Pimped out Bascinet-- Jack of Badsaddle effigy

[thomas penyngton]

yeah, thanks for those pics. I may have to move the time period of my new kit a bit forward, just so I can make a vervaile cover like that.

thomas p

[Konstantin the Red]

If the fit of the retaining wire/braided cord is fairly tight, getting it cut in combat probably wasn't an immediate problem per se. Friction would keep the broken wire pretty well in place until some maintenance could be done. With wire, the cut ends could simply be bent, for a temporary repair, so the rest of the wire was unlikely to slide out of the vervelles no matter what capers the wearer cut. Add to this the use of post vervelles in numbers like the high teens or even low twenties, and you get a lot of fastener redundancy slowing the spread of any problem. Tunnel vervelles, being used in smaller number -- as few as half the number of post vervelles -- may not have been as sturdy this way.

In the few known examples showing a flat, thong-like retainer, I don't know what would have been done with it. The actual nature of the flat retainer's material is AFAIK unknown in any case.

I suppose the 1440-1450s IHC inscriptions were sported on helmets of the period like great bascinets or armets, then?

[Edited to add a touch more clarity]

[Tobias Capwell]

Dear All,

A very interesting discussion!

I have found that it is very difficult to understand what precise constructional feature is being represented on these sculptures in most cases if you do not look at most if not all of the relevant examples. In this way you can compare different artists' treatments of the same armour detail.

I originally came to the conclusion (wishing it could be further explored through reconstructional experimentation) that the earlier examples (c.1380-1410), those showing bascinets with aventails and no plate protection for the neck, are carrying a decorative tooled/gilt leather or metal cover over the standard vervelle arrangement. Some of the examples show a very pronounced bulge, implying plenty of room inside for the vervelles.

How do they work? Its hard to say without building some. Most examples show a pattern (above and below the main decorated area) that could be interpreted as stitching. perhaps the early leather ones were stitched to the helmet above and below the vervelle line, couching the whole thing down nicely. Later the 'stitching' is retained on the metal great bascinet versions in the form of some type of relief decoration.

Most of the effigies having this feature show the mail disappearing up inside the decorated lower edge of this cover, which is in stark constrast to those of the same period (the effigies of lower knights/men-at-arms) that plainly show the whole vervelle arrangement.

The vervelle cover then loses its practical function with the appearance of the great bascinet, but is retained as a stylised ornament, probably made usually in gilt copper alloy. We know of plenty of other examples of features that once had a practical function but evolve into something purely decorative. The little mail fringes on 15th- century Italian leg armour ('balzae') for example.

Since the vervelle cover was a status symbol (like the belt of plates or 'arse-girdle'), in that one observes in the 'effigial record' a strict -no cover- plain cover- fancy cover- hierarchy, it should not be surprising that it is retained long after it ceases to have a practical function.

Its all in my book. Which will come out in 2011, I hope. Sorry about the wait. I hope it will be worth it.

TC

[white mountain armoury]

Thanks Tobias, fascinating.
I look forward to your book

[Strongbow]

I originally came to the conclusion (wishing it could be further explored through reconstructional experimentation) that the earlier examples (c.1380-1410),

Dr. Capwell,

Thanks for your contribution to this thread... we have mac AND Toby Capwell in one thread... we learn lots!

You seem to imply that early examples of the cover can be seen c. 1380.... I would assume it's pretty rare at this point? Can you point me to an effigy around this time that has that feature?

Its all in my book. Which will come out in 2011, I hope. Sorry about the wait. I hope it will be worth it.

TC

Ah, yer killin me! But I understand. My wife is an academic, and it seems like it takes YEARS for a book to be published. Well, we'll be there with bells on to order it for sure!

[Kel Rekuta]

Dear All,

Its all in my book. Which will come out in 2011, I hope. Sorry about the wait. I hope it will be worth it.

TC

After reading part of your thesis, I am confident it will be a significant and influential resource for students of armour.

If I could impose on your time a bit more; were the decorative items under discussion a Western European fashion or were they seen wherever the Italian export style is illustrated? Did north Italians apply this domestically?

[Konstantin the Red]

Is there any kind of consensus of the construction of these vervelles covers? My guess would have been leather.

Michael, as you see, the two top contenders seem to be some form of embossed leather, or something like repoussé latten.

Ornate and mystifying vervelle straps in or behind which the vervelles disappear go well back into the fourteenth. I hesitate to cite John de Creke as an example -- he seems to have both visible vervelles upon his fluted short bascinet and an ornate band, complete with tassels, suspended immediately below! Maybe we can file his décor under "Mystifying." The brass of John d'Aubernoun of c. 1340 only shows a border of dots like rivet heads and nothing at all continuous like a camail strap, which seems unlikely anyway as his mail goes up under his helmet like a coif. Perhaps better would be John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, obit c. 1334. My one picture of his effigy is from straight on, but it looks like he has long triangular dags ending in finial-shaped tassels depending from his camail strap, and everything's all smooth, without visible vervelles. But is this the original condition, or the product of "tourist erosion?"

But either medium seems to answer to the task. Being something of a leatherworker, I'd try it in leather first: an outer part, embossed to shape, tooled to decorate either with inscriptions, William Bagot-style floral tracery, or a Thomas Braunstone continuous border of simple repeats of paired rectangles in dark and light -- among other choices. (Both Bagot's and Braunstone's brasses show a flat, continuous border, not molded.) Behind the embossed outer part and sewn to it along the upper border, a plain flat camail strap pierced for vervelles, possibly quite thick and with a groove down the vervelle line or strap centerline, in which the retaining wire will be sunk and a great deal of the vervelle height be buried also. To this inner part the camail links are stitched, and the decorative embossed outer part covers all.

I will leave the hollow-work latten equivalent's discussion to those better at it than I. It's plausible it would come out in the same shape, with a molded outer part and a flatter inner one pierced for vervelles, but the exact process would include details I don't know, never having seen metal camail bands/straps.

[Strongbow]

But either medium seems to answer to the task. Being something of a leatherworker, I'd try it in leather first:

I'd love to see you interpretation of it! I have been mulling an attempt at such a cover myself, but Patrick did such a nice job on securing the strap, I'm reluctant to mess with before I have too! I was thinking 5-6 ozish leather decorated and shaped and hardened.

Maybe I'll give it a shot sometime.

[Konstantin the Red]

I was thinking 5-6 ozish leather decorated and shaped and hardened.

Yes, for the outer part. If the embossing technique is used, it wouldn't even require cuirbouilli hardening, as the embossed parts are filled in behind with skived thick leather scrap in as many layers as needed, and that would hold them in shape. If necessary, these can have hollowed holes to receive the tops of the vervelles. Fearsomely smooth, no? And a protective function, making the vervelles harder to wipe off and the retaining wire harder to cut, seems evident.

And there's plenty of room in the inner part for that Y-split somebody seems to think is necessary for stitching mail into a camail strap. This seems a difficult way to get this done, and I don't yet see what would be wrong with simply stitching the camail's top linkrow to one side or the other of the inner part. If the links absolutely must go into the centerline of the camail strap's edge, building the camail strap up of two layers of leather secured together down to about the vervelle line, leaving the bottom edge open, would answer with less technical trickiness, and far less chance of marring the work if your cutting knife were to slip or veer off the desired track.

I end up thinking of this in the context of revising an entire camail, i.e., converting from a butted camail to a riveted, as there is usually very little point in keeping the earlier camail strap when converting to links that are so different.