An internationally-acknowledged expert on medieval and Renaissance arms and armour, Toby Capwell is the author of numerous books and articles on this fascinating subject, including The Real Fighting Stuff: Arms and Armour at Glasgow Museums (Glasgow: Glasgow Museums, 2006), The Worldwide Encyclopedia of Knives, Daggers and Bayonets (London: Anness, 2009), and The Wallace Collection: A Celebration of Arms and Armour at Hertford House (Milan: Hans Prunner, 2008).

He appears regularly on television as a presenter and interviewee, most recently on Timewatch: The Greatest Knight’ (BBC2, 2008) and Private Life of a Masterpiece: Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ (BBC2, 2009)…

The world’s only jousting curator, Toby also competes in major international jousts and tournaments, one important recent event being the 15th-century Burgundian ‘passage of arms’ that Toby reconstructed for the exhibition Charles the Bold held at the Bern Historical Museum in Switzerland (July-August 2008), the first joust of this kind to take place in over five hundred years.

Toby approaches his subject in a passionate and unique way, offering equally enthusiastic and original insights into weapons, armour, horses, chivalric combat, and the meaning of all of these things to the people who lived in that world. He is currently Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection, London.

Agent Contact: John Berlyne

In July 2019, Toby gave a lecture at the National Gallery on ‘Bermejo and the Armour of an Archangel’. You can watch that lecture, below…