IWTB an English Man-at-Arms at Agincourt

[MJBlazek]

Yes, thank you

[MJBlazek]

The year is upon us. 600 years in Oct.
I am planning on having a little event up here in Maine. Basically a bunch of us dressed as English archers standing in a field shooting things.
Anyone is welcome to attend!

[Mark Griffin]

These are elements of an Agincourt era armour Josh Davis is completing for me at the moment.

[Mark Griffin]

and a bit more

[David]

Sweeeeeeet

[Sam Awry]

Damn.

[NomadHound]

Hi there guys! I'm new to this site.
I'm looking for some patterns of english man-at-rams armor of this period. Anything is needed, exept helmet and underarmor set.
Mostly i'm looking for brigantine.
Tanks for your unsvers!

[Friethjoph]

I think you underly a little misconception: Brigandine is not the armor of Men-at-Arms at all. Men-at-Arms are heavy armored mercenaries and knights wielding anti-armor and anti-cavalry weapons. Note the heavy armored part, that is plate armor, not brigandine. So, Either on horseback or not, they wore plate armor - it was their Horses that wore occasional brigandine armoring. Why? Because Brigandine is light armor, and while agile, doesn't protect against the heavy rains of arrows they faced when storming towards enemy lines.

That even plate armor wasn't enough to save oneselves from arrows of english Longbowmen was the lesson the French Men-at-Arms had to learn at Agincourt... while the British Men-at-Arms barely saw battle.

[NomadHound]

So, such things as brigandines were more popular though other lesser warriors classes? That's sound pretty strange for me, because the material of which brigandines were made was extremely expensive, just like steel.

[MJBlazek]

Hi NomadHound,

I guess it all depends on what you mean by "Brigandine."

If you are talking about the small plates, riveted to a velvet shell? Looking like this?

Because this style comes into play later than Agincourt.


And a Coat of Plates would have been earlier, though for those of lesser status it is not beyond the idea that they could still have been worn.

Between the French and English Military class you are seeing a lot of the chain/plate combo, either with a fauld (covered or not) on not, and the full articulated arm and leg harness.
Usually these would be covered with a heraldic jupon.

[Henrik Granlid]

And even Coats of Plates at the time were more like covered breastplates (with fauld), some split down the middle, some split in the back. Visby style Coats of Plate were almost a century out of fashion (and technological advancement) by the time of Agincourt.


Basically, at the time of 1415, if you want to portray a soldier (not a Man-at-arms or a Noble), look at armoured pictures from 1380 to 1410, you'll still be 30 years too late in your armour decisions (going by 1380 standards), however, this is slightly more plausible for a common soldier than a complete white harness.

[MJBlazek]

I suppose we really need to talk about the term "Soldier."
The rolls for the 1415 France Canpaign do not use the term "soldier" to depict a "Non-Mat at arms."

You have these basic categories:
Men at arms
Mounted archers
Archers

There is some crossover of names between the two archers.

Archers of course, were expected to enter into combat should they a:run out of arrows or b: be overrun.

If you want to portray a "common soldier" I would suggest looking at an archers gear.

[RandallMoffett]

Henrik,

Why do you assume the pairs of plates in use at this time were covered breastplates?

We have some very interesting inventories from around Agincourt that mention pairs of plates and I really have little idea what they likely were. So few show up in art and in the text they are rather vague.

If one would like to look at the medieval soldier database you can find contemporary soldier categories for these campaigns. Armed men and hobelars still show up at the time but the pay roll seems to favor what Matt mentioned above.

I'd suspect in general the mounted archers would be more outfitted than foot archers but really the base line difference is of course a horse...

That said doesn't one of the Agincourt accounts mention spearmen on the English line going with knives and killing men on the field? I cannot recall which one. If I have some time I'll take a look in a few that seem likely candidates and post if I find anything.

RPM

[Sean M]

Anyone who wants an Agincourt-era kit should probably read

Thom Richardson (2015) Armour in Henry V’s Great Wardrobe, Arms & Armour, 12:1, 22-29, DOI: 10.1179/1741612415Z.00000000045

I am pretty sure that you can download it without a subscription here

[MJBlazek]

Sean, thanks for posting this.
This is very helpful in some research I have been doing about Thomas Chaucer.

[Sean M]

Sean, thanks for posting this.
This is very helpful in some research I have been doing about Thomas Chaucer.

Glad to help! When you have made your first draft on soft kit, you might also want to read "TH’ apparell for the feld for a baron in his souvereyn compeny, or for a baneret, or a ryche bacheler."

I figured that if Claude Blair had all kinds of things we had forgotten, the books before him must have a few things too.

[Henrik Granlid]

Randal, my assumption that pairs of plate at the time were covered breastplates/corrazinnas (same thing, different names, some were split, some were not) comes from the artwork of the 1380's and onward, where there basically aren't any flat coats of plate anywhere, I can't even find such plates on biblical motifs.

Here's a great example ca. 1380 from Belgium
http://armourinart.com/70/87/

If you enlarge the picture, you can see the lines under the armpits as well as at the waistline for the large, solid component of whatever it is he is wearing underneath his cotehardie.
He is also wearing leg protection, at least a mail fauld, and hourglass gauntlets, wether he is representing a man-at-arms or a town militia, we can't know, he's a "guard at jesus' tomb" and nothing much else. But, like his contemporaries (and later friends) in art, he is not wearing a flat coat of plates.


Here is a quick search of 1380 to 1420 art from belgium, france, the netherlands and england, and every soldier has a large, domed chest, be it underneath his jupon or a tighter fitting garment.
http://armourinart.com/search/?year=137 ... stitution=


In a Manuscript Miniatures search of the same regions and years, there are plenty of results, but none of them showing the type if waistline assosciated with the earlier style of flat coat of plate.
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/search/ ... anuscript=


One could argue that flatter ones were worn underneath jupons that had an internal structure, however, we do not explicitly see them, what we do see are the large, domed chests that correspond with contemporary armour that we know existed and was used.



Compare the pairs of plate on this older statue (1350-70)
http://armourinart.com/310/498/

To St George in Prague (1376)
http://armourinart.com/322/510/

Both are pairs of plates, one is 26-6 years earlier than the other and has a markedly different profile.
The St George one, however, fits the profile seen in 1370's and later art.

As far as I am aware, we also do not have any extant pieces of flat chest-defenses dated to 1400-1420 except for possibly the chalkis brigandine, although that one could be later.

All of this combined is what makes me say that if you are going to do Agincourt and if you are going to do so with a coat of plates, the chest should be deep and rounded, and either solid or split in two. If it is flat, you should wear a jupon over it.

There is no support that flat coats of plates were worn (that I know of), and especially not Visby styled coats of plate that are more similar to those worn in the Romance of Alexander than those seen in contemporary art. The Visby coats seem to have been fashionably (though not functionally) out of date by the battle of Visby, making them ca 60 to 90 years out of fashion by the time of Agincourt.

If people wore out of date armour, it would be armour that was either hanging around in militia armouries, or older used armours sold, or older styles still produced. My personal opinion is that armour as old as 1350's (or older) styles would simply not be around in any "I'm an archer/squire/men-at-arms- but-totally-not-a-noble" capacity at the battle of Agincourt, when it is much more likely you would wear a mail shirt and/or a jupon if you couldn't afford a decades old coat of plate. And if you could afford a decades old coat of plates, it would have a large, deep chest.

[Sean M]

Henrik, I think its important to keep the overall shape separate from the details of the structure. So of course a man-at-arms in 1415 is going to have a globulose profile, whether he creates that with a quilted coat, or an uncovered breastplate, or a covered cuirass. But if you want to know the number and shape and arrangements of the plates in the third option- that is very hard. You absolutely do not need to protect the entire breast with 1 or 2 plates to create that look. You can do it with a kilo or two of linen and cotton and silk.

I created this tag on Manuscript Miniatures a while ago http://manuscriptminiatures.com/search/ ... %20back%22 Note the Livy where they use horizontal lames under a cover to create a globulose chest.

We are lucky that by the 1360s, the Italians were already dividing plate armour for the body into breasts or pieces (which are uncovered and sometimes have wings reaching under the armpits towards the spine) and cuirasses or corrazine (which are covered and enclose the body). They did not have one term "pair of plates" which covered both like the English did.

The French eventually adopted this terminology in the 15th century, and when they did they often had trouble deciding whether an armour was a cuirass (=breast-and-back with fauld) or a brigandine. They kept having to say "a brigandine with its breast bare in the manner of a cuirass" or "a cuirass with its lames (=fauld) covered in black velvet." So I don't see any reason to assume that covered armours around 1415 were any less diverse.

[Sean M]

One of my favourite depictions of the front of a globulose pair-of-plates is http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4365/16762/ That has one big breast-plate, but it does not cover the whole rib cage: the natural waist and the belly seem to be protected with lames. That is 50 years before Agincourt, but when we start to get surviving covered armours 50 years after the battle, we see diverse arrangements of plates too.

I think we all agree that people should not be wearing Wisby armour to re-enact the Battle of Agincourt and saying "I am a poor man-at-arms"! Like you say, by 1415 even the lowest of the low don't seem to be wearing armour with a flat profile.

[Henrik Granlid]

That is indeed true and I misspoke in claiming things to only be solid, I forgot about this italian piece in particular, but yes, the shape is still globose and nothing like the Visby coats.

[RandallMoffett]

That was indeed what I was going for Henrik. My thought was they often had shaped breastplate like shapes made of multiple plates. I think covered breastplates are indeed common in this period but I think pairs of plates were still likely fairly common.

I am not sold on the common soldier just yet. We have far too many of the inventories that use terms like of the old type or old pairs of plates that makes me think something else is still in use like the Wisby ones. As the post is on MAA I am thinking the pairs of plates on them would indeed be of the newer type though.

Best,

RPM

[Henrik Granlid]

Question is how Old is Old?


Because even by the 70's (40 years earlier), Coats of Plates in high-fashion were not flat, boxy or barrely, so when is Old, well, Old, and when is it "that junk that peasants of old used to wear"?

[RandallMoffett]

Henrik,

That is a good point. They use the term at least in the York account 'in the old style' so there had to be some noticeable detail to it in how it was compared to newer ones. Now how far back and such and what that is I have no idea but since the major change was in shape that is where I lean. But could it be something else. Absolutely. Trying to think up what else it can mean is actually rather difficult as closure systems and material do not seem to change. Even plate number and such had varied greatly then as the later ones so shaped to unshaped really is the only think I can think of. But once again it does not mean it had to be the old bulky type but that is the best guess I'd have.