Royal Armouries Museum Souvenir Guide — Leeds eBook

Make the most of your visit to the museum or explore the collection from the comfort of your armchair.

This is the new 2019 edition of the Royal Armouries souvenir guide for the Leeds museum site.

The guidebook has retained the wonderfully rich content, full colour photographs and imagery from earlier editions but has been brought up to date with changes that have been made to the museum since the last edition of the guidebook was published.

This 80-page guide is packed with fascinating facts and stunning colour photography and includes guides to the five galleries: War, Tournament, Hunting, Self Defence and Oriental, the 10 'Treasures of the Royal Armouries' which should not be missed and various floor maps of the museum. 

The 10 Treasure of the Royal Armouries Collection are:

1. Lyle bacinet – this North Italian, late 14th century helmet 'is one of the finest surviving examples of the 'hounskull' or 'pig-faced' bacinet.'
2. Warwick shaffron – '[t]his shaffron (head defence for a horse) is the earliest surviving piece of medieval European horse armour.'
3. Gothic armour – this German, late 15th century armour was 'fashionable in Germany in the late 15th century, are usually regarded as the pinnacle of the medieval armourer's art.'
4. Horned helmet – from the 'magnificent armour' 'commissioned by Maximilian I as a gift for the young King Henry VIII.'
5. Field and tilt armour of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester – '[t]his is an important Greenwich armour from the court of Queen Elizabeth I'.
6. Lion Armour – this armour is probably Italian or French, about 1545-50 and is 'the finest decorated armour in the Royal Armouries' collection'. The helmet of the beautiful Lion Armour is the cover image of this edition of the souvenir guidebook.
7. Elephant Armour – this impressive Indian, Mughal, about 1600 war elephant armour 'is the only near-complete surviving example in the world.'
8. Presentation sword (jian) – this Chinese, Ming Dynasty sword is 'one of the finest examples of Chinese weapons as works of art in the world.'
9. The Tula garniture – this Russian, Tula, dated 1752 comprises of 'a sporting gun, a pair of pistols, a powder flask, a patch box and a pair of stirrups.'
10. Snaphance pistol – this Scottish, 1619 is a highly decorated 'superb pistol'.

Covered in the section about our War gallery are topics such as mail, plate, cavalry, longbows, the development of helmets, mass production and the development of firearms.

The Tournament gallery section of the guidebook include information about the tournament and the type of combat involved such as tourney, joust, foot combat and tilt, Queen Elizabeth I, King Henry VIII and the Field of Cloth of Gold tournament, horse armour, as well as the making and decorating of armour.

The Oriental gallery portion of this souvenir guide focuses on Islam, China, India, Japan and South and South East Asia.

Information on hunting weapons and weapons as works of art can be found under the Hunting gallery section.

Topics covered in the Self Defence gallery information include travel, civil forces, fencing and duelling, making firearms, the development of swords and making edged weapons.

This is a fascinating and informative read and is well worth the time of anyone who is interested in arms and armour.

Publication date: 1 July 2019
ISBN: 978 0 94809 298 5
Dimensions: 225x190 mm
No. of pages: 72
Binding style: Paperback with flaps
Details of illustrations: 90 colour illustrations, 10 black and white illustrations