The Armour Archive

Dan Howard

Yep. Unless we have some period documentation or archaeological evidence to help us tell which artist was more acccurate, the paintings aren't much use. And there is no point trying to compare features in different paintings unless one can demonstrate that they were all done by the same person since...

Dan Howard

Yep. These things aren't photos. One artist decides to erase a piece of armour so you can see the fine clothing being worn underneath. Another changes an enclosed helmet to an open one (or removes it completely) so you can see the subject's face. One artist makes solid metal armour flex at an imposs...

Dan Howard

Russ is right. They are all depicting the gap which opens up between the two sections of armour when standing. The gap closes up when in the saddle.

Dan Howard

I don't think he was being cheap. I think he was being stylish as you initially said. Fashion gives no thought to comfort or practicality.

Dan Howard

Ashdown is quoted a lot and most of his work comes from Meyrick.

Dan Howard

Is Arador still around? The article covering this subject is on that site.

Edit: Here 'tis
http://www.arador.com/articles/chainmail.html

Dan Howard

More from Comnena regarding Dyrrakhion: "He furnished them abundantly with arrows and exhorted them not to use them sparingly, but to shoot at the horses rather than at the Franks. For he knew that the Franks were difficult to wound, or rather, practically invulnerable, thanks to their armoured coat...

Dan Howard

If it suits you, you can rightly nudge your kit toward Rus as many/most Norse traveled through Kiev and Novgorod toward Constantiople and could have bought or even been given Rus armour while there (it was common for them to stop for a year or two and work for the Kievan Prince). By this point in t...

Dan Howard

Actually the second one is kinda modelled from real examples, but they are not Viking or Greek.

Dan Howard

Konstantin the Red wrote:Wonder if this one was intended to accommodate the "bizarrely spaced eyeballs" of Max, the kickass ittybitty killer rabbit of Sam & Max? Look where the brow arches lap over the cheekpieces' tops.

It is. The horns are hollow and are designed for the bunny ears.

Dan Howard

If you want an earlier period (which is when full mail was really popular), you'll find that we don't have much laying around due to close to a thousand years' corrosion. There are plenty of earlier examples. Museums have drawers full of mail that are in their reserve collections and will never see...

Dan Howard

I dunno. It is an amazingly accurate representation of the helmets in the Bayeux Tapestry. see http://clc2.uniservity.com/GroupDownloadAttachment.asp?GroupId=80522&AttachmentID=398035 The problem is that the helmets in the Bayeux Tapestry look nothing like actual helmets in use at the time. They di...

Dan Howard

I don't have a problem with this stuff being sold on ebay. My problem is the attempt to mislead potential buyers. Get rid of "Medieval Knight Crusader Norman Warrior" from the title and all is well.

Dan Howard

Is it me or does it look like 1/2 of an old Madonna costume? Heh. That's not a nasal, it is part of a shoulder strap. Some fantasy and LARP stuff is pretty neat - like the recently-posted snake helm http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=154048 But that ebay helmet is just a was...

Dan Howard

Ffoulkes has a glossary of horse armour on p. 8 and human armour on pp. 110-111 in English, Italian, Spanish, French and German.

Dan Howard

paint it green and sell it as a "Robin Hood" helmet.

Dan Howard

Everyone else in the world uses metric. Can't imagine why.

Dan Howard

Yep. Though that is only true with mail that has been riveted properly. The Indian mail usually fails at the join.

Dan Howard

Based on your circumstances I would suggest a project involving smaller links (say, 4-5mm) and made from alternating rows of butted links and washers. You'd need a supply of suitable washers. Seastrom has what you'd need at a reasonable price. It would take longer to assemble but, as you said, you h...

Dan Howard

Update. Book is now available. Many thanks to everyone who helped.
http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Bronze-A ... nt/p/3272/

Append: the title of this thread needs to be corrected. Using the current chronology (which is wrong BTW), Tut was 14th C, not 17th C.

Dan Howard

Same argument applies. How can anyone make authentic-looking mail without an authentic example to copy?

Dan Howard

"Home made" doesn't equal "historical looking". The only way to make mail that looks like an original sample is to acquire an original example and try to replicate it as closely as possible.

Dan Howard

From Law and Literature in Medieval Iceland: Ljosvetninga Saga' and 'Valla-Ljots Saga' (Stanford University Press) – Hardcover (1989) by Theodore Murdock Andersson, William Miller, III "Brand followed King Harald to England. And when they had made their last landing, Brand alone had on his chain mai...

Dan Howard

But we do generally see such descriptions as 'haubers' or 'hauberc' distinguished from 'hauberc jazerant' in the chansons. Chretien's language in the case of the toile covered armor is not so specific. It is a poem. Writers do all sorts of wierd things with the language to force it to fit the metre...

Dan Howard

Actually it does leave us guessing. The term "white" might be used to distinguish covered mail from uncovered mail - just like in the term "white harness", or to distinguish polished armour from unpolished armour, or it may simply mean that the armour's jazerant cover is white instead of a more comm...

Dan Howard

Cross-posted from this thread. http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=152549&start=70 Are any of our resident Scandinavians capable of translating the Icelandic sagas? Namely this passage from the Ljósvetninga Saga Brandur fór vestur með Haraldi konungi til Englands. Og er þeir g...

Dan Howard

Has anybody found this specific reference to painting or whitewashing Harald's "Emma"? I have a feeling that the relevant saga is the Ljósvetninga Saga but I don't have access to an English translation. Edit: yep. Here it is in Icelandic and Danish http://sagadb.org/ljosvetninga_saga The word "Emma...

Dan Howard

Does the word in question mean "armour" or the entire panoply? Wouldn't the colours in that instance describe only the items that usually display the arms of the knight - i.e. the shield and surcoat?

Dan Howard

Doug has saved me a pile of money. Every time I see a book on 14th century armour that might be useful I think about his upcoming books and put my wallet away. Hurry up Doug.

Dan Howard

I don't think the intent of artists was to "code" the different kinds of maille Me neither. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. but just to make their work more appealing and artistic. I don't think someone told them "this kind of maille must be depicted this way, while this, in this way, this other ...

Dan Howard

You first need to define what "historically accurate" means to you. Here is a list of some of the issues with modern riveted mail. Pretty much anything you find will have at least some of these problems. http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=19189 What you seem to want to do is impossible si...

Dan Howard

It was around since before Roman times. IIRC Cuimnesti was alternating solid and riveted and that method remained the most common way to make mail in Europe until c. 14th C. Wedge riveting was mainly done in southern Germany during the period already mentioned but keep in mind that mail from this re...

Dan Howard

Hmmm... I just can't wrap my head around why there are two different styles of depicting maille in the same picture... Some illustrations have three or four. There were dozens of different types of mail - varying link sizes, weave densities, types of riveting, etc. Many look distinctly different fr...

Dan Howard

Ffoulkes didn't suggest any theories at all regarding banded mail. In his main book he just repeated other people's ideas, but judging from his other papers, he doesn't seem to like any of them except for the leather strips through regular mail. IIRC Hewitt, Laking, and Kelly thought the same. If it...

Dan Howard

Can haernasch be generically used for armor, including mail, or is it's use more restricted to items of plate? Well, more the other way around. 'Harnas' (in all its ways of spelling) was generically used for armour, but in some regions it was (sometimes?) more specifically used to denote mail armou...

Re: rus/byzantine lamellar

Re: rus/byzantine lamellar

Re: rus/byzantine lamellar

Re: Holes in the side of 16th century breastplates?

Re: Debunking Meyrick's Nomenclature . . .

Re: Debunking Meyrick's Nomenclature . . .

Re: My armor progression! Viking to Varangian Guard

Re: My armor progression! Viking to Varangian Guard

Re: WTF?? Look at this stupid thing.

Re: WTF?? Look at this stupid thing.

Re: A Comprehensive Discussion on Mail

Re: WTF?? Look at this stupid thing.

Re: WTF?? Look at this stupid thing.

Re: WTF?? Look at this stupid thing.

Re: Italian Glossary of Armor Terms (as well as clothing)

Re: WTF?? Look at this stupid thing.

Re: A Comprehensive Discussion on Mail

Re: A Comprehensive Discussion on Mail

Re: A Comprehensive Discussion on Mail

Re: Scale armors King Tut-17thC

Re: A Comprehensive Discussion on Mail

Re: A Comprehensive Discussion on Mail

Re: Icelandic translation help

Re: Blackened Chainmail

Re: Blackened Chainmail

Icelandic translation help

Re: Blackened Chainmail

Re: Blackened Chainmail

Re: Armor books specific to 14th cent.

Re: How plausible is banded mail?

Re: Dating maille

Re: Dating maille

Re: How plausible is banded mail?

Re: How plausible is banded mail?

Re: Was maille cleaned using sand and vinegar?