low countries was one of the great centers of armouring in the Middle Ages, as befit one of the great medieval centers of commerce and industry. However, the main armouring centers (Bruges, Brussels, Tournai) were almost entirely in modern-day Belgium rather than in the Modern Day Netherlands. It is only in the later 16th century that the modern day ‘Dutch’ Netherlands becomes more of a force in the armour trade, and then it is arguably as a reseller of armour. I am a student of armour and weapons history, not of the economic history of the low countries, but in general my understanding is that this reflects the generally slower economic development of the Northern Netherlands, which really takes off in the later 16th and 17th centuries. Of course, in the 15th and earlier 16th century both the Northern and Southern Netherlands spoke the same or similar low German dialects (though Tournai is in Wallonia, and so is more or less Francophone) and were ruled by the Duke of Burgundy, so there isn’t necessarily a strong distinction in the period - the modern border comes about as the result of a series of wars, particularly the 80 years war but also other conflicts up to the creation of Belgium.

This is a long way of saying that I will speak about the armour of the low countries in general, not just that of the modern-day Netherlands. So I will talk about both armourers in modern-day Belgium and the modern-day Netherlands, and refer to them both as ‘netherlandish’ in the later medieval sense (as we speak of ‘netherlandish’ painters, many of whom lived in Bruges. I will mostly speak of the 15th century and into the 16th, since that is my own period of specialization, and because this is when regional differences in armour are most well described. The armour industry in the low countries and the armour trade through the low countries is well established by the beginning of the 14th century. In 1295 Frederic the Lombard assembled the following shipment of weapons in Bruges. It was bound for the King of France: 2853 helmets 6309 round shields 4511 mail shirts 751 pairs of gauntlets 1374 gorgets 5067 pairs (coats) of plates Much of this was likely made in Lombardy rather than locally - the merchant’s byname is ‘the Lombard’ after all, but this itself shows the importance of the low countries and a center for reselling armour, which we will revisit later. It also shows the early presence of Italian expatriates in the netherlandish armouring industry - another point we will touch on later.

A few decades after this we Pierre de Bruges serving King Edward II of England as armourer, while later Gerard of Tournai is heaumer (helmsmith) to Edward III. In the 14th century overall we have records of 187 named armourers in the city of Tournai. This outnumbered the weavers - in a region that was the most productive textile manufacturing centers in Europe! In the 15th century we have records of 232 armourers in Tournai. For the entire period where records survive, we know of 73 armourers from Brussels, and these include the armourers of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy, the armourers of the Habsburgs Maximilian and Philip and eventually some of the armourers of King Henry VIII, who employed ‘Almains’ from both Bavaria and the netherlands in his new Greenwich workshop.

As I noted above, not all of the armourers of the low countries were ‘native’ speakers of low germanic languages. Many armourers of Tournai appear to be Walloon, as we would expect, but there is also a strong community of expatriate Italians. These are both merchants like Frederic, above, but also armourers themselves. Two important families of Lombard expatriates are the Cornets (Cornetos) and the Rondels.

Who did these armourers serve? Most obviously, there are the Dukes of Burgundy (both the quasi-independent Valois Dukes and the Habsburg Dukes after 1482), their noble retainers and their larger armies. Other ‘domestic’ customers include the militias of the prosperous Flemish towns. Further abroad, the armourers of the low countries are among the chief suppliers of armour to England. English nobles look to the low countries both for fine armour for themselves and cheap armour for their retainers. In the armourer Martin Rondelle of Bruges bragged to John Paston (of East Anglia in England) in 1473:

..Moreover, I have heard that you would like to have a full armour. As I recently took your measurements when you were in this town of Bruges, you know that I still have them for all pieces. For this reason, if you would like me to make it for you, I will do it willingly and all the elements that you would like made. With regard to the price, I shall ensure that you shall be satisfied with me. So, when you know what pieces you would like to have and the style and the day you would like to receive them through someone with whom I can deal in your name and who will pay me a deposit, I will work so well that, God willing, you will praise me.

This shows the ability of armourers in Bruges to create custom armours. In this way, the expatriate Lombard Rondelles had an advantage over their cousins in Milan - English and Burgundian men at arms could come to them for a fitting, making achieving a custom fit much easier. This allowed the armourers of the low countries to ‘muscle in’ on the market of custom armours produced by the London armourers. Though it is more speculative since I have seen fewer French sources, I would also guess that France was the destination of much armour - Bruges and Tournai were fairly close to Normandy and other points in Northern France, and we already have seen how a merchant from Bruges sold armour to the French king by the shipload.

The netherlandish armouring industry, or at least the armour trade, shifts Eastward in the later 16th century. By the mid 1500’s King Henry VIII is buying thousands of cheap munition armours from Antwerp, and Elizabeth I buys ‘netherlandish’ munition armours in even greater numbers. The flood of cheap armour shipped from the low countries becomes so great the the armourers of armouring centers like Augsburg protest against cheap cuirasses unfairly competing against their premium product, and even complaining of these cheap armours being marked with a south/central German city mark and sold as the genuine article! Indeed, Alan Williams has examined the marked armours of Nuremberg and found that many do not meet the city’s own standards - perhaps these armours are just such knock-offs.

However, it is not clear that this ‘Dutch’ armour was made in the netherlands! Alan Williams has suggested that this armour was sold and resold by dutch merchants, but had probably been made in what is now the Ruhr region in Germany, or perhaps in Cologne.If so, the Dutch merchants were continuing on Frederic the Lombard’s legacy of reselling armour in bulk.