Anglo Saxon at Hastings

[Robert of Canterbury]

or Stamford for that matter..

What do We have? Fyrd, Housecarls, Royal housecarls? (Is there any distinction?

Soft & Hard kit, on the field and in the camp.

LH/Regia/Vik as well as SCA please.

Some thoughts from our own Egfroth of Hastings 2006

[Robert of Canterbury]

I wanna be a Anglo Saxon soldier at the Battle of Hastings. I have two problems. First, I hate bargrills. Second, I dont like the look of greathelms... I like spangen helm tops. Did they have spangen helms with closed faces? Also, what should I have in my soft kit? What cloth pieces would I wear over my SCA legal arm/leg protection?

Thanks

[Ceawlin Alreding]

Very basically, because there are tons of people here who are more knowledgeable about this..
Spagen helms or conicals are the helms of this period. I think spagens are more "old fashioned" to this time period, but heirloom armor and weapons are more common than you would think.
In the SCA there are a lot of helms that feature either leather or maille drapes that cover the ironmongery. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than most of the stuff we wore in the 80's. Knotwulf Armory http://www.knotwolf.com/mambo/ is a good example of this genre of helm. Fyrdmen are sort of the National Guard of England, which is your basic pissed-off Farmer with a spear and maybe an heirloom helm (probably Danish, as you're about two generations out of the Danelaw.)
Maille, conical helm, sword shield and slightly fancier duds would place you in the Thegn or Huscarl class. For the SCA, hidden "safety gear" under garb can be done well, with hidden safety gear under maille for the upgrade package.
If you poke around you can find a few more Saxon and Norman threads that are more complete. Sir Kenric, Sir Camric and Sir Graedwyn have great kits, and there are pictures of them here somewhere..

[GenericUnique]

Essentially, your soft kit will be the same as your Norman opposite number, except with trousers instead of single-legged hose. Possibly more frequent use of winnegas/legwraps.

Hard kit wise- huscarl axes are the major distinction. And less archery.

[James B.]

Here are the basic kit guidelines for the Vikings UK http://www.vikingsonline.org.uk/resourc ... /index.htm

On trousers vs hose; I think either is right there are arguments for hosen in some Anglo Saxon art.

I have information on making some clothing for that era.

Hosen:

http://www.historiclife.com/Essays/howto_hose.html

How the Thorsberg Trousers fit together:

http://www.historiclife.com/Essays/Thor ... ousers.htm

Fitting the Kragelund Tunic (c.1040-1155.)
for a Large Man:

http://www.historiclife.com/Essays/KragelundTunic.htm

Images of my Anglo Saxon and my Norman kit are here:

http://www.historiclife.com/HistoricalClothing/11th.htm


There is some great info on all things leather in Leather and Leatherworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York: The Archaeology of York: The Small Finds 17/16--Craft, Industry and Everyday Life. Shoes, knife sheaths, and sword sheaths. The finds run from the 7th to 15th century with plenty of 10th and 11th century finds.

[Maredudd]

There are many links (unfortunately some are now dead) if you search for "Hastings 2006" in the Interpretive Re-creation forum.
There are people discussing their gear before the event and photos from the event.
THE book on clothing is "Dress in Anglo-Saxon England" by Gale R. Owen-Crocker. ISBN 1 84383 081 7

[Antonis]

http://www.regia.org/

Great site for our period. Fantastic articles, if a little shallow sometimes.

[Mord]

The best discussion I've read on arms and armour of the period is by JG Mann in Stenton's book on the Bayeux Tapestry.

Mord.

[Braxus The Light]

From head to toe, this is what I wear and have worn for my kit. (Pics follow soon after)

-A nasal from Accdntprone, here on the archive, very reasonable prices and he'll help you help with attaching an avintail Price= $125-$300 depending on what you want.

-Gorget, depending on your kingdom a chain avintail covers that spot, but just in case madmattsarmory.com is a good place for a fair priced piece. $20-$30

- Elbow/forearm protection, you have a few choices from my experience. I prefer bazubands since it's a one piece deal. Your choice.
1) bokalosarmory.com $100-$200, great guy.
2) icefalcon.com $195 and up. Great customer service.
3) skaldic.com $200, best leather I've ever used!

-Hand/Wrist again a few choices.
1) darkvictory.com $15-$25, It's plastic but Jordan does a bang up job!
2) madmattsarmoury.com $80-$400, need I say more.
3) skaldic.com $25-$250, Best leather lol (IMO)
4) icefalcon.com $95 and up. Top notch steel.

- Infamous Kidney protection
1) darkvictory.com or his ebay shop $30ish? It's plastic so it would have to be hidden, but going for a Norman kit you can easily hide it.
2) vikingleathercrafts.com $99-$150, I have one and LOVE IT. Not an understatement.

-And finally knees
Bokalosarmoury.com $22-$32 a pair. Again, I wear minimal gear for speed and heat reduction (Trimairan sun is brutal).

As for garb I can list a few resources where to get that as well if needed, but this has been my 2 cents on Norman armor for SCA combat.

[Braxus The Light]

This link has a picture of some great SCA Norman kits.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/137852438564385846/

[Wolf]

dont forget the arrows. they look lovely in the back, the eye etc

[Egfroth]

Regarding hose vs trousers - there's VERY little reliable information and as far as I know, NO surviving artefacts for 11th century Anglo-Saxon trousers or hose. So we’re forced to rely on contemporary pictures and descriptions. All the 11th century Anglo-Saxon illustrations I know of, including the Bayeux Tapestry seem to indicate people wearing hose. Or maybe they're really tight trousers.

Unfortunately, unlike the wonderful pictorial evidence relating to 13th century stuff (especially the Mispronouncy Bible), there is practically nothing showing what 11th century people wore underneath. You just see the hose vanish under the lower hem of the tunic.

So - did they wear braies and hose like people did 200 years later? Can we really rely on that? 200 years is a long time.

Anglo-Saxon words exist for both trousers (braccas, brec =breeches) and for hose (hosa/hosan) and also for socks (socc, meo), though socks appear to have been loose and bag-like, and what exactly hosan were is a bit uncertain - they seem to have been worn on the lower leg - one contemporary source describes making hosan from leather, and another translates the Latin word for greaves as hosan. (from Dress in Anglo-Saxon England by Gale R. Owen-Crocker, currently the definite work on the subject).

The best – and really the only - pictorial evidence I know of for actual separate hose in 11th century England is contained in two pictures – one from the Harley Psalter shows David and Goliath, in which the dead Goliath (bottom of the picture) has been stripped of his armour and appears to be have rucked-up hose which have fallen down his leg. Underneath the tunic he has very brief shorts, quite unlike the knee-length braies common in the 13th century.

By the way, I made a pair of these short braies to see what they were like to wear. And I can tell you that no matter how long your hose are, in a very short time indeed they ride down and the shorts pull out of them, leaving you with a gap between shorts and hose, and a cold draft in the nether regions.

The Old English Hexateuch (the first 6 books of the Bible, produced in the mid-11th century, probably in Canterbury. As was common at this time, it portrays Biblical characters as though they are contemporary Anglo-Saxons) contains a scene of Israelites being whipped by Egyptians, who appear to have hose falling down.

However, I am coming to the belief that rather than hose, perhaps the 11th century Anglo-Saxons wore tight trousers after all, rather like 15th century-style "joined" hose. Or very tight Thorsbjerg trousers.

The best pictorial evidence for trousers is in the Bayeux Tapestry where occasionally, you get to see up people's tunics, and the hose/trousers seem to go all the way up. See the guy smoothing the plank with an axe - he's got his skirt tucked into his belt, and the whole length of his leg is shown - covered with fabric.

[Egfroth]

Another picture in the Bayeux Tapestry shows Harold Godwinson wading ashore, accompanied by one of his men. Their tunics are tucked into their belts and their feet and legs are bare. Presumably they’ve taken off their leg coverings so they don’t get wet. If they’d been wearing braies and hose, you’d expect them to take off only their hose and leave the braies on. So you should be able to see the braies even if they were short as in the picture of Goliath. But instead what you see is the rounded shape of the buttocks, as if they were wearing nothing at all under the tunics. This would only apply if they’d taken off trousers, rather than hose.

Whether 11th century hose had feet in them, or just stirrups at the bottom, is another question again. We just don't know. Hell, we don't even know whether they were hose or trousers! And of course there’s also the possibility that some men wore trousers and others wore hose.

Then there’s the issue of winningas (leg-wraps). Though these are found in the archaeological record, and there are words in Old English for them, and they are shown in contemporary depictions, their depiction is not all that common. The Bayeux Tapestry, despite its faults, is still probably our best pictorial evidence of what was actually worn at the time. I did a quick count of winningas, both Anglo-Saxon and Norman in the Tapestry, and of 112 Anglo-Saxons shown, only 5 had them – the rest are shown wearing plain hose or very tight trousers with no leg-wraps. Among the Normans and French, 56 out of 186 have leg-wraps and the others are plain.

The evidence is admittedly very thin. All we have are some words and a couple of fairly equivocal representations - not much to base a definitive position on.

But whether hose or trousers, what we we can state with confidence is that in all pictorial representations they are VERY tight to the leg (note the two guys in the black and white picture below - you'd think they were bare-legged, except for the wrinkles behind the knee).

That’s something we can be sure is an accurate portrayal of what was worn. The - alas too common - look of modern, fairly loose trousers (and equally bad, trousers bloused over tight winningas wrapped around the calves), is just plain wrong if you want to accurately portray an 11th century Anglo-Saxon.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, because this is where so many people fall down, despite their best efforts, try your utmost to get your "look" as close as possible to contemporary pictures of people of the time - the Bayeux Tapestry, the Tiberius Calendar and others. You can get all your kit correct and still somehow look wrong - you should aim to look like you've just stepped out of a contemporary picture.

[Egfroth]

By the way, the idea that spangenhelms were old technology in the 11th century is often bandied about, but it’s really one of those ‘everybody knows’ re-enactorisms, and is based on too little information to be valid or trustworthy. There are spangenhelms in the pictorial record up to beginning of the 13th century, and if you include kettle hats, till at least the middle of the 13th century. And there have been Spangenhelms found in Eastern Europe dating as late as the 14th century. To be sure, single piece conical helmets have been found elsewhere in Europe, but there are NO helmets – of any sort - in the archaeological record in either England or France – for this period. The nearest prior date for a helmet found in England is the 8th century. I don’t know about later ones, but I believe they are probably just as far removed.

Attached is a picture of Goliath from MS Cotton Tiberius C. VI f.9, showing both winningas and a gilded(!)spangenhelm, dated 1050, a scant 16 years before Hastings. And if you look carefully, you can see what I believe to be the bottom edge of an arming cap peeking out at the back of the helmet.

I counted the number of helmets of different types shown in the Bayeux Tapestry – leaving out the dead in the bottom border unless I could be sure they were either Norman or English. I may have missed one or two, but I believe the count is pretty accurate.

Of the 108 Norman and French helmets I counted, 82 had a thin vertical line running down the centre, which I believe represent four-plate spangenhelms, 17 had several lines running from the crown of the helmet to the browband which I believe are multi-plate spangenhelms (see attachment - the guy on the left appears to be wearing a four-plate helmet, the other two have multi-plate helmets), two appeared to be made of two plates – one each side, with a central band running from front to back, and 7 were one-piece helmets. William of Normandy is shown several times in a four-plate spangenhelm.

Of the 42 Anglo-Saxon helmets I counted, 36 were four-plate spangenhelms, 2 were multi-plate spangenhelms, two of two plates, and there were no one-piece helmets. So as far as I’m concerned, there’s no reliable evidence that spangenhelms were "out of date" by the time of the Battle of Hastings.