The Armour Archive

[quote="Richard de Scolay]
Jess, I agree on one hand, but on the other hand I don't think you can say that is "always" true.
[/quote]

I suppose I can only say it has always been true in my personal experience in modern culture, in my interaction in school, work, family, recreation, and sporting life.

[quote="Richard de Scolay]
Unless there is an attempt to conceal the fact that they are a woman, they will be at "a serious liability... interacting with men" regardless as to whether they dress like a man or not.
[/quote]

I agree, but I think some of the effect can be mitigated with actions and appearance without concealment or when concealment is not practicable. But I know from inadvertent experience that you can certainly do things to exacerbate it.

[quote="Richard de Scolay]
If they are not trying to conceal the fact that they are a woman, then why should we assume that they would dress like a man simply because it's a male dominated role when in nearly all other roll-reversed situations they opt to continue to dress differently?
[/quote]

It’s hard for me to explain since I have no concrete example from you. Give me one and I will try. But I suspect the main difference is I'm not talking about a male dominated role. I'm talking about what was considered to be an exclusively male role. I'm talking about a mental conception at the essence of what is considered martial. That martial is masculine. That in being martial, those women were considered to be masculine and completely outside of femaleness. That they “unsexedâ€

Personally, I haven't been able to find much reason why in a functional sense, women's armor today need be much different than a man's. I have been looking through tons of pictures of female fighters in the SCA and even some LH photos of women in harness and the vast majority of them wear a kit that is for the most part indistinguishable from their male counterparts. Even over different styles. I have come to the belief that if history were different and women participated in martial activities openly alongside men as they do now there wouldn't be that much difference between their harnesses. I suppose this is a little outside the original topic but worth expressing. And one of the reasons I am trying to compile all those pictures.

Jess wrote:Now this is pure Jess:

Why wouldn't a woman actually fighting or seriously pursuing the life at arms with men (assuming her gender was not being intentionally concealed) want to emphasize she is a female? Because it would be a serious liability and a serious pain in the ass interacting with men at all times. I know this from experience from the last 15+ years. Any of these women who create these kits and wear them in heavy SCA lists on a regular basis will begin to understand this as well. The SCA is a poor comparison to LH, and no substitute to any actual medieval experience, but once you've had to deal with a little taste of Cian's example bullshit while you are seriously trying to acquire skill in armoured combat... Well, all of a sudden, veils, and skirts, and nipple detail on your armour don't seem like such a good idea anymore.

BAM. And there it is.

Flittie, this is why these threads turn into flamewars. The people who would be the "end users" of this research have been playing with dorks for umpteen years and a culture has developed in response, and it's Not InterestedTM. I can tell you from experience that you'll find great interest among young ladies (not to mention men) who are outside that culture, but there aren't many of them here.

chef de chambre wrote:The very *CONCEPT* of a seperate female form of arms and armour being a historical reality in the Middle Ages in Western Europe, flies in the face of all knowledge we have of said society. It is beyond their percieved societal sphere (nevermind generally accepeted societal sphere), and the woman who broke from the norm, of neccessity used the male forms of armour.

Great rant, Chef. If your grasp of the objective of the current exercise was equal to the depth of your conviction, we wouldn't have any work left before us.

You are conflating the way of the medieval world (which did separate the spheres of masculinity and femininity) with their ideology and morality. This is a great mistake I think, because the only people inclined to write on the second are nearly all of the same mind (on principals, if not particulars), and their views are demonstrably not representative of the of the behavior (or even inclination) of much of the world around them.
You have a habit of attributing moral authority to matters of practicality and cultural inertia, and in my opinion this is often -as now- to the detriment of your argument.

I must apologize. As usual, I explained myself poorly. I was speculating without making clear that I was hypothesizing. I actually agree with Chef that if any historical women participated in combat, they wore male clothing and male armor for practical reasons among others. I do agree that the medieval and Renaissance artwork showing armored women relies on artistic conventions and has little basis in reality. I gratefully acknowledge that Chef has proved that historical women's armor always followed male fashion, such as the peascod belly. I stand corrected.

I still believe that medieval and Renaissance images of armored women have some uses, though perhaps not in the SCA. There are non-SCA groups that allow fantasy kits, and perhaps the art might inspire some of those people.

Yeah I think we need to put this in perspective. As an interesting look in to medieval ideas of myhtological and aligorical womens armour where it is not simply male armour with a dress under it- it is quite interesting and could produce some cool stuff - BUT- as living history it has no real value unless you are intentionaly doing something for an alligorical/themed festival, baquet/masque, tourney or parade.

Destichado wrote:

Jess wrote:Now this is pure Jess:

Why wouldn't a woman actually fighting or seriously pursuing the life at arms with men (assuming her gender was not being intentionally concealed) want to emphasize she is a female? Because it would be a serious liability and a serious pain in the ass interacting with men at all times. I know this from experience from the last 15+ years. Any of these women who create these kits and wear them in heavy SCA lists on a regular basis will begin to understand this as well. The SCA is a poor comparison to LH, and no substitute to any actual medieval experience, but once you've had to deal with a little taste of Cian's example bullshit while you are seriously trying to acquire skill in armoured combat... Well, all of a sudden, veils, and skirts, and nipple detail on your armour don't seem like such a good idea anymore.

BAM. And there it is.

Flittie, this is why these threads turn into flamewars. The people who would be the "end users" of this research have been playing with dorks for umpteen years and a culture has developed in response, and it's Not InterestedTM. I can tell you from experience that you'll find great interest among young ladies (not to mention men) who are outside that culture, but there aren't many of them here.

chef de chambre wrote:The very *CONCEPT* of a seperate female form of arms and armour being a historical reality in the Middle Ages in Western Europe, flies in the face of all knowledge we have of said society. It is beyond their percieved societal sphere (nevermind generally accepeted societal sphere), and the woman who broke from the norm, of neccessity used the male forms of armour.

Great rant, Chef. If your grasp of the objective of the current exercise was equal to the depth of your conviction, we wouldn't have any work left before us.

You are conflating the way of the medieval world (which did separate the spheres of masculinity and femininity) with their ideology and morality. This is a great mistake I think, because the only people inclined to write on the second are nearly all of the same mind (on principals, if not particulars), and their views are demonstrably not representative of the of the behavior (or even inclination) of much of the world around them.
You have a habit of attributing moral authority to matters of practicality and cultural inertia, and in my opinion this is often -as now- to the detriment of your argument.

I'll just have to dissagree with you, and strongly.

I've read quite a deal regarding the society as it was, not merely the ideology of said society, which I am easily able to seperate and analyze. If you don't read up on, and have a grasp of the society as is documented (court records, & etc.), as well as the mores of the society in general, then you end up with a fractured picture, suceptable to flaws by interjecting our own culture as it is, and our cultural ideas projected onto the past.

The vast preponderance of evidence is on my side of this, including the evidence we have for the only three known and documentable women, operating as women and 'soldiers' in harness

chef de chambre wrote:The vast preponderance of evidence is on my side of this, including the evidence we have for the only three known and documentable women, operating as women and 'soldiers' in harness

Three? Which three are you classifying as documentable and why did you draw the line that excludes others? And what periods of history are you including?

Richard de Scolay wrote:

chef de chambre wrote:The vast preponderance of evidence is on my side of this, including the evidence we have for the only three known and documentable women, operating as women and 'soldiers' in harness

Three? Which three are you classifying as documentable and why did you draw the line that excludes others? And what periods of history are you including?

Late Medieval/Renaissance.

I set the bar very high, because when the bar for proof is set that high, there can be no dispute or debate regarding the evidence, I am talking of unimpeachable, readily and solidly documented examples.

Far too often the topic is made a laughingstock, by using 'documentation' that is not only disputable, but readily refuted. If you want the subject of women in armour, or women in combat to be taken seriously, you have to use unimpeachable and solidly documentable examples. To cast the net so wide as to accept dubious sources is to destroy ones own argument.

We have Petrach's Maria, Joan of Arc (no better documentation than a bill for the armour listed as being specifically made for her), and Queen Elizabeth.

If it wasn't clear in my post above, I do agree with Chef on the scarcity of documentable examples of women wearing armor and agree that women wearing armor would have worn male armor (and would have worn male clothing if they actually engaged in combat).

A problem arises when SCA fighters discussing armor for women use the historical scarcity of armored women in combat as an excuse for throwing away all historicity and instead recommending modern fantasy art as inspiration. I thought that medieval fantasy art might be a better alternative, especially when it includes armor on a woman that is comparable to armor on men in more "realistic" art of the period. Some people, for whatever reason, seem unable to visualize standard armor on a woman, and I thought that some of these art images might be helpful.

By the way, Chef, where is the contemporary image of Queen Elizabeth in a peascod cuirass? That would be good to add to Karen Larsdatter's page.

I have wondered if, when SCA armorers have problems with making female armor, it's occasionally because they're not dishing pieces as much as historic pieces were dished.

Bumping this as I'd like help in searching for the contemporary image of Elizabeth I in a peascod cuirass, mentioned by Chef. A quick Google Images search on "Elizabeth" and "armour" is bringing up mainly pictures of Cate Blanchett or non-armored portraits of Queen Bess.

I am hunting. As I recollect, it was a contemporary engraving of the muster at Tillbury in 1588, in response to the Spanish Armada.

From a description

Prior to the speech the Armada had been driven from the Strait of Dover in the Battle of Gravelines eleven days earlier, and had by now rounded Scotland on its way home, but troops were still held at ready in case the Spanish army of Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma, might yet attempt to invade from Dunkirk; two days later they were discharged. On the day of the speech, the Queen left her bodyguard before the fort at Tilbury and went among her subjects with an escort of six men. Lord Ormonde walked ahead with the Sword of State; he was followed by a page leading the Queen's charger and another bearing her silver helmet on a cushion; then came the Queen herself, in white with a silver cuirass and mounted on a grey gelding. She was flanked on horseback by her Lieutenant General the Earl of Leicester on the right, and on the left by the Earl of Essex, her Master of the Horse. Sir John Norreys brought up the rear.

In further Google searching, based on the term "Tilbury," I'm finding versions of an engraving of Elizabeth in a cuirass from a book by William Dugdale, published in 1681.

Found another early image of Elizabeth at Tilbury (http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/images/ElizaTilbury.jpg). I can't make out whether she's wearing armor in this one.

Perhaps this is the one? The only problem is that it seems it is dated to 1754.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/51243376/Hulton-Archive

What a pity an interesting look in to period depictions of fighting women deteriorated in to yet another pointless arguement about did women fight for real in the Middle Ages...

Richard de Scolay wrote:Perhaps this is the one? The only problem is that it seems it is dated to 1754.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/51243376/Hulton-Archive

Nope, that is not the one. It may actually be a later artists engraving of a mural painting from the era that is no longer extant. In it, she wears a breast and back and no other armour, but the details are correct for dress, including those silly tall round-topped Elizabethan hats on a lot of the mustered militia.

The painting Flittie posted is about right in composition, except Queen Elizabeth does not wear a cuirasse (but of course she rides a grey).

Dragon_Argent wrote:What a pity an interesting look in to period depictions of fighting women deteriorated in to yet another pointless arguement about did women fight for real in the Middle Ages...

Well, the two issues are somewhat related.

Effingham wrote:Well, the two issues are somewhat related.

I don't really agree- maybe vaguely.