The Armour Archive

Is this guy full of crap?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2210661813&category=1552

Or are there kingdoms doing mounted combat?

He is somehow confused. The SCA does not have any mounted combat. He also states in his summary that the helm protects from off target blows. He must be thinking of some other organization...or maybe he's just full of crap

No, he's referring to the SCA's assine requirements for a plastic "Christopher Reeves" riding caps for equestrian games. The middle kingdom won't let me wear a real helmet, preferring you to risk injury for something certified by the government to protect corporate from lawsuits. Apparently it has passed a marshal in his kingdom. I would guess the line about off-target blows is a backhanded way of saying it won't survive (or pass for) direct hits. In other words, its not legal for heavy weapons combat, but is for equestrian competition. (Which is quintain, rings, saracen heads, tent pegging, etc..., not jousting.)

We are doing testing for jousting and a boffer style of combat while mounted down here in Ansteorra. Not sure of all the details but Sir Alexis does post here once in a while and he is one of the prime movers for it down here .

Now that would be cool. I'm getting my horse this spring, and maybe by fall, or winter next year will be ready for equestrian stuff.

My understanding is that things are afoot in Meridies to allow boffer mounted combat as well as jousting using break-away styrofoam lances.

Now you living history purists and other accomplished horsemen may look down on this endeavor, but I for one am amazed, nay stunned that this sort of activity is actually being undertaken in the SCA.

I don't think SCA equestrian people want to look or act like dorks any more than anyone else. It's about baby steps, folks. They are moving forward, slowly, from extreme safety conciousness.

Steve

Steve - is Tennessee in Meridies? If so, we are moving down there with 3 horses. It would be nice to get with a group who understands rather than fears the four-legged furry critters.
Where are you at now, by the way?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Steve -SoFC-:
<B>My understanding is that things are afoot in Meridies to allow boffer mounted combat as well as jousting using break-away styrofoam lances.

Now you living history purists and other accomplished horsemen may look down on this endeavor, but I for one am amazed, nay stunned</B> that this sort of activity is actually being undertaken in the SCA.

I don't think SCA equestrian people want to look or act like dorks any more than anyone else. It's about baby steps, folks. They are moving forward, slowly, from extreme safety conciousness.

Steve</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually you are right. Ingolf was trying to get foam lances aproved for testing. As far as i knew it was still fart in the wind status! I guess i will have to give him a call and see if it has moved any further! It would be too cool.

I live in Northern Atlantia and have 4 horses. I am keenly interested in doing mounted combat. Still don't have a truck and trailer yet but where there is a will there is a way. We have already started acclimatizing the animals to all the stimuli of mounted combat. We even have some boffer weapons...

Any others in my area?

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Trystan of Anglesey, FreeLancer
www.anglesey.org and http://freelancers.faire.net/

Tennessee is Meridies, some of it is in the Principality of Glean Ahbann (still Meridies). What part are you moving too?

Odo

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bascot:
<B>Steve - is Tennessee in Meridies? If so, we are moving down there with 3 horses. It would be nice to get with a group who understands rather than fears the four-legged furry critters.
Where are you at now, by the way?</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<I>"Steve - is Tennessee in Meridies? If so, we are moving down there with 3 horses. It would be nice to get with a group who understands rather than fears the four-legged furry critters.
Where are you at now, by the way?"</I>

As far as I know, Tennessee is in Meridies. I'm down in Montgomery, Alabama.

Steve

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Forth Armoury
Highly authentic, affordable riveted maille.

If I win do I get to keep your horse? or maby ransom it back ?

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Thorstenn,
Do or do not their is no try!

An Tir does mounted stuff, but I am not sure what.

The West is actually doing a mounted boffer game. I'm not sure of the name but it's something like "smack the crest" or something. The goal is to knock your opponents crest off his helmet with a boffer sword whilst riding a horse. (both of you are horseback) As this helm is setup to have a crest attached with Velcro sounds like it was being used for something like this.

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Quid Curone

Greetings,

Actually, mounted combat has been approved for the SCA. This is using boffer weapons and targeting a knock-off crest only. Contact your Kingdom Equestrian Officer (KEO) for more details...

Ansteorra has also been given appproval to experiment with jousting using a "safe and sane" lance constructed of a solid handle, cardboard tube, and a styrofoam tip. Specific armour and procedure requirements are used, too.

Ulsted

[This message has been edited by Ulsted (edited 12-19-2003).]

I always find the SCA and some other group's concerns about Horses amusing.

I used to ride bareback bronc's in the rodeo and frequently watched people suffer horrific injuries (and I sustained a few myself). Yet lawsuits are unheared of in the rodeo community. Its just accepted that if you are dumb enough to get on a bull, you are not smart enough to win a lawsuit.

As for horse injuries, I think a decent steel helmet, especially a helmet designed to imobolize and otherwise transfer impact from the spine, is much better than a little plastic anit-lawsuit hat.

Linden, Tennessee, about an hour and a half west/south from Nashville, & about 45 minutes north of Alabama.

Bascot,
Tennesee is Meredies and yes there has been formal discussion of break-away lances and limited mounted boffer combat. I am an accomplished rider and have been active in the equestrian activities from the beginning in this kingdom. I am glad to see things moving in this direction. I wish that I still had a horse to participate with and will hopefully be able to aquire one again. I know from your post you have a very dim view of SCA equestrian activities and I can understand why. However, things are changing for the better and I would like to talk with you further on the matter.
Alexander

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He conquers who endures.

I'm trying to find a way back onto a horse as well looks like i have an incentve

You still doing 14th C Bascot or have you gon strictly to Regia?

Alan Bauldri made me an entire transitional plate harness I haven't even strapped yet. I've got elk for strapping and for a jupon, a new uncoated rivited halbergeon, plus a plaque belt I need to assemble. So to answer your question, yes, once I do a little work...

Swwwweeeeetttt

i'm saving to get a rig from Jeff Hedgecock.

I think we should make all SCA knights go in to battle riding cockhorses (those toy broomhandle thingies with a wooden horsehead on the end of it).

I would look so... regal!

BTT

Greetings all,
To follow up on Ulsted's post, a form of mounted combat has been approved society wide. The helmet shown is for that activity. The fighting is done with boffer swords and the object is to knock their crest off. The reference to 'incidental blows' refers to those shots that hit the head and not the crest. As also mentioned, we have been experimenting with jousting using a wooden lance with a foam tip. So far the results have been a blast. There really is nothing quite like launching your horse down a lane then aiming your lance while steering your horse and presenting your shield. The jousting is still experimental, so check with your kingdom equestrian officer to find out if your kingdom is working with it yet. If you are interested in this, just contact me at drwise@houston.rr.com

Sir Alexis LaBouche
aka Dave Wise

[This message has been edited by Sir Alexis (edited 01-12-2004).]

Hummm? Maybe a reason to stay active?

I have been jousting for over 20 years and was talked into coming back into the SCA last Spring to lend my expertise on the possibility of SCA Jousting.

I was asked if there is a "safe" way to joust, which is like asking if there is a safe way to ride a horse. Of course, but accidents happen. For those interested, there are a number of Sport Jousting Associations around the world, the biggest of which is the World Championship Jousting Association (www.wcja.ca), whose website lays out all of the prerequisites for becoming a competitive jouster.

My suggestion to the equestrians here in Northshield is that they would have to create a new division of equestrian activity - greatly increase the riding requirements - and determine if they wanted to use a full armour (realgestech or northern itallian style of jousting) or a "light" armour (using a shield). Both styles have plusses and minuses, but we generally start our jousters out in the light armour as the shield gives them more protection.

On our private jousting board, one of our members from Belgium posted the information below on how teenagers are trained to joust in France. It has a number of very workable solutions for a "safer" form of jousting.

CARDBOARD JOUSTING FRANCE

To start with and one of the very interesting bit, French jousting
association is recognized by the National Riding Association.
- they have performances at yearly National Horse Show in Paris.
- their instructors are licenced riding instructors.
- this recognition has helped them to set up a 10 events championship.

They started a jousting system with specific material matching their
poorly protective armours and have now evolved towards european balsa
joust, keeping the cardboard for training youth and newbies.

Lists is build up very much like DL's.
Difference is that central list (seperating opponents) is a double
rope or fence about 3 feet wide.
Lances are solid shaft for about 6 feet extended with 3 sections of
cardboard tube for an extra 3 1/2 feet.

When jousting, the hard shaft of the lance stays in the central part
of the list only allowing carboard to touch opponent's shield in 13C
version or breastplate in 15C version.

Minimal requirements :
Barrel helm gauge 18.
Shield 18 g + gambison
or
Armour 18 g

Scoring can be done in many ways so I will not address it.

The idea is to allow almost everyone able to sit on a horse to give it a safe try. Kids can start as soon as they are safe with a lance on a quintain.

Minimal armour are easy and cheap to set up.

+++ : many riders can give jousting a try in a lesser time, it creates a Division in itself for those interested, it is more a
family game (other kids are used to prepare the lances !), safe and thus easily admitted by equestrian authorities.

--- : The lances don't explode (destruction is either a bend or wrinkling), it cannot be the only division in a tournament of course.

A clean picture of cardboard joust is located on :
http://users.skynet.be/sky56671/Hackamores/trad/photjoute2trad.htm
Look for Azincourt Tournament.

My website (www.angelfire.com/wi2/xtremejousting) will give you some idea as to the type of jousting we do (both in our shows and competitively) - for those that may be interested.

By the way - Jousting is a Professional Sport!

Why is it that when ever the subject of mounted combat comes up, the talk is almost totally focused on the tilt. What about grappling, sword, spear, archery...These are equally important aspects that always seem to get over looked.

John Woods
Ottawa Medieval Sword Guild

I think the more dangerous it gets for the horse, the less likely the horse owners are to want to try it. Most every horse owner I know is more than willing to break their own leg to avoid injuring thier horse.

Morgan- 95% of the Jousters I have met feel the same way about thier steeds. They train their horses to have absolute trust in them and they will do anything for thier horse to keep that trust. Countless times I have seen jousters enter into a tilt and after several strides raise his lance and not strike the opponent. Either he was unsafe or the opponent was unsafe due to equipment or horse placement. They will use it as another measuring pass if they must but they do not want to put their horses in a unfavorable situation.
There are a decent amount of Bravado conversations amongst the jousters but when they talk about their horses they ride in the tilt they become over protective brothers.

Stephen is right on - jousters know that getting injured is just part of the sport or the show, however, we protect our babies like gold. Every jouster knows that a horse getting severely injured will do more to kill off our sport than anything else. What a lot of people don't realize is that our horses are our teammates. We spend a LOT of time training them, working with them, and the thought of them getting hurt in a joust drives most of us to distraction. I would hate to be the person that hits and injures a horse - might as well pack up and head home.

When I worked at Medieval Times in Chicago, we had a horse trip and go down in the arena, breaking its neck in front of 1500 patrons. While they managed to get through it pretty much unscathed, that could never happen in a real joust environment.

We often do Baston fights (with wooden clubs) as part of our shows and, in some instances, as part of the sport (judged like a boxing match). To me this is a lot more dangerous for the horse as glancing blows have a tendency to hit them. Full Chamfrons/crinets are definitely needed.

I am SCA authorized in "mounted combat" which uses a boffer-style sword to knock off a crest that is attached to the top of the riding helm with a magnet. Kinda fun, but is over pretty quickly with only two combatants. This would be a much more enjoyable activity if there are 10 or 20 people competing at once.

"When I worked at Medieval Times in Chicago, we had a horse trip and go down in the arena, breaking its neck in front of 1500 patrons. While they managed to get through it pretty much unscathed, that could never happen in a real joust environment."

I'm intriqued/confused. How did "they get through it pretty much unscathed" if the horse broke it's neck? Who was unscathed?

Also, if it can happen in the staged jousting arena, why could it never happen in a real jousting arena?

No sarcasm here - I'm really interested.

Steve

Hi Steve,

By unscathed I meant legally and business-wise. Though it was reported in the paper, there never was any real "fallout" as their business never suffered because of the incident.

I am not trying to say that this could not happen in a tournament jousting competition -however, the circumstances and situation are much different.

This horse was injured during the entrance of the "intruder", the last part of the show. A pile of sand is built in the tunnel leading into the arena so that the "champion" can make a grand leap down into the arena. Unfortunately, at this time, the pile of sand was built before the intruder and his two squires entered. The pile was placed in the center of a not very wide tunnel and the intruder and his squires ride out into a black arena with a spotlight in their faces. I performed this on many evenings and in all my years of jousting and performing, it is still the most "scary" thing that I have done.

One of the squires rode to close to the center of the tunnel (he had "scrapped" his knee in the first show on the tunnel wall) and the horse tripped over the pile and went down.

As we do not have sand piles in our joust arenas, and we are pretty good about dragging them even before events, such an occurrence, while possible, is unlikely. It is much more likely that a horse would take a hit (as happened in the Discovery Channel's "Making of a Knight). Due to this, new jousters spend a long time training on a variety of quintains to perfect their targeting before they ever are allowed to go against another person.

Hope that clears it up. We treat our babies sometimes better than we treat our wives, and a whole lot better than we treat ourselves.

Lloyd

Oh, I get it now. Thanks.

Steve