Pikeman’s Armor (c. 1620–30): Art, History and Details

Pikeman’s Armor (c. 1620–30) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Pikemen formed the backbone of infantry tactics through the end of the English Civil Wars (1642–51). Since muskets alone were ineffective against cavalry charges, companies of pikemen, armed with pikes, or spears, of 12 to 16 feet in length, were deployed in defensive formations to protect the musketeers, who wore no armor. A pikeman was usually equipped with a breastplate and backplate, hinged tassets reaching to mid-thigh, and sometimes a gorget, or neck piece, worn over a heavy buffcoat. High boots replaced leg armor. A brimmed, high-combed helmet known as a "pot" protected the head. Pikeman's armor withstood hard service. It was colored and treated (though the black paint seen here is modern) to control rusting and to add decorative interest.

Object facts

• Title: Pikeman’s Armor
• Date: c. 1620–30
• Culture: Netherlands, Dutch or Flemish, 17th century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel with brass rivets and black paint
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1923.1063

A detail from the museum

With its chevron decoration, this armor is slightly more decorative than most pikeman, suggesting that an officer could have owned it.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Gilchrist, Helen Ives, and Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Severance Collection of Arms and Armor. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art. 2nd ed., 1948.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. "An English Pikeman's Armor from the Severance Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 7 (1994): 252-67.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. Arms and Armor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Museum, 1998.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.