The Armour Archive

Tibbie Croser

Chef mentioned that a few women in Wolfe Argent play male roles. Can Chef (or anyone else) discuss how a woman can effectively disguise herself as a male in reenactment? I ask because I'm interested in how women can adapt patterns for male clothing to female anatomy. On the SCA rapier field, I wear ...

Tibbie Croser

There are a couple of Osprey books that cover medieval Spain. They might be good starting places. I have one or two of them, and they include some period artwork. Some of the captions to the modern illustrations also give the artist's original source, so you can track down the original.

Tibbie Croser

Please Don't Feed The Troll.

Tibbie Croser

Milia Davenport's book History of Costume has material on medieval Spain. Focus on the period illustrations, though, and not on her descriptions, which can be misleading.

The Web Gallery of Art has medieval Spanish art, I think.

Tibbie Croser

Chef, to your list I can add Mary of Guise, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, and possibly Isabella of England (or did Mortimer make all the decisions?).

Tibbie Croser

When I was speaking of women "leading" armies, I didn't mean leading from the front. I was thinking of queens and noblewomen who raised troops and money and decided where troops and money should go and who should command the troops. Elizabeth I of England is the example I know best. She wa...

Tibbie Croser

I know of several Atlantian fencers with Spanish personas. Perhaps it's more popular with fencers than with heavy fighters.

Tibbie Croser

Thanks, Chef. When you say "shooting," do you mean firearms only or bows as well? (Such as a small crossbow.) By "Armstrong," are you referring to the legend of Maiden Lilliard at Ancrum Moor in 1545? One online guide to the battle said that she was a young woman who saw her love...

Tibbie Croser

Chef, if by "subculture" you mean the Anglo-Scottish Borderers, I'd be interested in evidence of women actively defending the homestead. How would they have defended their homes against mounted, well-armed raiders? Did they use any weapons? Frau Hirsch and Audax, I'm not disputing the well...

Tibbie Croser

Marco's helms vary according to the style of the import helm being converted. The closed-face helms don't need as much perf plate. Illusion Armoring has a rapier helm with the face shaped much more like a fencing mask. Aside from the aesthetic issues of the "cone face," I have concerns abo...

Tibbie Croser

I'm not sure that knowledge is the same as physical training. If historical sources say that women "led" armies, I'd imagine those women would be more like modern "commanders-in-chief" or CEOs. They would or should have known whether their generals and other commanders were doing...

Tibbie Croser

I've seen fencing helm designs (I think from Illusion/Clang/Black Diamond Metal Arts) that use more plate and smaller, less-shaped pieces of perf plate. They're sort of like armets.

Tibbie Croser

"Flat" is a misleading term. I should have said "lightly curved." At any rate, not pointy. Still, it seems that the "pointy" perf plate would be harder to see out of. I thought some people on here had recommended that material over the eyes should be comparatively flat....

Tibbie Croser

A question for those of you who have made fencing helms with perforated plate faces. Why are these face plates often cone-shaped, like a dogface bascinet, whereas a standard fencing mask has a flat profile? Examples of the pointy-faced helms include those at marco-borromei.com and the Icefalcon fenc...

Tibbie Croser

Another instance of a women's engineering unit is a company of female pioneers in the defense of Haarlem in the late 1500s, under Capt. Margaret Kernau. I'm going off my memory of recently reading Ian Heath's Armies of the 16th Century. Heath's source is the writings of Sir Roger Williams, an Englis...

Tibbie Croser

Try Stonekeep. He carries stuff in small sizes for reasonable prices.

Tibbie Croser

Try mericarchery.com, but they're closed till June 8.

Tibbie Croser

From the Tod's Stuff link I posted on the previous page of the thread: "These [latchet crossbows} were small powerful bows with an inbuilt cocking lever. This allowed for easy loading even on horse back and a rapid rate of shooting. This example was about 250lb with a bow length of 35 cm (14&qu...

Tibbie Croser

On the Wolfe Argent homepage, the link to the "Standards" section isn't working for me. Is the page still up? Is there another way to reach it? I wanted to read the standards for clothing and accoutrements for lower-class impressions.

Thanks.

Tibbie Croser

Regarding a slightly different time and place (the Anglo-Scottish Borders in the 16th century), the recent Osprey Scottish Renaissance Armies book had a quote from a contemporary observer that common Scottish soldiers made small sleeping shelters out of canvas and upright sticks (sort of like pup te...

Tibbie Croser

Is there somewhere that I could find those ordinances and Mancini's description?

Does anyone have theories as to whether and how the Scottish jack evolved into the jack of plates?

Tibbie Croser

If you search AA threads on wedge tents, I think Karen posted some 16th-century German pictures which included wedge tents for common soldiers and camp followers.

Tibbie Croser

The SCA already has full-body targeting. In rapier.

Tibbie Croser

Chef, thank you very much for your reply. In my question above, which wasn't clear enough, I was trying to distinguish among jacks made of stuffing between single layers of fabric, jacks made of 15 to 30 layers of linen with no stuffing; and jacks combining numerous layers of cloth with light stuffi...

Tibbie Croser

Schreiber, burgonets can have overlap at the cheeks and forehead and a fair amount of extra weight from brims, comb, bevor, etc. A morion or cabasset would be another matter: it would cover less of the head and have less overlap of parts.

Sorry, I'm one of the 16th-century geeks here.

Tibbie Croser

Having taken too many jumps sans cheval and having ridden some crazy horses, I wouldn't dream of riding without head protection. Gwen made me an oversized chaperone that nicely disguises a modern helmet. -Ken Ah. I was thinking a thick chaperone was one of the kinds of headwear that could disguise ...

Tibbie Croser

Another possible source of cheap linen: the ladies' section of thrift stores. Linen has become a fashion fabric in the past few years. A dress, skirt, or pants for a large-sized woman might give you a fair amount of cheap linen.

Tibbie Croser

A linen coif should wick sweat away just as well as an UnderArmour cap and looks so much better. The linen coifs look better than bandanas too.

Tibbie Croser

Brewer, before you returned to the AA, a few people were anxiously seeking information on 16th-century arming doublets. For the early 16th century, some people were wondering whether arming doublets were longer than the waist-length civilian doublets, so as to allow for attaching leg armor to the ar...

Tibbie Croser

Perhaps another explanation is that hand protection was considered less important in earlier times. Protecting the head and torso was more important, since wounds to those areas were much more likely to be fatal than a hand wound.

Tibbie Croser

There were small crossbows in the 16th century that could be used on horseback, mainly for hunting. Supposedly the Border Reivers used such before pistols became more common. Here's an example of a reproduction "latchet" crossbow: http://www.todsstuff.co.uk/16thclatchetbow.php . This one h...

Tibbie Croser

It's not the wash I'm worried about. I was wearing a red wool doublet this weekend in the heat and humidity, and with my heavy perspiration, the dye leaked through onto the white linen lining and onto my linen shirt. The only option I can think of for the doublet is lining it with extra layers of da...

Tibbie Croser

I do agree that linen's better. However, I can see the point of using cotton for something that's likely to be ruined by stains quickly. (Granted, I know linen can be bleached to get rid of some stains.) Getting stains out of colored linen or out of wool or silk could be tricky, and permanently stai...

Tibbie Croser

Halvgrimr, your idea sounds a little bit like Jehan's Crossroads in Time project. Would it be worth your while to contact him for suggestions on running this kind of thing?

Tibbie Croser

How should I pretreat red linen or red wool fabric so that it won't bleed dye when it gets wet or sweaty?

Women dressing as men in LH: questions on how

"Pointy" faceplates on fencing helms?

Wolfe Argent website question

How to keep red fabric from bleeding dye?