The Armour Archive

Egfroth

It's been a long time since this thread was current, but I realised I'd never answered a couple of questions, specifically how the back was fastened, and what lacing was used. So, here is a drawing I did of the fastings - it's just 4 buckles and straps, fixed to the leather. The lacing I used was co...

Egfroth

Dunno about the name, but surely it's just a normal hat with the brim turned up?

Egfroth

I find that the nasal visually "vanishes" when you're focussing on something more than a foot away. AFAIK there's no "standard" distance for a nasal to be away from the face. It would probably be instructive to measure the positions of the nasals of a number of extant helmets and see if there's some...

Egfroth

That's right. The point has been made earlier that all the iron bosses survived, so if the condiditons would presumably be favourable to also preserve iron rims, if they existed. OTOH, the timber of the shields was in bad condiditon - they only managed to fully salvage a small number of them. If the...

Egfroth

A very nice portrayal, but [sergeant-major voice]get the rust off your axe-head, that man! [/sergeant-major voice]

Egfroth

This subject comes up on a regular basis. Every couple of months, someone asks whether the Vikings could have had leather armour. The arguments that follow are repeated almost word for word from one thread to the next. Do a search on "leather armour" or something of the sort, and you should see quit...

Egfroth

Well, it's appropriate you mention this just after the Hastings re-enactment.

There's me and my hearth troop from Hastings, for a start . . .

Or the whole Hastings shebang, for that matter - see http://www.webieval.com/menusfr/photosfr.htm and http://www.glomesdal.com/gallery2/v/2006_hastings/ and http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/20 ... 4661KwyOZJ and http://news.webshots.com/album/554982374FNiJsC and http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n249 ... ?start=all and http://www.flickr.com/photos/snake3yes/ ... 332985508/ and http://hastings.vikingsonline.org.uk/gallery.htm - and for some really cool videos at http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=65650 .

Egfroth

Yes, but if you keep reading, she says

"The rim itself was not preserved, but holes for the rivets showed the existence of a rim"

So the metal rim was an assumption based only on the existence of holes. And she corrects it in the second letter.

Egfroth

In that case the references I gave are fairly ok. Though I'd really like to see the ones in the book as well, if there are any closer to Hastings than I've seen.

Egfroth

Hmmm - COULD be that, I suppose. But the scabbard seems to come out of the hauberk at bum (buttock) level, which seems a little strange. And not the same as with Harold's sword, which comes out at the hem of the hauberk. OTOH, a case could be made for split hauberks (in fact that's the usual assumpt...

Egfroth

In my view it is decorative only. But I have to stress that this is only an opinion. However, you make a good point that anything else there would be likely to promote leaks, so is unlikely to have been done.

For what it's worth.

Egfroth

Egfroth, thanks for sharing the letters you recieved. So I take it that no scientific analysis has actually been done on the paint of the Gokstad shields at all then. This is getting a bit uncertain, especially with the addition of red into the mix. So the Gokstad shields DEFINATELY had an iron rim...

Egfroth

Well, here's the "MORE" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0GdbihJ ... ed&search=

Egfroth

There was a helmet that had aspects of both bascinet and cervelliere about the middle of the 14th century. The classic case is the effigy of Sir Hugh Despenser- see below.

Egfroth

Here's me and my hearth troop at Hastings (I'm 5th from the left, standing). And a couple of close-ups of the helmet I made for the event.

Egfroth

Endre, where did you get that photo? I've looked and looked through all the photo sets I know of, and I can't find it.

I'm interested because I'm on the far left, directly below the white flag with the blue cross (I'm holding the red shield with the wavy white cross).

Egfroth

All the longbowmen at Hastings did lob shots. I saw two idiots looking upwards as the arrows came in, and sent a message to one of them to knock it off. (The other one was too far away). However, there were a small number of crossbowmen who were doing aimed shots. I discovered later that they were s...

Egfroth

Or a hidden gambeson *under* a tunic . . .

Egfroth

[quote="Merlin the Mad"][quote]Dying heroically, with my hearth troop crying out â€œalas!â€

Egfroth

Bewdy! On DVD?

Egfroth

And here I am in close up.

And with my hearth troop. Note the profusion of handlebar moustaches.

Egfroth

Very few scabbards on the Bayeux Tapestry are *not* shown under the hauberk. -Graedwyn Sorry. I can't agree at all. The picture above is, as far as I can make out, the only example from the BT where the scabbard is shown under the hauberk. What the Tapestry doesn't show (except for a single lonely ...

Egfroth

You could also look at the stuff at http://www.missouri.edu/~winsloww/archives/leather.htm . None of them are the book you reference, but I've found all of them to be of great value.

What period are you portraying?

Egfroth

I'm the "Lowe" quoted on the Peter Beatson website. Way back in 1989 I wrote to the Oslo Ship Museum asking about the shields (and the Gjermundbu helmet as well). I got a very nice letter from Irmelin Martens saying that the colours had vanished because preservation techniques in the late 19th centu...

Egfroth

First, being part of something so enormous, the re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings, at the place where it all happened 940 years ago. Then, seeing old friends from Hastings 2000, and meeting for the first time people Iâ€™d been in touch with on the Net for ages, without ever having met them face...

Egfroth

Finally got it to work. Thanks, Alecks.

Egfroth

My computer crashed, and I've only just got it working again. I'll be adding my own impressions of Hastings 2006 in due course, but in the meantime, there's some more really cool photos at m - but don't hit the "ITV Meridian - Batle Of Hastings 2006! (video)" link - it doesn't work, and won't let yo...

Egfroth

The guy in the black? He was amazing. When he finally turned away from our line he was given a spontaneous cheer from our ranks in recognition of a worthy opponent. No idea who he was, though.

Egfroth

That illustration is 200 years earlier. We can't really assume things didn't change all that much in that time. Look at the differences in things in any other 200 year gap in history. Time marches on. It's certainly not out of court to try to reconstruct a byrnie of plates from the evidence above. W...

Egfroth

Kubb is also a great (Viking) game (it's sort of a skittles thing, and is still played in Scandinavia). Kids love it. And there's a sort of hockey game, the name of which escapes me - very violent - possibly a little TOO violent for the kiddies, but fun for grown-ups.

Egfroth

Here is my scabbard and sword-belt.

And my sword, Egbita (pronounced Eggbeater). Unfortunately this photo was taken before I put the the leather on the hilt and gilded the pommel and cross (and it's in England now, so I can't take photos of its current state).

Egfroth

I thought I was right. You can get the whole thing in English. See http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcn ... /index.htm

Egfroth

You have a very good point. I have no idea of the answer, but as this is one of the extremely few bits of evidence used to support the idea that scale armour was used in France in the 11th century, I think it's something worth following up. Of course it's only an assumption that it's a bit of armour...

Egfroth

Apparently from the Dumnoni, for whom the Old English name was Defnas. The earliest recorded form of the name "Devonshire" is 9th century Defnascir.

Egfroth

That's a damn' fine hairdo!

My impressions of Hastings