The Armour Archive

Black Swan Designs

Jason- They use rubber coronels at the Armouries. Jeff's jousted with pipe caps and HATES them. Thomas, we love you, we really do. We appreciate every little thing you do for us. You tolerate being run around like a slave, and growled at by grumpy jousters who always want you to go faster and be a m...

Black Swan Designs

Any and every group can use help in the areas I spoke of. Perhaps I'm mistreading the intent, but the only people who should be out on the field should be those who are horse saavy enough not to "get trampled", regardless of their age. There's plenty of things for people to do behind the scenes if t...

Black Swan Designs

This seems a good time to remind everyone that jousting IS NOT only about the guy on the horse with the lance. As a matter of fact, it takes a high ratio of people on the ground to make the guy on the horse possible. There is a crying, no, a screaming need for all sorts of riding and non-riding supp...

Black Swan Designs

If I had been clever I would have made this an announcement so it stayed at the top.

Thanks to everyone who's spoken up so far. I have hopes that more people are watching this thread like an eBay auction and will up the ante at the last moment, which would be cool.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Jason, this is NOT the time to give up! I just spent 45 minutes on the phone with Steve (Stephen of Edgermont) this afternoon and he is keen to joust to the point of tears. He is a diamond in the rough, as he knows history and has a bit of riding skills. He is also fearless and ridiculously enthusia...

Black Swan Designs

If the purses became large enough in our style of the sport, would that tempt one such as yourself to cross the lines? I'm not a jouster, but I am a member of the Order of the Crescent (I'm the invisible one ) I'll let Jeff answer for himself when he gets a moment, but I believe what he'll say is i...

Black Swan Designs

Hi Folks- David Teague sent me an email about what was going on in his life while I was on the road with erratic email service. I'm home now, and want to help. To that end, I'm putting a brand new Charles of Blois pourpoint up for auction, with 100% of the proceeds to go to David and his family. htt...

Black Swan Designs

Sean-

Fantastic!

I'll email you either tonight or tomorrow to fill you in on the details of the folks closest to you. I think Jeff is planning to start a new thread about the kind of jousting we're promoting- I'll ask him to make sure he posts a link here when he does.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

.....either that or you can contribute to the effort to get jousting like this up and running here (I just noticed the lance on your arms). We have small core groups in the PA/NY and Michigan areas training for it, as well as what we're doing here in So. Cal. The goal for all the groups is to keep p...

Black Swan Designs

Given the equipment used, of course it is a joust of war. Froissart sets up the tournament in the beginning of the passage: "[the French knights] set up 3 large and luxurious crimson tents at a spot between Calias and Saint-Inglevert. At the entrance to each tent were hung two shields emblazoned wit...

Black Swan Designs

I heard Arne repeat several times that it was a great hit, and how cool it was; he was most vehement in his praise of Toby in the pub after Chris brought him back from A&E. Given that he got a concussion and whiplash from the hit, I figured people would think I was a complete liar if I repeated his ...

Black Swan Designs

Leeds moving away from Sallets but it seems like most of the people in the photo's of this event were still wearing them. What is going on with that? I think I can address that- time, money and finding reproduction armourers with room in their schedule to produce pieces. Most armourers who can prod...

Black Swan Designs

Hiya Fred! Glad to see you and Lilly made it back OK. I just wanted to comment on use of the frogmouth for jousting. Arne's 2 experiences (and some of Mallet's previous experiences) are compelling reasons to move away from sallet/bevors for jousting. There's just too much opportunity for something t...

Black Swan Designs

He sent one of his opponents to the hospital after he landed a very sweet head shot which tore the guys helmet off and sent it flying through the air. This is a rather dramatic interpretation of what happened. It was not a "sweet head shot", as head shots are disallowed in the rules of this tournam...

Black Swan Designs

We're on our way out the door to Pennsic and would like to encourage everyone to come by and see us. We have all the standards and a host of new things as well- Doublet of Charles of Blois - Come by and try one on! See what all the hoopla about the grand assiette is all about. We have them in the su...

Black Swan Designs

You beat me to it! Linen Coif - $13.95 Early Hood -$29.95 Hanging sleeve gown - $104.95 Early period gown- $85.95 Braies, 13th C. $28.95 Chausses, linen - $39.95 Total- $303.70 There's specific info on the garments/historical references each were based on with each garment. Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Here's the original Hastings Manuscript image for comparison's sake. Sarnac, thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, they're both me. Of course, I'm wearing a wig in one of the shots... Gwen (ok, ok, so I lied, it's not me in the picture. A girl can dream, can't she? I wear a thong once in a while but t...

Black Swan Designs

Effie dear, you just aren't looking closely enough. The doublet has loads of holes, they're just hard to see in this low resolution photo. You'll have to stop by at Pennsic to have a look in person. Bring your magnifying glass if you like, wouldn't want you to miss anything.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Oh yeah, price. Doh!

Price is $9.95US

This is the only poster we have--so far.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Jeffrey's armour and Gwen's arming doublet never looked as good as they do in Historic Enterprises tongue in cheek tribute to the Hastings manuscript How a man schall be armyd at his ese when he schal fighte on foote (Hastings MS. [f.122b]) http://www.historicenterprises.com/misc/HE_WOMAN-POSTER-071...

Black Swan Designs

Is that three arrows in a soccer ball?

Well, yes--the whole setup is a parody of an advert for the World Cup, which just happened 2 weeks ago-

The Big Match:
King Harold vs. William of Normandy

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

An oven mitt in your braies.... hmmmm, now *there's* a visual to consider.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

If you want a gambeson that is specifically engineered for SCA combat, you cannot beat David Randrup's. Without a doubt, his are the best on the market, bar none. It does not get better than this. You'll get a great product and a straight deal from him. He gets 110 out of a possible 100 on my score ...

Black Swan Designs

what exactly do you mean by two part sleeve? half baggy and half tight?

Exactly that. The only way to get that clear definition between the baggy and tight sections is to cut it in 2 (or more) parts joined with a seam. Same idea as the CoB, but the pieces are cut on a different pattern.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Gwen has just spent 2 days going through her inventory colour matching stock clothing to natural dye samples so she can tell you that our Pale green matches fabric dyed with Nettles with an iron Mordant (exhausted dye), but that the Moss green matches weld overdyed with woad in an iron mordant (firs...

Black Swan Designs

If you want German, look for a lentner. If you want Italian go with the images supplied. The German sleeve tends to look more like the Charles coat, the Italians have the distinctive 2-part sleeve.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

You are just too funny Murdock!!

With you around, can somebody tell me why I actually pay for advertising???? It seems like if I just keep doing my job, my happy customers will advertise for me. ...and that doesn't suck.

Thanks for the very nice (and totally hilarious) endorsement.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

The sleeve on the original was made up of 10 separate pieces. Some of the pieces are for tailoring, and some are for efficient use of an expensive fabric. Visual sources suggest this was a very popular style, yet because we have only this one example we have no way of knowing if this piecing pattern...

Black Swan Designs

Hi folks- Sorry it's taken a bit longer than anticipated to get these detail shots together, thanks for your patience. To save bandwidth and load time I've put up thumbnails of the detail shots, and supplied a link to the giant sized version. Front detail, thumbnail- http://www.historicenterprises.c...

Black Swan Designs

The Red Company was officially and completely disbanded in October of 2004. I believe some of the former members still do a few of the timeline events and some SCA, but Jeffrey and I are not involved. Jeff and I head a group called "Chevalier" which exists mostly as a web presence, since all of our ...

Black Swan Designs

Hi folks- Sorry it's taken a bit longer than anticipated to get these detail shots together, thanks for your patience. To save bandwidth and load time I've put up thumbnails of the detail shots, and supplied a link to the giant sized version. Front detail, thumbnail- http://www.historicenterprises.c...

Black Swan Designs

How did bald guys in the middle ages wear their remaining hair? Short? Shaved? "Bald" guys don't have any hair to style, so that question is non-starter. The corrollary, also-ran question is "How did men with male-pattern hair loss in the middle ages wear their remaining hair? Short? Shaved?" Based...

Black Swan Designs

I've used leather tools like that to make dags- once you learn how to use them (practice on scraps) they work a treat and I highly recommend them!

Likewise, using a chisel to open buttonholes works *much* better than scissors.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Yeah, I know. It's a gremlin the web people can't seem to find. Thankfully, it's a dumb gremlin and pretty easy to bypass by entering a regular US street address in both the 'Ship to' and 'Bill to' spot. You can use our office address, your parent's or other relative's US address, etc. Note in the O...

Black Swan Designs

To address the statement: I canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t afford to joust. And there arenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t enough jousters, as compared to SCA heavy fighters. And itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s even more difficult to ship a horse on an international flight than a suit of armour. Jousting involves a huge amount of infrastructure- from people t...

Teague Family Benefit Auction- CoB on the block!

Historic Enterprises at Pennsic

New item from HE- Armour poster (Rated R)

Detail images, repro of doublet of Charles of Blois from BSD

Detail images, repro Charles of Blois from BSD