What I learned today:

[Maeryk]

Basket hilted german make broadswords existed in the late 1500s.

Some bigassed German swords weighed more than 10 lbs! !!! (So much for the "They all weighed 4 pounds and were fantastically balanced" line)

Apparently, a frogmouth jousting helmet was the "standard" helmet of Knights for 400 years.

And, bazubands are worn with the wide part on TOP of the arm.

Pictures, probably, to follow. Also found a "bar grilled" (vertical" armor.. but it's post period, mid 1600s.

The ROM display is interesting.. but I question some of what they have on display vis-a-vis arrangement and description.

[Avitoria_vidua]

All well and good... but did you get pictures?

[Peikko]

ROM is what again?

[Maeryk]

Royal Ontario Museum.

Yes, I got pictures.. but they don't look nearly as good as I thought they would.. and glass is damn hard to shoot through with a point and shoot.

I was, however, smart enough to get shots of the curator cards that go with MOST of the stuff, just so I know what the hell I'm looking at.

[Maeryk]

Kay, here you go!

Sallet from the met, and curators card:





Black and white and curators card





Greatswords and curators card





Basket broad sword and card





Bazuband madness!

[Avitoria_vidua]

That's better. Thanks.

I don't know about the bazubands, but I like the shield decoration.

[Baron Alcyoneus]

They probably just have it turned out because they want people to see the entire outside, rather than thinking it was actually worn that way. I've seen that sort of thing in catalogs, as well as in museum.

I remember a friend telling me about a suit of armor for a tall fellow (6'+) at the Royal Armories (when it was at The Tower) that was 7'+(7'10"?) tall.

My thought was "where did they put the extra?";) You can put it under the feet, or above the head, and they won't complain much. Put the extra in the middle, and all those day on the rack to make them fit the suit makes them whine. It seemed obvious to me that they increased the height of the suit to display the tops of the legs or something.

You do start getting more than just cross guards on swords by around 1500, but full baskets do start towards the end of the 16thC. Cup hilts and "sail guards" don't happen before 1635 or so.

[RoaK]

Cool pictures... The bazubands are turned around for display so you can see them better...

[J.G.Elmslie]

You do start getting more than just cross guards on swords by around 1500, but full baskets do start towards the end of the 16thC. Cup hilts and "sail guards" don't happen before 1635 or so.

there is also the mary rose sword - found underneath the ship's forecastle, and therefore dated to at latest 1545.

while fairly simple in hilt form compared to the 17th C ones, it is the oldest example of a basket hilted sword still extant, as far as I know.

[ladyilsebet]

We were at the ROM back in April, I think? They've pared down the armor collection, at least as far as what's on view, compared to a couple years ago. There was a coat of plates that I wanted better pictures of, but it wasn't on display this time...

[Tibbie Croser]

Suzerain, on the Royal Armouries website, there's an English basket-hilted sword dated to about 1540. (I didn't post the link because it's too long.)

[Derian le Breton]

Suzerain, on the Royal Armouries website, there's an English basket-hilted sword dated to about 1540. (I didn't post the link because it's too long.)

Aww, come on! You can make a short link using one of two methods:

HTML version:

Code: Select all

<A HREF="http://www.google.com/ReallyLongURLOfDoom">google</A>

BBCode version:

Code: Select all

[url=http://www.google.com/ReallyLongURLOfDoom]google[/url]

-Derian.

[Destichado]

I remember a friend telling me about a suit of armor for a tall fellow (6'+) at the Royal Armories (when it was at The Tower) that was 7'+(7'10"?) tall.

My thought was "where did they put the extra?";) You can put it under the feet, or above the head, and they won't complain much. Put the extra in the middle, and all those day on the rack to make them fit the suit makes them whine. It seemed obvious to me that they increased the height of the suit to display the tops of the legs or something.

You're a foot off. You're thinking of the John O' Gaunt armor, who was 6'9", not 7'9.
And no, I don't think that's what they were doing. He was really just that tall.

[J.G.Elmslie]

Suzerain, on the Royal Armouries website, there's an English basket-hilted sword dated to about 1540. (I didn't post the link because it's too long.)

good point. for some reason I was thinking the pair of 'em (IX.4427 and IX.3688) were 1580's.

I had a brain once upon a time. :/