The Armour Archive

If a tenant farmer of late-15th/early-16th-century Scotland or England went to his muster/wapinschaw properly arrayed in his jack, "hat," and splints, would he have worn the armor beneath or over his outer coat/gown?

I know that soldiers with livery coats/gowns wore them over the armor. Would a common man also have worn his ordinary, non-livery coat or gown over his padded jack?

(I hope James or Chef will answer. )

There is little solid evidence, as you know, in the way of images for the region in the specific era.

Custom of the time I think would dictate the respectable third layer for anyone with pretension to the middle class. You need something to pin your St. Georges cross or St. Andrews cross to (if you are a borderer), or sew to if you have solid feelings of alegience.

How would his ordinary clothing fit over his jack? I had to make a livery coat especially to go over mine and it's about 3 sizes too big when worn by itself.

THe overgowns of the day were generally constructed with excess fabric, to form generous pleats. If your armour is fitted to you, and your gown is properly constructed, you can wear it with or without the armour. You don't have to close the gown, a belt can keep it in place.

I wear wool and 'brocade' short gowns all the time over my harness, which were made to fit me - not my harness. My gown will actually partially close over the harness. There are numerous late 15th century Flemish illuminations depicting gowns being worn over harness by gentlemen.

Thank you for the answers so far. My supposition is that the coat or gown would be worn over the padded jack, provided that the jack was not overly thick. I am supposing that a tenant farmer's gown or coat would have less material than a gentleman's gown but would also be less snugly tailored (I am thinking of figures in early-16th-century Books of Hours like the Golf Book).

However, it appears that some Wars of the Roses common soldiers, such as archers, would not have worn a civilian gown over their jacks, at least not in battle; the only gown, if any, would be a short, tight-fitting livery gown cut to fit over the jack. This is the impression I get from the kit standards of Lord Grey's Retinue and from some period illustrations of 15th-century military archers.

I wrote a long reply to this and eventually decided it was all just twaddle.

Short version;

Do as you will but as a levied soldier you would more likely have a simple bend or maybe just a badge to show who you fight for.

You could wear a cote or gown over the top of your jack, but as a soldier preparing for a march and having to carry all I take with me I'd leave the cote at home and take a cloak (which I can also sleep under), marching and fighting will keep me warm enough.

I've seen descriptions of patches attached right onto the jack itself. Archers probaly didn't wear coats as they would simply hinder the firing of the bow. It was likely a lot of unneccesary garments were left before going to battle.

As for a Wapinshaw, they would probably try and turn out in their best, put on a good show for the lord and all that.

Lord, do I avoid saying "firing" when it comes to shooting a bow. Firing is a gunpowderism -- you fire an arrow when your intentions are incendiary. To use the gunpowder term on arrows seems to me poor style. I've heard "Give Fire" as an early phrase for touching off gonnes, great gonnes, and arquebuses. If there is citable period use of the phrase or something like it, I should be delighted to know and use it.

EwanDoc wrote:I've seen descriptions of patches attached right onto the jack itself. Archers probaly didn't wear coats as they would simply hinder the firing of the bow. It was likely a lot of unneccesary garments were left before going to battle.

As for a Wapinshaw, they would probably try and turn out in their best, put on a good show for the lord and all that.

The only descriptions I have seen involving national badges is commentary by English and Scottish sources in regards to the unreliability of border horse, and how they loosely pinned such badges to be able to be rid of them as easily as they chose, for presumably nefarious purposes.

There were not a lot of Scottish archers. Although they retained the bow for a long time as an official weapon, they were always significantly outnumbered by their English counterparts. It seems the bow was more commonly a Highland weapon of preferance, and their participation in actual stand up warfare between England and Scotland at that time was non-existant to spotty and unreliable at best. They liked to loot camps, and that was about the extent of their interest in participation.