The Armour Archive

All,

I am wondering a bit here. Is there any evidence to suggest that kidney belts of the kind used to satisfy SCA minimum requirements were ever used in period? By any culture? The closest thing I can think of are the 15th century plackards, but those are obviously quite different. Are they just a modern idea of ye olde darke ages armourr, or is there any evidence they actually existed?

Thanks in advance!

There are lots of Carolingian images showing large protective rectangular stomach plates with belts around the back but no one is sure what there made of. I'll post some If I can find some.

Here's the thread on Myarmoury showing some of these belts along with the krefeld lamellar http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=9561&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 I've wondered whether these belts were leather or metal. I think these drawings are about contemporary with the composing of the irish sagas and I've wondered if these belts could be connected with Cu Chulainn's belt.

Kidney belts are a modern safety feature to protect the kidneys in a very stylized form of competition with very stylized weapons. There is nothing like them from history that I've seen, *unless* as part of a protective piece that goes all the way around the torso, not just the wide part at the back. Generally, armor was heavier at the *front* of the body!

Matthew

Interesting! I had never thought of that. I had forgotten that there were references to magic belts/girdles in Irish and Norse literature. These were protective items, or items which gave strength to the bearer. CuChulainn's belt deflects arrows and blows, but whether or not that is supposed to mean the belt is magical or armour (or both) is certainly interesting. Infusing that with artistic depictions of Carolingian belt-things which may or may not be protective, you do have a foundation, albeit a much weaker one than you have for dark ages scale and maille armour. Definitely worth a closer look!

And, in any case, even though we wear the belt in the society for the purposes of armour, there is no reason why a warrior in period wouldn't have a similar belt, not intending to use it as armour, but for spiritual/magical protective properties.

The only other large belt I can think of is scythian like the one at http://www.travisconn.com/

The Urartians (and possibly the Assyrians) had wide bronze belts in the first half of the 1st Millennium BC. They were made of thin sheet bronze with no hinges, only a hook at the front. They invariably had embossed and incised decoration. All the examples I know of come from Urartian sites (where they are fairly common), but Assyrian reliefs always show Assyrians wearing wide belts. Most are probably textile or leather, but some may be bronze.

example

another example

These probably would not be as wide as you would want but here's a couple of mentions of wide belts from the sagas:

Njal's saga
"Gunnar was in a red kirtle, and had about his loins a broad belt"

Laxdaela saga
"Thorgils had on a red-brown kirtle, and had round his waist a broad silver belt"

I can't imagine what a broad silver viking belt would look like. Maybe silver plaques.

"I can't imagine what a broad silver viking belt would look like. "

Let me help---It would look really really spiff!

Here's the original icelandic text: "Þorgils var í rauðbrúnum kyrtli og hafði um sig breitt silfurbelti"

I saw a couple 16th century ukrainian belts with studs. Sadly i lost all my links i had saved. If i find them again i will post.

Bronze celtic belts as well, not leather though

I've seen plated kidney belts attributed to Tibet, they seem to be worn with disc armour as re-enforcing over maille. a quick search brings up this pic from an exhibit they had at the Met a while back
http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/wp-conten ... 51_av1.jpg

I was also going to mention the Scythians, though the one photo'd above seems a bit wide for my tastes. If you really want to make sure a wide kidney belt is 100% authentic, the personas I recommend are: WWII Motorcycle Rider + Wasteland Thug from Mad Max. Note that for the latter, you could probably even justify dog-collar studs. However, carved interlace patterns and dragons would probably still be unjustified.

Cheers,
Tim

I don't have my Scythian books handy, and sometimes image searches are less than helpful...

But I did find this "Dacian" statue, and while I think it is fairly modern, it was probably based on something other than haoma.

Late15thC-16thC, not sure of the exact date of this late Renaissance interpretation of Roman armor. I'd have to try and find the book it is in. I was looking for something else on my AA webpage.

I'm not exactly sure I'd call the belt across his belly and cuirass a "kidney belt", but this is the tombstone for one Marcus Favonias Facilis, Centurion of XX Legion, pre49 AD in Colchester..

Baron Alcyoneus wrote:I'm not exactly sure I'd call the belt across his belly and cuirass a "kidney belt", but this is the tombstone for one Marcus Favonias Facilis, Centurion of XX Legion, pre49 AD in Colchester..

It's just a belt, and in fact it's the widest one I've seen depicted, much wider than any surviving brass belt plates, so it's possibly a little exaggerated. We also know that not all Roman military belts had plates across the back, so it's clearly not meant as kidney protection!

In your previous post, that "Roman" is clearly cadged from an existing late Roman sarcophagus (or a very similar work), which was carved *after* the lorica segmentata went out of general use and is therefore highly stylized and inaccurate. Here we go, the guy at lower center:

http://img.search.com/thumb/2/20/Sarcop ... Relief.JPG

Add a further step of "melt-down" by the medieval artist, and what was originally an iron segmented cuirass ends up looking like some weird wide belt...

Matthew