The Armour Archive

chef de chambre

Here's another image I grabbed. This is a Flemish battle scene, 1473. Notice the gown worn by the man in the foreground. It looks very similar to the ones worn in the other pic I posted(apologies for the tiny size, btw). Is that an accurate portrayal of battle dress in that time & place? That's...

chef de chambre

#3 is the Higgins Museum.

chef de chambre

Other than G.A.Custer, I can't think of a Union general with long flowing locks - certainly not Phil Sheridan, who wore long hair at no time in his career to my knowledge. Here is old bullethead during the war m Just after the Mexican War years (He served in the West, but didn't join until after tjh...

chef de chambre

There was a Temple in the North of Vietnam, dedicated to elephants, where they would have an elephant and a tiger battle to the death - it being a bad sign for the tiger to win, they would declaw the tiger.

Elephants were important all-round in SE Asia.

chef de chambre

Wow , so much info. Is it that many in the SCA just dont know ? or don't care? I know its really not a historical organization as much as its a private club to play a medieval game. Which is fine as long as its pointed out to spectators that much of what the org does or displays is NOT historical. ...

chef de chambre

Okay, boys and girls, I can't make you go to m ... but I can throw up things like these and say, "LOOK. HERE." m m Here I go, leading a frickin' horticulture again. These images are from the Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le TrÃ©sorier and as such are late 15th century imaginings of ear...

chef de chambre

What strikes me about early-mid-Victorian men's hairdos in the United States -- from circa 1855 to the 1870s -- is how outlaw-bikerish so much of the hair looks. Wild, out to here, accompanied by considerable facial hair, some of which reaches out-and-far also. I think that is more of a Southernisi...

chef de chambre

They are showing how colonial technology is related to Medieval technology (for the most part, interchangeable), and how it was planted in America, and what contribution it made to our society. Basically, it emphasises and makes stuents aware of America's connection with a Medieval European past, wh...

chef de chambre

It looks great Cat!

chef de chambre

Most baronies will supply you with a tabard if you're willing to fight for them, or atleast provide you with instruction on a pattern. Depending on your period, you might want a surcoat or cyclas to be more spiff-tacular. Of course some periods and locations a tabard or surcoat is as anachronistic ...

chef de chambre

Tabbards proper as heraldric garments are very late. They develop by the first third of the 15th century , and essentially, they remain in the same form today. They are a very specific heraldic garment, and the term isn't interchangable with earlier surcoats, cottes, or gippons, a tabbard is a very...

chef de chambre

Nope. The used D stave self bows, "warbows", made of Yew, Ash, Elm, etc. D stave bows aren't that hard to get online, really. Yew bows are cripplingly expensive, byut you can get a D stave ash bow for a reasonable sum of money. Reenactment longbows, as used in the UK, and to a more limited...

chef de chambre

Tabbards proper as heraldric garments are very late. They develop by the first third of the 15th century, and essentially, they remain in the same form today. They are a very specific heraldic garment, and the term isn't interchangable with earlier surcoats, cottes, or gippons, a tabbard is a very s...

chef de chambre

I'm not surprised. Archaeology of certain materials requires certain soil conditions to preserve the materials, and some soils are particularly hard on certain materials. Leather and cloth usually degrade pretty quickly, as does ferrous metal in certain conditions. The very conditions that make Sout...

chef de chambre

'Golden' mail could very well refer to brass or bronze mail, which could even be gilded. There are extant entire bits of mail from Europe made of 'latten' (a bronze/brass), and there was even a entire shirt that had been gilded that I was aware of (Erik D. Shmidt pointed it out to me). The gold bord...

chef de chambre

Very Cool! Is anybody taking a native persona? Hence the thread on SE Asian Armour? We had one member with Thai persona and tried to use traditional Thai fighting style. Unfortunately, he had to leave town to his family. http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/1323/39382777900671902296.jpg That is so cool...

chef de chambre

Also, the punch for making holes in the leather broke because it is hitting the railroad track. Put the leather on a piece of wood before you hit it with the punch. That way the punch will not hit metal and will not break. I also think the stiff leather is not thick enough. It should be much thicke...

chef de chambre

There was no need to correct me - I know you don't have to, but the vast bulk of people who try to make coats of plates with fabric foundations on these boards, who use rivets, punch holes in the cloth to do so. I have been reading about their various attempts for 13 years, and it is always best to ...

chef de chambre

While this is what you do now Steve, and it may work for you, it is a less efficient method, and it isn't what was done historically. We know that special nails were made for the job specifically, and we have records of specialized nails being made for the purpose.

chef de chambre

If anyone takes the trouble to look at the coat of plates that Konstantine posted, they will see a highly similar arrangement of anchoring nails to the fresco, that nevertheless allows for the overlap of plates. Covered, the whole constructing would cloely resemble what is seen in the fresco in ques...

chef de chambre

The Hirschtein Coat of plates is a coat of plates , it merely has a one piece plate over the chest. Any coat of plates with these chain arrangements, given accurate reconstruction (that is, using a cloth foundation and leather or cloth cover, not just a piece of heavy leather), is most likely to hav...

chef de chambre

You are probably thinking of the Sea of Asov find, which is a late CoP, but it has no chains or points for them. It has mostly been published as a drawing. There are fragments recently found in Poland, but again, no chains, and no images readily available I am aware of.

chef de chambre

The largest sampleing published is the series of bone and horn parade saddles, covered in the "Sigismund: Rex et Imperator" exhibit catalog (The MET has a smaller, less extensive catalog for the Bohemian line of HRE's, but it is in English, not German), which publishes all the known extant...

chef de chambre

Yes, and that is the only extant example of chained attatchment points for a European coat of plates at all.

chef de chambre

The second point of attatchent (over the heart, if you will), is immediately over a seam inbetween plates in the proposed arrangement. Again, there is zero indication of any plates at all in the image, none are outlined or siggested, other than by metal bits which may be purely decorative pieces sew...

chef de chambre

That would be awesome! I wish you well in your endevour. If you have access to a local university library, or one that does ILL, you should find some pretty obscure French archaeological journals covering digs and interpretation of art across SE Asia. Every time I inqure about SE Asian history, I in...

chef de chambre

As sooin as the plates are laid out as being across the whole of the torso, the armour becomes much more reasonable as a defense, and something that is made which would actually work. It allows for the the clear, and possibly the second anchor point. That still leaves the problem of the lowest cours...

chef de chambre

So, Steve, are more important people bigger than less important people in real life, when you photograph unimportant people in the foreground, with the more important people in the background? He was a good artist, but clearly suffers the same problems with lack of perspective that all 14th century ...

chef de chambre

Regardless of your opinion, which isn't taking into account the lack of perspective seen in pretty much all Medieval art, that does not negate the point I have made. In point of fact, it reenforces my point, as a plate cannot exist which is riveted at 4 corner points, that has a fold of cloth clean ...

chef de chambre

You need to look real hard at the bottom plate then, becuase draping is occuring through the areas where rivets would be holding plates, which does not occur. I have no doubt that the sleeping gaurd depicts an armoured surcoat, but I have little doubt that this fresco isn't depicting an armoured sur...

chef de chambre

Very Cool!

Is anybody taking a native persona? Hence the thread on SE Asian Armour?

chef de chambre

THe plates you have on the fauld are clearly not present, because there are bloody great cloth drapings though the middle of them.

chef de chambre

No, it isn't consistent Steve, and if you can't see that, or the wierd areas in the shoulders that would be uncovered completely, with some partial coverage at the top, I can't make you see it. The key to interpreting what we are seeing is the anchor for the sword chain, which argues a much more sol...

chef de chambre

Learn to read and love French. Allmost all of the best archaeological information, and information about history and culture in any detail has been undertaken by French archaeologists, historians, and art historians, for the entire region (including Thailand/Laos, even though they did not colonize t...

chef de chambre

There are more than a dozen extant 15th century saddles, some of which have not been published, and some of which have had entire sections of large catalogs dedicated to them. It is too much information to reiterate here. There are 6 or 7 bone and horn covered parade saddles, two or three war saddle...