The Armour Archive

Hi All-

I've recently found need to design a coronet. I'm looking for images/artifacts from the late 14th/early 15th century, preferably France, that I can use as inspiration.

Google gave me nothing and I didn't see a category on Karen's site for such things. Short of scanning thousands of images for a crown on someone other than the King's head, I am at a loss.

Suggestions?

Thanks,

Well, it's such a common thing (like shoes or noses or hair) that I really haven't done a webpage about it.

Go to Google and do a search for
site:mandragore.bnf.fr couronne

The first page will give you the best results -- click on "Images" and then in the blank that says "Aller Page" enter 15 and then click "ok"



I'm not finding anything useful at http://www.photo.rmn.fr/cf/htm/Search_New.aspx but you may have better luck.



Also -- http://www.photos-galeries.com/couronne ... -de-liege/ is earlier than what you're looking for, but I thought it was kind of interesting, anyway.

I have a pic of one from the Munich Treasury that is for an English Queen 1370-1380. Bit ostentatious for SCA usage though.

I remember reading, years and years ago, that coronets as we know them go back only to about the 17th Century.

"As we know them" means what, exactly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_Saint_Stephen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Crown_of_Lombardy

http://www.history.ac.uk/richardII/

Karen Larsdatter wrote:Well, it's such a common thing (like shoes or noses or hair) that I really haven't done a webpage about it.

Hi Karen-

Thanks for the help with Mandragore - I didn't know that you could use Google that way...

I agree that crowns are ubiquitous in illumination.

Part of what I was looking for was some sort of validation for the SCA baronial coronet. Many of the crowns seen in manuscripts are of the same shape and are often on the heads of kings, or of unidentified nobility. If the baronial coronet as practiced in the SCA is an SCA-ism, that's cool. If I can find something more historically accurate, taht would be cool too.

Oswyn_de_Wulferton wrote:I have a pic of one from the Munich Treasury that is for an English Queen 1370-1380. Bit ostentatious for SCA usage though.

Maybe this one?
http://www.residenz-muenchen.de/englisc ... /pic11.htm

Along those lines, there's also the crown of Margaret of York, though that may have been intended more as a votive crown than as a crown for Margaret herself to wear on a regular basis, though she apparently wore it at her wedding - there's photos of that at http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/art18391 and http://www.flickr.com/photos/24141292@N02/3309287077/ as well as in (and on the cover of) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081096 ... 77">Gothic: Art for England, 1400-1547</a>.

(Another potentially-useful book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086565 ... 930">Royal Jewels: From Charlemagne to the Romanovs</a>.)

Gregoire de Lyon wrote:Thanks for the help with Mandragore - I didn't know that you could use Google that way...

Yep. All kinds of sneaky tricks. Sometimes that's the easiest way to navigate the Mandragore site, if you don't know which manuscript you're looking for, but you're looking for something that might be in a picture.

Yeah, that is the one Karen. Just from a slightly different angle. Most baronial coronets are far more subdued than that one though.

Baron Alcyoneus wrote:"As we know them" means what, exactly?

What you referenced are all royal crowns. Those, in one form or another, go back to antiquity.

I concede that my reference to "coronets as we know them" was a bit vague.

What I meant was, the array of coronets denoting the ranks from Ducal down to Baronial rank that we find in all the heraldry references (not necessarily what we use in the SCA, though the ducal and baronial designs are pretty much right) were not, as I understand it, in use much before the 17th century. I suspect that some of the great French Dukes might have worn some sort of head regalia, but some of them were kings in all but name. I'm not sure that any regularized form of regalia was used back in earlier periods (real-world). There weren't that many Great Lords, so simple recognition of the individuals, and later their heraldry, would probably have more than sufficed.

Donal Mac Ruiseart wrote:I suspect that some of the great French Dukes might have worn some sort of head regalia, but some of them were kings in all but name.

There was a reconstruction of a pretty spectacular golden hat in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080144 ... >Splendour of the Burgundian Court: Charles the Bold (1433-1477)</a>. You can see a photo of it at http://www.daylife.com/photo/0euQ0CO4LJ1ZB

Contact Jurgen here on the Archive.

Here are a couple more in line with "Baronial Coronets" for you:


http://www.metmuseum.org/special/basel_ ... al/1.L.htm

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/basel_ ... al/9.r.htm

Karen Larsdatter wrote:

Oswyn_de_Wulferton wrote:I have a pic of one from the Munich Treasury that is for an English Queen 1370-1380. Bit ostentatious for SCA usage though.

Maybe this one?
http://www.residenz-muenchen.de/englisc ... /pic11.htm

Along those lines, there's also the crown of Margaret of York, though that may have been intended more as a votive crown than as a crown for Margaret herself to wear on a regular basis, though she apparently wore it at her wedding - there's photos of that at http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/art18391 and http://www.flickr.com/photos/24141292@N02/3309287077/ as well as in (and on the cover of) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081096 ... 77">Gothic: Art for England, 1400-1547</a>.

(Another potentially-useful book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086565 ... 930">Royal Jewels: From Charlemagne to the Romanovs</a>.)

Gregoire de Lyon wrote:Thanks for the help with Mandragore - I didn't know that you could use Google that way...

Yep. All kinds of sneaky tricks. Sometimes that's the easiest way to navigate the Mandragore site, if you don't know which manuscript you're looking for, but you're looking for something that might be in a picture.

Yeah, that is a funny one. It has recently been thought by some , given its small size, to have never been meant to be worn by a human, but intended entirely as a votive offering to be worn my an image of the Virgin. I think it was a crown intended to be worn on a henin, and was a one-time use object for her wedding, then donated by her as a votive offering. Some hats do not have to circle the entire brow as a bowler or a fedora, especially hats for womens fashion.

Most of the coronets I end up making for people are not very period. There is a huge quantity of secondary evidence for coronets in illuminations, statuary, reliquaries, and other such objects. You really need to be careful with these as many of them are probably much grander than most of what was actually used. This is because they are often on royalty in some form, or tied to a saint in some manner. There are some extant examples as well.

Off the top of my head, the Bust of Charlemagne has a nice crown on it, dating to the first third of the 14th century.
http://www.traditioninaction.org/Histor ... st.psd.jpg

Jurgen

Thanks to everyone for the assistance!

Donal Mac Ruiseart wrote: I suspect that some of the great French Dukes might have worn some sort of head regalia...

Francis II, Duke of Brittany (d. 1488, tomb created 1502-07):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nante ... ois_II.jpg

-Derian.