The Armour Archive

I was studying an Italian painting, and I came across two gauntlets that seem to be both the extended metacarpals plate on one man, and perhaps a full/three quarters mitten on another. The extended metacarpal plate may just be an artists error, or my error in trying to translate a painting to what was trying to be depicted.

I know there are extant examples of hourglass gauntlets with extended metacarpals plates, but I would also like to see painted depictions as well as effigies with them, as I stated in my other thread about my drawings, I am trying to depict an Italian man from 1390~1410 and I'd like to have the cutting edge in armour.

Hourglass with extended metacarpals plate (left hand): https://imgur.com/a/NUeeO

Mitten? https://imgur.com/a/q0Cql

Full photo: http://armourinart.com/media/armourinar ... al/517.jpg

I don't see it. To me, both gauntlets seem to be the same and just drawn from different angles.

I was afraid of that

I wonder if in the image suggesting an articulated mitten, we are seeing lines meant to indicate reins held in the rider's left hand.

These frescoes by Lorenzo and Jacopo Salimbeni are a great source for underrepresented helmet and visor forms too.

Looking closer I think you are right about the reins, I suppose the mitten idea was just wishful thinking.

The question remains in the textual evidence. What distinguishes the manifer for the left hand from other gauntlets?

1397 Inventory of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester
Itm j peir de plates enorrez pr joustes de pece ove vantbras & rerebras j gaunt & j maindeferr p's c.s.
Item, 1 pair of plates decorated with gold for the joust-of-peace, with vambrace & rerebrace, 1 gauntlet and 1 manifer. valued 100s.

1420-21 Inventory of the Louvre Palace, Charles VI, King of France
201. Item, une main de fer, sans orfaverie.
Item, a manifer without gold-work.
202. Item, un gantelet appelé gagne pain.
Item, a gauntlet nicknamed "livelihood" (literally "bread-winner").

I think that one of those could be a mitten of plate for the left hand, the others just look like gloves of plate to me. For myself I would want multiple sources before I spent time and money on a gauntlet like that. There are gigantic databases of late medieval art online ... and any library will have books with photos of things that we never look at in the art history section.

Edit: I just found a file with a list of some of the databases I use:

Bildindex http://www.bildindex.de/
Imareal http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/home/
Fondazione Zeri http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it ... apply=true

Edit: The paintings in the Summer house at Schloss Roncolo/Runkelstein in South Tirol also have gauntlets with some unusual features.

Ernst wrote:The question remains in the textual evidence. What distinguishes the manifer for the left hand from other gauntlets?

1397 Inventory of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester
Itm j peir de plates enorrez pr joustes de pece ove vantbras & rerebras j gaunt & j maindeferr p's c.s.
Item, 1 pair of plates decorated with gold for the joust-of-peace, with vambrace & rerebrace, 1 gauntlet and 1 manifer. valued 100s.

1420-21 Inventory of the Louvre Palace, Charles VI, King of France
201. Item, une main de fer, sans orfaverie.
Item, a manifer without gold-work.
202. Item, un gantelet appelé gagne pain.
Item, a gauntlet nicknamed "livelihood" (literally "bread-winner").

References like those puzzle me too. Are they really the same as the later jousting gauntlets which let the left hand move just enough to hold the reins? There might be a clue to what they looked like in a painting or description of a joust or melee somewhere.

Apart from saying they are specifically for tournament, there are so many variations its impossible to show a progression. I have three which are al of a type where the gauntlet extends until it also forms the lower cannon, some are simply bigger, thicker and less articulated gauntlets. But some are not...

My 3 are all late 15th cent ones and are actually full vambrace so very specifically jousting ones.

Mark, could you clarify? If we know of even one form of gauntlet which was definitely called a manifer before the late 15th century, that would be helpful!

Some things which 14th century people used for particular kinds of combat might be good choices for some modern sports.

The gauntlet called gaignepain or gaigne pain also shows up in the Traité du costume militaire from 1446. In its description of a fully-armed man we are told that "à la main droite y a ung petit gantellet lequel se appelle gaignepain" "on the right hand there is a little gauntlet which is called gaignepain."