Alan Frize wrote:David, I got books by Chris Brown for Christmas, I think it's starting to show.....
"William Wallace: The True Story of Braveheart" by any chance or his other one... or both?
Cheers,
DT
The Second Scottish Wars of Independence and 500 Scottish Battles. Both highly recommended, the second if for nothing else but for what he has to say about the books that try to link Bannockburn to the Templars.
Quick list-
Overtunic
Undertunic
Braes
Chausses
Hood
Mail shirt (likely long sleeved and with hood)
Aketon
Great Helm (flat or round top)
Shield
sword
spear
shoes
and perhaps-
Pair of Plates
Poleyns
Padded cuisses
To all my old 14th century Scottish friends:
I am in the new Osprey book about Medieval Handgonnes. Several color pictures in fact, with my name listed along with that of my group. I'm not being a 14th century scot in the pictures but its still fun news. I'm in a photogrpahed "firing sequence" for a gun circa 1430. No, I do not get paid if you buy the book, but the link to it is below.
J. Morgan Kuberry wrote:To all my old 14th century Scottish friends:
I am in the new Osprey book about Medieval Handgonnes. Several color pictures in fact, with my name listed along with that of my group. I'm not being a 14th century scot in the pictures but its still fun news. I'm in a photogrpahed "firing sequence" for a gun circa 1430. No, I do not get paid if you buy the book, but the link to it is below.
Well, the bascinet is still about, as evidenced by the Orkney graveslabs, so you could go with a faceless bascinet. Alternatively, and if you feel up to doing some metalwork, attach a mail coif to your kettle helm and paint the helm in your livery colours.
There is the steel skullcap, comes in a variety ot types from the basic to the nicely padded. Or take a look at what a plaisance has, they've got a good guide to different helms for different periods of the Middle Ages.
I'd say by 1345 most knights, even poorer ones likely would not be wearing a standard flat topped great helm. That said the only weapon reqs we have for the era in Scotland seem to indicate bascinets for the men-at-arms.
I suppose you could be in a type of sugarloaf helmet as in the Luttrel Psalter from the mid 14th. As well take a look at the bascinets at the Athens Collection as they show a great variety of bascinets that likely were in use mid 14th.
Randall, I'd say possibly, but worth remembering that in 1345 the Scots are going through the Second Wars of Independence, so older designs that might have been cheaper may have been around as well.
Only a conjecture, I'm more musing aloud here than saying for definite.
The same colours that were available to the rest of Europe were available here. There was a thriving dye industry in Scotland from the early 12th century which included imported dies as well as home grown extracted products.
As always class and wealth had a lot to do with what you could afford. The stronger the colour, the greater the expense - largely because of the requirement for using multiple dye baths to achieve a strong colour. Commoners in less affluent rural communities would have continued to use local dyers for basic cloth needs. These dyers would of course have continued to use local products to keep their costs down and this does limit some of the colour choices. A wide variety of colours can be produced from locally grown sources (indeed there are some stunning colours possible) but the sheer quantities of plants, roots and extracts required for larger production limited them to a more subdued range of colours for their main products.
As regard materials, wool is by far the most prevelent fabric that appears in written sources across the whole of the C14th and C15th centuries and the range of colours is amazingly broad, there is plenty of evidence for the import from England and Flanders of Plunket (coomonly blue but can be other colours) and porraye (a strong green continental cloth along with Siskin a famous Flemish green cloth), roanes is also commonly found (fine wollen clothe usually Tawney in colour) and also Lille cloth (usually bright reds) . Fustian appears very strongly in records from the late C14th onwards and is regarded as a respectable hard wearing cloth produced in a wide range of colours. Weaving mills in Tayside and Lanarkshire were inporting the cotton and linen to produce fustian in 1402 from the tax returns in the Treasury accounts and most of it was for the domestic market. Linen was common for underwear and linings of summer clothes but in the north fine wools were more popular for the same purpose - across scotland wools were common for linings of winter garments and indeed finer wools were common for warm shirts. Silks, silk velvet (canzi, ecarlate, osterni, taffeta and Samite) and other high end cloths were being imported frequently but at relatively high prices so for the rich only. I believe that bonbazine (also cammaka), a wool and silk cloth was available in Scotland in the 1360's as well. In Aberdeen there are records of a dye business paying customs fees on bolts of cloth to dye in the bolt as opposed to dying yarn for weaving at the end of the C14th - to some extent this was cheap, mass dyed cloth as the results were less even and predictable/consistent so the end product was slightly cheaper by the ell than yarn dyed products an were possibly to feed the growing demand for stronger and more varied colours in the cloth market from commoners.
Just remember that when reading many accounst books and original sources the colours they quote may have a wider range of variants than we might be used to in our very defined and colour-ordered lives. Red for example can cover anything from a pink, through orange to dark reddy browns. Also be aware that some things we think of as colours may actually be terms for cloth - Russet was not a colour in the C14th but rather a poor quality weave of coarse wool produced for commoners. Most Russet was dyed with madder and over dyed with woad (both from exhausted dye baths) to produce a dirty, grey brown colour.
Unfortunately, cloth and dying are a huge subject - determining what was common and normal for any class in any regiuon at a given time can be quite difficult and the research can be time consuming - but fun if you like that sort of thing. Rank and position in society determine everything. I would avoid falling into the old reenactor habbit of having expensive items and claiming to have taken them from a dead rich person or looted them. In reality, if you are a commoner (including a professional soldier of non gentle birth) any rich item found would be turned over to you captain for a cash bounty - usually a third of the assessed cost. Occaisionally and officer type might decline the item in which case you get to keep it but this seems to have been relatively rare. As a military type you are more likely to want the cash to pay for food and drink and a good pair of boots - very little changes!
I was reading back in this thread and noted that very early on there was a comment that there were no scottish armouries until James IV established temporary ones in the early 1500's - This is most definately not correct:
From the Lord High treasurers accounts 1473-1498 – "In the exchequer Rolls we find James Moncur “factor armorum” supplying the king with harness from the Harness mill at Dundee in 1444, again William Moncur supplied the king in 1458 and 1465 and john Moncur in 1472 also supplied the kings household with harness from the Harness mill at Dundee."
From the exchequer rolls 1264 – 1359 there is a record of the Kings harness being collected from the mills at Stirling “Qhuare yt was maket in goode iron”, to be transported to Aberdeen – 1342 June.
Also from the same exchequer rolls we find a payment to "Luke Gizors, a Flemming with a harness mill at Perth for harness for the kings men" (translation) – this appears to be in August 1349
There are many more accounts of grants to open harness mills, fees and customs dues applied to harness mills and purchases from harness mills across a num,ber of sites in Scotland. As far as i can ascertain so far there are at least 8 harness mills of any significance in Scotland from the 1340's upto the 1470's and I have only covered about 25% of the treasury accounts and exchequer rolls. I have hardly even started on the wardrobe and personal accounts!
These mills were were clearly not all established by native Scots, however they did exist, they were producing armour of a reasonable if not comparably good standard to some European centres and they were being passed from father to son over a number of generations. Armour making was well established in Scotland by 1400 but perhaps the biggest problem was a combination of poor local resources and increasing demand, hence the constant demand for armour to be brought into the country. I would say that we see similar measures during the C15t century by Charles the Bold, despite having some famous Flemish armouries and plenty of local production, his needs required massive amounts or armour to be brought in from the major centres of production such as Augsburg.
Hey thanks. I have found a few things that indicated this but this is pretty solid evidence. I figure most countries of Scotland's size had at least some local production. Though one of the major issues is every one thinks of Scotland's economy as so backwards it could not sustain anything, which is of course wrong. They might have been numerically behind but several recent researchers have shown Scot nobles were actually more wealthy individually than many nobles of other countries.
Cool contribution. Is the Lord High Treasurer's account or exchequer rolls online.
It is if you have access to the electronic resources of UHI - you need to be a student or member of staff. My wife is involved with the History department so has access. Unfortunately there is no public access otherwise, I don't think you can even pay for access. The MEMSO databases are full of some fantastic nmedieval resources for Scotland. Many of these include C18th/C19th transcripts of original manuscripts, some of which no longer exist.
I have even tried coipying elements of the files but they are encrypted so that plan failed!
If it helps I can try and give you the original publication information - there may be other databases that have them or even original copies that are lying around in old book stores.
To be honest there is so much usefull information in the files that you could spend a lifetime writing articles and new books based on it all - some of it is so detailed that you can follow individual merchants and businesses through almost four generations of involvement with the crown, government, key establishments, major families and individual Burghs.
As I am particularly into the C15th I have focused on the later accounts and discovered lots of really useful information to help our group in our portrayals and public presentations. The commonly held view that Scotland was poor and backward is easily dispelled and as you say, many were wealthy players on the European stage. The research goes on and I will try to post anything relevant and useful - is there anything in particular you need at the moment?????? (I'm going to regret this aren't I)
No it is not normal for universities to sell membership outside of standard tuition. That said many universities are part of networks that allow exchange so I will look into it. I keep a list of all online medieval accounts I know of and had only seen a hard copy version of this so I was interested in checking it out again.
I study specifically military and urban history. My past work is all in England but some day I'd like to move my way to other places.
When I was in Edinburgh last I went by the archives and got to explore some medieval documents which was great fun. It was very exciting when the Scottish Parl. Rolls went online.
I know what you mean by being able to spend a life time on MS. I read most of the English Royal accounts (patent, close, Misc. Inqt., etc.) and want to do it again but it sure takes a great deal of time.
I'd love especially the mid 14th ones you posted if you have the full citation. Are these parts of larger entries.
Hello all,
I'm back to doing 14th century stuff in a way (doing a Master's thesis on it actually) and I'm trying to find an old story from what I think was Froissart's Chronicles. Something abotu a knight being captured at a battle. His captors tried to stab him but couldn't find any way around the maille, including under the hem of the hauberk into the groin. The author said that the chausses were too well tied to allow him to be stabbed. Does anyone else remember this? I can't find it anywhere now that I need it.
Thanks
Yes, I've been combing through several translations and haven't found it yet. Beginning to think its not his, which sucks, as I'll have no idea where to begin looking for the real source of the story.
Recently, I read a book called "The Wars of the Bruces - Scotland, England and Ireland, 1306-1328" by Colm McNamee. (A very good read).
In this book, it states:
" The armour worn by knights in the early fourteenth century was at this time the heaviest it would ever be during the middle ages, and could weigh in excess of 60 lbs (27 kg). The knights head was protected by a bascinet, a helmet usually open at the face; the body by a coat of mail known as a hauberk and, increasingly, by the addition of strips of plate armour along the arms and legs. . . 1315 shows that by that time knights were already wearing plumes, and that a visor could be attached to the bascinet." [References Carlisle Charter of 1316].
This seems contrary to some of the comments earlier about a Great Helm or Sugarloaf helm being accurate. Is there any other supporting documentation of armour during this period?
The question is when is a round or conical topped great helm/sugarloaf helmet a bascinet. I am of the opinion the bascinet was more a combination of features of both the conical or round top helmet and the great helmet. IN the Queen Mary Psalter than predates the charter by some time they show some of these in between helmets.
I think By 1316 the COP would be far more common than splinted armour but we know from documents a decade older both were in use. The heaviest of armour at the time likely would be a gent in an aketon, hauberk, mail chausses and coif, couters, polyns, some form of limb armour, a COP and a helmet of some nature.
J. Morgan Kuberry wrote:Hello all,
I'm back to doing 14th century stuff in a way (doing a Master's thesis on it actually) and I'm trying to find an old story from what I think was Froissart's Chronicles. Something abotu a knight being captured at a battle. His captors tried to stab him but couldn't find any way around the maille, including under the hem of the hauberk into the groin. The author said that the chausses were too well tied to allow him to be stabbed. Does anyone else remember this? I can't find it anywhere now that I need it.
Thanks
Is that Count Renaud at the Battle of Bouvines? Someone knocks his helm off and wounds him, but when they lift the side of his hauberk to stab him, they can't get the knife in because his chausses are sown so tightly to his hauberk, and his guys get there in time to rescue him.
I have also joined the SCA recently and have been working at portraying a highland Scot. The information so far has been great but every link and image from more than a year ago is dead so I can't get any good visuals of what I should be wearing. From what I have been able to gather a 14th century highland Scot would be wearing clothing similar to an Irishman (which is also something difficult to find). The best clothing would seem to be a shin length leine (long sleeved, medium fit), trews during the colder months (as you mentioned, bare-legged does not seem to be frowned upon), and a plain plaid brat. When I couldn't find information on 14th century I decided to go with the more stereotypical image from around 1580's and have a great kilt. The logical evolution of the garments seemed to me that the brat was simply worn belted more and more often until it became the great kilt. To simulate this I was just going to use my great kilt as a brat, more loosely worn and unpleated. I'm not certain what exactly the "large, hooded poncho style garment" that was mentioned in the first post was, but I'm guessing that it was the brat. Also, what kind of headwear and shoes would be period? I have a pair of ghillie shoes (someone did a class on making them) but I'd also like to wear some taller shoes (I'm a fan of boots of all kinds). I figure that I could make some tall leather shoes similar to the ghillie shoes, but it would be nice to have a better idea of what was worn in period.
Armour seems to have been limited to basic helmets, some mail and some type of textile armour. I'd assume it like an aketon but could not promise that. There are some odd sources of construction on it that are very curious.
