spadler with fence

This German armour from 1530 at the Tower of London Armoury in Leeds is spectacular in its fit and finish, yet fairly straightforward in basic design and funtion. The fairly standard "Italian" style shoulders were now being made in Germany (and German style armours were now being made in Italy...leading to the tremendous confusion. We know this is German because of the radial fluting. Italian armours would be plain, or decorated in bands and panels of detailed etching. When you consider how much work went into fluting this armour, one wonders why the armourer stuck to this overall form instead of coming up with one of his own. My "theory" is that the panel basher who fluted this armour started from a standard off-the-rack set of pieces rather than starting from scratch. Its just a theory though, but it suits my admittedly unstudied concept of guilds and their jealously guarded fields of expertise. (I think this was originally an armour that had been fluted...the bottom of the flutes retain the curve of the original armour)

Anybody who has ever done fluting will tell you that although the fluting is fairly straightforward, you just have to file a stake to the correct shape to allow the shape to be bashed in, at first with a rawhide hammer, and then with a hard hammer, and then lastly with a swage. The hard part of course is to make the flutes straight and even. That would have given the armour maker a few unquiet nights! One unthinking random hit with the hammer, and two weeks down the drain!



If you click on these pictures you can see some interesting battle damage. The lance has clearly torn the fence right through its rivets, and even cracked the corner of the spadler. The three dimentional compound curves have proved to be stronger than the steel they were made from. An interesting engineering study.


The rivets along the edge of the spadler are clearly replacements...likely they held an underlying layer of leather in place to prevent scratches...and as we all know, leather does not have a long lifestyle. This armour then was in use for at least one cycle of leather replacement. Say five or six years. Maybe longer. This closeup (above) also clearly shows the underlying shape of the original armour. Not only did the panel basher make the flutes, but he also kept the underlying gentle swell of the shoulder. This is what makes me think that some guildsman (say a plate maker's guild) decortated an armour made by the harness maker's guild. Again, only speculation. Probably a lot to build upon a gleam of light in the bottom of the flutes...





For some time, the leather was not there to protect the breastplate from the spadler. Those scratches must an annoyed at least one owner! What is interesting is that they have dipped down into the bottoms of the grooves....which means it was a bit of flimsy springy metal dragging across the breastplate at that place. From such evidence are stories developed.



I included this pic because it was a good overview of the nice fence. Gently pointed at the top, beautifully rolled and finished. The centre line which looks so clean and crisp is an illusion however, it is just a reflection of the corner of the display case. This spadler is articulated, but all the articulation is on the helm side of the fence. And the fence is gently curved, but it does NOT follow the fluting. This leads me to another possibly unwarranted assumption....the fence was mounted AFTER the fluting was done. Which means it went back to the harness maker. Maybe not right away. This armour does not usually have a fence, so it might have been a modification. One can almost see the marshal shaking his head and saying..."good lookin' armour m'lord, but we use fences in th' joust now, so you gots t'get fences nailed on hmmm".

And from the side, we see that the fence is surprisingly enough, only on the front half of the spadler. Unless you see the armour from the side or the back, you would never know this! In fact, it does not even come up to the centre line, but rather, a couple of centimeters to the front of the centre line.

Burgundian Armour, Leeds

click on these images to enlarge.

This is a remarkably interesting armour because it has so many "late period" features in it, and yet it is quite early, circa 1525. It would have been on the cutting edge of armour making at the time, and likely nobody else would have had an armour as nice. Anywhere!
Which come to think of it is as good a reason as any!


This armour is clearly a jousting armour. It has been beautifully dished out in that nice "globe" style which was so popular at the time. The placquart is really nothing more than a waist defining belt, and the wrap around leather belt might be regularly chewed up by the armour since I note a fair amount of wear on the surface of the bottom half of the placqart. Probably by the faulds.


above is a close up of the incised St. Andrews cross, shewing the damage. There is more damage in the upper corners of the breastplate. I suspect from the damage (the above looks like a crossbow bolt or possbly a musket ball hole which has been carefully laid back into place.) Why would he do that? Well, honourable battle scars come to mind.


The pattern in the bottom of the insised cross is hard to make out. To my eye, it doesn't really look like a pattern, so much as swirly bits perhaps designed to hold enamel or neillo in place. This is the earliest example of a breastplate which was level and straight across the top, which means of course that you will need a very very good gorget. If anybody wants the full size (1.5 meg) picture, just email me and ask for Leeds2009 288, and I will send it to you.


For those that say that centre bar buckles are not period, I say "in your face!".


The gorget is a thing of absolute beauty. A four lame gimbaled gorget. How advanced is that!

And the gloves. Nice late period mitten gloves with semi-belled cuffs.

Old barrel helms

These un-dated barrel helms were in the Tower of London Museum in Leeds. We are looking at the age of chain here, though for the purposes of jousting, these heavy helms would have been ideal.

Here is a close-up of the helm. The damage is, well, understandable. It is iron after all. however, details worth noting are the amazing narrow eye slots. The rivets instead of forge welds. The nasal which comes out a bit in front. Ahhhh so THAT's how they made room for the nose!


The above helm is remarkable in that the eye slot seems to be nothing but a saw cut in the edge of the helm. Makes me wonder if it is possible to see out of it! However, that big piece of metal with the smiley face holes is a door, with a hinge on the left side, and a fastener catch on the right side, so it may have been open most of the time, and only slammed shut at the last second.

The houndskull here is much the same design...clearly made for jousting. Two halves of heavy steel form the body, and a most menacing pointed nose with not enough breathing holes for comfort in them. This face plate slides up when not protecting the fellow's face. Note the integral gorget. That's different!

A later period close helm way in back. Does it belong here I wonder?

click on the above picture to see all of them together.

The helm on the far right is also a real "pot helm", made for function, not looks. There is something very "medieval" about that helm. The high frankenstein forehead clearly provides a ton of protection from rocks being tossed off the battlements, and the face plate is open until needed, at which time, it is nice and cozy and safe against arrows and such.

I wish these were dated, but I suspect the only real way to date them would be to examine medieval manuscripts with similar equipment being shewn. However after having read on another fighting blog that medieval armour was uniformly light duty, I just had to point out that a lot of the real fighting was done by guys in good heavy armour.

Late breaking news....

Hello,
>
> I have a comment about your blog post from 10 May, 'Old barrel helms'. I'm
> afraid all those pieces are 19th century fakes from the workshop of the
> infamous Samuel Pratt. They were believed to be original when first sold or
> "discovered", but have since been proven fake. That whole little room on
> the Tournament Gallery mezzanine was dedicated to 19th century medievalism
> and fakes, which is why the close helmet was with the helms. I don't know
> where they will be when the new Tournament gallery opens later this summer.
> Hopefully they'll be better labeled, at least.
>
> Regards,
> Nick D
>

So I checked with my copy of Laking's book, and what a surprise, the very same pictures I have up here are shown to be fakes. Ha ha! I consider myself to be "punked"!!!! I urge anybody who has an interest in armour (and their fakes) to check out Mr. Lakings books. Here is a link to the relevant page.

Leeds in December

The late fifteenth century was a good time for armour...the "Gothic" style was called gothic because of its sweeping uplifting lines like "Gothic Cathedrals" rather than because it was made by Goths. For reasons I am not really certain of, the "Gothic" appelation became applied to Germany. Of course Germany, as a country, did not exist back then, but enough armourers which made this style of armour lived and worked in German speaking countries to ensure national ownership of this design. Yet, Bohemia, Switzerland, Belgium and Austria made more of this style of armour than Prussia, Swabia, Saxonia, Bavaria, etc. etc. made. But, for evermore, when people see this kind of armour, they say "Oh, look at the German armour!" I would have to check with Gabrielle about whether the great Henry the Lion wore this kind of armour...grin!


Things which distinguish this armour from others would be the two piece Heume and Bevor combination, the fine chain mail underneath all of it, the two piece breastplate with sliding rivets with a very high point to the placquart, the lack of upper and lower cannons, (no swivel joints on the upper arm) the big fancy rondelle protecting the underarm, the single piece "pointy" elbow cops which are normally laced on, the long pointy gauntlets, and the multi piece but NOT pointy tassets. Also note the interesting omission of the lance rest. The rolling of the armour is a good indication of its age...this armour is rolled outward. Armour made only a couple of years later would be identical in all respects, but the protective rolls under the arms would be rolled inwards.
I really like these faulds. I note that the lames are nearly flat, and that the pivots are spaced a good handspan in from the edge. I'll have to do that with my armours. The tassets seem to be riveted onto the bottom fauld. Now thats just weird. Normally tassets are buckled on. The fact that they are so short allows him to put his foot into the stirrup.



The legs are really not as complex as they look. There ARE those four top lames, of course. They hang from a belt under the armour by a strap, and the pivot rivets allow the top of the cuisses to fold up quite a bit, avoiding the painful groin shot by your own armour which would come with jumping down from a wall. Well, thats the plan anyway. I have my doubts. They do provide a nice place to do some really fancy roping. The knee cops are fairly standard winged cops. Nothing special. However, the lower leg, the shin guards, are really really nice. These would have had to be made special to the owner. Note the "skinny" effect.


Above you can see the "gothic" answer to the gorget. Rather than putting the gorget underneath the armour, they put it on top. The big plate which comes down from the neck is actually a lame, and it is moveable. Maybe not much, but a little. He can tilt his head back and the gorget will stay down on his chest where it belongs. Some later period bevors would even provide a strap to make sure it stayed put! I rather like the multi-layer washers on the visor pivot. The shoulders are nice...one up and three down with pivots. This is a different approach, which provides a really pretty effect. The downside of course, is there is nothing there to protect his shoulder from downward shopping sword blows. His collar bones are sort of protected by the breastplate, but nothing on the top of the shoulders but chain mail. This troubles me.
The backplate is a thing of beauty! Clearly, this fellow wants to be seen from the back! Obviously a leader, out in front! The two piece back plate is built up. The backplate is made from three pieces, and the placquart is heavily fluted. Although they seem to fit really well together, I wonder if they are from two different armours. The fluting on the placqart should not be stopped by the reveal of the bottom of the backplate, but should rather be continued on like it does on the back faulds. Just a stylistic observation...that is not the only deviation from the standard "Gothic" suit. The three separate pieces which make up the backplate are unique. Speculation runs wild...if the backplate had been holed, the armourer might have rebuilt it, and made the two sides symetrical like the rest of the armour. Or the owner had a bigger back, and wanted a centre section inserted to accomodate the bulk. Who knows. What I DO know is that it is a darned nice bit of work! There is a close up of this speculative part below.

The gauntlet, from the inside. The double straps are kind of interesting, and if you look closely, you will see that one of the straps, the lower one, is split into a "Y" . I also note that the palm strap is missing.
These gauntlets are pretty straightforward, the fluting makes them look more complex than they are. The individual plates on the fingers are attached by rivets to thin belts, and the belts, in turn, are attached to the gloves by simple sewing. If you try to make such gauntlets, it would behoove you to make the whole glove underneath as well because, as you can see, the glove is not "turned", that is, it is not sewn and then turned inside out like modern work gloves. The Austrians even left a centimeter or so edge which they would use to rivet the gauntlet pieces , this one has been trimmed quite nicely. Glove making was a real art back then.
Above is a pic of the inside of the arm, the back of the elbow cop wing, and that really complex back fauld. The discontinuity between the backplate and the placquart is very obvious in this picture. The fluting on the bottom lame of the back fauld is particularly well done!
Above are the gauntlets from the front. This fellow paid to have the prettiest work he could get, and he got it! Really important details would include the shape of the thumb, and the great mobility in the wrist. Also noteable is the symmetry between the left and right gauntlet...often not seen because the left hand normally takes much more impact that the right hand.

Below is the plaque on the armour. Check out the great greaves! Lots of good work there! That iron is not all that malleable, and it would have had to have been done in several stages, with heat treating in between. These stages are often erroneously called "heats", but to remove work hardening, you don't heat it up to the full glowing red temperature which is usually meant by a "heat".

The shins are held onto the bottom lame of the knee cop by a turning key. That should keep most of the weight off the foot. This fellow would have worn shoes, perhaps shoes which look much like the replicas shown here.

Samurai Armour in Leeds

Click on these images to enlarge