The Armour Archive

Sean M

By the 1360s, linen dyed a variety of colours was a standard trade good in Europe, but so far we don't know what they made from it. (I don't know of a single account book, inventory, or description of someone's clothing, which says, "and a red linen ..." or "five ells of short blue linen to make ......

Sean M

I think that this doublet will do the job. The fit in the sleeves could be improved but none of us are professional tailors and I do not have concrete suggestions. After that I asked myself how should I make the eyelets? From previous experience I'd need reinforcement for most of the eyelets that ho...

Sean M

>Marc c's diagram and ian laspina's diagram are not exactly the same. I have one of the publications (M. Nockert, 1997. "Bockstenmannen och hans dräkt". Published by Hallands Länsmuseer), and Marc's diagram is closer to the original. Ian's video is very good for important construction points, parti...

Sean M

Thanks Ernst and Mac! I like the photo of the cloak from the bog as reassembled in Ian's video. His hangs differently than my mockup, it is easier for him to pull around to cover his right side. Probably I should just make a mockup and see how the large neck affects the drape. Some of these almost s...

Sean M

From the 14th century to the 16th century, men in Europe often wore round-ish cloaks buttoned at the right shoulder. I have a page on them ; I Marc Carlson has one on the surviving cloak from Bocksten . After whipping together an adaptation of Bocksten Man's cloak I wonder about some things: - What ...

Sean M

I think I'll try it. The good thing is if it doesn't work out, or if everyone laughs at the fool :oops: :wink: who was stupid enough to line a haubergeon, it will be easy enough to remove without leaving any permanent alterations to the mail. I'll let everyone know how it works out. My main concern...

Sean M

Pisanes had quilted linings too, I had Tom B put one in the collar of mail which he made for me. I like it.

If the mail is tailored, designing the lining could be tricky.

Sean M

Here are the celate in the Archivio Datini di Prato. From the price between 1/4 florin and a florin each, they must have been small. The fact that his clerks saw them as a type of cappellina would help us if we knew what a cappellina was :( from 1406: cappellina d'acciaio celata, buona: s. 18 celate...

Sean M

Does anyone have thoughts on how to decide whether commercial nails or tacks are good 'uns for riveting? The modern nails I bought to practice riveting belt mounts turned out to be brass-plated (not brass) and were prone to bending even when I cut them short. It sounds like the common issues are sha...

Sean M

I hope people can find some more of your second type, Gustovic. They are not very good for modern games, but they would be great infantry pots ... light and you have some chance of hearing what your captain-of-20 is screaming at you!

Sean M

The guy at Armour Services Historical likes to face brigandines in wool. When I asked "all the sources I have read are for hemp, linen, fustian, and silk, why do you use wool?" he said that his wool lasts longer than the linens, cottons, and silks he has used. Without handling his fabric and examini...

Sean M

Yeah, it is hard because in trecento Italy, bacinetto and barbuta seem to be roughly synonymous. "Deep bascinets with flared rims" could work for the pots in your latest picture. I would call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallet#/media/File:Sallet_%22in_the_Venetian_Style%22_MET_DP22327.jpg a barbut...

Sean M

Another thing that gets me: it seems that around 1400, the armed men were grumbling about the available neck protection (aventail + collar of mail), so we start to see aventails of lames, or bascinets with plate reinforcements in front of the cheeks and throat, leading to the grand bascinet and even...

Sean M

Blair talks about one of these two types on page 70. This is one of the topics where I wish he had allowed himself a few more words and a few more illustrations, because I don't know which design he means (or what globular poleyns are ... he has a lot of phrases which made sense to him and which jus...

Sean M

Also, Datini sold a dozen different types of headpiece with their own names, and he and his clerks seem to have thought it was useful to use all those names ... some people in the 14th century saw headpieces as three basic types (bascinet [with a subtype which just covered the skull], iron cap, helm...

Sean M

Gustovic, it seems like we would need a good definition of sallet and what distinguishes it from a bascinet/cervelliera/ovette. I think that the outwards-bent bottom edge might be a good place to start. I think I have seen the word celata back to 1410 or so. I would like to see more of the guy in th...

Sean M

Also, a problem which I encounter again and again is isolated 'tips' and examples that don't explain their assumptions. Its OK to say "cutting the armscye like this reduces mobility but is traditional" but please tell me! W.W. Hulme talks about the difference between style features which change with...

Sean M

Oops, wish I saw this earlier! Gnagy's book teachs how to use the Bara system, and provides one example of how to use the Bara system, the 1610 doublet. Now, start looking at the different pattern manuals of the day. You will notice that the only real instruction in those manuals for specific garme...

Sean M

The kingdom of An Tir has a list at http://antir.sca.org/Pubs/index.php#rapier Other kingdoms probably have other rules!

Sean M

Thanks! Something to read after my own Doktorarbeit is done.

It looks like it is more social history, not hardcore Realienkunde that digs the lists of materials out of the privy wardrobe accounts. There is information about the furbishers (polishers).

Sean M

William, a lot of people are away right now for Pennsic, but the general consensus is that stainless is always nasty to work with a hammer. For a few dollars you can get some nice mild steel from a scrap yard or metal shop ... ask if they have 'drops' or 'offcuts'!

Sean M

It might be fun to print this out and make some sanity tests assuming 1" or 1 cm increments. He may say somewhere else in the article but I have no time, and I don't know whether American archaeologists had converted to metric in 1955. For a long time they just used the "pencil standard" or a rule w...

Sean M

I wish I knew the scale of that ruler at the left. It looks like the 'four layers' are two pieces: one at the left, with rows running top to bottom, and one at the right which seems to be the upper chest and a shoulder doubler, with rows running left to right. I can't figure out what the recess in t...

Sean M

https://bookandsword.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/young_1956_pl_86_fig_22_scale_armour.png [quote="Rodney S. Young, "The Campaign of 1955 at Gordion: Preliminary Report," American Journal of Archaeology 60.3 (June 1956) p. 257 and plate 86, figure 22"]Two other objects of interest which were found c...

Sean M

I think I can boil down what I am trying to say into four sentences. As far as I can tell, in the second half of the middle ages, pretty much anywhere you went there were men who had begged, borrowed, and stolen to get a lance, a sword, an open helmet, iron body armour, and a horse which would not d...

Sean M

I have seen an estimate that Thomas Chaucer, son of that Chaucer, was worth at least 400 pounds English a year ( ten times the income where the King of England started to fine you if you did not accept knighthood and its responsibilities). He stayed a squire, not a knight, his whole adult life and w...

Sean M

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but is the idea of a "Poor Knight" strictly Victorian? I know knights dressed "allegorically" at tournaments. Could you flip the scenario? Would a well armed and apported knight enter a tournament with sackloth over his armor? I guess what I'm clumsily trying to ask...

Sean M

This fresco of Cavalli donors in San Anastasia, Verona might be showing something similar http://armourinart.com/5091/15813/

This painter was not interested in how things were put together, but if we all keep our eyes open, we might find some art which gives us a better sense of what he meant.

Sean M

The miniature was done around 1405. This is not to say that the artists were showing the armour Venetians were wearing in 1405. Looking at all the clothing and armour in that MS, the styles look more like the 1400s than the 1370s which was the last time splint arms were popular. High hemlines , dem...

Sean M

I wish we had better pictures! There is one painting in that MS where the artist seems to show separate couters without wings, on the others it is less clear. Don't forget that many splint arms did not have a separate couter. They sometimes had the vambrace extended to cover the point of the elbow, ...

Sean M

https://bookandsword.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/gauntlet-from-cucagna-palazzo-iv-b-as-reconstructed-by-h-groenwald.jpg The two right gauntlets buried during the siege of Cucagna in the 1380s seem to have rolls or upsetting along the inside of the cuffs. Holger Grönwald was the first to spot this. ...

Sean M

Thanks Mac and Leo, working on the foot of the left hose now. I have the right hose cut, and started to insert the lining, but the angle is just slightly off and I am deciding whether to undo the seam at the top of the leg and re-sew it, or just accept a small wrinkle in the lining. I hope to have t...

Sean M

Tom B. found a photo with this and the label "Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum."

Sean M

Matthew Gnagy has posted on the economics of making a good replica of a nice 1630-vintage suit as a master tailor with decades of experience : doublet: 5 days @$450/day (less than his shop rate as a modern tailorer and costumer, keep in mind that for his career he has to live in New York or a simila...

Sean M

From reading threads here, it sounds like they got armourer's disease a few years ago. Their website says they stopped accepting orders while they work down their backlog in May 2017. Keep in mind that the guys selling SCA helmets for a few hundred dollars are making a couple of bucks an hour ... so...

A Use for Dyed Linen

Re: St. George from the St. Wolfgang Altarpiece, reconstruct

Re: Thinking Out Loud: Bocksten Cloaks

Re: Thinking Out Loud: Bocksten Cloaks

Thinking Out Loud: Bocksten Cloaks

Re: Thoughts on liners for haubergeons- hauberks?

Re: Thoughts on liners for hauberks?

Re: Sallets, already in the XIVth century.

Re: Textile backing for coat of plates?

Re: Sallets, already in the XIVth century.

Re: Textile backing for coat of plates?

Re: Sallets, already in the XIVth century.

Re: Sallets, already in the XIVth century.

Re: Sallets, already in the XIVth century.

Re: Sallets, already in the XIVth century.

Re: Sallets, already in the XIVth century.

Re: Principles of Tailoring

Re: Principles of Tailoring

Re: SCA legal Rapiers

Re: Armourers' Crafts & Forging of 14th century London -Thes

Re: Advice on working with stainless steel for plate?

Re: Phrygian Scale Armour 5th c BCE

Re: Phrygian Scale Armour 5th c BCE

Phrygian Scale Armour 5th c BCE

Re: Poor 'budget' knights and their equipment

Re: Poor 'budget' knights and their equipment

Re: Poor 'budget' knights and their equipment

Re: Splint Arms with Simple Elbow?

Re: Splint Arms with Simple Elbow?

Re: Splint Arms with Simple Elbow?

Gauntlets with reinforced hems

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Backplates before 1410?

Re: $100/hr shop rate

Re: Anyone know what is going on with Illusion Armory?