The Armour Archive

Hello,
I have been poking around (When i should be working) looking at 16th century armor. One if the indicitive styles is fully enclosed elbows where the fan or wing is riveted to the interior surface. The elbows Avant harness wrap 3/4 of the way around. There are gothing elbows that wrap 3/4 of the way around as well.

I'm looking for the earliest documented usage of elbows that wrap all the way around. I have found this suit of greenwich manufacture displayed at the Met:

http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/c ... &hi=0&ov=0

It is dated 1527. Is there any reason to not trust this date and is there any known suit from an earlier date with similar elbows?

Thank you,
Sean

Are you refering to the one that utilized compression articulation for the inner elbow?

Kenwrec Wulfe wrote:Are you refering to the one that utilized compression articulation for the inner elbow?

Sorry, no, poor description on my part. I am refering to the elbow wings that wrap all the way over until they touch and are riveted back down to the cop on the side near the body.

The articulated style is cool but different then I am looking for.

Sean

Earliest I have seen is circa 1440s, on KNEES, not elbows. (can't be any later than 1455, when the painter died)

There may be earlier examples, but I can't think of any at the moment.

As you said, those are knees. So not quite answering the question.

There are various other german bracelet cops if the Max fashion. Also late 1520's or 1530's. They would have been floaters.

Just for fun, why do you ask? These are very different styles of armour. I would guess that you are looking for some specific style?

Wade

wcallen wrote:Just for fun, why do you ask? These are very different styles of armour. I would guess that you are looking for some specific style?

Wade

I'm asking because I'm hoping against hope to find a loophole exception. 10 years ago I was an armor idiot and typical SCAjun who bought shit because it looked cool and didn't really think too much about authenticity. I bought just about this complete suit from Illusion Armory (back when their delivery dates were reasonable)

http://p7.hostingprod.com/@illusionarmo ... hsuit.html

But to make matters worse I wanted more body mobility for SCA stick fighting so I substituted this body:

http://p7.hostingprod.com/@illusionarmo ... bgsuit.htm

And back then why should I have cared? No one gave a rats ass about authenticity on the field and the pieces were within a century of one another so I was ahead of the game. Right?

Now along comes the Warriors of History Tourney which I have skipped several years running because NOW I know that my suit isn't complete and it drives me bonkers. My loving wife at the last minute made me a respectable 16th century tabard that will hide the body armor and only let the 16th century metal show. I have a pair of nearly complete ecranche shields and thought I could go out to WoH fighting ecranche and spear using Gladitoria for my documentation as to form...

Gladitoria was written 1451. So much for that genius idea...

So now I'm stuck trying to find out how close I can pull certain elements of this suit together in time and if I shouldn't just say F*** it and stop scrambling on my last night to put all this crap together before Pennsic and just work on having my 15th cent kit finished for next year.

The elbows on the Avant harness wrap 3/4 of the way around but not all the way. The Avant also doesn't have haute guards. I can document close helms to late 15th cent I believe. If I can document the elbows and haute guards I may come out to play in WoH. If not I'll only wear the demo kit to Challenge of the Seneschal of Hainault. (and still feel dirty about doing so)

Sean

P.S. if the above seems snarky then I'm pissed at myself, not WoH, the rules or the grateful help I have received here. It doesn't help then I broke the jig for mortising the posts in my Glastonbury chairs and now can not finish them until the week AFTER pennsic... Not a good day.

Sean

Uh. Sorry to hear that. What does one do to break a jig?!

Konstantin the Red wrote:Uh. Sorry to hear that. What does one do to break a jig?!

Apparently dropping a home made jig just right will cause it to split on a glue line. It was a crappy scrap-wood jig and I need to design a new one anyway... or get myself a mortising attachment for my drill press. Either way I have enough time left to pack for war and MAYBE mount straps on the new shields, not enough time to fix the jig, router 32 slots, sand and teak-oil 4 glastonbury chairs and still get the packing done so the chairs will have to wait.

Still doesn't help me with finding an early date for the elbow design. Best I have so far is 1527 but I'm betting they can be found earlier.

Sean

A&AMK depicts fully wrapped elbows on the Wladislas suit that I think dates from 1515 or there about. It's German in manufacture if that fits with your suit. Now that I think about it they might not be completely wrapped all the way? I can't remember and I don't have A&AMK with me right now to double check. can someone confirm, or I can just check tonight.

...now that I think about this, I believe I recall once seeing photographs of a suit that had elbows made in the style of floating elbows, but which were in fact hard-articulated.

I don't recall anything else about the suit, and I don't know that it wasn't a victorian forgery. But the photos were black and white and the style was from the late 15th century. Call it circa 1475.

That's still no real "loophole" for your problem, because the elbows looked nothing like the ones in the mid 1500s, but it is some food for thought.