The Armour Archive

Egfroth

Wow! That's impressive!

Egfroth

The "Oxford" Song of Roland, late 11th/early 12th century Frankish, has archbishop Turpin hacking away at the Saracens - With what great vigour the archbishop spurs and eagerly goes to attack Abisme, Striking a wondrous blow upon his shield! . . . . When Turpin had struck it with all his might, It w...

Egfroth

Is there even a suggestion of faceplates in this one? I think what you have there is something similar to this: http://www.1186-583.org/IMG/jpg/jb_expo_010_int.jpg http://www.1186-583.org/IMG/jpg/jb_10_int.jpg Very interesting - that looks quite possible. Where is the original picture from?

Egfroth

I was referred to this excerpt from the Alexiad of Byzantine Princess Anna Comnena (relating the life of her father Alexios (Emperor from 1081-1118), relating a sea-battle against the "Latins", in which a priest seems to have seen no problem with engaging in warfare: To resume, the arrow from the cr...

Egfroth

Guthroth, there was a discussion regarding the "Restrictions on clergy shedding blood" on the Mediev-L discussion list about this time last year, and IIRC the general conclusion was that it was an "everybody knows" - without any evidence to back it up. I'll see if I can chase it up and get the info ...

Egfroth

If you go with Manning Imperial I'd suggest you check that you can definitely get it delivered in the time. He has a pretty long lead time with his products.

Egfroth

And make sure you have a nice BIG brim on your hat - a tricorne with too narrow a brim on it looks really pathetic. The brim has to come up ABOVE the top of your head, preferably with a bit of overlap.

Egfroth

What he said.

Egfroth

Yep, what Justus said. regarding the idea of a lining to the hauberk, I seriously doubt it. Apart from not being needed (and probably being a pain in the butt to keep clean, and sew there in the first place), the BT shows troops being stripped of their hauberks, with the mail shirt inside out and st...

Egfroth

The latest depiction I've seen is c. 1200, of King Stephen of England. See below.

Egfroth

I guess the best way to describe what I mean is that if the lower edge is attached too high, then you get a fold of ventail hanging - like a turkey's neck. This does not seem to be evident in any of the period illustrations I can remember seeing. In my experience, the fold/"turkey neck" can be avoi...

Egfroth

No, no, NO!

How many times do you have to be told - You need to roll all the edges!

Egfroth

Not quite none. The frame where Bill the Bastard "gives arms" to Harold shows what look very like ties at the top of Bill's square, and another, the first picture (Fig. 8 ) at m shows laces hanging down from the bottom of the square (as they would to tie the bib up to the coif when you went into act...

Egfroth

Strangely enough, we used to get bigger crowds on the field than we do nowadays. The battles at the 1993 Convention outside Brisbane were quite respectable. Actually, the Brisbane conference was in '95. But I certainly remember a large field carpeted with Teutonic surcoats and other Crusaders With ...

Egfroth

And here are the hose and the braies. The hose are longer than what most people are used to, and the braies shorter - I'm basing them on the only guy in the Bayeux Tapestry whose "underwear" you can see, plus a pre-Conquest "Goliath", whose braies you can see once David has knocked him down with the...

Egfroth

Strictly, mine's a gudok. It's a combination of the characteristics of two found in Novgorod, dated to the 11th-12th centuries. The strings are gut and the bow is strung with horsehair. Yes, I can play (I cheated - I learned violin when I was a kid). But it's a bugger to get a tune out of when you'r...

Egfroth

Gad! It's Straff and Rags!!! Looking good, guys!

Egfroth

That's a seriously beautiful rebec. Better than mine, (which I'm pretty proud of, by the way) - see http://www.geocities.com/egfrothos/smyk.jpg

Egfroth

Dave Womble wrote:...I mean pirates are shown wearing it..just look at Captain jack Sparrow

Dave

Yep - Hollywood; best Primary source I can think of . . .

Egfroth

Halvgrim, that's some seriously good-looking stuff. So, how's about a photo in full kit?

Egfroth

OswynHaddock wrote:By 1200 scale was very low class, compared to maille and lamellar.

Sorry - I've never heard of this before. Can you let me know what the evidence is for this?

Egfroth

IIRC. they wore eye-shadow, too . . .

Egfroth

Like this (a 10th century Byzantine rock painting in Kappadokia) and the standard below (from Urbino in Italy - date unknown). But if it's a personal emblem, you probably wouldn't be using something as big and dramatic as this. Perhaps a relic or ikon instead? What exactly is the standard to be used...

Egfroth

Nice kit! I must say I'm jealous of those going to hastings this year - if only we had the numbers to do metal weapons reenactment combat of that magnitude in australia! So true. But I rarely go on the field here any more. Too many times I see such ghastly unhistorical stuff there (and dangerous yo...

Egfroth

That stuff looks awesome! I was feeling pretty pathetic until I realized that you're playing and earl and brother of the King, so you're supposed to look a lot better than me. Yes the important thing is to die pretty . . . I'm starting to worry that I'm not going to see everyone I want to... Not su...

Egfroth

Crikey! Don't lose too much, or your mail will be all saggy . . . Still, maybe you can use what's left over to make that coif . . .

Egfroth

Working on it, mate. Once I've got the helmet made up, and cleaned the old caked-on oil and gunk off the mail shirt and put the pretty new braid on it, and got the new belt made up, I should be pretty right. Got a new sword under way, too. Need to get that done, make a scabbard etc etc. If I get eno...

Egfroth

And a brooch . . And another photo of the nasal, plus the strap-end for the sword-belt. All three were cast in bronze from wax originals made by me. The strap-end and the brooch are copied from 11th century English examples, and yes, the strap-end really was that wide! Unfortunately the photo qualit...

Egfroth

Well on the way for the Hastings event, thought I'd show you some of the kit I'm putting together. The helmet has quite a way to go. Plates need to be smoothed off, shined up, fitted exactly, and rivetted, and an embossed browband fitted, and the frame, browband and nasal gilded. The sax sheath is t...

Egfroth

Nice helmet. Who made it?

Egfroth

Can't vouch for its accuracy, but you could look at http://www.nachtanz.org/SReed/doublets.html

Egfroth

I can't make the link work. Any chance you can put the pic up on the forum?

BTW, what group are you in in Sydney? I might run into you at a Conference or Armidale.

Egfroth

Well, first your friend needs to know a bit of the history of the area in the period chosen. The region we know as Macedonia was Roman (Byzantine, if you like) before about 600AD. Imperial control of the area broke down after invasions by Huns, Avars and Gepids, followed by an influx of Slavic tribe...

Egfroth

Well, the shape of the helmet (if you don't include the fluting) is shown in representations from at least France, Italy and England . The faceplate seems to have appeared all over Europe simultaneously (first decade of the 13th century) including Germany (see below). I'd be surprised if you weren't...

Egfroth

And they can be put to all KINDS of uses. . .

My gear for Hastings 2006