The Armour Archive

Sean M

"Measure twice, cut once" is always a good thing whether you are cutting wood or ordering materials! Dave Thatcher keeps re-arranging his website, and he has been talking about this project for some time, but I remember him always predicting that he would charge a few GPB per metre. Using these mode...

Sean M

I also need to decide what I am really doing about the points, and just do it. I'm not really satisfied with the idea of nylon tape, but the silk is pretty dear. By the time one counts in all the tape needed for the hosen it's a bit startling. Mac Finding materials (and deciding what to use, and lo...

Sean M

Thanks! Version 1.0 works, but my doublet is short enough that I think more points would be more stable and more modest. There is also a complete pair of joined hosen from Alpirsbach which probably belongs in a catalogue of evidence for hosen (although its much too late for me). I will take measurem...

Sean M

From memory. I think I used a bit more wool than this, but I can't know that without knowing how long the original piece was after washing (since I only have the leftovers from which I will make a second pair). https://bookandsword.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/p1010830_hosen_layouts-e1492764540273.jp...

Sean M

I will take measurements, draw a new sketch, and scan it when I make up my next pair. Its a little hard to visualize, because the layout is at 45* from the straight of grain, and because I folded my cloth along that line when I made my first pair of hosen. On paper it seems like 4 feet of cloth at l...

Sean M

Edward IV ordered shoes and boots of "black leather" and "tawney Spanish leather" in 1480 (de Neergaard and Grew, Shoes and Pattens p. 120). Oh that someone in the last 150 years had published some Great Wardrobe accounts with clothing! Around 1410, the writer of an Arthurian romance mentioned "A ma...

Sean M

In the age of hosen which come up to the modern belt line, hosen were usually made from about a metre of cloth. "A yard and a quarter" was the usual allowance in the Great Wardrobe of Henry VIII ( The King's Servants pp. 16, 17) and the accounts of Jan van Blois from 1361/2 mention 4 1/2 quarters of...

Sean M

I don't understand how M-4 would be oriented on the body. Could someone explain? I am more a pancerone kind of guy than a maniche e gozetti di maglia kind of guy, because I understand the former and it is more versatile (you can wear a coat of mail as your light armour for the watch, whereas lots of...

Sean M

Humh ... the selvages are pretty tidy, but both the kind with short 'tufts' after a row of stitching. Apparently in some modern 'jet looms' they cut off the warp at the end of each row instead of running the shuttle back across (we need a scandalized smiley :shock: ). Some people think that some hoo...

Sean M

If I could ask a naff question here: There's lots of talk about water and oil being used for lubricant. These days, many sorts of oil is readily available. But in the context of our grinding and polishing forbears, what oil would they be likely to have used? For sources from southern Europe, its a ...

Sean M

I don't know if any have ever been patterned, but I would expect that they looked like sections of a sleeve (especially since they could be made by cutting up old haubergeons). You can either copy Tom Biliter's thread on the Archive, or even better find the original articles by E. Martin Burgess htt...

Sean M

Also, the face opening of the hood lining and facing are both selvages. I am debating how to finish the face. I could just fold the linen lining and the wool facing together and stitch through all four layers, or I could wrap the opening in a thin strip of tafetta. That matches the cape, and if some...

Sean M

Hi Mac, I just spotted that! Interesting. I wish I could find more evidence on how they did it, even in the 15th century when so many garments have very firm and regular pleating. My model with the front-row seat at the martyrdom of St. James the Greater/San Giacomo is dressed all in gray in the ori...

Sean M

Based on the time I had my legs cast, I would also recommend doing that before the party. Otherwise, either someone will be distracted by checking them as they dry, or you will find that one spent too long in the direct sun and cracked/too long in one position and stuck to the floor/... (or you will...

Sean M

Thanks for the photos and commentary! Someone whom I respect likes her Clover brand tapered awl. Mine is a Wiha Vorstecher mit Holzgriffe , product number 301-11. It happens that this week I am putting the points in my arming doublet. All the eyelets for the hosen and legharness are in 3-layer linen...

Sean M

This has been a great thread ... art and documents and other crafts and surviving armour and experiments. One reason I launched Armour in Texts was that I hope someone will go off and do the research in archives and guild records which would clarify some of these things. The guilds that did polishin...

Sean M

Edward III's Great Wardrobe also provided linen foteclothes in the 1340s. I am a bit confused about how they would work (step onto them and have your servants fold them on top the foot and tie them there? I don't like knots or folds under my foot). The evil specter of portyanki raises it's ugly hea...

Sean M

I thought that the other practical thing about black is that it is easy to 'touch up' with something black and greasy and a brush. I have texts describing the covers of a few dozen corazze from Florence and Milan in my period (mostly black, rose, and vermillion sheepskin or chamoise- not sure if the...

Sean M

Sean, two other options for reputable shoemakers who aren't as expensive as NP Historical, but still include proper details like tunnel-stitched heel stiffeners and proper bindings around the raw edges of the upper and heel etc... are Historical Footwear from Fra and Simurlan Shoes , both located i...

Sean M

If you want reproductions, I'm partial to Piotr Feret's work http://platener.eu/oslonyrak_en.html

Sean M

Now that I know that the form of eyelets is in question, I will keep my eye open for those drawstring purses that they used to store seals and bullae and relics. There are great numbers of those back to Carolingian times, because they were stuck away in archives and treasuries and forgotten, and I b...

Sean M

I would print out your best photos of the armour or art you are working from on large glossy paper and post them somewhere everyone working on that project can see them. That avoids dashes back and forth between the laptop in the library and the dirty workroom (and fighting over the good armour book...

Sean M

For what it's worth, in the Italian documents I think I am seeing one set of words for the liner of the headpiece, and another for the liner or cover of the camail. A bascinet with camail can have both.

Sean M

Also, without a closeup I don't know how Mac did the buttonholes on the helmet liner, but in his photo the spokes seemed very dense and there was a 'wheel' of thread joining the 'outside' ends of the spokes (forming a 'hub' 'rim' to the 'wheel' of silk thread). Those two details were the ones which ...

Sean M

You have a good point there. I am doing my eyelets in the modern way.... with the threads twisted around one another at the periphery, like a (modern) buttonhole. It may well be that they were not done that way in the 15th C. I've just been looking at the eyelets in the burial doublet of Diego Cava...

Sean M

Boy Tom, the mail-armourers of Milan still don't mess around when they see competition, do they? Get well soon. I suspect that there are people who know all about silk-women's work and the equivalents for linen and hemp. There is that "take 9 bows" text and the Lengberg and London finds ... sometime...

Sean M

Early on, like in the 100-200 years before the Persian Wars, some Greeks also wore cuisses: bronze plates which covered the thighs. The linen flaps ( pteryges ) on a Greek cuirass probably had some function in defending the belly and hips, but the dangly stuff on a Roman soldier's belt was probably ...

Sean M

I have added a photo of the cutting plan to make 'A' 'B' and 'C' clear. I think that pictures are better than words for a project like this.

Sean M

Thanks for taking the time! I appreciate that the Met has digitalized its catalogue and photo collection and posted much of it on the Internet. I try to link to it (and to PDFs of out-of-print Met publications) on my blog.

Sean M

I love the color! I was glad to find it! One store had some good Italian wool on remainder for a fair price. Up close it is a bit 'mottled' with parts which are more green and parts which are more brown. What are the "A" and "B" items on the diagram? Sorry, that is from a diagram that did not photo...

Sean M

Inspiration - A collection of paintings from northern Italy between 1370 and 1390 - Object T1592 in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg http://objektkatalog.gnm.de/objekt/T1592 - Fragments of clothing from 14th century London ( Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450 ) - Complete garments from Norse G...

Sean M

Grose has a relevant source from the 15th century.

Sean M

Nobles studied Economics, Warfare, were well read, and could converse on philosophy or other topics. They were the leaders and rulers. Study the things they studied, not the skills of those they ruled over. The gap between most "gentlemen" and "nobles" was about as vast as the gap between most busi...

Sean M

Mac, I am just amazed at your artistic versatility (and willingness to keep doing things which must not make the best business sense to make the project as right as you know how to make it). Plate armouring and locksmithing and sketching are three things, but gilding and tailoring and spur-making an...

Sean M

Didn't the leaders of a hunt take part in the unmaking?

Don't forget as much French, Spanish, Italian, and Latin as you can get.

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Laying Out Hosen

Re: Laying Out Hosen

Re: Laying Out Hosen

Re: Fourteenth-Century Shoes

Laying Out Hosen

Re: Tailoring maille patches

Re: Short Pleated Cloaks

Re: Traditional Armor Finishing Processes

Re: Tailoring maille patches

Re: Short Pleated Cloaks

Re: Short Pleated Cloaks

Re: splinted arms and legs Photos

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Traditional Armor Finishing Processes

Re: Fourteenth-Century Shoes

Re: Fourteenth-Century Shoes

Re: Fourteenth-Century Shoes

Re: splinted arms and legs Photos

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Armour Party!

Re: Camail Padding-Part of the Liner, or On the Camail Band

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Laces for arming

Re: greek/roman style tassets

Re: A Short Eliptical Cloak

Re: Met Arms & Armor on Instagram

Re: A Short Eliptical Cloak

A Short Eliptical Cloak

Re: "Half" Armored

Re: Skills All Good Elizabethan Gentlemen Should Know

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Skills All Good Elizabethan Gentlemen Should Know