Any historical reference to painted armor

[Sword]

Guess the title pretty much says it. Is there?

[Alcyoneus]

Yes.

I think the easiest example to find is to look at the Mac Bible, some of the helmets aren't metal colored.

Do a search for 'painted helm/helmet/armor" (pick one) and you should find some.

[Dan Howard]

Apparently the Romans even painted nice shiney bronze armour.

[Russ Mitchell]

Kelly DeVries maintains that the Scandinavians routinely whitewashed their mail, though when I asked him for a source, he was very cagey and evasive in his reply. (Adding that the origin of the "Black Knight" was from a guy who'd painted his armor...)

[earnest carruthers]

Yes for later periods certainly - see Wallace Collection Very late 15thc early 16thC painted sallets.


Alcyoneus
"I think the easiest example to find is to look at the Mac Bible, some of the helmets aren't metal colored. "

With respect that is not a reliable source on its own, there are things that may be interpreted as being coloured when they may well not have been. For example many of the gambesons are coloured, often on normal footsoldiers, dyed cloth was expensive so why would Jo Soap be wearing a kermes red gambeson?
I am not saying they were not but the Mac Bible has a limited colour pallette and uses it to make the job look pretty

I am pretty sure there was far more painted armour than we realise, but it is hard to find.

Russ
"that the Scandinavians routinely whitewashed their mail"

I can see it now

"follow that white cloud of dust"

[Egfroth]

The Liber ad honorem Augusti by Peter of Eboli, from around 1195, shows helmets which are definitely painted - they have stripes and such. See http://www.renfroana.150m.com/liberadhonorem.htm

Also a Spanish mural of the capture of Majorca dated about 1250, shows helmets painted in stripes.

[earnest carruthers]

Egfroth - definitely? absolutely? really?

A surmise at best, I am not being awkward for the sake of it but it is very easy to make those surmises.

I would prefer could be.

[Jacob]

There is a serious flaw to using paintings as an answer to this question. They are all paint-color.

For early examples we have to look at designs painted on, as Egfroth points out. Later, however, we know it did happen. I believe black and white armours were often painted, not heat blackened.

The cross on my helm is painted, because I believe this would be more common than using brass. I am also going for the maciejowski bible look, where all colors are present.

[Egfroth]

Egfroth - definitely? absolutely? really?

A surmise at best, I am not being awkward for the sake of it but it is very easy to make those surmises.

I would prefer could be.

Maybe I was a little over-positive in my statement. I'd prefer "extremely likely" - but otherwise how does one interpret the pictures? The only alternative interpretation is that the pictures are completely wrong, and if so, we might as well throw out all pictorial evidence . . . .

[Alecks]

There's this picture of a 'black sallet' from 1490 that's quite famous:



According to 'Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight' by David Edge and John Miles Paddock it's in the Royal Armories. This type is described as follows:

By about 1490 two net types of sallet had appeared in Germany. One type is the so-called 'black sallet, depicted in Dürer's famous copperplate Knight, Death and the Devil These sallets were describes as 'black' simply because they were left rough from the hammer and were not ground and polished, but they were sometimes decorated, either by being covered in cloth or painted with heraldic designs, as is an example from the Royal Armories. This type of sallet had an extremely deep skull, with a central ridge wich extended from the base of the skull to the point of its very long tail. The skull was bulbous and almost flat-topped, and the bottom ended in a deep convex curve without a turn. It was equipped with a small flat visor pivoted high on the skull with a spring stud on the right-hand side to lock the visor in position. The other form of sallet had a short, laminated neck guard and a bowl modelled to the head, and was equipped with a visor that covered the whole of the wearer's face, making a bevor unnecessary.

Concerning armour, we can look at wat Blankenshield has to say about it... Mind you, I slightly disagree with him... But I'm no expert and it's been a while when I was last at the Graz armoury...
http://www.livesteelarmor.com/hm/hf.html

[Erik Schmidt]

The one thing that seems to have been missed here is that an original document from the 14th century refers specifically to the covering of helmets with fabric by London armourers. (see: The Armourer & His Craft by Charles Ffolkes)

This could easily account for the different colours. The use of paint over the fabirc is naturally not ruled out.

Erik

[Russ Mitchell]

Nor is it any evidence that England's practices followed those of the continent at large beyond northern France... there's a lot of unknowns here.

[Sword]

Wow! thanks for all the geat info so far! Cloth covered then painted wouldmake the finish more durable too.

Is it me or in the picture of the black helm is that fabric coovered as well?

Keep the info coming!

[Ernst]

The one thing that seems to have been missed here is that an original document from the 14th century refers specifically to the covering of helmets with fabric by London armourers. (see: The Armourer & His Craft by Charles Ffolkes)

This could easily account for the different colours. The use of paint over the fabirc is naturally not ruled out.

Erik

Although ffoulkes claims in Appendix A that the 1322 regulation prohibits covering bascinets with fabric, the actual document is not so explicit. It mentions old broken bascinets being "newly covered" to the detriment of those buying them. It ordains that makers no longer cover them, but sell them "open and ungarnished as men have used before this tyme." No mention of the nature of the covering or method of garnishing is specified. We have previously documented the use of roe (doe) leather for covering plate. Likewise there are the painted black sallets and velvet covered Venetian sallets. There is a 14th century German folding table which shows padded hoods being worn over helms as well.

Still, it is hard to conceive how some helmets in artwork (the black and white zig-zag in the Spanish TI.1 springs to mind) could have been achieved with anything other than paint.

[earnest carruthers]

There is the velvet barbuta with gilt decoration - mid late 15thC - was the velvet original?

Also if one has a look at Venus and Mars - Housebook - there are many pics of soldiers wearing actual cloth covering and some where this is less cloth like.

Also London import rolls for 1480 mention sallet coverings - later than this but part of the mix


Egfroth - how do we interpret such images?
Honestly? in a number of ways for example:

Fabric -
paint -
metal -
artistic impression -

Could be any of those or a combination thereof.

Part of the problem with interpreting at least in this matter is that the paints and colours used in the manucript or panel painting are not likely to be the actual colours used on the metal object. Eg Ultramarine or azurite blues were expensive and not freely available in the quantities needed to cover a helmet. Similarly vermillion reds at the time of the Mac Bible were expensive, later they were less so. Also some of the colours are only used on paper or parchment. So it adds up to at first taking a stab that the portrayal is right in saying a helmet was painted one then has to ask what would be the cheaper more realistic colours available to paint the helmet.

As I said they are as likely to be painted as not, no reason not to suppose given that everthing else seems to have been - but the translation of that to what we do is the bit that gets missed because we take the images as read and copy them like for like - which we can be pretty sure they didn't use electric blues on helmets.

Having said all that the paint they would have used would have made a good protection against rust - as well as having any decorative value.

[clalibus]

Kelly DeVries maintains that the Scandinavians routinely whitewashed their mail, though when I asked him for a source, he was very cagey and evasive in his reply. (Adding that the origin of the "Black Knight" was from a guy who'd painted his armor...)

this may have also been a slang for an overly competent knight on the lists, as the trem "black mail" came from heavily oiling armour won in the lists to be ransomed back to it's initial owners when lost in competitions that had property at stake. they couldn't wear it obviously, and didn't want it to rust so they could get a premium price for it's return, so the oil would protect and off set collor.

[Ambrose]

Japanese armour was lacquered. At least the maille was.

[Erik Schmidt]

Although ffoulkes claims in Appendix A that the 1322 regulation prohibits covering bascinets with fabric, the actual document is not so explicit. It mentions old broken bascinets being "newly covered" to the detriment of those buying them. It ordains that makers no longer cover them, but sell them "open and ungarnished as men have used before this tyme." No mention of the nature of the covering or method of garnishing is specified.

Hey Mart,
thanks for pointing that out. It's beena while since I have looked at Ffoulkes.

We have previously documented the use of roe (doe) leather for covering plate.

Is that also from the 14th c.?

There is a 14th century German folding table which shows padded hoods being worn over helms as well.

Oh, very interesting!!! I haven't come across that one yet.

Erik

[Cet]

Ernst, could you list the origin of the roe leather coverings. I'd made a note of it years ago and can't find where I wrote it down.

thanks

[Ernst]

The Roe leather cite (cuir de Roo--How's that Erik, Roo-skin) is Roll A 1b: (ii) Nov. 1327 - Jul. 1328.

A complaint filed at the Court of Edward III on 17 March 1327.

The petititon alleges "foreigners" (those from outside London and its Guild regulations) were selling within the city sheep leather which had been scraped to imitate roe leather. The roe leather was used for covering plate armor and plate gauntlets, while the bootlegged product failed after becoming wet. The leather used in this application was dyed, and an appeal to keep the leather dyers from using this counterfeit product was also made.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report ... mpid=36653

[Thomas H]

Wow! thanks for all the geat info so far! Cloth covered then painted wouldmake the finish more durable too.

Is it me or in the picture of the black helm is that fabric coovered as well?

Keep the info coming!

No, it's painted directly onto the metal AFAICS, bloody nice it is too,


Mr Grimstone sir, do you have any more info on these coverings? i asked on the RAS forum but it would seem nobody knows. they were leather i vaguely remember?

[earnest carruthers]

Master Thomas, no more than what was in the listing.

[Thomas H]

Ah well, i'm curious as to what they look like, maybe some kind of waterprooff cover for hevay weather? similar to the plastic police helmet slip ons??

[Cet]

Thanks Ernst. that is indeed the ref I'd recalled. Glad to have a ref for the source again.

[Ernst]

Erik,

Sorry, I forgot to respond about the table, but it was previously discussed with ample links on AA earlier in 2005.

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=43686

[Erik Schmidt]

Mart, thanks for the info and the links. Very interesting!

"cuir de Roo"

I missed the discussion on the folding table as I was away for most of 2005 and didn't get time or opportunity to check the forums very much.

Erik

[Alcyoneus]

The Roe leather cite (cuir de Roo--How's that Erik, Roo-skin) is Roll A 1b: (ii) Nov. 1327 - Jul. 1328.

Is it made from kangaroos, or Russians?

Fabric coverings were made for helmets in Egypt and the Middle East, they were essentially insulated with multiple layers. Makes just a bit of sense for a desert environment, doesn't it? I'll try to find the specific book, and now that I have a scanner...

[Jim McCoin]

Please don't laugh at this thought, its quite possible that some of the non metalic colors in the MAC bible could be just be rust.

Jim McCoin

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

"Electric blues' could be acccomplished with heat.

[patric]

IIRC the mispronounski bible also contains atleast one blue horse......

BUT, in reference to discarding the mac bible because of its use of colors in gambesons and cloth garments, BS! no offence man, and i am sorry, but you can take some grass and put it in a pot of boiling water, drain out the solids, and add the gambeson and in about 5 minutes you've got a green gambeson. you can use the same process with red vegitables or flowers and get that deep dark red.

i am absolutely, 100%, sure that colored cloth was more common that natural baige colored cloth. coloring cloth is not a compicated nor expensive thing to do. on top of that, even the lowliest peasants were not color blind. that had some idea of what they thaught looked good and what didnt, and they acted upon that idea. every peasant painting that i have ever seen, from bruegle to the mac bible and the bayuex tapestry, has peasants with colored clothing.


with respect,
patric

[Thomas H]

gawd, you say it like you never saw a blue horse , foreigners
(ducks and runs)

[Ernst]

The Poles used to paint their horses red and white.

I suspect a number of techniques were used to decorate heaumes (pot helms, barrel helms, what have you). Ee.3.69 (helm with the peacock-feather-eyes) and the Mathhew Paris' Westminster Psalter knight (the one with crosses rising over his shoulder) have helms which appear engraved. Some were possibly covered with cloth or leather. Randall Storey has at least one cite of bascinets being covered with white leather. Others seem to have heraldic charges on them which would likely have been painted (although directly to iron, or over the cloth or leather base can be debated). Bertran de Born specifically mentions helms of color, but doesn't mention how the color was applied. We know kings had helms with gems attached, so painting doesn't seem too far-fetched as an explanation for explaining multi-colored patterns on helms.

And welcome back Erik, it's always good to have your knowledge to draw upon.

[Erik Schmidt]

Thanks Mart.

There is a 14th century German folding table which shows padded hoods being worn over helms as well.

Are you referring to the heraldic helmets we see around the border of the tabletop?
What makes you say that they are padded?

I see several helms which appear to have painted sections while over the top and back of most we see a cloth or leather covering, often clearly seen hanging loosely out the back of the helm. On top of this is then the crest.
This cloth or leather covering under the crest is common in the Germanic lands (I have no idea how common in other areas) and is referred to as the "helmdecke". It is thought to be either a fashion accessory or to keep the sun off the metal, or both.
The other coloured areas on the helms below the "helmdecke" seem to be painted on.

Erik

[Ernst]

Erik,

I apologize for the delay in responding. I'm working from the photo in Neubecker's book cited in the table discussion, "Heraldry--Sources, Symbols, and Meanings. Neubecker includes a number of line drawings of these helmets along with photos of the table. Several examples have a rectangular pattern on this "hood". This leads me to think they are quilted items. The colored hoods never cover the face plate, which looks like "white" iron, but seem to fasten at the "chin" of the helmets. IIRC the Zurich Wappenrole has a helmet covered with a bear or "demon" mask, so using some sort of decorative hood for tourney puposes doesn't seem unreasonable. Still, a comparison of depictions might be useful in defining possible interpretations.

Here is one of those Spanish murals, though perhaps not the specific one Egfoth had in mind.

http://cgfa.dotsrc.org/unknown/p-unknow38.htm

How to explain the crescents, crosses, and stripes on the apparent cervellieres?

One of my favorite examples to illustrate the point--

http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.cantiga-battle.html

and the close-up view...

http://www.callisto.si.usherb.ca/~crois ... pagne1.jpg

Now, we know that some helms were colored, Bertran du Born sings about it. Lots of manuscripts show it. Some sculpture implies it. We know that early 14th century bascinets were covered and garnished, some being covered in white leather. We have pictures of red bascinets. These miniatures given for example seem to show some helmets unpainted, but with latten or gilt accents. Others are blue with unusual patterns in white, or covered in a heraldic black and white zig-zag pattern.

We can be pretty confident that the horse's trapper, the pennon, and the surcoat are cloth. We are less sure if the pattern is woven into the cloth, painted upon it, embroidered, appliquéd, or put together in pieces. We can surmise that the shield is made of wood covered with layers of fabric and/or leather, gesso, and paint. We see the same pattern on the squire's cervelliere, and the knight's heaume. I'm not sure if the helm was painted directly, or if a base of cloth or leather was glued over it and then painted, but I don't know how else to explain the zig-zags on the heaume other than paint.

[earnest carruthers]

Patric
"BUT, in reference to discarding the mac bible because of its use of colors in gambesons and cloth garments, BS! no offence man, and i am sorry, but you can take some grass and put it in a pot of boiling water, drain out the solids, and add the gambeson and in about 5 minutes you've got a green gambeson. you can use the same process with red vegitables or flowers and get that deep dark red.

i am absolutely, 100%, sure that colored cloth was more common that natural baige colored cloth. coloring cloth is not a compicated nor expensive thing to do. on top of that, even the lowliest peasants were not color blind. that had some idea of what they thaught looked good and what didnt, and they acted upon that idea. every peasant painting that i have ever seen, from bruegle to the mac bible and the bayuex tapestry, has peasants with colored clothing. "

Who is discarding it? Whether you are of the opinion that coloured cloth was more common or not does not invalidate the point that miniatures are artist impressions. It might occur to a reader that if it were an absolute rendition of real life that it might look a little boring having a swathe of off white linen.

Whatever it is it is not bullshit.

However the idea of dyeing a made up gambeson is. Why soak a multi layered defensive garment in a dye bath in order to merely colour the outer layer? Also if you have managed to do it as you say and assuming it was a proper gambeson not a two or three layered quilt how long did it take to dry?

A pot? if your gambeson is a proper one and full size how big was your pot?

5 minutes? really How did you manage that?

How did you get round the undyed areas where the quilting was?


"coloring cloth is not a compicated nor expensive thing to do. "
Really? maybe you should look at the price of indigo and kermes per pound or madder which was much cheaper - not pocket money items. Because those are the colours represented in those works not grass or 'red vegetables'.

Where did you get your mordants from? How much did you use to dye a whole gambeson?

"every peasant painting that i have ever seen, from bruegle to the mac bible and the bayuex tapestry, has peasants with colored clothing."

So what about the Grisaille works, what colours were people wearing then?

I wont bore you with distinctions between paints and dyes I will leave that up to you find out.

None of the above is about whether they were coloured or not, many garments were that is fact, but about your strange and un-considered reasoning in this particular case.

Before you condemn something as bullshit I suggest you base that on some thinking rather than your supposition.