Palaiologan Byzantine, 1330

[Theron]

I get that they where in a decline at this point, but I am wondering how Latin/Greek where the imperial soldiers who served Constantinople in their armor and weapons during the 14th century. Specifically I wonder about armor (was lamellar still in use) and helmet (had Latin style helmets like the bascinet become common) styles.

I'm thinking around the time of Adronicus III (1328-41). After this it seems that Byzantium becomes too embroiled civil war and conflict for me to really enjoy the persona. If we want to get more specific, the campaigns in Serbia/Bulgaria in 1330 and 1331.

[Robert of Canterbury]

I Usually am leery of citing Wikipedia, but this article seems to at least have a good bibliography, and the scholarship looks plausible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaiologan_Byzantine_army

[Egfroth]

There's quite a lot of pictorial evidence for the arms and armour of the 14th century Byzantines (particularly if you include Bulgarian and Serbian sources, as a lot of their church murals were painted in Byzantine style, perhaps by Byzantine artists).

Start with those in the church of St Saviour in Chora (the Kariye Djami) in Istanbul, which contains quite a few representations of military saints.
Not too many helmets, but don't appear to be particularly Western. Scale seems to show a fair bit, but various versions of lamellar (some pretty unbelievable structurally)as well and IIRC mail too.


Also very big (reaching from about the ankle to the shoulder) triangular shields with a pronounced curve.

Mostly they still seem to be in the Byzantine armour tradition, but one has to be wary that they may be formulaic and bear little relation to reality.

Also the "Byzantine Romance of Alexander" from about the same time. Apparently prepared by two different artists with quite different styles and different representations of Byzantine arms and armour - the first style is shown in the link just mentioned, and the second can be found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... opped).JPG - for some reason I can't make a link to this one - you'll just have to copy and paste the URL (all the way up to the .JPG) to get it to show up.

I have also a bunch of pics from various monasteries and churches in Greece from about the same time. I'll see what I can rustle up.

[Egfroth]

See also tthe discussion at http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... 723#739723
and som from 14th century Serbia - http://www.bgphoto.net/Photos.aspx?User ... umId=84750

[Theron]

Cool, so it doesn't really seem like I was all that far off base. Thanks for pointing me towards the patterns Egroth; I was kind of at a loss on how to even start with the lacing.

Just out of curiosity, what thickness of leather did you use to back your klivanion?

[Egfroth]

Not very thick at all - about 1/16", I think.

[Ernst]

The previously mentioned Byzantine Alexander Romance from the 14th century:
http://194.177.217.107/gr/showpic.asp?p ... mode=first

[Egfroth]

A lot of late Byzantine military saints hERE - unfortunately, most of them aren't dated, but many can be seen to be 14th century by the artistic style. Many are from Bulgaria, Macedonia etc, which by that time weren't Byzantine possessions, but were still in the Byzantine sphere of influence and the artists were probably either Byzantine or Byzantine-trained.

[Egfroth]

Two helmets found in Bulgaria and dated to the 14th century - not Byzantine perhaps, but certainly within Byzantium's cultural sphere of influence. First the Assenovgrad helmet

[Egfroth]

Second, the Dobritch (Novakovo) helmet. If I remember rightly, the dating was based on the similarity in shape to a 14th century bascinet. but it is very similar in shape also to helmets in the early-mid 12th century Skylitzes Chronicle, so perhaps the influence actually went in the opposite direction, with bascinets being based on Byzantine helmets?

[RandallMoffett]

Look very similar to earlier helmets used there. Looks like they all used a ventail.

RPM

[Egfroth]

I should say, by the way, that I didn't get these photos myself. If my memory serves me (it's a long time ago) they all came from Medka of this forum, who's always very kindly willing to share information with other members.