The Armour Archive

Sean M

The Royal Armouries took a pattern off jack of plates III.1278 then took photos of their mockup next to the original (!) https://royalarmouries.org/why-preparat ... =hootsuite

The think the original was made in the 1560s.

Sean M

Tom B has found a photo of the statue in Amsterdam on Vkontakt https://vk.com/photo-11029306_433749626 So far I do not know which museum. The label says: "Figures of Counts, last quarter 15th century, unknown maker ... The figures of the counts stood in the Vierschaar in Amsterdam's old town hall. A...

Sean M

Cet, thanks for the name of that brass! Mac, I am glad the MM tag was useful! If I ever make a corazza , maybe it will be a back-opener. It would probably help to talk about the apron with someone 'horsey.' It is a shame that Gordon Frye does not drop in any more, maybe Toby will have some ideas nex...

Sean M

Thanka Mac! The only thing I have to add is some of the players in Fiore's sword in armour and his axe. http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Fiore_de'i_Liberi#/media/File:Pisani-Dossi_MS_26a-b.png http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Fiore_de'i_Liberi#/media/File:Pisani-Dossi_MS_26a-c.png http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Fio...

Sean M

I flipped through the threads Earliest Backplate in Art and early fifteenth century backplates and all that came up is the effigy of John de Montacute at Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire which has hinges down one side and laces down the other. That looks like a side-opening pair of plates under a li...

Sean M

By now we have a lot of evidence for backplates (ie. uncovered defences for the upper back of a few big plates, not parts of a covered pair of plates with wings or saloon doors) after 1410: - The back-opening or side-opening breast and back in Lydgate's Troy Book "And some chose, of þe newe entaille...

Sean M

Right now I chose facta over verba , but here is the left leg basted together with the foot unfinished. The pourpoint has the same arrangement of points as the Charles de Blois, but has a double canvas strip-of-eyelets and removable points instead of 'split tabs' permanently sewn to the lining. The ...

Sean M

I had not realized that the sword you were making the scabbard for was a blunt. The advise I had been offering presumed something with edges. :oops: I think that there are two possible paths to take with a blunt.... --The first would be to add fillers between the two slats. These would have to be a...

Sean M

I cut the other leg yesterday. Roger Mortimer's hosier required a yard and a quarter of cloth and a half-ell of linen for each pair of hose in 1393/4, and that seems like a good length of broadcloth. I can cut these in 100 cm, but 115 cm (a yard and a quarter) would make it easier or allow for a hig...

Sean M

Ok, I'm having problems with the html links to landscape pictures which I try to scale down. Any advice is appreciated. It depends on where you are hosting the image. On some, you can add ?w=NUMBER&h=NUMBER after the URL and it automatically resizes the image as displayed. Some sites will resize th...

Sean M

On my look at the best photos I have the points are all mounted the same distance from the hem. I could be wrong! Here is one half of my third pair of hose. I am aiming for the 'San Rocco' style with three points of suspension per leg and possibly one more point which uses one eyelet on each leg. Th...

Sean M

https://bookandsword.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/p1010008_scabbard_slats_bound_showing_gap.jpg?w=768&h=576 This picture shows the gap between the slats after bending. I will see what effect that has on the final scabbard, worst comes to worst I have another pair of slats which are less narrow. http...

Sean M

I am still waiting for a new awl to arrive, but today I unbound the slats and painted ordinary linseed oil on the inner surfaces. I will also take some files and knives and sandpaper and round the corners where they will be touching the leather. I suspect that for a real woodworker with a drawknife ...

Sean M

I coated the blade in vaseline and then in Backpapier /waxed paper, filled a 7 cm radius PVC tube with a mix of two parts boiling water and one part hot water, dropped the slats into it and let them soak for about 50 minutes with a glass jar on top to weight them. I then removed them, placed them on...

Sean M

Oxbow Books in the UK has a sale on with many titles on ancient, Viking Age, late medieval and Renaissance art and archaeology for half price or less. There is a list of some likely titles here ... they also have Jeff Forgeng's fencing books, most of the Museum of London volumes, and other SCA/livin...

Sean M

My scabbard slats are sitting on the blade wrapped in bandages. I steamed them using a tea kettle, a length of PVP pipe with a cap on one end and a slit cap on the other, and various rags and gloves. It seemed like it did not reach evenly ... parts of the wood were wet from condensation but others s...

Sean M

Well SHIT. I mentioned the title to my wife. Took her 30 seconds to track down, found out that the LAST book by the same authors sold out and is now going at double the list price, reminded me about all the armor books by Carlos and practically beat me over the head with her PC until I approved her...

Sean M

You probably know that he has a new facsimile and translation of I.33 out (but with no interpretation and no reconstruction of the missing leaves ). He also has his translation of Pietro Monte on armour and armoured combat and of Hans Leckuchner's messer treatise . I think I remember that Monte has ...

Sean M

Elizabeth Coatsworth and Gail Owen-Crocker (eds.) Clothing the Past: Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe (Brill: Leiden, 2017) Brill are Seerauber in the best Dutch tradition, so this is not the kind of book you are supposed to buy (40 cents a page ?!?). But if you ...

Sean M

Mac, while I experiment with my new hosen pattern, here is my source for the drawstrings in 11th century hosen: James Barker's old site.

Sean M

I had assumed that the grain line ran at 45* to the centre front of the leg, but then I looked at Textiles and Clothing pages 188 and 189. None of their fragments of hose is cut at a perfect bias! Framsen "Norse Garments Reconstructed" shows a 45* bias cut, but there are people who accuse her of 'im...

Sean M

On the weekend I found a shop which used power tools to make the beechwood boards thin, and roughed out a quick-and-dirty leather scabbard for a wooden rondel dagger. This let me practice saddle stitch and wet forming (I dipped my hand in water, stroked it across the inside of the leather, and repea...

Sean M

Thomas of Lancaster, the Duke of Clarence, purchased three yards of white fustian to make an "armyng doublet" for his own use sometime between 1418 and 1421 (C.M. Woolgar, Household Accounts from Medieval England , page 634). Unfortunately there are no more details. After my white linen doublet is d...

Sean M

My eyes were not good enough to study the pattern in the cloth of gold and see if the seams Harmand says were sloped were sloped. Adding a wedge under the armpit appears in Freyle, it seems like it was the standard solution to the problem that most fabric containing silk or cotton was woven about 5...

Sean M

Mac, I will add that to my Interlibrary Loan list next time I am in 'research mode.' It looks like that magazine has never digitalized its back issues, probably because the current incarnation is in "thinky-talky-artsy" mode not "antiquarian scholarship" mode. Maurice Leloir, "A Mediaeval doublet," ...

Sean M

And, now I'm going to waffle a bit. I had just said that I think the CDB garment goes with BCSH, but I've just looked at this image again and now I'm wondering if that's right. https://i.pinimg.com/564x/fd/f9/b2/fdf9b2861c55b419961d6914c3c4d0c2.jpg The issue is the three points near the center back...

Sean M

Someone in Germany has translated a passage in Garsault L'art du taileur from the 1760s. http://www.marquise.de/en/1700/howto/maenner/18hemd.shtml It is worth studying things like this, because many of our 'modern medieval' designs stem from earlier or later things which someone dug up in the 1990s....

Sean M

Mac, I wish I had brain-space to think about clothing after 1410, but I have a thesis to finish and a long list of projects to complete. Here are the best four pictures I know for breeches worn with garments similar to the Charles de Blois. Guillaume de Mauchaut MS https://bookandsword.files.wordpre...

Sean M

As far as I can tell, white linen(?) linings are pretty typical whenever the artist can be relied upon to show us any detail in rolled down or otherwise untrussed hosen from the early 15thC on. Mac Johann Hyll also approved of hosen with a bias-cut linen lining: First hym nedeth to have a paire of ...

Sean M

Hulme has a great deal of valuable information, and what he says about history is not wrong! He knows that early in the 19th century tailors just started with measurements marked on a strip of parchment, and paper patterns based on tables of proportions appeared in the late 19th century. However, it...

Sean M

The Companie of St. george also has a version of Harmand's mid-15th-century hosen. http://www.companie-of-st-george.ch/cms/?q=en/Clothing_Guide_Download I don't think they line the upper parts of their hosen with linen, but such a lining appears in documents by the 1390s, and appears on many mid-15t...

Sean M

It could well be that that Boccaccio MS was Sarah Thursfield's inspiration (or the inspiration of whoever designed the pattern in her book). The doublets are crotch-length but are laced to the hosen all around. The points tied to the 'mystery loop' in that painting make me wonder if this could be re...

Sean M

My main question is, as when i first posted my speculation, is; how did the rear center pointing location (on the CDBP) work in relation to the hose?Ive speculated (as have many others) that joined hose may be an option, and BCSH a more likely option based on the evidence we have for the earliest d...

Sean M

Sean M I agree on many of your points as well. Although I believe that, even with a mid thigh garment like the CDBP that the hose should extend higher than the gluteal fold, not just for decency's sake but for pointing to the pourpoint/doublet/paltok etc etc. as well. I'm not sure if this is what y...

Sean M

If I like my new hosen I will post sketches of the upper parts (anyone can do the lower parts, it is just draping, fitting, pinning closer, and repeating).

As far as I can tell, nobody who does good hosen to wear with a late 14th century doublet is writing about it.

Re: Scottish Jacks

Re: Backplates before 1410?

Re: Backplates before 1410?

Re: Backplates before 1410?

Re: Backplates before 1410?

Backplates before 1410?

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: 1360s Scabbard Project

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Making a klappvisor and other 14th century projects

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: 1360s Scabbard Project

Re: 1360s Scabbard Project

Re: 1360s Scabbard Project

Big sale at Oxbow

Re: 1360s Scabbard Project

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

New Fencing Books by Jeff Forgeng

New Coatsworth/Owen-Crocker Overview of Extant Clothing

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Laying Out Hosen

Re: 1360s Scabbard Project

Re: Sir John Smythe on Arming Doublets

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

How to Make a Shirt 1760s

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Principles of Tailoring

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look

Re: Avoiding the 'Diaper' Look