The Armour Archive

Dan Howard

Constant training and practice meant that some archers wielded extremely heavy bows during this time but not the whole army. The actual numbers would depend on whether they had much affect on the outcome of a battle. IMO the only real innovation the English did with this weapon was the way they depl...

Dan Howard

Actually I can'd find any reference that actually supports the idea that it refers to a warbow as opposed to just a bow. While it could be a differentiation between a regular bow and a warbow it could also be a differentiation between between a bow and a crossbow. Bradbury reckons that contemporary...

Dan Howard

Sorry, Dan, I used the wrong word for the "Romanish Officer's Armour." I think it's "musculata" or somethng like that. Anyway, Bruce-Mitford's speculation has been proven to be wrong. I was referring to musculata also. There is nothing to suggest that the Romans ever made it fro...

Dan Howard

It's noteworthy that this is *substantially* better against cutting weapons than against thrusting weapons. Leather + wool garments offer very little protection against a spear thrust, for instance. I have not personally tested against a bow, but my spear tests lead me to believe the protection fro...

Dan Howard

In order to conclude that a particular clasp was from a Roman-style leather lorica, one must first demonstrate that the Romans, in fact, ever wore leather loricas. This has most definitely not been done. There is only one bit of evidence for Roman leather armour and that is a lamellar leg guard foun...

Dan Howard

That, incidentally, is the first picture in the Archive of a historical piece of armor made of rings on a substrate -- apparently the filling in a sandwich this time, with everything wired together. At a guess I'd say nineteenth century sometime. Indonesian? It is a photo I scanned from Stone's Glo...

Dan Howard

Isn't a quarterstaff defined by the way it is wielded? i.e. "at the quarter" with one hand half way up and the other half way between this and the end.

Dan Howard

Yep. Here is a gauntlet from the MET.

Dan Howard

You'll need to rotate the weave 90 degrees if you want to be able to bend your fingers.

Dan Howard

All we really know about ring diameters is the final diameter they were when dug out of the ground and cleaned up. Often this is not the same as the diameter of the rings when originally made.

Dan Howard

William, perhaps; but it is generally stated that Odo chose to fight with a mace (in those days essentially a club) because as a cleric, he ought not to shed blood.. It is just more Victorian nonsense. It has been discredited many times in many different ways. 1. Odo has shed blood many times in hi...

Dan Howard

You'd also have to determine whether the illustrated club is intended for battle or simply a symbol that the illustrator has given to the bearer to denote rank. William and Odo are probably examples of the latter.

Dan Howard

If not leather then the heavier cloth garment mentioned and discounted as too cumbersome to fold and carry to battle. Any leather garment that is thick enough to actually offer a degree of protection against spears and arrows would be heavier than cloth armour. Williams has handily demonstrated tha...

Dan Howard

Qwertypolk wrote:Interesting how the terminology was so literal.

It wasn't. Now it is to make it easier for classification. In the past, terms were very interchangable and spelling was optional.

Dan Howard

"Byrnie," now primarily used among armor students for a short, vestlike mail shirt, sleeveless or nearly so, and nothing else, seems to have originally simply meant "armor," as a B-R-N root for armor can be discerned in languages all across northern Europe I think the Russian br...

Dan Howard

Bits attached to an underlying fabric or leather framework rather than each other. A lot of scale armour ends up with each scale laced to its horizontal neighbours and some are also laced to vertical neighbours as well. The latter could be classified as either scale or lamellar. Depends on whether ...

Dan Howard

Most scale is laced to its neighbours. The usual method of construction is to lace the scales into rows and then lace each row to a foundation garment. The question is whether the lacing is sufficient to negate the need for a backing, which would make it lamellar. If not then it is scale armour and ...

Dan Howard

So it is scale or lamellar? Is there a backing? Here is another article. m It says that the body armour only weighed 4-5 kg. Seems very light. It also explains why Korean museums only have Japanese armour. No Korean examples have been uncovered before since the burial practice at the time was to lea...

Dan Howard

They are usually verses from the Koran.

Dan Howard

'...others iron plates skilfully knitted together...' What does that sound like? Not evidence as such, but something a little more solid for 12th C Norse personas I'd say. The original latin used the phrase: "laminis ferreis arte consutis." It could be scale, lamellar, segmented plate, or...

Dan Howard

Armour has always been decorated with embossing, engraving, gilding, enamel, etc., ever since the Bronze Age (the type of decoration is often limited to a specific culture and time period and can help date an item). The question is whether this decorated equipment was intended to be worn in battle. ...

Dan Howard

Mail wire thickness is incredibly difficult to determine. Just measuring what we have left often tells us nothing about how thick the wire was when the mail was made. As iron wire oxidises its thickness increases. Then if it is allowed to corrode further the thickness reduces again. Even if we have ...

Dan Howard

The giving of 'vinigar' on the sponge incident occured long prior to the thrust, which of course he was dead when this occured, water and blood flowing out of the wound. Apparently to make doubly sure of death, the legionnaire drove his lance through the fifth interspace between the ribs, upward th...

Dan Howard

(However, I thought Longinus was supposed to have put the spear into Jesus because he couldn't bear to watch a man suffer on the cross for hours on end. Instead of doing it after the fact) Stabbing the victim was done during many crucifictions. It was a test to see if the victim was dead or a means...

Dan Howard

Heh. I have a post on page 10

Dan Howard

Sometimes when a text says that something was done three times or made three times it simply means that it was "well done" or "well made".

A "thrice forged sword" comes to mind.

Dan Howard

chef de chambre wrote:There are a fair number of haubert de joute's in inventories, as well as 'haubert epruvere's'.

Hey Bob, do you know of any inventories that mention both double mail and jousting mail? That would help the discussion about whether they were the same thing.

Dan Howard

Ken Mondschein wrote:I checked the original - "haubert Ã¡ tournier," actually. I must have recalled incorrectly.

Thanks for the correction.

Dan Howard

Oh. hm... I would speculatively agrree on the usage of multiple layers of maille. Besides the weight. One of the above examples cited by Earnst contradicts this. It seems to say that "double mail" was worn over "regular mail", which implies that double mail was a distinct type o...

Dan Howard

There are at least half a dozen different definitions for "double mail": 1. Mail made from wire that is twice as thick or twice as heavy 2. Mail made from a denser weave such that twice as many links are required (e.g. 8-in-2 or 6-in-1) 3. Mail made from smaller links so that twice as many...

Dan Howard

on his back they placed a shirt of steel cold, then a white double hauberk to guard from blows. Sure sounds like a mail shirt, followed by a "double hauberk". This could be interpreted as a jasserant or badan over mail, but in either case refers to two layers of mail. I'd like to see the ...

Dan Howard

Joinville (Chapter 14) says that his people dressed him in a jousting shirt of "double mail" to protect him from the Saracens shooting at his boat. What this might be, I have no idea. Don't think so. I don't have the passage handy but IIRC double mail is not mentioned - just a jousting ha...

Dan Howard

There is some question of the meaning of the "doubled" hauberk, but in some of these cases it seems clearly to be two layers. How do you come to that conclusion? There are examples of more than one layer of mail being worn but your three examples don't indicate this. All we know for sure ...

Dan Howard

My opinion for SCA combat the Hoplon is good for tourney fighting as a sidemount shield but for wars its too limited of a shield. For SCA war fighting hoplons put you at a disadvantage because its a sidemount shield. As a sidemount your gonna be open more often on your non shield side. Because its ...

Dan Howard

So how do you leave it on the ground when you are in formation, slowly advancing (or charging quickly) towards the enemy?