The Armour Archive

jester

1360? A great year. The Peace of Bretagne has been signed, bringing about a truce in the direct fighting between England and France. The Bretons and Gascons are free to go back to their internecine quarrels, the English relax on their laurels, and the French try to rebuild. Thousands of mercenaries ...

jester

That sounds like Duke Kynan.

jester

How do you get yourself mentally prepared for a tourney? How do you maintain that mindset the day of? What tips can you offer a new fighter that is just starting out? Forget about winning or losing. Focus on perfectly executing the techniques you use. You are not here to win the tournament, you are...

jester

In my opinion , part of the problem with our search for new sword materials has to do with our basic force generation techniques. A sword strike (an attack with the edge) has two force factors: percussive force (which is force delivered along a path perpendicular to the target) and shearing/incisin...

jester

There have been a number of discussions about archers on the field during SCA combat. Many have stated they would like to see more formalized "units" of archers and shieldmen. Sounds great. So...from a military standpoint, what was the title of the person in charge of the archers in a medieval army...

jester

There is an interesting discussion starting on Swordforum regarding the use of large shields in combat (historical, not sport). William Carew has posted some interesting photographs. See it at
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread ... adid=33269

jester

Restructure the combat to more closely resemble authentic combat. Safety issues? Those participating can be divvied up into classes. Not weight classes...skill classes if you will. The newbies obviously dont fight as well or the same way as a 15-20 year veteran of the various fechtbuchs (Christian ...

jester

Once again the SCA inadvertently recreates an aspect of the Middle Ages (communication through rumor). The Marshallate in general needs to do a better job of publishing these clarifications (though I note that some kingdoms are doing a pretty fair job, Atlantia springs to mind). The last official wo...

jester

You know, I am constantly amazed at how inflexible some people seem to be. The BoD has ruled that Crowns must be selected by rattan tournament. While that limits matters a little it certainly doesn't place an untolerable burden upon us. Consider this: Corpora places minimal restrictions upon entrant...

jester

I see. I suppose you are telling me that certain Kingdoms are pretty set in their ways, huh? Forgive me. I'm tired, emotionally exhausted, and more than a little embittered. My beefs are well known; I've screamed about them long and loud enough on this board. In the vast majority of cases I think t...

jester

This is YOUR SCA, too. You pay membership dues. Do you want to run tournaments using the "Pas d'Armes dispensation?" Go ahead! They can't stop you. Do you want to refuse to knee-fight? Play with the guys that don't do it, or work around it like I did. Want to wear medieval armour, and fight on a le...

jester

I had a gentleman tell me today that carpet armour was conceivable period for a 15th century Ottoman Turk.... Was he right? I wanted to just freaking giggle, but I know that I don't know everything.... Jean Paul My standard response to claims of this nature is: "Cool! Would you be kind enough to sh...

jester

I think the SCA can be greatly improved by adding a little clarity. What are we doing? This is a question that the SCA answers in only the broadest sense, leaving it wide open for folks to come up with their own answer. It really annoys me when folks decide that their answer is somehow better than a...

jester

Fascinating. I knew of the later Company of Death (~1570) but not the earlier. From the accounts it is unclear if the earlier Company was a standing formation. I get the impression that it was a volunteer group of citizens from Legnano who had sworn to defend the carroccio to the death. This was fai...

jester

The Society Earl Marshal has banned the teaching of Historical Swordsmanship techniques. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It has something to do with the fact that grappling is allowed in works like Fiore and he doesn't think people will NOT grapple if they learn that. God only knows WHY though. I k...

jester

Historical authenticity is not one of the goals of the SCA. We recreate aspects of the Middle Ages and we leave the choice of exactly which aspects up to each individual participant. The bad points of our power structure are bad points found in any large group. Changing our power structure will not ...

jester

Well said Jester, and I concede the point. I still don't get the playing dress up while doing a modern activity, but obviously 12000 odd folks disagree with me. Actually, haven't you made some headway in using period training techniques within the SCA environment? None. On the other hand, other fol...

jester

Our KEM says it's too dangerous. I asked for permission to get a study group together to look at this material back in November and got turned-down in February. So I'm pursuing my studies outside of the SCA. friggin' nonconformist Bite me horse-lover. Don't make me change the last verse of that son...

jester

A couple of points: -The SCA is not geared for historical combat studies and most of the armoured combatants I have talked to are actively opposed to introducing such into the SCA. Our combat system (which is remarkably safe considering we hit each other full force with rattan sticks) is geared towa...

jester

Our KEM says it's too dangerous. I asked for permission to get a study group together to look at this material back in November and got turned-down in February. So I'm pursuing my studies outside of the SCA.

jester

Well, all fighting is some basic common principles applied to varying situations so it's not surprising that sword and buckler combat will look very similar in roughly the same geographic area and time period. In this regard Fiore and I.33 seem to share a basic goal, get to the bind (sword to sword ...

jester

John Patrick is correct. The translation is very useful if you are planning on doing an independent interpretation of the material or if you are interested in seeing the actual source material (which is, in itself, fascinating). To get an idea of what might be involved in doing an independent interp...

jester

Counted blows THROWN and counted blows RECEIVED can both be documented within the Medieval time period. Formal combats seem to have been less interested in establishing victory conditions than in establishing end game conditions. In the first case the aim is to produce a clear winner, in the second ...

jester

That's the really interesting thing about all these books, no one seems to have bothered translating them to English, or even scanning or photographing them until fairly recently. Most historians don't find the study of actual hand to hand techniques to be important--they are more concerned with so...

jester

Based on information drawn from past classes I would suggest: Loose clothing suitable for sustained mild physical exertion. Leather gloves Medieval type footwear. It really helps to be able to slide your feet without the excessive traction provided by modern shoes. Also, this is going to be held in ...

jester

With the permission of the author and the kind assistance of the ArmourArchive operators it is hosted here. m It's in the NoShield directory. Part of my effort to archive and/or republish old SCA texts on this subject. My entire webpage (SCA Melee Fighting Website) will eventually migrate to this si...

jester

I'll post the URL website as soon as it is up, I swear! If you're in Colorado then you might be interested in hitting a Guild practice. We've got Tuesday night and Sunday afternoon practices in Denver. We've got an instructor in Ft. Collins looking for practice partners. And there are folks in Puebl...

jester

The Rocky Mountain Historical Combat Guild is bringing Brian Price to Denver on April 24-25, 2004 for a two day seminar on Medieval spear and poleaxe techniques (based on Italian and German documents). The cost of the class will be $70 for both days. Some single day spaces *may* be available at $45 ...

jester

Nicely said, Sir Angus.

jester

I've never seen a buckler that shape. The weirdest buckler design I have seen is in Talhoffers Fechtbuch of 1459 (the color edition). You can see this manuscript online at the AEMMA website (15th Century section of the online library).

jester

The more I study the period manuals the more I come to appreciate the SCA. Time and again I am seeing the same principles applied in different settings. Where the conditions are fairly close I am even seeing the same techniques.

jester

The sword and buckler material displays a lot of continuity. You can see elements that look like they are lifted exactly from I.33 in later fectbucher and illustrations. For a 15th Century group I would recommend basing your sword and buckler on Talhoffer and Lignitzer. Lignitzer material can be fou...

jester

There is steel sword fighting in the SCA and it's not considered "dangerous". The SCA has equestrian events. They are held at venues that allow horses. Not every area has those "horse friendly" venues. Unfortunately neither of the items you are speaking of are the same as Gwen is. Even the side swo...

jester

Did 5 battles that day - they complained about the job I gave them EACH and EVERY time, saying that all I gave them was "Shit-work". I informed them that I hired the PRECISELY to free up other troops from guard duty, reserves, and what not - so the KINGDOM troops under my command could do the jobs ...

jester

Guys, it strikes me as being somewhat ludicrous that folks are looking for new ways to make the SCA more authenic in appearance at the same time that Society Officers are telling people to take their study of history elsewhere. On the one hand you have people saying 'Be more historical' and on the o...

Re: Putting on your Game Face

Re: Archers in an Historical Context

Large Shield Discussion on Swordforum

Re: SCA

Re: My apoliges for even mentioning this on this board but

April Spear and Poleaxe Seminar, Denver