The Armour Archive

Greetings all

What time period did soldiers/knights begin to add floating metal elbows to their hauberks?

GreenShield+

greenshield wrote:Greetings all

What time period did soldiers/knights begin to add floating metal elbows to their hauberks?

GreenShield+

I think mid to late (edit) 13th century. Possibly earlier but no real evidence for it.

edited at KtR's command.

I would push it about a hundred years further. Not too much evidence I have seen before about mid to later 13th century.

Since October 18, 1294. First worn by Sir Gilliaum de Couter, or "Sir Coot" as he was known to his friends. Seems he had a predaliction for telling really bad jokes, and subsequently giving the unamused audience members an eblow to the ribs as sort of a "ya' know what I mean?!?!"
His fellow knights were not very fond of this habit and one evening during a tournament feast after reciting a particularly awful lymiric about a man from Nantucketshire, he attempted to give a nearby fellow knight an elbow to the ribs, but before his elbow made contact it seems the intended recipient expecting the battery, drew his byknife and subsequently stabbed Sir Guillaum in the offending elbow. After that it was said that Sir Guilliaum was never to be seen without a metal bowl affixed to his elbow. The style cought on and thus we have the evolution of elbow cops.

But seriously. I've yet to see evidence of rigid metal protection on the elbows prior to the very late 13th century, and the plates are no where nearly as dished or encompassing as a 14th century elbow cop.
I know for certain there are effigies in the first decade of the 14th cen with dished cops similar to floating cops as we use in the SCA.
-Cian

There is written evidence for them in the late 13th as well but as Cian said not much artwork with any real depictions. I'd say you could get away with the last decade or so with them but they would be fairly simple not likely more than a simple couter. I saw one of the few 13th century effigies with them when I lived in England.


RPM

I actually meant to write 13th cent.

It's your post; edit it.

huh, I always thought they were later than knees and the earliest knees I have seen pics of are 1320 or so.

But I have not reviewed any written references... What is the earliest WRITTEN reference for greaves and knee armor? (Post rome, Post vendel, western or northern europe)

The earliest sculptural example may be on the purbeck marble effigy of William Longespee the Younger, in Salisbury Cathedral. William was killed at the Battle of Mansourah in 1250, and his remains were buried in Acre after being released some years later. Dating for the effigy seems very scattered, c. 1260 being the earliest I have seen suggested, though c. 1280 seems more common, and 1310 not being impossible. Judging from better photographs, the couters appear to be two overlapping quatrefoil plates, set at an off angle; however, it's possible that a number of small, overlapping roundels is intended. See David Counts' article for a brief synopsis.

http://www.arador.com/articles/couter.html

Another photo:

http://salisbury.art.virginia.edu/archi ... 1.thum.jpg

Check to database to see when it became common.

http://talbotsfineaccessories.com/armou ... lysis.html

(1330s)

Looks like our younger Salisbury was quite the innovator, it looks like he's got polyens as well.

Ironically, I am in England next week for work, but I don't think I can get all the way out to Salisbury.

Here's a bigger drawing of the Longespée in question: http://effigiesandbrasses.com/monuments ... /original/

The brass of John d'Aubernon (c1277) has the flared poleynes that I'm so fond of.
My book "A history of War and Weapons 449-1660" seems to imply that rigid knee protection predates the elbows and that by the end of the 13th century both were in use.
To skew Talbot's dates a bit, if you look at the brasses of William Fitzralph (c1322) and John DeCreke (c1325) in England, you can definately make out that they are wearing a cop on their elbows behind the rondel.

-Cian

Galfrid atte grene wrote:Here's a bigger drawing of the Longespée in question: http://effigiesandbrasses.com/monuments ... /original/

I'm going to have to learn to refer to your database more often. Talbot's database of couters becoming common is correct -- earliest use and commonality being separated by several percentage points.

It would be interesting to try to find other lobed couters or poleyns, whether quatrefoils or florals containing more "petals" to compare with the Longespee example. I'm aware of examples in the Manesse as well as the early 14th century altar paintings from Nedstryn.

It sems to take about a generation for something new that is introduced and used primarily by the wealty, or the upper nobility, to trickle down into general use in the realm of arms and armour. That is what you find when you look to documentation such as household accounts or post-mortem inventories.

And to confuse things more, Fitzralph and DeCreke may have passed in the early 20's, but the brasses may not have been made until later, which could also align the armor depicted in association with Talbot's timeline.
-Cian

Not so much "confuse things more" as a perennial caveat that the dating should be understood to be in a couple decades' span, always. It is not unusual for, say, an early-fifteenth death date of a man who died around his threescore and ten to show armor dating from this man's military age in the latter fourteenth. So, avoid a completely literal reading of memorial dates, either "not-before" or "not-after."

Not so much a confusion as a determination of just what degree of actual precision we're working with. What fineness of resolution, as it were.

Konstantin the Red wrote:Not so much "confuse things more" as a perennial caveat that the dating should be understood to be in a couple decades' span, always. It is not unusual for, say, an early-fifteenth death date of a man who died around his threescore and ten to show armor dating from this man's military age in the latter fourteenth. So, avoid a completely literal reading of memorial dates, either "not-before" or "not-after."

Not so much a confusion as a determination of just what degree of actual precision we're working with. What fineness of resolution, as it were.

THe problem is excacerbated by workmen making the monuments - especially brasses - working from pattern books - not from the subject commissioning them. One also must remember that these are not, and were not intended to be portraits of individual people, but idealized representations of their station. How many monuments show old men as old, for instance, before the Rennaisance?

A brass may heve been comissioned well before a persons demise (it was the only sure method of obtaining a monument ones survivors may not have been willing to pay for out of their inheritance) , and reflect that time and not the date of death. Far more probably, it relates most closely to what sort of pattern book was being used by a shop that was commisioned for the project - the key to the patrons desire not beig portraiture, but the image displaying his arms. If you have ever seen effigfies provided for post-mortem in wills, the wise reader would lose all faith that the surviving image reflects the original commisioner in any way, save as a display of their arms. They usually read something like '...An image to be made in the form of an armed man, in the fullness of his power, and displaying my arms, in the current fashion...' along with how much money they set aside for the project, which the survivor commonly trimmed down quite a bit.

Some of the more remarkable monuments may reflect an artist working off an actual harness, or the likeness of a person (The Beauchamp monument, for instance), but these stand out clearly as something beyond the norm, and are far from usual. I would say that any brass should be understood to automatically be in no way a representation of any particular detail of a person, excepting a display of their arms.

THey might give a rough idea of how a harness may have looked (and some obviously bad exaggerations exist, like 15th century couters the size of a mans torso that cannot possibly reflect reality), but they cannot be taken as an accurate representation of the harness a specific man actually personally wore. They also more probably reflect the fashion of the country in which a brass was made (and a lot of English brasses were imported from Flanders).