Now Thrive the Armorers: Arms and Armor in Shakespeare

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Now Thrive the Armorers: Arms and Armor in Shakespeare, part of the Exhibitions at the Folger opened on June 5, 2008 and closed on September 6, 2008. The exhibition was curated by Jeffrey Forgeng of the Higgins Amory Museum with assistance from Bettina Smith of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Arms and armor feature prominently in Shakespeare’s plays, as emblems of identity, as objects of display, and as implements of conflict. The clash of swords, the clank of armor, the roar of cannon reverberate through the texts, heightening the urgency, tension, and drama during critical scenes. The role of armor was undergoing a complex transition in Shakespeare’s day. The production of plate armor was at its peak, yet soldiers were shedding their armor on campaign. Firearms were increasingly dominant on the battlefield, and it was becoming impossible to wear armor heavy enough to stop a musketball. Those in power scrambled to ensure production of the new gunpowder weapons, while lamenting the resulting decline of traditional chivalric values. Armies once led by armored knights now looked more like modern military bureaucracies. In civilian life, private duels and armed insurrections were seen as serious threats to social stability. Yet in reality, state power and popular opinion were together undermining the private use of violence that had once been accepted as a birthright of the medieval warrior aristocracy.

Including books from the Folger collection, this exhibition features a large selection of some of the most important arms and armor from the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts. Together they capture an era in which the nature of warfare was rapidly changing yet the chivalric ideal still retained a powerful hold on the Renaissance imagination.

Listen to Gail Kern Paster, former director of the Folger Shakespeare Library discuss the exhibition, Arms and Armor in Shakespeare in this podcast.

Exhibition material

Rites Of Knighthood: Richard II

Now Thrive The Armorers: Henry V

Draw If You Be Men: Romeo And Juliet

To See A Good Armor: The Armorer's Craft

Brave New World: The Tempest

Imagining Some Fear: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Our Legions Are Brim Full: Julius Caesar

'Tis The Soldier's Life: Othello

Armed at Point Exactly: Hamlet

Supplemental material

Arms and Armor in Shakespeare children's exhibition

About the Higgins

The Higgins Armory Museum is the only museum dedicated exclusively to armor in the Western hemisphere.

The museum was founded in 1931 by John Woodman Higgins, a wealthy industrialist and avid collector of armor.

As a young man, Higgins (1874-1961) had a passion for medieval tales about knights and castles. Growing up in late nineteenth-century Worcester, MA, then a leading center of American manufacturing, he observed blacksmiths, factory workers, and entrepreneurs, and developed an interest in metalworking and industry. These two passions would merge in the Higgins Armory Museum.

Today,[1] Higgins’s legacy lives on in the museum’s collection of over 5000 artifacts, centering on the armor and arms of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and including comparable pieces from the ancient period and from around the world.

  1. In December 2013, the Higgins Armory Museum closed. Its entire collection is now housed at the Worcester Art Museum. To learn more about the integration, read this article.

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