The Armour Archive

Endre Fodstad

Medieval Scandinavian Warrior 1, which is a period I have a pretty good grasp of, is really, really bad. MSW2 is, according to the swedes I know who are very knowledgeable about the period, is said to be as bad. The problems abound. The swedish historian who served as co-author to Nicolle had, as th...

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Quite some distance from where it was found, likely, but most of the finds from melting glaciers seem to be from hunters and travellers. It's one of the few lucky breaks we get from the global warming. Of course, nobody even suspected that it was a tunic until Vegard started unfolding it....and real...

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Ach, I'll just repost some old threads: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55804&highlight=vapntreiyu http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=58161&highlight=vapntreiyu http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55477&highlight=vapntreiyu They all conta...

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It is not technically "our" table - the family who owns the building have a special offer where you can spend the night in the house in a medieval athmosphere and they've bought some quite decent stoneware for that purpose! You just put a length of wick into the liquid and let it soak for a while. A...

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They're often called train oil lamps. It is available commercially as train oil, but it is technically a liquid wax made from blubber. Likely, medieval scandinavians used the remnant train oil that didn't go to food seasoning; what you can get commercially today would be much higher quality than that.

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For Scandinavia at least, Whale blubber lamps: [img]http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy69/toman_75/Vandringstur%202009/DSC05669.jpg[/img] Works like a charm. Pics from an overland trip we did, where we spent the night at an old pilgrim's rest from the 13th century: [img]http://i778.photobucket.com...

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While teal script on black background may look cool, it also makes it difficult to read.

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We have examples of early CoP before the 14th century in western Europe. They are often coined "armoured surcoats" or something like it, but really - it is the same sort of armour. The norwegian Hird would quite often fight on foot; the kingdom's armies tended to operate from ships. The skutilsveina...

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I also think it looks real foolish, based on my knowledge of the use of CoP. Written scandinavian sources (relevant to the Wisby finds) support the idea that the CoP was not used as stand-alone armour: the armour is the "final piece" of body armour described in the hirdskraa and levy laws, including...

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Bad: a) David Nicole... 'nuff said. maybe not..... Why? Nicolle, at least in the older books, has a tendency to credit interaction with the East for many Western European armour inovations. Doesn't seem to be restricted to the older books. In the Medieval Scandinavian Warrior (1) book, we learn tha...

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I thought english muster rolls went all the way back to the 13th century? Does anybody know if those are going on-line as well?

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The armour on the set looks earlier to me. The brimmed helms, like square topped shields, have been around a while: Er. That is a really big typological jump you made there. Continuity in helmet design between the Hellenistic period in the mediterranean and high medieval scandinavia? There is no ar...

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I think the usual dating of the Lewis chessmen is 12th century. Look at the kettle hats and flat-topped shields: 11th century would be too early.

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This is one of Charlemagne's chess pieces with a kite shield from about 800. His empire was supposed to have contact as far away as India and at least according to legend these chess pieces (?) were carved out of the tusk of an elephant gifted to him from an Indian king. I think that set dates from...

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This is....mind-bogglingly stupid. The diahrrea of the most chilidish, idiotic kind of internet debate has flooded into the TV medium. I guess it was only a matter of time. :cry: Some of the "scientific experiments" are highly amusing. I looked at the current "Spartan vs Ninja" :roll: thing on their...

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This: In response to the earlier thread about vikings, the people I would consider the source of Huscarl combat - which is pointedly NOT SCA combat with rebated steel - are indeed a part of a group, but they most certainly are not, as huscarl enthusiasts, representative of said group. What I meant ...

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This: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Warbow-Robert-Hardy/dp/0750931671 is the most amusing book in the world. The authors - one a longbow (over)enthusiast, one a historian actually disagree on the central theme of the book and yet get to write a 550-page book together. This is accomplished by them wr...

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Image doesn't seem to work, but there are a few hand-and-a-half swords depicted in 13th century art. They are very rare, though.

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The succession of plagues which ravaged Europe between 1300 and 1700 fostered the belief in vampires, mainly because the decomposition of corpses was not well understood, Borrini said.

Er. The ancient romans believed in vampires. Perhaps the plagues encouraged further belief in them.

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The Florence Flood did, to some extent, entail the birth of modern museum conservation as it became painfully apparent that there was a need to train people to conserve (as opposed to just restore) cultural heritage.

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Andrew Young wrote:Truly, I love this board!

I wanna see Jesus with an Ipod now!

I think this is Mary with a mobile phone:

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Here he is on a skateboard

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c259/ ... ensbkk.jpg

(from VallensbÃ¦k church, Denmark, mid-15h century)

Also fun.

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Once again on the norse sources. In 1914 Hjalmar Falk documented a grand total of three mentions of leather armour in the extant saga material. One was the magical reindeer coat of Tore Hund at the battle of Stiklestad. The other is a reference to "Thykkum Lerpannzarum" in the norse translation of t...

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Yes, but that wouldn't be something we can classify as armour. Of course people would have worn something beneath their maille, and of course every little bit helps..."said the mouse, pissing into the sea"

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Leather was certainly known and in use for the era. We have archeological finds of various leather implements. And there are saga descriptions of leather having been used as a coat, even - at least in one case - of someone resisting sword blows with a coat of reindeer hide (Heimskringlasaga, by Sno...

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The Type Bs are birch and pine compression wood, as I understand it. It is the warbow Type A's that sometimes are yew.

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Then buy one off him: http://kviljo.no/bue/ "Kontakt" means .... well, I guess you know what it means. His email adress can be found there. "Buer" means bows and showcases the bows he sells. However, I recommend contacting him directly and seeing what he'd want for a bow. I don't think he's all that...

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Plenti of laminated/composite bows in scandinavia. Here are some reconstructions of the "Type B" finds from Bergen, Nidaros and Oslo, 13th century: [img]http://kviljo.no/bue/60.jpg[/img] ...note the siyahs. These are relatively light hunting bows. [img]http://kviljo.no/bue/nydam2/1.jpg[/img] And her...

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Oki doki. Norse sources first. All translations are my own from translations into norwegian from old norse and suck mightily. The Landslov (Law of the Land), between 1265 and 1275, from the reign of Magnus LagabÃ¸te, says: -The man who owns 18 weighed marks (of silver) excepting his clothes, shall h...

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Here is the relevant passages from the Primary Chronicle: 986. Vladimir was visited by Bulgars of Muslim faith, who said, "Though you are a wise and prudent prince, you have no religion. Adopt our faith and revere Mahomet." Vladimir inquired about the nature of their religion. They replied that they...

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When knyaz Volodimir of Kiev contemplated conversion to "non-Paganism" he sent envoys to Western Europe, Byzantium, Baghdad... They returned with the report that Western Europe was dark, gloomy, damp, and all around sour Byzantium on the other hand was airy, bright... So yes by first hand account -...

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I would recommend Peter Heather's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" rather than Ward-Perkins' work. His analysis seem far more thorough and less selective and speculative than the impression I got from Ward-Perkins (as well as WP's rather...odd...observations on wooden building technology and the usefu...

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*double post* damn the archive lag

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As far as I know there is nothing new to the subject that has appeared after I posted the abovequoted passage.

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On the quality of iron after the fall of the roman hegemony: Lets just say they didn't chisel the iron connecting pins out of roman stone columns because they had an abundance of good quality of iron to work with. Re-using discarded materials is not new to the early middle ages, so that is not a fu...

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