c. 1350 soldiers, Église Saint-Nicolas, Haguenau

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Mr. Renmans has posted some interesting detail shots of this monument, which gave me more than a few WTF?!! moments. It is interesting to see things like poleyn straps being attached OUTSIDE the fan plate, the weird mail gauntlet cuff(?), and an ancestor of the classic hourglass gauntlet.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/roelipila ... 042914704/

[Mac]

That's pretty weird stuff. I've been wondering about those knee straps ever since I first say them in a pic in Paul Martin's book.

Many thanks to Roel R. for his nice pics!

Mac

[Aaron]

That strap across the inside of the elbow could hurt after awhile. I had a sweaty strap there that literally cut me after being drenched in sweat and sawing into my flesh for hours

[wcallen]

Straps across the center of the knee and elbow. Normal. I can get behind that.
Straps on the outside of the wing??? Either these wings are pretty small, or the straps just don't do what I think they should do.

There are lots of interesting things in those images. I expect that the sculptor even meant for them to be that way. Yet another set of things that need to be tried to see how they would work.

Wade

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Those early wings are pretty small. I think the development of plate was very incremental, and it took them awhile to find their backside, even when using both hands. I know how they must have felt. When the first fellow came along who said, 'Screw it! I'm putting the straps on the inside!', everybody else said, 'Genius!'

[Gerhard von Liebau]

I'm quite sure there is a lot of artistic and sculptural evidence to suggest that by 1350-60 it would have been pretty backward to strap a piece from the outside like that, or to have such bulky plate protection over the wrists on a composite gauntlet, etc... I assume that, like with other "guard" sculptures, the artists seem to have intentionally made some elements of the armament crude or unusual to depict the fact that although the men are well-equipped, they are not nobility wearing the finest and most modern sorts of things.

That's my theory based on the apparent contrast in armour shown on contemporary guard statues and noble effigies. The quality of the guards' armour from mid-century typically strikes me as similar to the most likely reconstructions of much of the Wisby armour, which was probably mostly worn by commoners given the situation of the grave finds.

-Gerhard