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A Late-Medieval Bracer in the British Museum1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
Extract
The archer's bracer illustrated in the fig. on p. 209 is of cuir bouilli, the ornament on the outer side consisting of a rose crowned, a design of oak leaves and acorns treated in a conventional manner, and the words 
(Jesus help).
A tradition, apparently not very ancient, associated this rare and interesting object with certain relics of Henry VI once at Bolton Hall, near Sawley, in Bowland (Bolland), Yorkshire. I have failed to find confirmation of this tradition, and it is contradicted by Mr. W. A. Littledale, F.S.A., whose family was long connected with Bolton Hall; Mr. Littledale informs me that the bracer was never preserved in the house with the objects said to have been left there by Henry VI and now preserved at Liverpool. But additional evidence may be derived from the object itself.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1922
References
page 208 note 2 The bracer is 4·91 in. in length. It was formerly in the possession of Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., Secretary of the Society in 1814, and Principal Librarian of the British Museum, 1827-36, from one of whose descendants it has been acquired for the Museum. It was figured (the design upside down) as a headpiece to a chapter in the Badminton volume on Archery, by C. J. Longman and Col. H. Walrond, p. 161, fig. 110. For general remarks on bracers in that volume, see p. 321.
page 208 note 3 These objects, a boot, a glove, and a spoon, are reproduced in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1785, p. 418. The belief that the bracer was also at Bolton Hall was current in the year 1860; for it is held by the writer of an interesting note on an ivory specimen in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association for that year, p. 338.
page 208 note 4 This is the opinion of Mr. Mill Stephenson, F.S.A., who submitted the bracer to a careful examination.
page 210 note 1 Quoted by the writer in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association already mentioned, vol. xvi, 1860, p. 338Google Scholar . Ascham, in his Toxophilus, describes the use of the bracer, but does not specify the material.
page 210 note 2 Skelton, J., Antient arms and armour from the collection of…Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, pl. xxxiv, fig. 2.Google Scholar
page 210 note 3 Journal, xvi, 1860, p. 337.Google Scholar
pAge 210 note 4 Formerly in the Londesborough Collection, now in the British Museum. See Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, 1920, p. 81.Google Scholar