The Armour Archive

Gruber wrote:Anything with bauzabans!! Ugliest piece of armour EVER! They're like over sized spoons strapped to your arm. Hate 'em. It's like the metal dude who was making an arm defense had an idea, got tired, and called it a day when he got to the point we now call bauzaban. I don't even know if it's spelled right. Even the word look ugly.

Haha. I'm not to keen on bazbunds either.

Here are some more.


I HATE the snow-shovel face plates. Its a damn shame to have put so much work on such a stupid looking piece.


I THINK this was Ferdinand of Spain's, but either way, its six kinds of ugly.


An actual dog-face helm.

Thanks for the great pics.

I think that big armoured skirt thing is ugly.
I forget which king.

I assume you refer to Henry VIII's tonlet armor, but the tonlet was actually not that uncommon for foot, siege and tournament combat. Still looks goofy though

http://www.mallet-argent.com/images/hen ... arness.jpg

Thank you, Wade.

As I said, I am not familiar with jousting/tilting through experience, and I was not sure that an eyeslot so high was authentic..Or even practical.

To be sure, it is a butt-ugly harness though.

-Badger-

wcallen wrote:

Ironbadger wrote:I could be wrong...But the helmet in the first image- The eyeslot seems to me to be too high on the helm.
It looks to be up around the level of a man's forehead at the hairline... Well above his eyes.

Either it was intended that the wearer bend WAY over to see out of it...Or its a post period fake.

I'm simply not familiar with tilting through personal experience- so I cannot judge whether a steeply forward canted posture is correct for the use of such a helm.

However, in light of the sheer numbers of Victorian fakes in existence, with one of the primary means of exposing them being poor design work such as improperly placed eyeslots...
I vote fake.

-Badger-

That is a famous armour in the Madrid Real Ameria. I expect it is real. Many of the jousting helms like this have what appear to be high eye slots. Some of that is just the angle of the shot and how they would be worn.

There are some uglier versions in L'Arte...

Wade

Tascius wrote:My Lords and Ladys, I submit for your dissapproval-

The Crupellarius!

I just threw up in my mouth.

Kilian_the_warlike wrote:
I THINK this was Ferdinand of Spain's, but either way, its six kinds of ugly.

I freakin' love this! Have any more info on it???

Kilian_the_warlike wrote:

An actual dog-face helm.

Here's said helm in picture rather than drawn form:

Shas'o Kauyon wrote:

Kilian_the_warlike wrote:

An actual dog-face helm.

Here's said helm in picture rather than drawn form:

How is that ugly? Surely you must mean AWESOME!

swansman wrote:

Shas'o Kauyon wrote:

Kilian_the_warlike wrote:

An actual dog-face helm.

Here's said helm in picture rather than drawn form:

How is that ugly? Surely you must mean AWESOME!

i got to admit that thats not my favored design but its a piece of great art anyways and i totally respect the art of other people

Kilian_the_warlike wrote:Here are some more.


I HATE the snow-shovel face plates. Its a damn shame to have put so much work on such a stupid looking piece.

I think I remember seeing a helm like that that had the face-plate reversed and used more as a crest, while the rest of the bar extended into a nasal. Not sure if it was meant to be like that though.

Kilian_the_warlike wrote:
I THINK this was Ferdinand of Spain's, but either way, its six kinds of ugly.

What is wrong with you?! That's cool.

Sam O. wrote: I think I remember seeing a helm like that that had the face-plate reversed and used more as a crest, while the rest of the bar extended into a nasal. Not sure if it was meant to be like that though.

That's by design - the face guard on a Polish zischagge can be flipped/adjusted to be worn either way.

Sam O. wrote:

Kilian_the_warlike wrote:Here are some more.


I HATE the snow-shovel face plates. Its a damn shame to have put so much work on such a stupid looking piece.

I think I remember seeing a helm like that that had the face-plate reversed and used more as a crest, while the rest of the bar extended into a nasal. Not sure if it was meant to be like that though.

Kilian_the_warlike wrote:
I THINK this was Ferdinand of Spain's, but either way, its six kinds of ugly.

What is wrong with you?! That's cool.

The same thing thats wrong with people that hate on the closehelm with the "fencepost" bars that I think is awesome! Difference is, I am right and they are wrong

Did anyone else notice the faux hinge and the faux vervelles on that 16th century helmet?

Take a look at this: (The one on the right.)
http://archive.org/stream/cu31924030681 ... 7/mode/2up

Surely this has to be the ugliest armour. Especially since it was made in the same armouring tradition that produced the European pieces of the 14th-16th centuries.

Buster wrote:Take a look at this: (The one on the right.)
http://archive.org/stream/cu31924030681 ... 7/mode/2up

Surely this has to be the ugliest armour. Especially since it was made in the same armouring tradition that produced the European pieces of the 14th-16th centuries.

I think the sabatons on the gothic armour just look ridiculous. As for the other one, while it does look "boxy" (to me) and the arms seem oblong, the details on the armour look awesome. I just wish that was a color picture and more close ups of it.

A good many of those curb-feeler sollerets -- sabatons are blunt and more shoe-shaped and generally later, such as on the late-sixteenth harness on the right -- had detachable toes so you actually could walk about in them. Had the marshmallow been invented as an aristocratic war-campfire treat then...

The latest-sixteenth/early-seventeenth century armours are well summed up as looking, in the words of at least one writer, "brutish." Elaborated grace of form gave way to economy of production and efficiency in protection. Being proof against the increasingly efficient and prevalent bullet was becoming the be-all and end-all, until as Ffoulkes points out in the text visible in Buster's example -- in more words and less epigrammatically -- that armor was not discarded because it could not resist bullets, but because it could.