The Armour Archive

Glen K

Might be intrested in the morion (believe it or not...). Is it the classic "conquistadork" variety, ala MRL?

GK

Glen K

[hint]I sure wish Halberds would make another Norman helm and put it up for auction on here.....[/hint]

Glen K

Achoo!

Glen K

....it's all my fault anyway

Yes, but you carry everyone else's guilt so gracefully.

And, with all due respect and well-wishes, I hope your new ship doesn't arrive early... I really hope to meet you at this Hastings, along with a bunch of other folk.

Glen K

http://www.highlandhardware.com

They've got a store here in Atlanta; an amazing place.

Glen K

At least four members of Conroi FitzOsbern will be attending, myself included.

Glen K

Sludig: Are people dubious of the second because it seems to be the standard style copied by re-enactors? Or other reasons? As far as design it looks OK to me; Having never actually seen it I can't really say one way or another. My slight caution only comes from the fact that, when someone fakes a "...

Glen K

There are no medieval MilSpecs! ...Endless exact authenticlones are just plain wrong, so aim for something within the mode of the times, not an exact replica. Megadittoes. I would only add, however, and I think you'd agree with me (but please forgive me if I speak out of turn), that a some good res...

Glen K

While i don't believe that folks wore holy clothes.... Are you saying that priest and bishops went naked? I knew a high authenticity ACW group that after you had assembled your kit, (natural polish polished cotton, proper number of stitches per inch in your leather, correct thread counts, etc) woul...

Glen K

Howdy guys,

Yes, it's good to know others had the same reactions I had when I first saw them...

I'll give what info I can when I get home this evening with my books...

Glen K

Though much the same, for now. Only updated the links section. Please take a look. Interested parties contact me.

Conroi FitzOsbern

And let me take the opportunity to spread the new gospel, or at least my take on it:

Manifesto

Glen K

Here are a couple of helmets from a private collection. I'm sure you've seen the St. Wenceslaus helm and the one from Olmutz, but these two I haven't seen anything published on except where I got these pictures from ( Anglo-Norman Studies: Proceedings from the Battle Conference XV ) The first one ce...

Glen K

Glen K

I'm with Mathew; what a great conversation, the exact thing the RA board should be! Rather than go into a huge diatribe (which I'll hopefully have time for at work tomorrow), I will say that I can see and agree with everyone's points; I've used both sides of the argument for different pieces of kit....

Glen K

I'm looking for a hunting/blast horn, made from... well, a horn. I don't want anything fancy, just a plain, undecorated, not-huge not-tiny horn with an integral mouthpiece (i.e. not something metal put on the end). Please post here or email me if you have something like that. Thanks in advance, GK

Glen K

From a usefulness, having a second prod makes sense. From a LH point of view, you wouldn't have likely had the choice to swap in the field. No no, I mean have two different crossbows altogether, one with each kind of release, which would entail having the bowyer make two prods! Two is always better...

Glen K

Slight update/conversation piece: Frederich piqued my intrest in Die Armbrust again, so I opened up my digital copy and strolled through the pages, actually taking time to type some of the passages into babblefish for a translation. I had originally planned to make the release mechanism like that of...

Glen K

My copy is at home and I'm at work, but if memory serves most (if not all) of the drawings are shown in Anglo's "Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe". If you haven't bought that book yet I highly recommend it.

Glen K

Steve, The description of the Alexiad is in Book X, Chapter 8. ...translators aren't necessarily good military historians or armaments experts Amen to that! Don't even get me started.... nor vice versa for that matter, which is what gives me concern about Payne-Gallwey's translation. Friedrich, I do...

Glen K

And just as we were talking about translation trickyness... Someone has pointed out to me that the translation given in Payne-Gallwey is significantly different (and makes a lot more sense) than the one given above from ORB: pages 57, 60 This terrible weapon is not worked by drawing its cord with th...

Glen K

I'm thinking you are jumping to a conclusion without evidence. Actually, it's more like corroboration of other evidence, as most (if not all) illustrations of crossbows from the 11th century show a distinct lack of stirrup. I don't see why you have to lie down to cock a crossbow.... If compelled to...

Glen K

Sounds like a foot-bow fired while on your back with no mention of a release mechanism. My thought on that passage was that she was simply describing how the thing was cocked, 'cause that's exactly how you do a non-stirrupped crossbow. Which I liked, because it indicated to me that I shouldn't have...

Glen K

There is a site at m which gives an outline of the construction of the simplest crossbow. You might find it of use. Way ahead of you on that one, Steven! If anyone else is interested, it is a very good site btw. I had also wondered about whether Anna really knew what she was talking about and tryin...

Glen K

In the Alexiad , Anna Comnena describes the crossbows of the Franks thusly: This cross-bow is a bow of the barbarians quite unknown to the Greeks; and it is not stretched by the right hand pulling the string whilst the left pulls the bow in a contrary direction, but he who stretches this warlike and...

Glen K

Primary: 11th c. Norman

Secondaries: c. AD 1200, c. AD 1460, WWII Brit (para & infantry), ACW (Confederate infantry and cavalry, Federal infantry), late 20th century jouster

Glen K

I'm interpreting from your post that you weren't using gamboised cuisses. Would it be reasonable to assume that the inside of the thigh problem you describe might be mitigated by their use? You would be correct, I was not using the cuisses as they're not widely documentable for the period I was por...

Glen K

Unfortunately, all of my attempts have been incomplete, as I'm still trying to do this. However, I can share a few observations (if not solutions) that can hopefully help a little bit. An interesting consequence (which I'm sure your aware of) of wearing them is that if they cover too much of the inn...

Glen K

That's actually the only one I've managed to read so far. ... since part of the assumption of the crossbow's usefulness is the idea that any old schmuck can pick one up and be effective with it, said idea needs to be re-examined: if that were so, the rates of pay wouldn't have differed so dramatical...

Glen K

Just got mine in the post today! Looks like some good articles... anybody who is also a member of De Re Militari gotten a chance to read any yet?

Glen K

Maybe I'm looking at the picture one, but the one at the top of the picture, which I believe is the "Yeoman" model, sure looks to be the right shape to me, no recurve whatsoever. Have him make it of yew, and leave off the grip-thingy, I think it'd make a fine one. The pic of the repro you posted loo...

Glen K

Compose lays for the promotion of the most glorious actions and participants in that day's tourney, for playing later at banquet to expand their reknown as well as your own... and perhaps garner some favor from those so honoured!

Glen K

Thanks Christian, looking forward to seeing it!

Though, I must admit when I first saw the title this image jumped into my mind:

Title: "Fighting the German"
Cover illustration: WWI and WWII Tommies and GIs

Glen K

VERY NICE!!!

I like it, Dunkeljorm. Makes me wish you were over here with my Norman group... or that we were over there with you. After all, Italy has actually had Normans in it.

I'd love to see some more pictures of exactly how you did the coif...

Glen K

If you're recreating 1022, you can recreate August as well.

Only a clueless SCArk would think it makes sense to 'reenact' March in November...

Glen K

I'd love to hear your ideas on how "torture was an integral part of medieval life". Because it wasn't.

I respectfully request you reconsider "educating people of the medieval life" if all your going to do is reinforce the same stereotypes so many of us are trying to defeat.

Conroi FitzOsbern website back up

Cow Horn horn wanted

Early crossbows

Journal of Medieval Military History, volume 2