Interesting POLISH ARMOUR page (10th -13th century )

Andrew Young · Post by **Andrew Young** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:08 pm

This list is not a complete listing of all the site pages....so delve around. Some great photos of original pieces and interesting reconstructions.

Main page: http://curiavitkov.cz/index.html

http://curiavitkov.cz/valka21.html
http://curiavitkov.cz/valka2.html
http://curiavitkov.cz/valka22.html
http://curiavitkov.cz/valka23.html
http://curiavitkov.cz/valka24.html

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Dierick · Post by **Dierick** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:30 pm

Is that slovakian? The one european language I don't have a translator for? Damnit.

Konstantin the Red · Post by **Konstantin the Red** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:40 pm

http://curiavitkov.cz/valka21.html

The rough-surfaced conical with the tiny hook at the bottom end of its nasal we believe to be not a helmet proper, but a dopple for making them. If it's the piece I think it is, it is immensely thick, though still hollow within, and features drill holes around its periphery that seem much too fresh to be contemporary with the making of this piece, and too few to be persuasive as stitching holes for a helmet liner. The nasal hook may be for steadying the blank as it is worked hot over the dopple; the nasal would not need the kind of deep forming the skull-bowl would require.

Rudolph · Post by **Rudolph** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:09 pm

Dierick wrote:Is that slovakian? The one european language I don't have a translator for? Damnit.

I don't have my Slovak/English dictionary handy, but it may be. That or Czech (although my family would argue that Czech and Slovak are too different).

Thanks for the links. I'll see if I can get my cousin to help translate.

Andrew Young · Post by **Andrew Young** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:00 pm

The rough-surfaced conical with the tiny hook at the bottom end of its nasal we believe to be not a helmet proper, but a dopple for making them. If it's the piece I think it is, it is immensely thick, though still hollow within, and features drill holes around its periphery that seem much too fresh to be contemporary with the making of this piece, and too few to be persuasive as stitching holes for a helmet liner. The nasal hook may be for steadying the blank as it is worked hot over the dopple; the nasal would not need the kind of deep forming the skull-bowl would require.

I dont know. I doubt that hook was used to secure a piece of metal while working, it would be much to weak.

Maybe for making liners?

Also, if its a form of some kind I dont understand why the nasal would be present....that would almost certain be cut out at the end of the process.

Id wager on it being some type of form to make a leather or quited liner.

But if it is a helmet....that hook might have been used to secure some type of mail or face-wrap.??

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Jiri Klepac · Post by **Jiri Klepac** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 12:46 am

Hello Guys,

they are Czechs, so if I can be of any help...

Jiri

Andrew Young · Post by **Andrew Young** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:06 am

Thanks Jiri,

So the website is Czech then??

I was searching under Polish translations for a bunch of polish armour books I have.....that page came up.

So what do Poles speak? What do Czechs speak?

I feel massively out intellectualized all of a sudden :oops:

Jiri Klepac · Post by **Jiri Klepac** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:27 am

Maybe some words are the same or the locations and google can find it then (?). We can understand each other more or less while speaking, but written Polish is hard to read for me.. Well I am quite good in reading czech :-)

Jiri

Konstantin the Red · Post by **Konstantin the Red** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:38 am

I didn't see a single Polish slash-L in the paragraphs I scanned, and the U with a circle over it is another character I don't remember seeing in Polish. Circumflex [^] R's and S's, however, show up in abundance south of Poland.

I can spot enough Slavic roots to indicate its membership in that family -- heck, the word for "shield" alone would tell me that -- but, yes, um, Czech. The Slavic languages are all about as close to each other as Spanish to Italian, or Portuguese. Russian is throaty, Polish sounds like Russian I can't quite follow, Bulgarian like Russian spoken by drawling Texans, and I've never heard Ukrainian or Moldovan but I get the idea they sound like Russian with quaint accents. I have spoken po-russki slowly to Czech speakers and been understood.

Konstantin the Red · Post by **Konstantin the Red** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:57 am

I doubt that hook was used to secure a piece of metal while working, it would be much too weak.

The word is that that piece is of extremely thick metal, from 1/4 to as much as 1/2 inch thick unless I'm much mistaken. The interior exhibits no remnant of any lining fittings, not even a single rivet hole. The holes at the edge have their element of mystery. And does that surface look like anything corrosion or deep patina would produce? The stuff keeps looking like cast metal. I understand no part of its shape is missing. Contrast that with the condition of the Great Polish and the Wenceslaus helmets in that gallery.

Too weak? I'm not sure -- one, you need stabilization of your blank and this dopple seems well suited to topping a stout post sunk in the shop floor, in which case there is nothing to either side that would stabilize a blank sheet of metal. Two, the nasal bar is every bit as thick as the remainder of the piece. Three -- hotwork. Easier bending, not so much load on the hook, and a need to quickly stabilize a hot piece of metal for shaping over the dopple. The nasal bar's thickness would well suit a process where the blank is aligned by means of the terminal hook, the nasal extension of the blank, if any, might be siezed by tongs with a clamping loop to their reins, and then the strikers wham away for a couple of minutes.

Id wager on it being some type of form to make a leather or quilted liner.

That kind of investment in metal for mere fabric working? In the eleventh or twelfth century? If you needed such a "hat last" one shaped of wood would answer as well for such materials, and the need of such a "hat last" is also wide open to question. Again, it's the mass of the metal that suggests the dopple interpretation, and examples of such are known from other places and times, particularly sixteenth century Greenwich armoury relics.

Stahlgrim · Post by **Stahlgrim** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:52 am

Might that hook have been to hold maile up over the lower face? Thats what comes to my mind at first glance

Konstantin the Red · Post by **Konstantin the Red** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:53 am

How much of a bump or headshake would it take to unship such a mail hookup? I should think at the least a deeper hook would be called for. That and there's the inescapable fact that a simple mail curtain doesn't do much to protect the bony lower face, against which it would be closely lying.