I do not deny that the Franks, Merovingian or Carolingian, had mail (or some sort of body armor), and I have not discussed the Anglo-Saxons or the Anglo-Danes. But where are the Scandinavians? I must admit that I haven’t studied sources for Scandinavia in much detail at all though as Scandinavian...

There are a fair number of literary references and depictions of mail in England from just before and right through the Viking Age, the Bayeux Tapestry from right at the end of the period being an obvious but by no means unique example, from just before the Viking Age come the eighth century Repton ...

I have always found the use of a spear by Odin, the "Chief of the Gods," odd. Recently, however, I was working on The Stuttgart Psalter, a Frankish illuminated manuscript of the 9th century, where I saw kings (the ones with crown on their head) holding a spear. This is streching things, but the use...

I'm in the blue tunic and Coppergate helm

Starn wrote:I was with Grantanbrycg as a squishy so my shield was red and black. I had a green wool tunic with red and yellow embriodery on it if that helps Lol.

G'day Jason!

Purely out of interest what have they got against the SCA?

Half an hour wind down with a cup of tea and a tot of rum.

There have been some interesting "knee-jerk reactions". Why is it that people who do steel feel the need to insist that it's safe ?. Because it was suggester/insinuated that it was not What's the difficulty with recognizing that it's an inherently hazardous activity that requires a number of precau...

Gosh. That sounds like it's dangerous and you take real precautions to keep it safe. If it weren't dangerous you wouldn't need months of training and stringent qualifications, yes ? There is always a level of risk involved in trying to hit someone with a piece of metal, but the fact people are doin...

It is based on and a development of work done by Stephen Hand and Paul Wagner and published in articles in the two SPADA volumes. The guard positions and the principles of rotating the body around the shield are taken from sword and duelling shield sections of Talhoffer, and the similarity of such g...

I'm another who didn't like Cornwells books much, exciting battles but in many places (particularly Alfred, the Saxons and religion) truly wretched research. Tim Severinns trilogy is well worth a read and I love Lawheads Byzantium . Pick of the bunch at the moment IMHO is Robert Low's The Whale Road...

I'd never heard of it being dated to later than that, though AFAIK the decorative bits are not contemporary with the bowl, the following is taken from 'Arms and Armor of Medieval Knight' by D. Edge and J. M. Paddock. 'The Saint Wenceslas helmet is a mysterious archeological find. The bowl of the hel...

Late 12th century

This is a good one, a whole glossy magazine of photos from Hastings!

I can think of at least 3 groups with good safety records that use single-handed spear and shield (with brand new never ever fought before combatants). Interesting, the only one I’m aware of is a relatively small society that holds regular training to get new members up to scratch, whether this w...

Actually the practice was adopted (a fair few years back) was based on it being safer to use 2 hands on a spear than 1 (but people still wanted to use a shield). It's being abandoned by many individuals because there is no evidence to suggest this was done (very limited evidence for double-handed s...