Research

click on the pic below to enlarge.

This appears to be drawings from the period...possibly Durer or a student of his. These are clearly "studies", that is to say, not meant to be finished paintings, but rather detail elements that can be presented to a patron for approval. It looks like a broken up portfolio, and is hanging on the wall in Prague Castle. Knowing the European way of doing things, these are probable originals.
Items of particular note include the stunning sword knot shown third from the bottom on the right hand side. Its a fancy enough knot that the artist really got into the details of it. He shows the finished knot, and then details of how it must have been made.
(That the artist has an eye for detail can be seen by the studies of the forshortened heads of the horses second from the bottom, left hand column.)

Painted Armour from Prague

click on these images to enlarge. Above is the morion.

The shield.

And the breastplate. I believe it is the lion of St. Mark.

Fairly straightforward single piece armours, which have been decorated with oil paints.

Thanks Pierre for these pics.

Later period Prague Armour

This later period armour is a very good looking "ordinance" armour. It is a nice, 2 piece breastplate, with high "stovepipe" gorget, nicely made spaulders which have a totally needless but very cool rondel in the armpit, and great big "mitten gauntlets. This is a battle armour, and it might have been tough enough for the joust...but the lack of lance rest suggests that it is not really for sport, but rather for use. Plus the Morion helm was never used for the joust. (this is assuming of course that the helm is continguous with the armour...grin!)
Note the big "dent" in the armpit from which the rondel is suspended by cords. This is how you can tell front from back! That rondel must clang like the clapper of a bell unless it was tied down by a hidden thong.
Another good detail is the pin which holds the spaulders in place....there would be cotter pin to inserted through that post on his shoulder to hold the shoulder armour in place, and that post would also provide a hinge point for the armour to move around.
The Morion helm is in period to this armour....designed to not only look really big and nasty, but also to shed arrows and sling stones. I have seen and handled original morions, and for some reason, they are almost all raised up from a single piece of steel. I am not quite sure why...but unlike most helmets, the Morion seems to be a real "show off" piece for the armour maker. I would think twice before doing all that raising! I would probably build it up in halves...they just didn't! The cheek pieces are more complex than they look....they actually swing out past that big visor, and the chin strap is attached to the inside of these cheek pieces.
As usual, the Bohemian armour has the flared gauntlets rather than a complex and delicate wrist joint which marks the better French and and some German armour.

click on the image to enlarge....

More Prague Armour

I love the leg armour on this model....it is crisp, clean, and very straightforward. The wings on the knee cops have a sort of "lotus leaf" look to them.

What a great cod piece!

Absolutely gorgeous finger gauntlets.

Do you think this guy was royalty? It "does" seem like a lot of face is showing here though.

And here is the whole armour. Click on the image to enlarge. Can you spot the problem with wearing this armour, and for that matter, the one in the background? A prize to the first person who comments to identify the w.t.f.

Prague Armour

click on the images to enlarge.
above is a lovely splinted armour, with wide placqart flare. Difficult to imagine exactly what the rest of the outfit would look like...I suspect it would be pantaloons, with minimal leg armour. There does not seem to be provision for faulds and tassets.

This is interesting....the Belgian style legs which are extensions of the faulds. They certainly look very nice....and the lames appear to be joined without any leather at all. This might imply some very tricky fitting. The globose breastplate must have taken an inordinate time to pound out, and that gorget looks like it is integral to the armour. Neat idea.

Above is another of the same idea, however the breastplate is much more reasonable...a Peascod breastplate, made by slitting a triangular section out of the bottom third, and welding it all back up. The fastest way to make a breastplate.

Above is just such a peascod breasplate. Note the glaring absence of holes, mounting plates, or anything which will help this armour stay on. This armour was never used. The slight wobble in the centre line may have made this armour unsaleable, and so it ended up on display.

These are part of the set that Pierre took when he visited Prague castle.

Thanks you Pierre.

Armour from Prague

These are closeups of the armour from Prague....the spaulders. Compare them to the ones I made below! I honestly don't know how they could move their arms forwards....that big forward wing would just ride up into their neck!
I'll have to study this armour some more. It "should" be fairly simple...but the mechanism on how it all works seems clumsy to me. I don't believe an armour make that can do work that good would make a clumsy armour.

Thanks Pierre for the pictures. Tomorrow I will post the full armour.

The black armour from Prague Castle

click on the images to enlarge.
above we see a detail of the sabotons. 8 lames in the soles mean this fellow would be able to walk just fine! I personally love the 4 lames at the ankles. This is a very sophisticated armour!
The knee cops are, well, competent. They are a sort of standard four lame knee cop which, like the rest of the armour, has been fire coloured black, and then gilded. I am sure the gilding added a lot to the price of this otherwise quite plain jousting armour. I am a little surprised about the thigh armour....these are articulated cuisses! Go figure! Never saw those before! Must have made the armour really comfortable to wear. The long articulated tassets are representative of that period of history. They stopped wearing the big faulds since of course, the lames were too delicate to withstand the impact of the joust lances, and the smaller tassets, in addition to being more comfortable, were less expensive to replace after tourney season.

The mitten gauntlets. I think I have made just the same sort of mitten gauntlet! This is for the rein hand, and uses straps across the palm to hold everything in place. This is a departure for this period and location since the standard was to have a leather gauntlet made with flanges onto which the gauntlet pieces were riveted. This very common mitten gauntlet works well for the left hand since it really does not need delicate fingers to hold onto the reins.

Thank you Pierre for this picture. Great stuff.

Pictures from Prague

Pierre took these pictures from his visit to Prague Castle. This is the biggest castle in Europe, and the armour is really quite interesting. It looks too new though! Maybe it is just being really well kept! click on the pictures to enlarge.


The above picture has in the foreground a couple of really pretty dog faced bascinets. And lower down a couple of the morions which became popular in the renaissance. These are northern European morions, and they don't have the little tag at the top, but the one on the left has a comb, and the one on the two lower down on the right are the tall "high hat morions" that must have taken a smith an uncounted age to make. The lower one has a flat brim. Very unusual.
The three bottom helms are clearly jousting helms....those very narrow eye slots. These are the helms you usually see on coats of arms, and is the helm which is assigned to an esquirry. The bottom helm is also a jousting helm, but there is something interesting going on in back of it! Maybe you get into it by opening the back.

Any single one of these helms is worthy of extensive discussion....we can only happily look at them and think about the times they would have had to wear these!

The top three are "spectacle helms", and they look like spinnings. You can even see the horizontal tool marks from the spinning tool in the middle one! I love the way the sides draw upwards on the sides of the skull in one big swoop! Wonderful! The little lathe turned spikes are kind of cool...one wonders why they bothered....but hey, it makes the wearer look tough, and maybe that was the point.

The nasal helms all down the right are clearly hammered out from stock of some kind. The hammer welds are really good, which implies they are actual iron, rather than the modern steel. The Norman Helm (second from bottom on the right) seems to still have a leather chin strap hanging off it. That would have to be a more or less modern addition since it is unlikely that leather would have lasted some 900 years! I like the shape of the nasals though....very nicely done.

On the left appears to be a grilled face Roman inspired Norman Helm. That mongrel would require closer examination. I have never seen anything like it. Again, it appears to be built upon a spinning, with some decorative brass spangens.

The middle bottom helms are clearly Helms...designed to fit over top of a helmet. They don't need to be pretty to be functional! These are battle helms, and would have been used in battle, not the joust.