The Armour Archive

I'm curious to find online information about the above subject, I plan on buying a correct 15th century high gothic German harness one day but I would like to research it out full before I take the plunge, every time I try to Google for it I come up with crappy Indian reproductions, I'd like to look at some websites with real pictures of armour, but don't have a clue where to look, also sites with real medieval manuscripts or translations of them would be nice as well, any book title recommendations would be much appreciated . I know my post is pretty board but please feel to recommend anything related to the 15 century I'd love to read it/see it no matter what the topic.

For German stuff, get friendly with Bildindex.

Can you read German? Here's how I'd recommend navigating ...

Go to the main site, and click the word "Orte" at the top.

An alphabet pops up at the left. This way of navigating requires you to know what city you plan to visit; it defaults to German cities (though others are available in the pull-down menu at top left).

Some of the museums you want to visit (that have armor collections), with the cities under which they're organized:

Dresden, Historisches Museum
Dresden, Museum für Kunsthandwerk
Köln, Museum für Angewandte Kunst
München, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum
Nürnburg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum

Once you've selected the city, some words to click on whenever you see them: Sammlungen ('collections'), especially Öffentliche Sammlungen ('public collections'); Kunstgewerbe ('arts & crafts'); and Waffen und Rüstungen ('weapons and armor').

You'll be looking especially for anything that indicates 15 Jh. ('15th century') of course.

FWIW -- you can find more navigation instructions in this thread, which additionally recommends the Militaria collection of the Kunstgewerbesammlung in Berlin, and the Armeemuseum in Ingolstadt.

And to give you just a taste ('cos that's how you get hooked on the Bildindex, doncha know), here's just some of the 15th century German armor you can find on Bildindex:

http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI10065f11a.jpg
http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI10065f13a.jpg
http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI02351c06a.jpg
http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI03989g08a.jpg
http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI07989f07a.jpg

Consider that just a taste to whet your appetite. You can find a map to your prey here. Now ... hunt!

Karen thank you a lot for the link, I don't speak German yet but it's one thing I plan on correcting in the future, anyone else with any recommendations please feel free to contribute,