The Armour Archive

Recently in the classified section I saw a leg harness up for sale, it had a pair of well made fitted frontal, or cased greaves, covered in leather and studded with rivets and decorative washers. I am in the process of making a pair of covered greaves and would love to use them as inspiration.

Thank you,
Bryan Robbins

How about something more real? These might be textile covered, though; hard to tell. Check out the bigger pic in the leather armour thread. Note what appears to be tooled patterns.

Tooled pattern or patterned fabric.

Dern tootin' those are tooled areas; no appears about it. Good eye; they're subtle. Who wants to translate "Boots of Spanish Leather" into troubadour Occitan...?

Probably about 6oz.

It is interesting. I was looking for decoration on greaves and seriously there was not much I came across. It is always neat to see new things. I wonder if these have hinges on them under the leather or if the leather acts as the hinge?

RPM

I have been thinking about that too. There are no visible straps, hinges or edges. I am curious to know how they are opened and closed.

I am assuming they have thin metal strips inside the rivet lines.
It looks as if there is a leather strap under the rivets, perhaps sort of a wear and tear piece that can easily be replaced?
The gold colored bottom edge, would that be metal or just paint?
I still wonder about the poleyn and knee lame construction...

Oh, and doesn't it look like they go up and cover the butt?

Xtracted wrote:Oh, and doesn't it look like they go up and cover the butt?

I think that's red hosen underneath the leather, and that arc of rivets under the cheek is the lower edge of the closed cuisses.

I can not decide if we are supposed to see that as hosen or as butt defense. If you can get a good blowup of the painting of the battle of El Puig, you can see the the King has an articulated butt defense. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... -20%29.jpg

I have a detail from the painting which I am not at liberty to post where you can clearly see the rivets. Pretty early for that sort of thing, ain't it?

If you look at the knee...

I see dark green hosen (or even black) and a black strap. Unless his hosen change color halfway, I call ass armour.

Indeed! That tips the balance very strongly in favor of it being part of the leg armor.

Mac

Does it?

The rest of the mans clothing is pretty simple and one-colored. I dont believe he is nearly as flamboyant as those gentlemen.

Ernst wrote:Does it?

I think it does, since he's not Italian.

I think it tips the balance strongly. I don't think it's a smoking gun. He might have multicolored hosen, one color of which matches his cuisses, but it seems more likely that we are seeing another Spanish example of butt-cheek armor.

Mac

RandallMoffett wrote:It is interesting. I was looking for decoration on greaves and seriously there was not much I came across. It is always neat to see new things. I wonder if these have hinges on them under the leather or if the leather acts as the hinge?

RPM

I am starting to think that if we knew more about what the poorest 90% of armed men were wearing in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we would see a lot more diversity in materials and construction than we expect. Not only do we see things like voiders of plate at the elbow earlier than Blair knew, but we also see armours of leather or "leather and small plates covered in leather" later than we expect. I suspect that trends like quilted cuisses -> cuisses of small, covered plates -> cuisses of large bare plates -> cuisses of sliding lames were clearer on the very rich who could sponsor funerary monuments than on everyone else.

Mac,
Two contemporary examples of "Spanish butt cheek armor", one on the King of Aragon and the other on a lowly foot soldier??? Sorry, I can see it appearing on the King, but the other guy -- at nearly the same time?

James Arlen Gillaspie wrote:How about something more real? These might be textile covered, though; hard to tell. Check out the bigger pic in the leather armour thread. Note what appears to be tooled patterns.

covered legs_smg.jpg

Saint Vincent at the StakeAround 1455-1460
Jaume Huguet | Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya - MNAC, Barcelona

You can zoom way in
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitut ... rt-project

Sean,

That is undoubtedly true. The issue is keeping fidelity. It is only a hop, skip and jump to fantasy in many respects in reenactment.

A good point though. I still wish we knew more about the mail bits largely found from Thom Richardson's PhD. I am just not convinced those in plate harness all went over as he assumes in his work. The fact there are inventories that show the contrary make that clear but was it a poor man's substitute for a hauberk, personal choice or regionalisms? So many possibilities.

RPM

Mac wrote:I can not decide if we are supposed to see that as hosen or as butt defense. If you can get a good blowup of the painting of the battle of El Puig, you can see the the King has an articulated butt defense. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... -20%29.jpg

I have a detail from the painting which I am not at liberty to post where you can clearly see the rivets. Pretty early for that sort of thing, ain't it?

I can do only a bit better than that image.


Randall
Note the enclosed cuisses with buckles on the outside on a hosreman.

OP, this thread may have images of the greaves you are looking for. (2nd page)

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=137497

Tom,

Thanks for the heads up. I will have to look more. Still trying to decide on full cuisses or not as well.

RPM

RandallMoffett wrote:Sean,

That is undoubtedly true. The issue is keeping fidelity. It is only a hop, skip and jump to fantasy in many respects in reenactment.

A good point though. I still wish we knew more about the mail bits largely found from Thom Richardson's PhD. I am just not convinced those in plate harness all went over as he assumes in his work. The fact there are inventories that show the contrary make that clear but was it a poor man's substitute for a hauberk, personal choice or regionalisms? So many possibilities.

RPM

Yes. The strategy which I have settled on is picking a place and time where I have proscriptions of the minimum equipment for a man-at-arms, pictures of poor soldiers who do not look too classical or oriental, and detailed descriptions of specific items, their construction, and their price. Bringing those three together should let me commission something which would not have looked out of place at my date and time of choice (even if its hard to show how proscriptions related to practice, and exactly what date and station a picture represents, and any reproduction will differ from the originals in many little ways).

Does he say "all?" I thought that he pointed out that the records show that most men-at-arms supplied by the Tower wore pieces of mail instead of a mail shirt, just as the Florentine rule proscribes. Saying that they all went over would go against a lot of anecdotes down to Monstrelet.

Page 38-
'Despite the use of mail sleeves, paunce and collars, complete mail shirts or habergeons 9lorice) continue to be made, and seem largely to have been issued to lower grade troops such as the crews of ships, but also to men-at-arms."

I think his point is that the mail shirts were largely issues to man lacking more complete plate protection who tended to be lower class, non-noble types. I am just not sure that is really the case. As you said Monstrelet is pretty clear at Agincourt the French were equipped full hauberk and plate. Now the reality is I am always suspect of 'all'. I tend to think there was far more variety than we think.

I am also not sure the records actually show the men-at-arms being equipped that specifically as it usually is larger shipments to a group not individuals from what I have seen in general. So one can assume where the items are going once there but I have not read through them to the level Thom has so he might have a better feel. Most of the records he focuses his PhD on are inventories being received or transferred by royal officials from those I have seen.

RPM

Back to topic, Richardson does give references to a complete set of plate arms and legs covered with "Cloth of Cologne" which I understand is a type of cloth of gold, but on a blue background instead of black. Another is covered in red silk.

In 1353 Rothwell received:
106 pairs of vambraces, 2 of iron with latten couters, 4 covered in cloth of Cologne, 6 of iron
and 93 of leather,.....
240 pairs and a single cuisse, 13 of which were of iron, 2 covered in cloth of Cologne, 103
pairs and the single cuisse of leather and small plates covered in red leather, 12 pairs for the
tournament of which 10 were worn out, one pair covered in cloth of gold and decorated with
latten, one pair covered in red silk with the old arms of England,
228 pairs of poleyns and a singleton, 13 of iron, 2 covered in cloth of Cologne, 103 pairs and
the single poleyn of leather and small plates covered in red leather, 12 pairs of leather for the
tournament of which 9 were worn out, one pair covered in cloth of gold and decorated with
latten, one pair covered in red silk with the old arms of England,
146 pairs of lower leg defences, 32 of iron, 2 covered in cloth of Cologne, 100 of leather and
12 pairs for the tournament, all worn out.
Of these one group was presumably personal harness

Interestingly the poleyn (knee cop) is also covered.

CiaranBlackrune wrote:OP, this thread may have images of the greaves you are looking for. (2nd page)

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=137497

Thank you, and they are very similar, but I beleive they were made of spring steel, not plastic, and by a very, very talented Armourer.

CiaranBlackrune wrote:OP, this thread may have images of the greaves you are looking for. (2nd page)

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=137497

Thank you, and they are very similar, but I beleive they were made of spring steel, not plastic, and by a very, very talented Armourer.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=175458&p=2696022&hi ... d#p2696022

Found them, wool covered not leather

Feel free to keep up the discussion you guys have going

A couple of miniatures which seem to show fabric covering the King of France's greaves. Compare to the King of England's examples cited by Richardson.

James Arlen Gillaspie wrote:How about something more real? These might be textile covered, though; hard to tell. Check out the bigger pic in the leather armour thread. Note what appears to be tooled patterns.

covered legs_smg.jpg

Where is that image from?

Tom B. wrote:

James Arlen Gillaspie wrote:How about something more real? These might be textile covered, though; hard to tell. Check out the bigger pic in the leather armour thread. Note what appears to be tooled patterns.

covered legs_smg.jpg

Saint Vincent at the StakeAround 1455-1460
Jaume Huguet | Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya - MNAC, Barcelona

You can zoom way in
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitut ... rt-project

Tom provided a source here

Tom B wrote:

Saint Vincent at the StakeAround 1455-1460
Jaume Huguet | Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya - MNAC, Barcelona

You can zoom way in
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitut ... rt-project

There you go.

Edit:
Aw man, someone beat me to it :p

Does anyone have a link to a high resolution version of the image originally posted by James or could tell me where it is from?

Edit: nevermind. Just clicked the link posted above. Duh..