The Armour Archive

Sean M

The tooled leather rerebraces from the British Museum and Dordrecht have trace residue of gesso, gilding (British Museum) and paint (Dordrecht) ... I had not heard that, what is your source? Hi Sean! In Chris Dobson's ebook - As Tough as Old Boots: Essays on the Manufacture and History of Hardened-...

Sean M

Ian L wrote:The tooled leather rerebraces from the British Museum and Dordrecht have trace residue of gesso, gilding (British Museum) and paint (Dordrecht) ...

I had not heard that, what is your source?

Sean M

Don' worry tiredWeasel! They do look like hinges and sometimes a dumb idea is the right one. I just do not see how hinges in the shoulders would work.

Sean M

A little earlier but Ernst postet an example of an early cuirass (or COP) held together at the shoulder with a sliding pin (or maybe hinge - but looks like a pin to me): https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4246/34792651956_18e93f543c_b.jpg But I would argue that your examples are held together by a hinge...

Sean M

Also, just in parallel with the Head Measurements and Helmet Sizing thread ... Mac likes to size helmets so they fit most heads by allowing some room for all the different kinds of variation. I have been thinking about modern cutlers who do that, and the problem is that you get a knife which fits mo...

Sean M

I actually had Wade's baselard in hand at the last study session. Despite the U-channel shape of the grip, the flattening of the guard, and the split loops of the 'pommel', the grip is still the heavy end, even without the wood or bone scales. Ernst, do you remember where the centre of balance was?...

Sean M

Several effigies show the longer baselards, notably some civilian English examples. http://effigiesandbrasses.com/search/?tags=%22baselard%22 The center band around the sheath appears on the shorter daggers and knives as well. Perhaps it adds a little weight to counter the weight of the grip? Or fo...

Sean M

Ok, I agree that if the effigy with the great helm had an aventail underneath we would see it!

Greece and Rome at War is not perfect, but Peter Connolly was very good at looking at artifacts, imagining how they worked, and turning that into a 'technical painting.'

Sean M

This December my project is to make this guy's coat in fulled cloth lined with habotai: https://bookandsword.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/Nouvelle_acquisition_latine_1673_88v_mr_blue.jpg Fabric choices were based on what I need now for my regular life and can buy. The gown to the middle shin is a bit...

Sean M

If I remember my Connolly right, I think that Greek cuirasses had sliding spring-pins in the shoulders to hold breast and back together. What kind of combat will your harness be configured for? I am not sure that a great helm without an iron skullcap inside would be the best configuration for the fi...

Sean M

Tom, here is something you could help me with: do your crowd reckon that you need about an extra 1 cm or 1/2" in a dagger hilt to use it with gloves of plate? I just have my pair and know how they work with my knives, I have never worn other styles like mittens or Gothic gauntlets. This one? That is...

Sean M

There is a 14th century Massacre of the Innocents where the murderers wear bulky white gambesons and iron bascinets with nasals which stick out horizontally in front of their heads before dropping down. I think they do their work with baselards. Where can I find that painting? I am thinking of makin...

Sean M

I am going to finish these in the next few days, but until then, here is a St. Lucia by Jacobello del Fiore in the Pianoteca Civica, Fermo whose murderer wears split hose
https://www.bildindex.de/document/obj20088735?part=6

It might be worth searching out colour pictures of the original.

Sean M

And I don't think many armourers make much money at all on the cool commissions. We are all terrible at estimating work time. Wade Yeah, that is why I do not think it is honourable for me to commission custom armour any more, at least not from shops in expensive countries. Piotr seems to be doing O...

Sean M

That was Toby wearing the armour in its most over the top Italian style display. Lots of, and layers of mail. He later wore it in a more Flemish fashion, and had things adapted to that or a more English taste. So most of the mail went away (still has the short mini-skirt-like bit from the fauld and...

Sean M

Hi Mac, I would appreciate it. I was hoping that this thread would inspire someone to take people's research and make some gloves.

Sorting through books and articles and photos for the good 'uns takes different energy than taking the sources and building an interpretation.

Sean M

Ahh, I see. Yeah, it's pretty weird, at least in the circles I run in, to publish a journal article with a non-archival link to a random museum's website as a citation.... Maybe someone who knows Dutch can contact them. Their website seems to lack all collection information nowadays and serves pret...

Sean M

Also, I think that the Byzantine military manuals which describe quilted armour stuffed with cotton are from the 10th century. Writers like David Niccole and Timothy Dawson will talk about the evidence for soldiers wearing quilted garments in the Islamic and Rhoman worlds from the 10th century onwar...

Sean M

I’m trying to decide what to wear under lamellar for a high-status Langobard warrior in the Spoleto vicinity in the early 7th century. Looking at artistic representation of that period hasn’t been that helpful, nor is the archaeological record, and the northern Italian reenactor groups with decent ...

Sean M

Arms & Armour of Minnesota's website is http://www.arms-n-armor.com/ There is another company with a similar domain name selling a Mammen axe, are you sure you ordered from the company you thought you were dealing with? Arms-Armor.com is a different company than the Arms & Armour of Minnesota where ...

Sean M

http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/0079423615Z.00000000069 Unfortunately, the above link is broken: the page has been deleted from http://www.maandvandegeschiedenis.nl, the Google cache, and the Wayback Machine. Hi Sean, the doi link works for me. Is that the link you said was broken? It leads, for me, to T...

Sean M

Relevant: I have a thread on the leather parts of gauntlets . I quickly concluded that it would take too much work researching, then too much money in product development, to make something correct, and had hildebrandt follow his usual practice of starting with modern deerskin gloves and adjusting t...

Sean M

The strange thing is, that many of later period gauntlets have theyre genuine glove and fingers. And the leather is often in a good condition. Another problem at leather parts is not ony the sweat, but also the rust of the nails in it and the rusty inside of the plates on it. Rene, when you say "la...

Sean M

Almost all 'gothic' gauntlets have restored fingers and thumbs (usually the base plate, too), or associated, often 16th century pieces modified to make them look a bit more 'gothic'. This is true of most 16th century gauntlets that I have seen or worked on, even in very prestigious collections. I t...

Sean M

I hope for the best. I'm amazed how much this field of study has progressed since I joined the AA 16 years ago, and I think this forum, and his users contributed a lot to this effort, and it's just the beginning, I feel the research is boosting ahead fueled by the digitalization of archives that wo...

Sean M

Yeah, from my academic perspective, the thing I most wish that every new plattner grasped is that nobody made a whole harness by himself or with one or two assistants. Hi Wade, I hope to be able to get my hands on it, even because the information presented with this document, fitted in the working p...

Sean M

I guess the other side is that we have this vision of complete suits set up in armouries, and when I see descriptions of working armouries in the 17th/18th/19th century it often sounds more like a game of tetris, at least for old stuff that was not being issued any more. The armour at Churburg used ...

Sean M

Wade, this reminds me. A while you bought a mostly-authentic 1580-ish North Italian field harness. It seems like most of the 16th century armour on the market is Nürnberg or Augsburg work, occasionally 'Innsbruck', but if it is Italian it is often corselets or field harneses with a 1560-1570-1580-15...

Sean M

Mart found another example in the Chanson de Gaydon from the around 1230 (line 5882): "Savari was armed on a carpet."

Sean M

The waistlines of doublets and breastplates move up and down in the 14th/15th/16th centuries, and getting them right is important for the look and function of armour. Has anyone laid out the evidence for how they change over time? Figuring out how they relate to the skeleton can be a lot of work, an...

Sean M

There is a ?faceted? barbuta which was cut down into a skull-cap with nasal in the ?Met?, that is the closest I can think of. Like Gustovic pointed out, some 14th century bascinets are shaped a lot like 15th century salets and barbute . Edit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number 29.158.44 I ...

Sean M

I also confirmed that it is blue or black linen ( tela nera o azzurra ) and not "cloth" which Cennini thinks a painter may have to paint for hangings. Datini carried more colours, but it looks like the colours of the breeches which Mac found and the dress lining which Tasha found were especially wid...

Sean M

John Marmion at West Tanfield and Thomas de Braose at Horsham show the late 14th century solution. I am sure Mac has a number for these in his typology

Sean M

Wouldn't the most common layers in the Maciejowski era be linen coif, iron skullcap, mail coif, iron helm? I don't know how they stopped the mail from biting their cheeks, maybe it had a lining and it was sure less sharp than ours is. In Blair's sketch of this headpiece it seems to have different ho...

Sean M

Mac, did you have a chance to look at this book? Was it useful?

Re: brass trim appropriate for 14th c leather armour?

Re: brass trim appropriate for 14th c leather armour?

Re: Italian 1410's Armour Project.

Re: Italian 1410's Armour Project.

Re: Painting with Gambesons, Daggers, and Funky Stick-Out Na

Re: Painting with Gambesons, Daggers, and Funky Stick-Out Na

Re: Painting with Gambesons, Daggers, and Funky Stick-Out Na

Re: Italian 1410's Armour Project.

A Coat with a Globlulose Breast

Re: Italian 1410's Armour Project.

Re: Painting with Gambesons, Daggers, and Funky Stick-Out Na

Painting with Gambesons, Daggers, and Funky Stick-Out Nasals

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: The Leather Parts of Gauntlets

Re: The Leather Parts of Gauntlets

Re: Gambeson/subarmalis for c.600-650 AD Langobard?

Re: Gambeson/subarmalis for c.600-650 AD Langobard?

Re: Arms-Armor.com?

Re: The Leather Parts of Gauntlets

Re: Mac's blog

Re: Mac's blog

Re: Mac's blog

Re: Experimental helmet forging

Re: Experimental helmet forging

Re: Study Session 2018 - November 10, 2018

Re: Study Session 2018 - November 10, 2018

Re: PSA: Do you have your arming carpet?

Is there a treatise on waistlines?

Re: Baecinets converted to sallets

Re: A Use for Dyed Linen

Re: What sort of strapping/suspension is correct for a Topfh

Re: What sort of strapping/suspension is correct for a Topfh

Re: New Coatsworth/Owen-Crocker Overview of Extant Clothing