The Armour Archive

Hey folks,

Reading through Knights At Tournament, the Osprey Elite #17 I've come across many interesting construction methods for tournament armor, and was wondering if someone could scrounge up some sources for some of this stuff!

I'll just use a quote, here:

The 'tonlet' as described and illustrated in Rene of Anjou's treatise in the mid-15th century consists of a cuirass and fauld, the former pierced for lightness and ventilation. It was large enough for a pourpoint to be worn beneath, three fingers thick at the shoulder, arms and back. The tonlet was worn under the tabard during the club tourney. The helmet takes to pieces; the leather crest base is fitted with an iron spike to take the crest. Rene notes that the helm could be attached to the crest by a chain. In Flanders, Hainault and Germany the helmet was worn over the open bascinet and camail which was tied down. There the demi-pourpoint was covered by a bodice stuffed four fingers deep with cotton on which were fixed the arm pieces, of cuir bouilli stiffened by sticks glued to them. Shoulders and elbow pieces were heavy and stuffed inside with a double stitched thickness. Over all this came a light brigandine and tabard, making Rene remark that such tourneyers appeared wider than they were tall, and could hardly turn their horses! De la Sale records that varlets would stirke their masters' arms and shoulders with clubs to test the effectiveness of the armour.

Now, can anyone put this into simpler terms... Using any other evidence that can supplement this description? Were the pourpoint and demi-pourpoint literally three or four fingers thick? Is that saying that they could be two inches thick, or so? Also, what WOULD the demi-pourpoint be?

The cuir bouilli arm pieces with sticks on them. Very interesting idea... I'd use steel in the SCA, or additional pieces of leather to get the ridged effect, of course. Would the shoulder and elbow pieces be of leather, as well? Or would those and the cuirass likely be of steel?

Thanks for the help! This seems like an outfit I'd be willing to take on as a personal project (as in, trying to make myself) with the exception of a good helm!

Cheers!

-Gregory-

Some of that information may be right but personally I dont think any of it is correct as presented as used with tonlet armours. heres a few pictures of tonlet armours, I dont see how anything of much thicness at all would be worn under them.
http://www.royalarmouries.org//extsite/ ... ionId=1951
http://www.khm.at/system2E.html?/staticE/page316.html

Well, that is taken directly from Rene d'Anjous Livre de Tournee.

What you are running into is the 15th century terms and the modern terms are not defined in the precise same way - original terms always take precedence over modern usage in this sort of a case, I would think - or is Renne of Anjou, who actually wore armour, fought in tournaments, and respected by his peers to be derided for his usage, and modern usage thus to prevail?

Now the problem, Greg, is this is an extract from Renes book, and describes usage in Flanders and the Holy Roman Empire - he goes to some lengths describing different customs, and the author has sort of glommed together information from a couple of differernt areas Rene provides without full explanation to the reader, and interjects their own opinion.

The pourpoint with that thickness at the shoulders, where blows most often do fall is used with the tionlet, the one thicker over a greaater length is specifically mentioned in use with the light brigandine, tabard, and cuirbolli arms - not with the tonlet, and Rene describes it as an oddity, provincial in use, and not in common use where he is (he has to describe it to the reader, and as a foriegn custom). We must understand, to really comprehend this topic that usage varied widely from region to region, in small but important details. A letter survives from one of Philip the Goods officials, who accompanied him on a tour of Germany mid 15th century, when he was trying to drum up support for a crusade against the Turks, at the 'add, flat saddles the Germans used in jousting, using which at contact either one or both of the jousters would fall off'. Not only does that comment tell us something about German jousting (the Stetzug or Reinen run, it sounds like, depending on the other equipment worn, but the letter writer does not give us enough information to tell which), but it tells us that in mid 15th century Burgundy (and France), what we take to be a very normal and widespread form of jousting by late 15th century was seen as an absurd oddity in the mid 15th century in the West.

Jousting and tournaments are not monolithic topics, universal in form across Europe - unfortunately for scholarship on the subject, it is treated in such a fashion, and I think we miss a lot of details or subtilties due to this.

One thing to point out is what tyou are seeing is a description of medieval sporting gear - not combat gear. One must understand the specific tournament form mentioned in Rene is essentially a fight to submission on horse-back, with rebated steel swords four fingers in width of blade, and thick at the edges, so as not to break readily, and with hardwood maces.

By Renes description, they beat each other on the shoulders and to a lesser extent the head, until people begin to break from the combat, and trail out of the lists, at which point a winning side of the melee is determined, and the judges declare a winner - trumpets are blown, signals are made for the fighting to cease, but 'often the younger and more rash participents, continue the fight, almost to the lodgings -and there some of the best feats of arms and endurance are seen - those with the best 'wind' continuing on - but they gain nothing from the point they leave the lists'.

So, the pourpoints are so thick at the shoulders specifically to pad and prevent the collarbones from being broken - this is in direct contrast to the descriptions of arming doublets of the forms used for actual combat, either in deadly duels, or in the field (there they are supposed to be light, close fitting garments , in direct contrast to the heavily padded specialized items described in Rene - there you have both speicialised armour, padding, and weapons, for what is a sport, but not actual combat, where equipment requirements are different.

Check out the Barber and Barker book of tournaments. They have reproduced illustrations of the tournament armor from Rene's book including the ventilated brestplate, the hardened leather arms, special tournament helms and splinted arms. The other thing that is important is that as Chef pointed out translations are tricky. If you interpret 4 fingers thick to mean the width between the neck and the sholder seam then the description matches up with period art quite well. Alternatively, it could be that matches intended for endurance were so fierce that extra padding was essential.

Crawl around on this site and there are some line drawings of the illustrations that may be helpful. http://www.princeton.edu/~ezb/rene/cuirass.gif