The Armour Archive

Egfroth

Durer's Paumgartner altar shows two military saints wearing them - see https://www.flickr.com/photos/snarfel/8628946580 for a more detailed view, and his Adoration of the Trinity has a nice shot of Bob Hope in golden armour wearing one (I knew he was old, but not THAT old . . .)

Egfroth

Sorry, can't help with 8th century Saxon helmets. As far as I'm aware, NO helmets from this period have been found in this part of the world. Plenty of earlier ones (Migration period, 5th-6th century), and lots of High Mediaeval ones, but nothing from this time and place. I expect the nearest thing ...

Egfroth

Both the Coppergate helmet (8th century Anglo-Saxon) and the Pioneer helmet (7th century Anglo-Saxon) are of this type, but with added decoration. The bands on both of these form a cross, and no matter what Wikipedia says, I'd call all helmets of this type, no matter how broad or narrow the bands, s...

Egfroth

Depends on the visor, I think. At least three of the footsoldiers in the capture of Caen in Froissart's chronicles at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Caen_(1346) are wearing visored sallets with brigandines.

Egfroth

Hildegard of Bingen - 12th century, wrote a lot of music. You should be able to get hold of it. "Fiddles" (not violins) go back at least to the 11th century; the vieille, the rebec. Bowing is different. I have a 12th century French picture of a portative organ being played, along with a rack of cowb...

Egfroth

I remember seeing a 12th(?) century picture of a Seljuk Turkish horseman wielding a two-handed straight sword over his head.

Egfroth

Actually it's pretty typical, using objects to identify areas of the boat. While working on tall ships I was amazed at how many things were named based on what part of the boat they were on, and how many parts of the boat was named after the things that were located there. While most things are nam...

Egfroth

Latin for trousers is "braca, bracae (f)", which can be found in a German term for a (historic) article of legwear still: Die Bruche (note: this is a singular word too!). In English, this is the "braies" (which again is Plural). Old English is braccas , pronounced (almost) bratches and yes we get b...

Egfroth

I'm pretty sure I've seen an 'antiquarian' (18th C, pre French Revolution) drawing of a destroyed French stained glass window with one side all wearing definite lamellar and the other regular mail, all with kite shields. I think it has turned up in a few of David Nicole's booklets as well. Maybe th...

Egfroth

The Byzantines wore lamellar (along with mail and scale), and used kite shields equally often with round ones - see https://au.pinterest.com/pin/157626055680163536/ and follow the links for more depictions of Byzantine kite shields. And look for Byzantine stuff in the "I wanna Be A" section of this ...

Egfroth

I've seen that lamellar in the Crypta Balbi - I even took photos (they didn't turn out well). But from my view of them, I can't work out how they did this reconstruction. The plates were a mass of rust . . . Of course if I'd had a chance to have a good look at them (they were behind glass) I might t...

Egfroth

I just remembered another representation of a Byzantine wearing lamellar over mail. It's in the Osprey book Byzantine armies 886-1118 (not sure about those dates). There's a photo of a carved ikon (steatite, I think) bearing representations of three military saints - St Theodore, St George and St De...

Egfroth

Two historical examples (from the same source) - two 10th century cavalrymen on a wall in the 'Dovecote' church in Cavusin in Kappadokia (previously Byzantine, now in Turkey). Each wearing - not lamellar but scale breast protection, with (if you look closely) some mail rings peeking out at the neck....

Egfroth

And for the Varangian outfit, go to http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=46922 - many pages of discussion, (sometimes a tiny bit heated). Make up your own mind what's right and what isn't. But most of the information available on the subject (at least to us mere mortals) is on...

Egfroth

I believe that sous chascune teste de clou, should be translated beneath each nail [ie rivet] head . Teste has to be the word for head - in modern French it's te^te, where the circumflex is in place of an 's' that is no longer there. et ne soient couvertes de nul cuir de mouton noir would be not cov...

Egfroth

Sorry, John. I can't remember when the Armenian representation dates to. I did a google image search and it turned up and I forgot to note where it was from. A set of gospels, that's all I can remember, but I have a feeling it's 12th century (don't quote me on this). Aha! Found it! This manuscript w...

Egfroth

Well, it firstly depends on what period you mean by "Early Byzantine". This can mean as early as 330 AD, though it's usually taken as from maybe the reign of Justinian onward (550's AD or so). If it's this early, there's the Strategikon of Emperor Maurice of about 600 AD. It makes reference to provi...

Egfroth

It's a possibility, but I think it's more likely to have been a ventail, as in my article here.

Egfroth

There are several Byzantine representations of satchels, but they seem only to be used by shepherds - perhaps (at least in a Byzantine context, but maybe in others) even a symbol for "this guy is a shepherd", just as a mailbag is representative of a mailman. The 9th, 10th and 11th pictures at http:/...

Egfroth

'fraid not. I (and others) have put a lot of time and effort into trying to find any reliable evidence of gambesons used in Western and Northern Europe in the Viking age. There's just nothing. A few mentions that could be interpreted as almost anything, but nothing of any real use. Not even mentione...

Egfroth

One argument against the 'trouser' theory for the Bayeux Tapestry is at the end of the tapestry where the dead are being looted - hauberks are being pulled off the bodies over the head. Which isn't physically possible if the hauberk was in the form of trousers.

Egfroth

Thanks. That certainly is interesting. I hope more information emerges. A really fascinating find.

Egfroth

Have a look at this page, which has a lot of information on helmets from the time and region you're interested in. Note that some of the reconstructions are fairly fanciful, considering how little actual archaeological remains were found. The helmet under the heading "Poděkování" is known as the Cer...

Egfroth

The Crypta Balbi museum is a little hard to find - it up and around the Piazza Venezia in something of a side street. There's more info on it here including a map showing the address and the opening times.

Egfroth

Also the Crypta Balbi museum (near the Piazza Venezia and the palace of King Vittore Emmanuele) has a collection of plates from what is (probably a 6th century Lombard) lamellar corselet. There's supposed to be another lamellar armour in a museum in EUR (a created town built by Mussolini) just outsi...

Egfroth

The laws of the Anglo-Saxon King Aethelstan (924-939 AD) state (number 16 here ) Of shieldwrights. 16. Fourthly: that no shieldwright cover a shield with sheep's skin; and if he so do, let him pay thirty shillings. No reason given, no other information.But this might be taken to mean that as sheepsk...

Egfroth

Wulfhere, as far as I know no Byzantine shields have been found at all, and your guess is as good as anyone else's. I take it you're referring to round shields, and the contemporary pictures I've seen either portray them as a flattened cone (most common), bowl-shaped (with the convex side outwards),...

Egfroth

Many thanks, Cap'n. Your mention of Olympias is more appropriate than you may have realised, because I asked the question as part of my research into Byzantine dromons, as I'm planning to make a model of one. The Olympias has been a real inspiration to me in working this out (especially the cool vid...

Egfroth

I read somewhere that the oars at the pointy ends of Viking longships had to be longer than the ones in the middle, to reach the water as effectively.

Have you found this to be the case in practice?

Egfroth

This immediately made me think of the infantry combat scene in the Holkham Bible which shows very similar quilted(?) protection and is from very much the same time period - 1327-1335.

Can't help with the knuckle thing, though.

Egfroth

Glad you liked it, NeeSayer. It's a fascinating period, isn't it?

Egfroth

Even chausses are a fairly recent innovation in this time period, for Western Europe at least (Byzantium etc is a different story). If you can find greaves, however, I'd be very interested.

Egfroth

In the 6th century AD the Byzantine bureaucrat Kappadokian John was accused of not properly cooking bread into 'biscuit' (French word - it means "twice cooked") in bakers' ovens, instead doing it on the cheap in the heating of the city's heated baths, with the result that the biscuit supplied to Bel...

Egfroth

Are you planning to make antler combs, at all? If you do you might want a saw with a broad blade but fine teeth. I've found narrow blades twist around and it's very difficult to get the cuts for the teeth straight. Some of the Anglo-Saxon/Viking combs I've seen have the most incredibly thin teeth an...

Egfroth

Very nice. I'll have two pairs, please.

Re: Hair Bonnet/net as a method for keeping hair in for knig

Re: Continental Saxon helmets?

Re: Broadband helmets (Bandhelme) = Spangenhelme?

Re: Visored helmets: only combined with full plate? (15th c)

Re: medieval music ensembles--how-to start from scratch?

Re: Middle eastern straight swords?

Re: Frazz is more accurate than the History Channel!

Re: Etymology of english word "Pants"

Re: Lamellar with a kite shield? Maybe Bayeux Tapestry?

Re: Lamellar with a kite shield? Maybe Bayeux Tapestry?

Re: I need help with Avar vs Byzantine lamellar differences

Re: I WTB Rus c. 1200

Re: I WTB Rus c. 1200

Re: Creating an 11th Century Kit

Re: 1311 Gauntlets of Plate

Re: Rus, Byzantine, or steppe nomad satchels?

Re: Early Arm Harness

Re: Are split front gambeson/hauberk recreations wrong?

Re: Rus, Byzantine, or steppe nomad satchels?

Re: Gambeson in the viking age

Re: Are split front gambeson/hauberk recreations wrong?

Re: Anglo Saxon "Island" discovered.

Re: Sources for Kiev Rus 900 - 1000 CE.

Re: What to see in Rome?

Re: What to see in Rome?

Re: Byzantine shields

Re: Byzantine shields

Re: Calling Cap'n Atli - length of oars on longships

Calling Cap'n Atli - length of oars on longships

Re: An early 14th c. gauntlet

Re: Flat Topped Kite Shields

Re: 1050-1100 images

Re: ships biscuit, hardtack, et. al.: medieval evidence?

Re: Making some period leather working tools

Re: Oxford Spats, 1467 Style