Layers under Leg Armor, 14th Cent?

[Stacy Elliott]

I have commissioned new 14th Cent legs with encased greaves and sabatons.

Can anyone point me to some good info on what to wear under the legs?

Giles

[Cet]

Sweat pants

[MalcolmdeMoffat]

Giles,
I would have thought that braises and Chausses would be the period way to go. There are a few here that wear them under their leg armour when fighting and both these gentles pull it off marvelously.

[Murdock]

wool hosen and linen braise


sweatpants indeed

BAD LAUREL!!!

[Stacy Elliott]

So no need for padded chausses?

With the arms you wear a slightly padded jupon (which I have made)...

What keeps the backs of the rivets from diggen into the knees and legs?


Giles

[James B.]

My arming cotte is just 4 layers of linen in the arm, no padding, and I just wear hose under my legs.

[Cet]

sweatpants indeed

BAD LAUREL!!!

It's my privlege as Laurel to deliberatley give bad advice at my whim Tasha told me so. Beside, it keeps me sane.

What keeps the backs of the rivets from diggen into the knees and legs?

Not fighting on your knees. Seriously. I'm looking at knee surgery over the winter wghich I suspect was brought on by knee fighting in historiclly proportioned armour for several years while using wool wraps for padding. If you'll do knee fighting in these I'd recommend making special armoing hose with an integral knee pad. Idealy a removeable pad so it can be washed seperately.

[Mord]

sweatpants indeed

BAD LAUREL!!!

It's my privlege as Laurel to deliberatley give bad advice at my whim Tasha told me so. Beside, it keeps me sane.

What keeps the backs of the rivets from diggen into the knees and legs?

Not fighting on your knees. Seriously. I'm looking at knee surgery over the winter wghich I suspect was brought on by knee fighting in historiclly proportioned armour for several years while using wool wraps for padding. If you'll do knee fighting in these I'd recommend making special armoing hose with an integral knee pad. Idealy a removeable pad so it can be washed seperately.

Hmmm...perhaps a neo-prene wrestling knee-pad that's worn under hose?

Mord.

[Gawin der Fuchs]

Personally I use a neoprene/gel knee-pad beneath linen hose pointed to linen braes for tournaments. For practice I wear light sweatpants but the same knee-pads as I don't want to repair my hose all the time from them catching on rivets.

[Alcyoneus]

What keeps the backs of the rivets from diggen into the knees and legs?


Giles

Virtue.

[Cet]

I switched to the neoprean-jell things when I first started having a problem and it was misdiagnosed as a meniscus tear. I think you need something thicker if your gonna be fighting on your knees which unfortunately means couters which are somewhat larger than would ahve been used historicly. A few of the couter assembly's from Rhodes have some interesting internal lines of rivets which appear to ahave held leathers simlar to those for fastenign a liner. Speculatively, these may have functioned as anchor point for a sort of suspension liner to keep the couter assembly slightly off of the knee. That might be a way to go toward adign some padding in a more plausably historic fasion.

[Malachiuri]

Im a big fan of the pro soccer style kneepads.

HG Martino turned me onto these, they are a killer combo with hosen under my springsteel full legs.

Try these:

Soccer.com

Item #964

Reusch Flex Knee Protector.

[Murdock]

"Hmmm...perhaps a neo-prene wrestling knee-pad that's worn under hose?"

Yeah i use those myself

I have the gel kind that the WWE uses, when they start to wear my brother gets rid of his and gives em to me.

I don't wear hose to practice either, it tears em up to fast. but i do wear the same pads.


But the root cuse of most of the SCA knee problems is _knee fighting_.

[Stacy Elliott]

Guys and Gals..

I asked the question on the Historical research board.

I know all about modern protection.

I was wishing to see if anyone had research on what was worn in period.

Thanks........ BTW, Virtue was the best yet......

Stacy

[GeoffroiDeCharny]

Guys and Gals..

I asked the question on the Historical research board.

I know all about modern protection.

I was wishing to see if anyone had research on what was worn in period.

Thanks........ BTW, Virtue was the best yet......

Stacy

There's I believe this mention of wool strips around the knee in this late 15th century text "How A man shall be armed". But I also suspect that armours pieces were englued with internal lining. I remember to have seen period text about that in french forums.

[Stacy Elliott]

And he should wear a pair of hose made of (1)worsted cloth. Around the knees should be wrapped (2)' bulwarks' of thin blankets to reduce the chafing by the leg harness. (3) He should wear a pair of thick shoes, provided with points sewn on the heel and in the middle of the sole to a space of three fingers.

1. Worsted Cloth... wool cloth woven from such yarns, having a hard, smooth surface and no nap.
2. Bulwarks = any protection against external danger, injury, or annoyance:
3. Points sewn on the heel and in the middle of the sole to a space of three fingers. Are these for the Sabatons? IF so, what does "the sole to a space of three fingers" mean?

Stacy

[RandallMoffett]

In the late 13th and 14th it is clear some padding was used on the thigh, sometimes including the knee defence at its lower section. It looks like a tube sort of that slides on. I do not know if this would be bulwarks but I find them very comfy. When home for Christmas this year I could dig mine out of storage and get pics if you remind me toward Christmas. i based mine off of what could be seen on some 14th century effigies.

Stacy,
I have wondered that as well. I was wodnering if it could be the top o the sole three fingers from the front perhaps to tie down the sabatone?
Under would work but it would seem to me to get in the way if tied under? I had a strap under the fron of my sabatones....
RPM

[Murdock]

As for period

Wool hosen with the afore mentioned "bullwarks" is all i know of. Along with the possibly lined pieces.

IMO bullwarks are not knee pads. I think they are knee braces more than anything else. Perhaps to help save the knees from the shock of quick dismount or maybe just to ease the wear from being in armour for long periods of time buring seige or battle. They do not appear to be imo intended to actually pad the knee.

Of course they had no intention of fighting from thier knees if at all possible.

[FergusStout]

What keeps the backs of the rivets from diggen into the knees and legs?


Giles

Virtue.

Huzzah! Well spoken indeed.

[mordreth]

So no need for padded chausses?

With the arms you wear a slightly padded jupon (which I have made)...

What keeps the backs of the rivets from diggen into the knees and legs?


Giles

There really shouldn't be rivets long enough to gouge you when you're wearing the harness. This part should be your armorers worry not yours

[RandallMoffett]

Murdock,

I have never heard anyone ever interpret that to mean a knee brace. Is there more to this or is it just your assumtion on it? If wearing hose then a thin blanket wrapped around even just a few times would seem to be quite padded to me but I have never thought of it as a brace before. It is an interesting thought.
RPM

[Murdock]

i've tried it

For SCA it works ok but they get destroyed, so i'm saving mine for stuff like the 30 and the upcoming Emprise at Pennsic.

Looking at them they look like ace bandages or old wrestling knee wraps. They compress more than they seem to pad to me. They do stop some chaffing but my thicker wool hosen are about as good at that. They "feel" like knee wraps not pads.

If i was a medieval man and i needed to pad my kness i already have an examplar technology that works on my upper body. IE make a gamboised knee section in hose. But we don't see that. Why would they not do the same basic thing on their knees that they do on their elbows and shoulders?

We know they have gamboised cuiesses even in the early 14th century so why do they drop the padding (afaik) all together when they go to plate legs?

IMO they didn't need it, they were'nt dropping to their knees like us and esp the English KNights were fighting on foot. As we know fighting for long period of time on rough ground is hard on the knees. They fought longer and harder than we even think about, and they grappled. Many olympic style wrestlers wrap their knees now. I think this is what the bullwarks are for. To suport the knee joint in the push and pull of the press on the ground while in full harness.

Even the word bulwark means support more than pad.

For all these reasons apearence, modern similarity, personal "exprimental archeology", and the name itself. I think they are to support the knee joint more than to pad the knee from the armour.


Now i have no direct evidence for this but it makes more sense to me than the padding idea. I think if they were looking at pads, they'd have fought in gamboised hosen or something like that, a leg gambeson so to speak. BUt we don't see that with full legs afaik.

More or less my suppisition based on what i see and my experience.

[Otto von Teich]

Damn, I think your onto something there.....Otto

[RandallMoffett]

Murdock,

Ok, I was just curious if you had come across something else. I would say it sounds plausible and all. I found a section from a late 15th english manuscript that mentions a knight suiting up with some fair detail but am going back toward the original as the only one found seems to be 16th century reworking of it and I want to double check before posting it up here to make sure the person who wrote it in modern english transposed it well as they may not be familiar with armour terms.
As to dropping the padded legs? They still appear in later 14th effigies but once more leg armour appears it may be they get covered or discarded. Who knows how long they were worn under leg armour discreetly if they were retained. As far as why wear just a towel around the knee, that would seem ro have continued as a weak spot on the leg and one I would continue to wrap to pad and perhaps support as well. Though it once more is supposition still.

RPM

[Talbot]

There is some evidence that late 14th century armour pieces were fully or partially lined. With what we do not know. However, in the 16th century they were lined with gamboised padding.

[Talbot]

duplicate posting

[Tailoress]

It's my privlege as Laurel to deliberatley give bad advice at my whim Tasha told me so. Beside, it keeps me sane.

OMG. *CHOKING ON MY DINNER*

Did you forget that I *do* know where you live??

-Tasha

[Cet]

Was I mistaken Maybe Muriel told me that.

[RandallMoffett]

I did find another possible translation of it but it is in anglo-norman and is late 14th century. I will keep digging and perhaps translate it once I find it.

Doug,

I was more looking if the way the account was translated was done correctly. It might have nothing to do with 16th or the 15th centuries armour. If the one I am looking at now is the source of the later edition it might be much earlier than I though it was.

RPM

[Talbot]

I was more looking if the way the account was translated was done correctly. It might have nothing to do with 16th or the 15th centuries armour. If the one I am looking at now is the source of the later edition it might be much earlier than I though it was

I was not referring to your part of the post. The evidence I was talking about was physical evidence on surviving examples. Some of the surviving pieces from the 14th century have lining rivets on the inside. There are quite a few surviving 16th century armours that are full lined with gamboised linings.

[Alcyoneus]

I have found that putting the padding in the armor is better than putting the padding on me. I can avoid any extra bulk (elastic bands, etc) in my knees and elbows this way. Plus, it is always there, ready to go. It is also relatively easy to keep it from looking like foam.

http://home.armourarchive.org/members/a ... 20_Elbows/

The ones labled elbows are mine, not Henry's. I also have padding in my demigreaves, but the foam collapsed, and they aren't as comfortable as these. I took some 1/2" aircraft felt and put it in the one I'd removed, and it was magnificient Tuesday night. I need to sew it into a pocket and stitch it in, I think it will work better than foam, which is why I bought it.

[stephenschaeffer]

Hey Doug, Do you have any references for the 14th C. padding attached to the plate? I would -love- to do that, and I've certainly seen lining on later pieces, but what I've seen hasn't looked like padding so much as lining - like a layer of velvet, but no more cushion than that.

To answer the original poster, I use gamboised cuisses with a single layer of padding (comparable to moving blanket - I don't remember what we used to make it) over the thigh, and 2-3 layers over the actual knee. This is then pointed to the same points holding the cuisse proper, all of which is hung from a grand assiette vest. Period? Not a clue - better than foam knee pads. Functional? yup.

Were I making them again, I would extend the single layer of padding lower down the shin rather than stopping right at the bottom of the kneecap, since my demigreave digs in. I'll probably retrofit mine with a leather flap. The other change I'd make would be to bend the knee, rather like the elbows are bent on the Charles de Blois pourpoint. What I have kinda bunches up when I'm on my knees (I'm not that virtuous, alas!) so I think building it to fit a knee bent as ~30 degrees would make sense (and would fit the leg of someone riding a horse for what that's worth)

[Talbot]

Hey Doug, Do you have any references for the 14th C. padding attached to the plate? I would -love- to do that, and I've certainly seen lining on later pieces, but what I've seen hasn't looked like padding so much as lining - like a layer of velvet, but no more cushion than that.

Hey Steph, welcome to the Archive.

Yes. There are several surviving plates with rivet heads set on the insides for the lining bands. There are set in exactly the same manner as 16th century examples.

[stephenschaeffer]

I've actually been here off and on for years - I'm coming to the end of a Master's Degree and my time is a little more free than it has been in several years. (one more class and half a thesis, and then I'm unemployed...)

I've been spending so much time with computers that I'm fantasizing about making armor, or at least pounding the hell out of metal.

Steph

[RandallMoffett]

Sorry Doug,

Just got out of a few days in the hospital and I guess I misread it....

RPM