The Armour Archive

This is such a great idea!

How about if such a system was instituted for clothing and equipment as well? The current guidelines require an armor, but we might be able to pull something like this here without the armor, right?

I know people here have tons of infos on many different things. It might work, and help others truly see what "historically accurate" means!

What do you think?

Hugo

I think it's a great idea. I would have already posted tons of stuff if it didn't have the involve armour. I don't know nothin' 'bout no armour. =)

Kass

What I think would work best would be to draft a PIAB and post it here for comments and contributions. Kass, if you start one I'm sure you can sweet-talk somebody into contributing the armour section. I didn't see anything in the rules preventing collaboration.

I did see the requirement for clothes, so if you are really eager I suppose you could do one for a viking Norseman or a rapier-dueling Elizabethan and state that you fight unarmoured for historical accuracy.

A thorough PIAB would include clothing guidelines for both men and women of that time/place/social role, would it not?

PS I'm starting on one for Post-Roman Britain. I'm not calling dibs, just letting people know in case anyone wants to help out.

This would be terrific. From what I've seen people need just as much help/inspiration/research ideas/whatever with soft kit as they do with hard.

I see the armor PIAB is empty. Has there just not been enough interest, were the submissions to date too poor/incomplete? Has anyone submitted something that was rejected? Anybody know anything about the status?

I'd like to do a PIAB for 11th Century Norman, but Lord knows I will need some help. I think it's a great thing so lets make some use of it

Bran

I'll be happy to help out. I'm pretty decent with the armour part of it, and what I don't have locked away in my misfiring brain housing assembly I have books to cover most of.

I just went back and read the PIAB FAQ. It really seems to be focused on armour, not even the clothing worn with armour, so I don't know if what we are talking about would work. For instance, I don't know a whole lot about what men wore under their armour. I know about what men wore off the battlefield.

But do you guys think we could petition Broadway and JT to open it up to include women and non-armoured male personae too? I know this is the Armour Archive, but at least on this section of the board, we talk alot about non-armour material culture.

Whatcha think, guys?

Kass

I think it's a superior plan. I would be wholeheartedly in support of it.

1) To a large extent, I want to let Matt run w/ PIAB in the direction he wants it to go. So my word is advisory only.

2) I would like to see the inclusion of costume/garb/clothing (call it what you want) as part of the PIAB. After all, this is a Persona in a Box, not a Fighter-in-a-Box theme.
2a) The requirments do include clothing: "...And most importantly, what does he wear off the field?"

3) At the same time that I want to see information on clothing, food, politics, ... included, we should all keep in mind that this is the Armour Archive. We should try and focus on armour, though we shouldn't let that focus blind us to everything else.

Thanks for your reply, JT. Hopefully Broadway will stop in and give us his ideas as well.

One more question while we have you here: can you specify an end date on the PIAB forum. I ask because the SCA is "pre-17thc" but I know my husband would want to do a PIAB from the 1640s.

Me, I'm going to convince JeffJ to work on a 3/4 15thc PIAB with me. =)

Kass

kass wrote:Me, I'm going to convince JeffJ to work on a 3/4 15thc PIAB with me. =)

Kass

An essay on 15th century man-at-arm by Kass (clothing expert) and Jeff (armor expert) is the best outcome of one of my ideas*, EVER! (well, maybe the kid is first, but this one is pretty close!)

I'm so happy!

Hugo

*not truly MY idea, but I posted it here, so there... and for the rest of the joke to work, it had to be "idea"...

When we are done, the thread, "Material Culture of a Late 14th Century English Esquire" should be a quite good "PIAB." It would be interesting to see other personae undertaken by others in the know, in a similar format, for the purpose of developing well-looked at equipment kits and milleu.

For example:

10th Century Anglo-Saxon Thegn
11th Century French Abbess

and the like.

Jehan de Pelham, squire of Sir Vitus

I agree, Jehan. I think the people on this board have a lot to offer, and this idea of Broadway's (via Hugo) is one of the greatest ways we can help others (and possibly even promote authenticity at the same time <wink>).

We just need to start doing it. I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't done anything yet because there's nothing posted there. It's hard to be the first. But if someone else posted a PIAB, I'd probably have to come up with five just to keep up.

I'm kinda competitive that way, you see...

So everyone who is researching a persona or building armour, talk it up! And perhaps we can form into "study groups" that can share info and we can get some PIABs up there by way of collaborative effort!

Kass

I'll take a bash at late 13th - early 14th century Scots-Norman minor nobility ... Could use some help with clothing and sundries though if anybody cares to help out.

Come on Kass...we know you want to be first!! It's ok

Seriously though, I'm working on mine now, but I'm going to have a few problems from time to time. I wonder if links to pictures are ok instead of actual pictures being posted. Some of these will get quite long as it is

Bran

I have four PIABs in the works:

Crossbowman of Outremer - 1250-1291
Knight of Outremer - 1204-1291
Templar Heavy Sergeant - 1150-1291
Turkish Mamluk of Egypt - 1187-1291

I will keep people posted on my progress.

Templar Bob/De Tyre wrote:I have four PIABs in the works:

Crossbowman of Outremer - 1250-1291
Knight of Outremer - 1204-1291
Templar Heavy Sergeant - 1150-1291
Turkish Mamluk of Egypt - 1187-1291

I will keep people posted on my progress.

They all sound great, but personally I would love to read up on a well documented mamluk kit.

I think that for this to be useful it's got to have some tightness of era, say 20 to 50 to 100 years. I know that it can be very hard to tighten up the era pre-1000 AD, and then in the 14th to 16th centuries, it means nothing to say that you're locking down to fifty years, because things changed so much--for example armor goes from open bascinets and coats of plate to houndskull visors and breastplates from 1350 to 1400. I for my part am shooting for 1380-1390.

T-Bob, do you find that the gear of a Templar Heavy Sergeant doesn't change in 150 years, or is there change enough that it would be better to go Templar Heavy Sergeant 1150-1200, 1200-1250, and 1251-1291?

Jehan de Pelham, squire of Sir Vitus

It would be nice for us metal pounders to work with the "soft" people.

Pad

I would love to see post 1600 stuff included as well. My fave era of history/fighting/LH is Scotland 1745. If nothing else it will hopefully reduce the amount of kilted 'medieval Scottish' personas in that SCA that make me cringe so much.

kass wrote:I know my husband would want to do a PIAB from the 1640s.

I was thinking of doing one about "Cromwell's Ironsides." You know, mounted infantry and cavalry of ECW. That's one which could conceivably be worked as SCA list-legal; at least, that was my plan three years ago. The only visible anachronism would be the bar-grille.

Unfortunately, I'm not qualified to write it, according to the FAQ, because I don't have the armour myself (even though I have intimate knowledge of construction, wear, and modern techniques of use), though I have pictures. And I have no intention of kitting myself out for a 1640s curassier, because that's not my ECW impression, and I haven't the inclination to collect kit which I'll never use.

So I guess I'll have to collaborate with someone if I do this at all. [shrug]

Write those texts!
Post those essays!

Jehan really started this already with "Material culture...". But the way I would liek to see it, you send the essay having done all the research in the first place, THEN, the "essay" post where you describe and justify each pieces you chose to include in the portrayal. We're talking soft kit and accessories exclusively (don't want to steal Broadway's writing pool, do we?)

A lot of people already have a lot of ideas, and maybe even started to write something that looks like what I'm talking about. But these essays have to be like masters thesis, not high school reading reports. You back your claims with cold hard facts, you justify your conclusions, and must be ready to debate over the validity of every part of the text.

Once the posting is made, we have a week to comment and argue over it. After that, the original poster sends the corrected version. We can ask for further details and explanations. Again, think masters thesis. Of course, utter crap will not be asked to be reposted...

Then again, as JT said, maybe here is not the best place to do such a thing. Maybe another board would be more appropriate, but the number of people posting here is a great argument for staying here. And besides, 95% of the posts in this section are not armor-related...

The problem wit the forum format is that they are bound to get in the back pages, and once they get there, there as good as gone! It might be worth it to look into hosting possibilities for completed essays that were judged acceptable by the readers. Anybody willing to do that?

Hugo

Okkar,

I had a similar thought myself, and I can offer an answer to that question maybe if everyone is of a mind to do so.

I keep a web server running where these things could be catalogued and posted. I would be more than happy to give space for this. I could even purchase a domain for them if there is enough interest in doing it.

Regards,

Cailean.

Hugo,

I was actually planning on posting the stuff I write for PIAB on my home domain, reconstructinghistory.com, so that more people than just AA members can access it.

I have also been inspired to take this kind of approach with non-armoured personae. I know this is an Armour Board, and I fully respect that. But I think that this PIAB approach is something that could benefit everyone, not just the martial guys. So I'll be doing a number of PIAB-type essays on my site in the future.

At least I will when I get a free minute for a new task.

Kass

EDIT: at any point in this post, if you get upset or have an idea, stop, and finish reading the post.
Ok... couple o' points.

Way back when this was originally set up there was a great uproar over the innitial PIAB rules.

Over the last year or so, I have swayed so far from The original PIAB idea that its just plain silly.

Originally, the idea was to set up essays on different suits of armour so that newbies in the SCA could get a focus, to drive themselves towards a good looking hard kit on the list field.

That was it...

But, see, the idea was formulated when this site was generally inhabited by SCA folk... and... somewhere down the line... there has been a great diversive shift, and we have quite a few folks from different organizations, and quite a few of the original folks who came up with the PIAB idea have dropped out of the SCA altogether, and have switched to LH in various forms...

So, when I finally posted the idea and gave it its own forum, a while back, it was as it was originally intended... an essay about armour... for SCA folks. Period.

That didn't go over too well...

What I'm doing here is giving you guys a bit o' background... to sort of see where I'm coming from with that FAQ that's on the page, and why I'm hesitant to change it at all anymore...

So... I changed it a bit... got rid of the SCA theme... and opened it up to all groups, and some other changes... etc...

When it comes down to it... The 'rules' are to prevent people from posting utter crap... and then getting pissed when we say "this is crap" (in a nice way)...

If you take the time to come up with a PIAB that is oriented around clothes... then so be it... if you replace "hard kit" with "soft kit" and do the exact same thing... I think it would be great...

Do I want to go back and re-write the damn rules again to include that in them? Hell no... will I? sure... eventually, maybe, if I get to it...

Its taken me till yesterday to get a chance to put the rules from the old PIAB board up on the new one... so you can see that I am a lazy procrastinator...

The key... the most important thing here... is to think along these lines...

1. Does my PIAB offer anything to a new reenactor in search of inspiration?

2. Is my PIAB well written, organized, easy to read... does it flow well and look professional?

3. If I veered off the original theme (no armour) does my PIAB make up for that in other areas?

4. Am I ready to take some serious criticism on this?

When you have written a PIAB, and have covered those four things... post it to the PIAB forum, and see what happens.


And most importantly... I hate... absolutely hate... answering questions about this shit... So please... just talk amongst yourselves... because in the long run... rules or no... the PIAB forum is going to be what you guys make of it...

The whole idea was created by archivers like 5 years ago... if you got questions about what this thing is supposed to be like ask Bob Hurley or Glen K.

Or refer to the FAQ...

Thanks for the explanation, Broadway!

Kass,
I was really thinking about www.reconstructinghistory.com when I talked about hosting them somewhere... your site has the reputation and the integrity needed for this type of project. I am truly happy you would do this!

Hugo

I would happily host them on my site also if you want.

Pad

My offer to host and provide web design and layout services for anybody who wishes stands, but I do think that all of these should be in a single place for ease of use by those we seek to enlighten. As kass has offered to do so and has the good will of the majority if she wishes to host them on her domain I am happy to help in any way I can.

Regards,

Well, it also sounds like Broadway is saying that he would accept non-armour PIABs on this board too.

Why not let's actually write some stuff up first and then decide where it's going.

Kass

NO !!!

We must decide immediately. This must be resolved ...

Oh ok ... we can wait ...

The voice of reason uttered by a girl again...

Aren't you tired of always being right??

The "outside" hosting was to make sure we don't lose them in the long run. A lot of work will go into these essays. The way the forum is set up, it will not happen soon.

Let's get crackin'!

Hugo

Okkar wrote:The voice of reason uttered by a girl again...

Aren't you tired of always being right??

Hugo

I figured out a LONG time ago that women are smarter than men, that's why my wife runs the universe, I'm just a lackey that goes to the office every day and does what he's told.

'course if they ever figure out how to procreate without us we'll all be rounded up and herded into comfortable little camps where we can be kept out of trouble.

I like to think that women are two steps short of conquering the universe, but I have no idea what those two moves are...

Hugo

Neither do we... or we would have done it already.

You guys are far too good to my ego...

Kass

It's just 'cause we wuv you soooo much kass ... *best innocent little boy look*