ALSO: How are we to tell if people pictured are official "knights" or well armoured troops? For the late 15th century in Western Europe and Britain, have a look at their sword. If it is etched with the words "Poynted Ende Toworde Enyme", then the person carrying it is a knight, otherwise he's a hea...

The biggest issue I've noticed is that they force me to keep my weight on my toes. If I step heel first (like walking) in a fight, my lead foot tends to split away from me. Urm. Looking at combat manuals for 15th C and later, that's pretty well what the authors advice - not so much on the toes, but...

If you are losing sight of your opponents weapon, you are using your shield wrong. Even up to the mid 18th century there are bits of advice from masters on those who are ignorant in the use of the shield blinding themselves with it. They key is footwork. If you cant see it then get out of range unt...

Been digging some, found this one. http://homepage.mac.com/rhook/sablerose/grimoire/5_2_5.html I would like to find or make something like in figure 19, maybe shorter. Whee! I've been some use to somebody! For what it's worth, I think that figures 17-19 are all variations on the same theme, ie a ve...

Ewan wrote:I couldn;t stay away from SCA heavy fighting

In which case, surely, you could have entitled your post entirely accurately as “back in harness”…

yo said just what I was tryying to get at, Armor incresed a warrirs ferocity, so nnly very cleany landed blows wwold have an effect, however what about say a horsemans pick, wwould iron armor be able to absorb a blow, and then allow you to pull away withh thhe weapon? If I might make a humble sugge...

Josh Warren wrote:I think the man in plate was pretty darn safe from anything but a very high-powered crossbow, the point of a lance at full charge, or an early handgun

Or four or six random soldiers pulling him to the ground and beating the (noun) out of him with great big (adjective) hammers or maces.

I'm "floating in it at my ease," but that it does provide a little movement resistance... Experiences? Hmm, I really must post a better photo on line. The first photo here shows my jack, which as with yours is anywhere up to 3/4 inch thick (a couple of dozen layers of fabric involved, hand stitched...

I think the answer is "carefully". I had to go back to the book to have a look at what he was talking about, and will admit to being not entirely convinced by his design. I've not (yet) attempted a Glastonbury chair, but hope to within a few months, and so have been collecting information on them, a...

The problem is that shaft lengths of pollaxes varied wildly. Some were apparently under 5'. You will notice the fellow at the RA in the post above this one does not address the question of whether the shaft is original to the piece, or a later replacement. This is true, but even a 4' or 5' foot chu...

Pollaxe c.1500. 70" long, 6lb 7oz. Pollaxe early 16th, 93.5"long, 7lb 11oz. I had to convert that into metric to figure it out - that's around the 3kg mark, which means that those particular weapons wouldn't necessarily have been what you would describe as "ponderous". Of course, if all of that 3kg...

I'm working on-again, off-again on a book on the subject, including a translation of a very extensive paper originally published by the Royal Society of Belgium, that I hope to publish some day. I for one would be very interested in such a book, as it's a topic that much interests me: what was the ...

"was nasty, brutish and short" Oops, yes, my misquote - never trust the flashing fingers, and I was aware that the Hobbes quote is out of context. It accurately describes the overall public vision of people of my period and locale of interest - 14th and 15th century western europe. Unfortunatly the...

Wow, great thread. I should come by more often. One misconception that is endemic among the public, and unfortunately among re-enactors, is that all people in Europe in at least the 12th-15th century were "nasty, brutal and short". A bizarrely frequent statement I hear is "they were shorter then". G...

Michael B wrote:Most northern European trees do not do very well in sub-tropical south-east Queensland.

SubTropical Australia. Re-enactors / living history freaks / larpers / insert-acronym here doing various versions of Northern European dress-ups, often in armour. Who says we're crazy?

Before: seize the initiative and force your opponent to continually defend.
After: re-take the initiative if your opponent attacks, with a counter attack rather than a defense.

and, as i keep telling people here in the land of Oz: Don't Get Hit.

Thanks for that, Gwen. As indicated, I am often confused here by the detailed analyses of what is "re-enactment" and what is "living history" and how I should classify my interests (not, I suppose, that I need to). Mmm. Yes. re-enactment, living history, and whatever other catchphrase you want to p...

in the historical context of 14th/15th tournament (my main area of vague understanding and sweeping assertions made with no supporting evidence) my understanding is that the main intention was not to permanently maim or kill your opponent deliberately. With that in mind, a cut or stab in the goolies...

Michael B wrote:... And not to forget Caithlinn, who has just left us to return to Europe (temporarily, we hope), and who is actually German ...

...but still includes all requisite consonants and vowels, although some of the latter have added umlauts...

Dragon Number 8 has an article on rushlights, but I've not tried to implement the suggested construction.

Are you aware of History Alive, coming up in Brisbane on the Queen's Birthday Weekend, 11 and 12 June? See http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/7135/ha.html Or even better: http://www.qlhf.org.au , where you will discover, despite the evidence, that there are more than two people in South East Qu...

ie, a land DownUnder... I will watch this discussion with great interest, as it deals with and circles around issues strongly affecting the nature of Living History and Reenactment here in Australia. The situation here sounds somewhat similar to the situation in Europe and the US, in that much re-en...

Certainly for soldiers from the lower classes, in the late 15th C, big shields are just a pain in the neck: hard to carry, a nuisance when travelling, and not particularly effective against guns and Big Heavy Things On Sticks. The iconographic evidence pretty conclusively suggests that anything bigg...

Mr Hook has joined the Archive! Mwahaahaaahaah Part of my late-medievalist plan to take over the world... Thanks for the pointers to those suppliers, I will dig into them. It doesn't detract though from my perennial gripe: why can't we buy wool easily here in Oz, land of the Big Brown Merino? Remin...

All of you might be interested to know that Periodfabric.com has a couple thousand yards of spun wool. Which was the question that was on my mind: where do you all obtain wool suitable for late medieval costume? Weirdly, for a country with more sheep than people, with a massive export trade in card...