The Armour Archive

Stonekeep: Advice needed for new 14th century kits

After some prodding by guys like Sean and a few others to come out with something matched up to our poleyn/couter sets, and label them as 14th century kits to make it easier for buyers to hit the right period, I am going to come out with some..

The only issues there were that (1) I hated to make those poleyns, and (2)we use "normal" 15th century or riveted articulation exclusively and it appears they will need floating articulation that I need advice and some pics of the inside if anyone has any (3) It appears most are made with what appears to be 5/6 ounce heavy chap leather that is then splinted instead of the 9/10 ounce thicker stuff we normally use then splint.

#1 I can get around... Some fellows ordered some spring steel poleyns with center creases recently and for once i was able to make some and didnt hate them when finished...lolol

My plan is to offer these out in spring steel, but at mild steel prices.

If I can get some pics of the inside of the floating articulation and responses to some of that above, this is a great time of year for me to work on this and hopefully get it into production right away.

How did you get the idea that 14th-c. knees and elbows didn't use articulating rivets and join up with vambrace and rerebrace/cuisse and greave? For there's any amount of evidence they did.

Once you got past the first third of the 14th, the strapped-on reinforce bits and the not-so-articulated gamboised cuisse were fading away, getting replaced by bascinet-armors' articulated, complete limbs.

Are we thinking of different decades or generations in the fourteenth?

I don't think the German arm was invented until the fifteenth, anyway.

Well, Im just going to be using the poleyns, so nothing different than a simple cop with splinted leather attached. Figured floating articulation was the only way to go.
I know for 14th I could get into full armors, but for this I was going to simply focus on an outlet for these spring poleyns.
Ive already stopped offerring stainless poleyns for sale, and may follow with taking mild ones off as well, then just send people to Matt

Hey Stonekeep,

You may want to start your research here:
http://www.themcs.org/armour/14th%20cen ... armour.htm
If you wait for all the pictures to load and then scan down to the bottom which is late 14th century you will see a number of small 2-lobed (or dog-bone) elbow cops. They have 1-2 lames of shell articulation above and below... net result is a near match to your new smaller dog-bone wing (hey! imagine that.) Now all you have to do is copy down some names and bounce around the internet looking for copyright free photos to link to or include on your web-page. A few of these even have transverse ridges (not longitinal like knees do)

If you slide back to say "William Bruce, died 1346" or "Ralph Willington died 1349" or "John de Cobham, died 1354" you will see nice articulated elbows with a roundell fan. I've got to think that a wingless cop could be quickly converted to a mid-14th cop by riviting on a disk... or the round fan could be included as part of the original pattern... either/or.

There is a REALLY COOL set of fans on the effigy of "William de Gorges died 1346 / Tamerton Foliot" They look like scallop shells and match between elbows and knees. Thats probably a more premium product but I bet someone in Atlantia would go for it.

There arn't many effigies that show knee fans clearly or at all. Most are around "Richard de Willoughby died 1369" or later.

Net result: These are all 14th century designs that are maybe a hair off of what you are already doing (and clearly capable of doing) and I think you would be doing the SCA and other historicaly inspired groups a big favor if you could direct people to equipment choices that were more period inspired and less SCAjin-oid. Lets face it. Not many people who are starting even know HOW to do proper research. It dosn't hurt to give them some help, especially if it dosn't add time or material cost to the product.

I hope this helps.

Sean

Sean Powell wrote:Hey Stonekeep,

You may want to start your research here:
http://www.themcs.org/armour/14th%20cen ... armour.htm
If you wait for all the pictures to load and then scan down to the bottom which is late 14th century you will see a number of small 2-lobed (or dog-bone) elbow cops. They have 1-2 lames of shell articulation above and below... net result is a near match to your new smaller dog-bone wing (hey! imagine that.) Now all you have to do is copy down some names and bounce around the internet looking for copyright free photos to link to or include on your web-page. A few of these even have transverse ridges (not longitinal like knees do)

If you slide back to say "William Bruce, died 1346" or "Ralph Willington died 1349" or "John de Cobham, died 1354" you will see nice articulated elbows with a roundell fan. I've got to think that a wingless cop could be quickly converted to a mid-14th cop by riviting on a disk... or the round fan could be included as part of the original pattern... either/or.

There is a REALLY COOL set of fans on the effigy of "William de Gorges died 1346 / Tamerton Foliot" They look like scallop shells and match between elbows and knees. Thats probably a more premium product but I bet someone in Atlantia would go for it.

There arn't many effigies that show knee fans clearly or at all. Most are around "Richard de Willoughby died 1369" or later.

Net result: These are all 14th century designs that are maybe a hair off of what you are already doing (and clearly capable of doing) and I think you would be doing the SCA and other historicaly inspired groups a big favor if you could direct people to equipment choices that were more period inspired and less SCAjin-oid. Lets face it. Not many people who are starting even know HOW to do proper research. It dosn't hurt to give them some help, especially if it dosn't add time or material cost to the product.

I hope this helps.

Sean

Iv been waiting for you to pop your head up and give me some homework..lolol
Yes, I already do armor using rondells. Been sending out quite a few lately, esp in spring steel. That crowd esp will appreciate having a basis for the armor.
I see this probably going back to a larger website where are the internal options like fans etc. are once again expanded out into individual items. Only way i could do it and base ot off something is to get each item its own spot. Course thats the complete opposite of what we did just two years ago when we condensed our site down..lol

Sorry that I can't give you more homework but this is about 100 years too early for most of my recent researsh. I'm sure there are some Mafia guys who could give you better resources... if only for the opportunity to get more people properly hooked into the 14th century.

If the only thing stopping you is the website then I'm sure you can come up with something. Maybe tracings of the fan design with notes about where it was derived from. Really all you need is a couple of names and a couple of dates.

Sean

Yes, its so hard to tell whats going on from those effigies, except the ones that look more like the 15th century so I can fill in th egaps in my head as how they are made.
Ive got a lot of books with artists renderings of those effigies that i can pour over tonight though. I can usually tell whats going on that way. That probably wouldnt be good enough for the custom guys, but for what i need to accomplish it should work well. Help me date some of the things we already make, plus make a few changes to some things so they can be more easily dated.