The Armour Archive

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 11:04 pm**

Like many of you, Ive seen the tantalizing 'sitting knight' in the red jupon with what looks like an upright bargrill without the sides. I forget the reference off hand...maybe Christ and the sleeping guards or disciples.

At any rate, I was watching a U-tube documentary on the history of fight schools (which wasnt great in terms of text content but exceedingly good in pictures...which made up for it).

And while the pictures are rolling by (they go pretty fast) I caught two images real quick which were quite exciting....at least Ive never seen them before....There has still been some debate, but I think we can say with more certainty that some bargrills were in existence to some extent prior to the latter 15th century tourney helmets.

I tried to find any documentation..but Im sure it could be scrounged up.

While I have no date, from first appearances:

This appears to show elements suggestive of the first quarter of the 15th century (hourglass gauntlets, arm and leg harness, clothing, early plackart, etc....the upper cuirass is similar to one described by Boccia I believe.)

This appears to be "Germanic" from about 1415-1440. I think this one is more debatable. I did several high resolution imaging scans and at the clearest it does not appear to be a face. It looks like horizontal grills somehow worn over a camail/aventail.

Anyway, exciting finds, at least for me.

Enjoy

Drew

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 11:54 pm**

Hey cool, we can make one like that. Yes?

I like the one Shrek had in the first movie.

You have a good idea about more period looking bar grills.
Looks like a job for Plasma Man.

Thanks for the pics.

Hal

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:47 am**

The second image is from cpg 403, a copy of Veldeke's Eneit, of 1418-9. What you think to be horizontal bars are almost certainly an attempt to represent chin, lips, and the bottom of the nose.

http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ebind/d ... 403504.jpg

I always liked the "Elmer Fudd goes to bat" scene from the same manuscript.

http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ebind/d ... 403306.jpg

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:57 am**

Ernst wrote:I always liked the "Elmer Fudd goes to bat" scene from the same manuscript.

http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ebind/d ... 403306.jpg

Oh I love that

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:50 am**

Ernst wrote:The second image is from cpg 403, a copy of Veldeke's Eneit, of 1418-9. What you think to be horizontal bars are almost certainly an attempt to represent chin, lips, and the bottom of the nose.

IMHO, I do not know the source, I have never seen it, but those really look like horizontal bar grills to me. The artist certainly had no problem realizing a face on the other subject in his piece. The unfortunate oponent's helm seems very easy to make out. This does not look like a lack of ability or poor resolution, to me. I feel the artist intended horizontal bars on the helmet. Just my 2 cents.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:33 am**

At first I thout the second image was a visor with horizontal cut breaths. After seeing the non-youtube image I think the shape is very indicitive of the artists style for showing chin and lips.

Sean

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:47 am**

Do you guys think the first example is intended to represent a tourney or warfare? It looks like the latter to me, judging by the dissimilarities in equipment.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:25 am**

Sean Powell wrote:At first I thout the second image was a visor with horizontal cut breaths. After seeing the non-youtube image I think the shape is very indicitive of the artists style for showing chin and lips.

Sean

I'm with Sean on this one. The artist wasn't putting a whole lot of effort into getting the detail of faces. The "Elmer fudd" scene clearly shows that he represents faces by a series of horizontal lines (eyes/nose/mouth).

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:31 am**

owen matthew wrote:
Ernst wrote:The second image is from cpg 403, a copy of Veldeke's Eneit, of 1418-9. What you think to be horizontal bars are almost certainly an attempt to represent chin, lips, and the bottom of the nose.

IMHO, I do not know the source, I have never seen it, but those really look like horizontal bar grills to me. The artist certainly had no problem realizing a face on the other subject in his piece. The unfortunate oponent's helm seems very easy to make out. This does not look like a lack of ability or poor resolution, to me. I feel the artist intended horizontal bars on the helmet. Just my 2 cents.

Menpo! Kettle hats with Menpo!

Kidding. Seriously, I think it's meant to show the fellow's face, just a bad angle. Other images by the artist show similar minimalist representations of faces.

What I find more interesting is the sword through and through the opponent. Can anyone enlighten us as to what is being represented ? The setting suggests to me a judicial duel.

I'm always interested in the images showing weapons defeating armour.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:17 am**

Kilkenny wrote:
Sean Powell wrote:At first I thout the second image was a visor with horizontal cut breaths. After seeing the non-youtube image I think the shape is very indicitive of the artists style for showing chin and lips.

Sean

I'm with Sean on this one. The artist wasn't putting a whole lot of effort into getting the detail of faces. The "Elmer fudd" scene clearly shows that he represents faces by a series of horizontal lines (eyes/nose/mouth).

I am also in agreement. If you look at the non-youtube pic, there is a line that seems to depict the definition of the cheekbone as well.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:52 am**

Looks a whole lot like Elmer Fudd's helmet has a bargrill visor, to me.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:07 am**

Russ Mitchell wrote:Looks a whole lot like Elmer Fudd's helmet has a bargrill visor, to me.

I looked at that pretty closely and convinced myself that it is meant to be a globose type plate visor. I think the artist on this manuscript is not one of our best sources

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:50 pm**

The other image I believe is in a manuscript in the BNF or atleast one by the same artist. It has an amazing variety of helmets and I think is 1430s or 1440s French.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:07 pm**

Well, the first one is most likely bars it still seems but I agree the second image is probably lips...bummer.... though the lack of that nose is so tantalizing..... :lol:

Good call Ernst.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:25 pm**

Then I yeild to the crowd! A rough pair of lips it is!

:oops:

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 4:45 pm**

Awesome kettle hats by the way...

The penetrating weapon looks like a falchion.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:26 pm**

Kilkenny wrote:What I find more interesting is the sword through and through the opponent. Can anyone enlighten us as to what is being represented ? The setting suggests to me a judicial duel.

I'm always interested in the images showing weapons defeating armour.

The image depicts the duel between Eneas and Turnus for the hand of Livinia, whose father had promised the girl to both men.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:44 pm**

Kilkenny

I'm always interested in the images showing weapons defeating armour.

K,

Its possible the victim here may have mail on below the cuirass. There are some images of kastenbrusts during this period worn by themselves over a mail hauberk, ie, without a fauld. So while this is purely an image the suggestion of such impalement may derive from the use of a mail defense only in the region.

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:51 am**

Here's the Angst Altar (around 1490) in the German National Museum, NÃ¼rnberg.

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:45 am**

adamstjohn wrote:Here's the Angst Altar (around 1490) in the German National Museum, NÃ¼rnberg.

Wow Adam, I have never seen that one either! I would place the armour a bit earlier than 1490....looks closer to 1440s. Either way its almost a direct version of the sitting knight (from Chuck Davis's site)

[img]http://www.mallet-argent.com/images/Grldoc1.jpg[/img]

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:49 am**

So to recap, this is what I know of in terms of documentation from the earliest grills images:

latter 14th century

probably circa 1420s

probably circa 1440s

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:42 pm**

Akin to that discussion about the risks of using heroic epic poems from Iceland as proof for certain kinds of material culture (over in that Viking thread), these two images of a religious scene, painted about 100 years apart but with matching identifiers (like the upright bar visor) only serve as proof that artists worked from standard models, often recorded in model books. Just like saints do things like carry around wheels to indicate they're Catherine, this guy's upright bar visor is probably more about his role in the scene and less about real-life armour at the time of the painting -- especially in the instance of the latter one.

Models in model books are new at some point or another, and at the time of their genesis it's possible at least some of their visual identifiers are taken from the world around them. When they're used a hundred years later though, the model is more likely to be archaic on two levels -- the model itself is archaic and the subject matter is purposefully depicted as archaic.

I'm not saying visors were never open or grilled, etc. Just saying that the weight applied to something's existence in a particular time and place based on imagery must be determined by the context of the image. Some imagery is stronger than other imagery wrt "proving" something's existence. To give you a contrasting example, the early 15thc illuminations from Gaston Phebus's Book of the Hunt in the BNL are intended to instruct in a real-life task -- hunting. The clothing and items displayed are not meant to be symbolic -- they're meant to be recognized as real to contemporary readers. Those illuminations are more trustworthy in defining material culture than those complicated with hagiographical meaning.

-Tasha

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:58 pm**

Wow talk about throwing water on a grease on the fire Tasha! Extremely good points.

Okay lets assume the second image with the upright bargrill is essentially an updated copy of the first image with the upright bargrill, let me pose a question to anyone

...if the upright bargrill is an identifier, what is it representing?

Is there some symbolic significance of a bargrill, for lack of a better period term?

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:06 pm**

Here are a few more

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:12 pm**

and more

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:17 pm**

and more

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:39 pm**

Of course we also have the hotly debated Fiore bar grilles.

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:45 pm**

Talbot wrote:Here are a few more

Talbot - where, what, and when are these from?

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:53 pm**

I wish I knew. They are just pics on my HD

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:07 pm**

Oh my the fights I have had about those Fiore pics.

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:16 pm**

There are a couple in Durers passion scenes as well. Why do these things keep showing up in passion scenes or people who are the enemy? Since grills were often used in tournaments could the association be something like tournaments are morally bad, people at tournaments wear grills, therfore scenes of romans treating christ cruelly show tournament grills because these people have low morals?

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:30 pm**

Oei nice game.

I can think up something else. Tournament are for the ruling elite. The Romans were the ruling elite thus all romans wear bargrills!

But seriously now, I would be interest in any known symbolic meaning of a grill. Anybody has a clue?

Thanks,

Max

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:43 pm**

Talbot wrote:and more

Ohh.. Now that's a seriously funky looking arrangement. To me that reads as a bar grill with a side pivot, mounted to the center of the rondel.
Completely outside anything I've imagined.

One of the earlier pics in the series you've posted shows what looks like it could be a completely SCA legal klap(bar)viser. That's very intriguing.

The bulging vertical bars on some of the later helms are certainly documented - but I really can't stand the way they look. IMO, they're just plain ugly.

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:10 pm**

How about this. Sorry it isn't a painting. and I know they are not the best pictures. I am pretty sure I took these in Munich at the National Museum, but I am not positive. Enjoy

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc15 ... 010507.jpg

[img]http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc154/ZackPretz/P1010507.jpg[/img]

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc15 ... 010506.jpg

[img]http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc154/ZackPretz/P1010506.jpg[/img]

Posted: **Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:45 pm**

Talbot wrote:Here are a few more

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