The Armour Archive

One last question on my quest to make my helm as accurate as I can.

Period liners; where they all stuffed tubes or where some of them just quilted layers? I've read every post I could find on here (Dozens of them) about them and have seen Steves great how to article. It and all the other information/pictures of reconstructions I could find all have the stuffed tube constructure, BUT there is one picture in TOMAR that shows the inside of one of Macs helms and it has a quilted not tubed liner, this got me thinking and wondering. If both are proper is there any time or area distinctions? I really like the quilted liner shown in TOMAR and am leaning twards that style if it can be backed up. Any refernces, tips, tricks or what have you will be greatly apreciated. I'll be ready to start construction of the liner sometime this week so figured I'd ask for the details before doing .

Well, the people who made a living at "bascynet-stuffynge" apparently didn't leave any written how-to's lying around where enterprising historians could glom them -- professional secrets, you know -- so we're having to guess. Our guesses lean towards quilting it rather than stuffing tubes, though stuffing a lining with linen tow (Medieval FiberFill!) may also have been done. There you have it. You can have really dense layers of linen fabric -- good use of that 100% linen with the rather ghastly print you picked up cheap -- or you can have the fabric crumpled some and tacked into place for something squishier.