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

BOLINGBROKE: Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage [gauntlet],…
If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
As to take up mine honor's pawn, then stoop.
By that and all the rites of knighthood else
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke or thou canst worse devise.
Richard II (1.1.71-79)

Richard II is one of the earliest of Shakespeare’s "history plays." These plays tell the story of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the rival royal families of Lancaster and York, which began in 1422 and ended in 1485 with the death of Richard III. The overthrow of Richard II in 1399 set the scene for this conflict. A duel between two nobles is at the center of Richard’s fall from power. Young Henry Bolingbroke, the king’s cousin, accuses the Duke of Norfolk of diverting military funds for his own use, and of taking part in the conspiracy that killed the Duke of Gloucester. In accordance with the laws of chivalry, Bolingbroke throws down his gauntlet, challenging Norfolk to an armored duel. Norfolk accepts, and the king sets a date for the encounter. The duel is about to begin when Richard throws down his baton of office on the field of combat and calls a halt to the proceedings. Wishing to avoid bloodshed, the king instead banishes the combatants: Bolingbroke for ten years, Norfolk for life. During Bolingbroke’s absence, the king takes over Bolingbroke’s inheritance, compelling him to topple the king upon his return.

Richard tries to play the part of an absolute monarch—a “Renaissance king” —by asserting control over the historically independent body of feudal knights that descended from medieval warriors. However, by denying Bolingbroke and Norfolk their duel, and by robbing Bolingbroke of his inheritance, Richard falls afoul of the rites of knighthood. The delicate fabric of feudal kingship begins to unravel, and for the next hundred years, rival branches of the royal family struggle over the English throne.

Listen to Bettina Smith discuss chivalry and dueling.

Items included

  • "Rowel" spur, Western Europe, 1625-1650. Higgins Armory Museum, Worcester MA.

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.

Multimedia

Explore Arms and Armor in Shakespeare on an audio tour.

Video

Join curator Jeffrey Forgeng for video tour of the exhibition highlights. We've created two short videos on two of the exhibition's major themes.

The first, "Swords and Shakespeare," showcases weapons of Shakespeare's day and how changes in weaponry profoundly impacted plays such as Romeo and Juliet and Othello.

The second video, "Dressed to Thrill," explores how knights needed armor for both fashion and function.