The Armour Archive

This is an effigy of Christopher St. Lawrence, 1st Baron of Howth with his wife Lady Plunkett. He died in 1462. Does anyone know what this style of armour is called, or how it might have been constructed ?

I'm quite confused, as it looks like iron bands, that could be riveted to a vertical leather harness strap. But there are no rivets detailed.

http://livinghistory.ie/community/downl ... php?id=118

John

I would suggest a quilted gambason, not metal.

I'm gonna' disagree Chris. I think we are looking at a coat of plates. It's sort of like the ones in the mid 14th c. German art, but with narrower lames.

Mac

Effigy armour for that region, gives an impression of being on average 100myears out of date.

The real question is does it represent what was really worn by the individual? Or is it merely a bad copy out of an old effigy makers copy book?

I'm with Mac. I think it is a CoP, or what I've been calling 'proto-anime'.

Doesn't seem too likely that it's a quilted defense, given he's wearing what looks like rigid limb armour.

For those that know more about this time period than I: is that a solid line of reasoning?

-Donasian.

Mac wrote:I'm gonna' disagree Chris. I think we are looking at a coat of plates. It's sort of like the ones in the mid 14th c. German art, but with narrower lames.

Mac

I guess I could see that. It seems odd there are no breaks in the plates (other than were we can't see) because I would think the strips would get easily deformed being so thin and so long.
I don’t know how accurate Eduard Wagner’s drawings are, but he has illustrated a padded garment of this construction that looked plausible to me and I was thinking this could be that.

Hmm...I agree that it could be a COP, but I'm not convinced. Considering that Cotuns are a generally accepted armour for the region and this doesn't disprove that, I'd say that is most likely what it represents.

I'd be more inclined to go with the cotun idea, if there wasn't mail obviously under the armour in question. Aketon/Cotuns were usually worn solo, or under armour, yes ?

Just thinking about over-mail-padding; I've seen it drawn on some 12thC knights, where there is a light aketon under mail, then a heavy sleeveless gambeson over the mail. Could this explain why he's not wearing similar armour on the arms ? Heavy sleeveless gambeson over mail & aketon, then plate arm pieces ?

Mac, do you have any references for the 14thC german art you mentioned ? I'd like to check it out.

John, who doesn't have a 15thC harness yet, and would love to be able to make something up based on St. Laurence's and Bermingham's armours ( http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/12021 )

That is quite distinctive.
What do you think the helmet is?

Could this guy have visited Lithuania?
I saw some photos of Lithuanian reeenactors just the other day who supposedly knew what they were doing (and did match drawings in Gorelik's work) who wore a "Laminar" armour -- armour made of bands vaguley along the idea of a Lorica Segmentata.
And you wouldn't see rivets, if riveted at the top and overlapped downwards, the plate above would hide the rivets of the plate below.

I'd like to know more.

It's described as a CoP in John Hunt's work, which has several examples of this style in Ireland, including this same effigy.

Being Ireland, and primarily Anglo-Irish, the styles were a bit behind the times for the equivalent periods. These CoPs appear into the early 15th century, along with some really awesome Corinthian-esque bascinet/barbute hybrid helms. (Well, okay, only two effigies, and two actual finds in the field, but good enough for me!)

I can get some more photos out of Hunt's book, or get you the text corresponding to this period in the photos of the Irish effigies, if you'd like, but not until tomorrow some time.

Actually, this is a better image; taken from St. Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny.

http://livinghistory.ie/download/file.p ... 02d8a04b53

In the above image, you can see the banding & rivets. http://livinghistory.ie/viewtopic.php?f ... 6951#p6951 had some interesting information;

His corset comprises horizontal lames secured to a canvas or leather foundation by sliding rivets, and is worn in conjunction with plate arm and leg harness, a mail haubregeon and a mail pasaine to which circular pauldrons are attached." He also states that, "Surviving monuments confirm the archaic armour of this type predominated amongst the 'degenerate English' (Piers Butler, Earl of Ormond is used as an example) of Ireland until the 1550s.

Hmm. Now I just need to find an armourer willing to take on such a project - my workshop is far too primitive.

John

The other effigy that Velen linked to http://livinghistory.ie/download/file.p ... 02d8a04b53 is wearing the sort of armor I usually think of as "brick work". It appears frequently in late 14th and early 15th c. art. It seams to be composed of rectangular plates about the size of playing cards, riveted to the outside of a foundation. You can find pictures of it used for body armors, aventails and faulds. There's a version of it using smaller plates which frequently appears as sabatons; especially the heels. Sabatons of this form are discussed here http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=95175 .

The attached pic. is from Pamela Porter's Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts, University of Toronto Press, 2000. It is thought to be from c.1415.

See also, the picture from the poems of Christine de Pisan, illustrated in Edge and Padock"s Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight (page 124) for a fauld made like this.

+++

Sorry guys, I spoke too soon. I'm gonna' change my mind about that effigy. I looked at the picture again http://livinghistory.ie/download/file.p ... 02d8a04b53

The rivets are on the *lower* edges of the plates, and the upper plates overlap the lower ones. This means that the plates are riveted to the *inside* of a covering, and are not on the outside like my examples. This makes the armor more akin to the fragment from Chalcis in the Dean collection at the Met. 29.150.105

(NB. There are two different effigies under discussion here; one with apparently long narrow bands, and one with rectangular plates.)

The attached pic shows the Chalcis fragment inside out.

Mac

Except I don't belive the lower rivets on the "brickwork" armour necessitate that the plates are inside.
(you figure the artist would not have undercut the bands quite so straight if he was trying to show plates on the inside)

It could be that the lower rivets attach the plates to each other within a horizontal band to prevent them gapping as they move sideways as you bend.
I did something similar on my armour though substantaily higher on the plates (look closely at the rivets on the girdle's rectangular plates):
[img]http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/norm2.jpg[/img]

Oh, and I realy doubt the notion that there were any sliding rivets involved.
I made mine on a set of internal straps (like a more complex Lorica Segmentata)

There are a few rectangular plated corselets in the Russian and Mongol finds. I think mostly you have them attached to fabric but at least one Mongol suit is described as being on straps.

well it certianly is some kind of COP...beyond that is speculation and experimentation.

Piers Brent wrote: We also see this sort of exposed banding in Flemish illumination and maybe some paintings in the 15th century but it falls into that great quagmire with earlier armour representation in 15th century art from the Low Countries...

Fascinating picture! What does it represent? At a guess, judicial combat with Mary and Michael sitting as judges?

Mac wrote:Sorry guys, I spoke too soon. I'm gonna' change my mind about that effigy. I looked at the picture again http://livinghistory.ie/download/file.p ... 02d8a04b53

The rivets are on the *lower* edges of the plates, and the upper plates overlap the lower ones. This means that the plates are riveted to the *inside* of a covering, and are not on the outside like my examples. This makes the armor more akin to the fragment from Chalcis in the Dean collection at the Met. 29.150.105

(NB. There are two different effigies under discussion here; one with apparently long narrow bands, and one with rectangular plates.)

The attached pic shows the Chalcis fragment inside out.

Mac

Just a follow up on that particular armour we discussed in another thread. Upon close inspection I noticed rings holding the actual plates together, see here in yellow circles: