Crinnets

Click on these admittedly dark pictures to enlarge them. The more you look at this armour, the more you see, and the more "ahh ha!" moments you get. The crinnet of course is the armour which protects the horse's neck. These german crinnets are interesting in that they are nearly "cage like", the horse's mane being allowed to come out through the openings in the cage.

I was quite taken with this armour because it was like...totally unique! No where else have I found a crinnet that looks like that! If you click on the second picture down, you can see the very interesting "hinge" system...the crinnet pieces are actually separate pieces mounted on two fairly heavy belt which runs lengthwise. This would allow the horse to turn his head from side to side.

Now THAT's something you don't see every day!

Iron in the Weald

One of the nice things about the interwebs is the ability to download some wonderful books. The above are excerpted from Starkey's book about iron working.

Architectural Details

click on this image to enlarge. This was one of the pictures that Pierre brought back from his tour of Prague Castle. Again, I nothing of the provenance, but they are too good not to put up here!

Okay, so its not armour. But it IS medieval!
And not a bad starting point for anybody who seriously wants to build their own castle.
(Or cottage, whatever.)

Prague Armour

Looks like the South Tower Armouring Guild lineup! Pierre took these in Prague a couple of years ago. I am not sure why they are in their museum at all! Its not like they date back farther than, say, 1990. But hey...they are nice armours, and worth checking out their details. Click on the above image to see details.

Starting from the top...that cool flip up visor face with the framed oculars! Very well done! Plus about two hundred holes for the chain mail. Good chain mail too. The four lame spadlers look nice, but four lames make it too long for my taste, when the owner lifts up his arm, the bottom lame will bite into the inside of his elbow. I would have made a longer rere brace.

The elbows are quite straight forward. I rather like the figure eight wings...they look like two big testicles driving a sword towards your tenders. Interesting design detail. The articulation is limited, the owner will not be able to bend his arm past about 90 degrees before it locks up. You need at least two more lames to get full mobility with elbows like that. On the other hand, most armour that has the wings throated to go around the inside limits your swing to a right angle anyway, so no doubt the training takes this into account.

The rolled edges are not like mine...these roll to the outside. A design detail which I used to think dated an armour to before 1460, but that little trick of dating an armour is really suspect, and must be used in conjunction with other evidentury details. It does its job though, and is really hard to do neatly.

The commercial hinges on the vambrace and cuisse are a glaring touch of modern that I don't like. If I use modern hinges (which I do all the time!) I hide the hinge inside, and leave a little slot for the barrel.

I love the gauntlets! Very tough looking! I especially like that the roll on the top of the gauntlet matches the roll at the top of the vambrace. Good detail.

The keeled breastplate has the keel coming very neatly onto the three lame faulds. Two thumbs up...and the bottom of the back fauld is rolled to protect the saddle from the armour. Most armour makers will have a problem stretching the metal out that far at the bottom...and normally just weld a piece in. I suspect that was done here since I can see no evidence of any hashing (what I call the stretching of the metal with a cross pein hammer) which is what I do. I see that the plaquart and breast plate are riveted together. I don't think that is right...unless there are slots in the breastplate underneath where you can't see them. The little clover leaf detail at the top is cute. The tassets are interesting...the keel ends about three fingerspans from the top to allow a smooth transition to the bottom fauld lame.

The two piece cuisse look really nice with the fairly straightforward ace of spades knee cops. I think they are supposed to articulate, and they may have pounded an extra rivet right at the top for who knows what reason. Lordy, check out the fabulous work on the greaves! This shows the true skill of the armour maker...to make greaves that good! (Bill is jealous!) The so neatly fit over the three down one up sabatons with those impossible to form points!
All in all, I think the work that comes out of my shop is this good, but remember, it has taken me some twenty years to get this far.





Now, after all the above description of a good armour, what do you think I would say about this one? I think that I shall just let it go...if I ever made such a bad armour in my shop I would deserve to go bankrupt. This shows the use of several machines which are not really made for a fine art project like this...the beader which puts the beads in the tassets is just the beginning....the single piece-articulated abortion which make up the elbows...this armour was made by a tin smith, not an armourer. There is, like NO comparison to the armour at the top. Pfffui.



Nice blued armour....this is done in a fire, and is difficult to get right. Looks good with brass and gold highlights though. There are enough pictures of knights in black armour to admit that they must have done that!

Well, details. Well, that big fancy grandguard. Now that is pretty cool. But there is something about it that doesn't ring true for me...I think there should be ridges to catch the lance, and the fence which obscures the face should be attached differently. But it may not be unexampled somewhere. And I really don't like the machine finished brass trim, though just possibly, it is hand made, I doubt it. You see more of that trim detail on the elbow cop, and very nicely done it is too! But hey....the rest of the armour is worth clicking on to enlarge and please join me in an enjoyable survey of a well made armour.

The breastplate is really well made...and correctly finished on a surface plate by hammering instead of on a wheel like most of mine is. The nine piece articulated lames match the articulated cuisses...something you don't see every day...and the elbow cops are correctly made with two up and two down lames, and enclosed wings. Nicely done! The gauntlets are mitten gaunts, which is what should be found on a jousting suit. The knee cops are fairly standard run of the mill, but check out the lower legs! Oh my gosh, that fancy articulation at the ankle! And it all blends into the well made sabotons. This armour maker spend more time on those ankles and shoes than he spent on the rest of the armour combined! Two thumbs up!





And a chain mail suit, just to give you a break from the heavy iron!
The helm at the bottom is kind of neat...it shows how the cross in the bottom of the barrel helm holds a chain, which in turn is holding a little shield. I have never seen a little shield being held by a chain that way, though of course it was common to attach a sword that way.

A three piece suit. Oh my!
Well, details would include the lovely keel down the front, and for some reason, the pieces are riveted together. Again, I wonder why...are they actually slotted to the piece underneath? I have been known to slot breastplates this way, but never five slots per placquart. They would shift around and jam up! I just have to shrug, and point out some nicer parts of this armour.
The rolls inside the vambrace at the inside of the elbow. Clearly not done by machine! It is done by hand, the same way I do it here in my shop.
I wish the same could be said for the tassetts and the pelvic arch.
The fluted shoulder cops. Now that is nicely done! Those are made over an anvil, not by a machine. And it shows. Wish I could do work that good.

'

Metalworking

That picture? Participants at the battle of Wakefield. Love the little tassets behind the big tassets, and the fancy wings on the legs. Niiiiiiccccceeeeee.

A couple of metal working books.
First Lessons in Metalworking by Alfred Compton. Professor at the University of New York.
http://www.archive.org/stream/firstlessonsinm00compgoog#page/n8/mode/2up

Workshop notes and sketches. by Thomas Clarke. You might wish to just skip over to chapter three for a pleasant dissertation about the state of metalwork in the 1880's.
http://www.archive.org/stream/workshopnotesske00clarrich#page/n7/mode/2up

Mediaeval craftsmanship and the Modern Amateur. By Newton Wethered, in London. This 1923 book is a valuable read, particulary for anyone who is planning to do some old style enameling and jewelry. A rattlin' good read on a sunny winter's afternoon.
http://www.archive.org/stream/mediaevalcraftsm00wethuoft#page/n7/mode/2up

Armourers marks

You have to love the world of the interwebs! For instance, all the stuff you can see by going to the armoury in Leeds is all here, in this series of books from the Internet Archive. Almost every single page from this book is fascinating, and I found the below appendix to be VERY interesting....it is a list of armourer's marks.
Click on the images to enlarge.
go here to read the book. http://www.archive.org/stream/inventorysurveyo01ffou#page/n7/mode/2up

Go here to read others in the series. http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=inventory%20and%20survey%20of%20the%20armouries%20in%20the%20tower%20of%20london%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts




http://www.archive.org/stream/inventorysurveyo01ffou#page/484/mode/2up

Budapest Statuary

My favorite period of armour. These statues in Budapest are stunning in their detail! No two armours are the same. This is what makes for good and interesting work, good and interesting sources! You must click on these images to enlarge them.
The first pic, the one above has some interesting features. Firstly, he is holding a really cool axe by the long spear spike at its top. The length of the handle is unusually long. He is wearing an open face helm, and half body armour over his torso only. The fustian shirt is collared, and looks very stylish. I am betting this fellow is a horseman because his legs are encased in chain mail, and that big gap at his belly would close up when he sits down.
The fine mustachio'd figure above wears a lobster tailed pot helm with cheek pieces. He carries a very business like four flanged mace with a very useful wrist strap. That nice cloak is the sign of a commander, and that bezant studded leather cuirass has a large number of floppy decorative bits on the front which no doubt jingle prettily as he walks. He wears no armour on his legs or knees, and the fancy greaves look quite serviceable. Those vambraces are unusual...a steel plate on the top of his forarm seem wrong to me...you don't normally get hit there...I would have thought the steel would have been on the bottom of his forearm instead of the top of it. Artistic licence or perhaps the gentleman prefers wrap arounds with that mace!
This fine gentleman carrying the lion's pelt and Asterix style winged helmet is wearing a light weight leather tunic over his linen gown. His high boots look really serviceable. Really interesting features would be the wonderful triple wrapped sword belt, holding the sword very tightly to his left side. His left hand is reaching for a saw. I am betting he is not a carpenter though.
Mail draped skull cap and spear show this fellow to be an old school warrior. The heavy leather tunic is a simple wrap around, secured by by a wide belt and it shows signs of being reenforced instide with metal plates. The legs are protected by thick wollen drapes, with no indication of any underlying steel. The drapes will prevent an opponent from figuring out where his legs are, which might well give him an advantage in a fight since you would not be able to spot foot changes or stance changes. A sword would simply get tangled in the drapery.

A very well armoured knight. His cloak is obscuring the small scales. His sword scabbard has a detachable feature called a "frog". You don't see his sword (due to weather damage), but it is a fairly long one, and he stands at the "at ease" position. His posture is very straight due to the weight of that scale, and the greaves are a little different in that they are vee notched in front at the top.
This sad looking fellow has a helmet decorated with hawks wings, and has a lion's pelt over his shoulders as a cloak. Very magistrarial. Though he is wearing a sword belt very high waisted, there is no evidence that it actually has a sword attached. All in all, a commander in the chamber rather than a commander in the field.

These statues were all inside a triumphal arch at the "fisherman's bastion" in Budapest.

Roman Army Multi Tool

From the web site http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/2000-year-old-roman-multi-tool/

This is just too cool for words. Lets see...there is a spoon and a blade, making this clearly a mess kit, a hoof pick, and two tools I have no freakin' idea what they are for!

More on the FitzWilliam Museum web site...

http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/opac/search/cataloguedetail.html?_function_=xslt&_limit_=10&priref=70534

Lion Armour part two

click to see these details in their larger magnificence.....
This again, is the famous Lion Armour at the Tower of London collection, which of course, has been moved to Leeds where it is housed in a state of the art museum instead of a draghty old castle.
The above picture is tellling....the traditional "Knight in Shining Armour", An image beloved by little girls everywhere, and truth be known, by boys as well. The crash helmet "close helm" is made for jousting and as you can see, it rests neatly on the shoulders. You can't really see it in the above picture, but there is an interferance fit under the helm which means you have to lift the visor, swing the cheek pieces up and out of the way to unhook the helm from the gorget underneath. The gorget in turn sits under the breastplate. So the helm acts like a roll cage...this fellow could fall off the back of his horse, and land on his head with perfect safety. This is a rather specialized armour, useless IMHO for fighting, but perfect for the sport of equestrian jousting.
How do we know it is a jousting armour? Well, lets look at some details

Above is a closeup of the front of the Lion Armour. The first thing we notice (I mean, after being blinded by the bling of the repousse work and gold leaf) is the fact that the anonymous owner of this suit had an extra breastplate built for his safety which fits neatly over top the fancier parade armour underneath. (wow, the mind boggles at the magnificence of the under armour)

The above glimpse of the underarm of this suit shows an inch wide line of the under armour. Obviously I was not allowed to actually measure or gauge the armour, but if I had to guess (based on, oh, 17 years experience or so) I would suggest that the over breastplate would be a full fourteen gauge AWG, (possibly even heavier in some places) and the under breastplate is parade weight, no more than 18 gauge. But considering the general overall quality of this armour, some would be prepared to suggest that this armour would have been heat treated to stiffen it further. I don't believe that. If anybody went to the trouble of selecting expensive (more expensive pound for pound than silver at the time!) high grade steel for armour instead of using such hard to come by material for swords, the high carbon content would would cause it to crack under the repousee hammer, and by the time the armourer "browned" the steel and fire guilded the surface, any hardness would have been soaked out of it. I would allow my mind to change if anybody showed me an assay of the steel...unlikely at this juncture. Armour does not NEED to be heat treated to be effective.
Oh, while we are looking at that cool right hand pauldron, allow me to draw attention to joust damage....the corner up top where a lance snagged the pauldron, and again, the arm which has been caved in and the gold wiped away, possibly by the bell of the lance. Cool eh?

I will however bend my stiff neck to acknowledge that perhaps the under armour would be heat treated...there are cracks around the holes in the above picture which suggest something slammed into the armour.
A good picture, that one. The light is coming from the side, showing off some details which should be pointed out. First, the texture of the surface of the outer breastplate. The shiny robot like finish so beloved of fantasy artists is clearly not de-rigeur here. What you see is the rough surface of a finishing stake. This is the way armour comes from the "factory", before three or four centuries of garrison polishing with bricks.
Secondly, the armour has actually been used in a jouste, there is evidence of impact. (Imagine using a piece of artwork in a rough and tumble thing like a real jouste! I LIKE this guy!) Note the slight depression around the hook and eye fastener. More to the point, check out the much larger depression around the large hole created by the slamming inward of the lance rest base. The lance rest was clearly fastened to the under armour, but there would have been a large flange to soak up the impact of a lance. You can see the impact signature of that large flange. Note how the light pics out the gold at the bottom of the big rectangular hole, showing that it has been pushed in slightly? The impact signature even took a chunk out of the tip of the hook , and if you look at the lower picture, you can see impact damage to the right pauldron. The repair was inexpertly done, but perhaps the owner wanted to show a little damage, that he didn't want to be seen as a stay at home jouster. Certainly, the question of why that damage would be there right up in front for everybody to see and not repaired is a valid question considering the overall quality of the rest of the armour. Anybody care to contribute to this conundrum?

The above picture shows the fasteners of the over breastplate to the under breastplate. The hooks and eyes are common methods, but the turning key in the middle is actually more common. Note that the eyes have been "Browned" as well.
Browning is a method of controlled rusting....it works best with low carbon steels. The browning provides a reasonably rust resistant surface. I have heard it said that the "Brown Bess" musket got its name from the surface treatment....(seems reasonable I suppose).
The repousse on the upper edge of the armour is actually quite stunning. But if you look closely, all the decoration is on the under-breastplate. The over-breastplate ends just above the turn key in the centre. The two plates match up really perfectly...and clearly the armourer intended it to look as though they were one. But if you look really closely, (click on the imgage) just under the wing of the left pauldron, you can see the slightest gap.
Like so much of this armour, I have to say... "Nicely done!"

Royal Armoury at Leeds

This is the grand hall, the entrance to the Royal Armouries. The info desk is in the middle there, the wings come off it either side as if we were in a cross shaped cathedral. Aside from the repo horseman in armour up above, the hall is pretty plain. Oh, except for that yellow banner in the back with the royal armouies logo on it. Thats a sheet of gold coloured chain mail.
Click on these pictures please to get a feel for this place....

The Christmas tree in the base of the tower in back. They have decided to decorate with clever arrangements of weapons. In at least five layers...rings really, inside this tower. The staircase goes outside the centre shaft, and as you ascend, you get a lovely view of Leeds, and the canal boats in the marina outside. As if I was looking at boats.....grin! Oh, and the outside of this centre shaft is also decorated in weapons, which you can see through the glass as you walk up to the building. Above is a very nice arrangement of pikes and pole weapons. a couple of small cannons, and a few muskets.


Above is some very nice Belgian style armour. Very distinctive with their short cuirasses, and long tasset-cuisses. They didn't like the really fancy shoulders....this is not for the joust nor is it for the parade...it is good solid work a day armour. The two on either side are contemporary to the middle one, but are from a different armoury, and are no doubt not made for any one particular person.


Brown Bess rifles, pikes, and backplates.

And a lovely crown of poke bayonettes over the circular window. The triangular bayonette is of course, now illegal for use under Geneva Convention, however it was particularly effective for almost 300 years. They kept trying to replace the poke bayonette with a sword or a knife bayonette, but always came back to the tried and true. After all, it is a rare soldier who would prefer to be carried by six instead of being judged by twelve.

Lycean Armour

A reconstruction of the mainLykean (orLycen) temple. It was pretty much rubble when it was re-discovered in the 1880s.

This is a closeup of one of the sculpted blocks at the base of the temple. We can get a lot out of even a smashed up bas relief. lets focus in on a few aspects of this sculpture shall we?
The whole block is a good two feet high, so the figures are about a cubit in length. They don't follow the convention that the important guy is a lot bigger, and they have not discovered perspective. But they DO like to show combat between champions.
As usual, the phalluses have been knocked off as "good luck" charms over the years.

above is a closeup of the fella shown below. He has a beautiful horsehair plume on his helmet, a nice big round bronze heavy shield as made famous in the movie "The 300", and bare feet. Other representations show them wearing sandals. One wonders why the bare feet and light clothing. Perhaps if Iwas in swealtering Anatolia during the summer, I would figure it out!
The helmet intentionally looks like a phallus head. No, really, it was assumed that the phallus was the source of all martial power and strength, and they made their helmets to reflect that.

A phalanx being attacked by a horseman. The horse appears to have been trained to fight...look at it kicking at the guywith the shield! How exciting! What a story this tells!

A great image of a phalanx
The horseman being knocked off his horse. The horse just keeps on fighting, the rider is pretty much done for!

One on one fighting. One is reminded of Homer's epic in which the great champions went at it in front of the walls of windy Troy. Maybe not so far wrong...Troy was one of their neighbours to the north...
Below is another awesome battle scene. I love the heavy leather armour on the lad to the right. The big cloak blowing back in the in the wind. The spear (now long lost) ready to drive into the chest of the NEXT rider foolish enough to take him on. If you click on any of these images, you can enlarge them enough to check out the great armour. And get a load of those kicky floppy top horseman's boots!


Don't be feeling bad if you have never heard of Lycea...I mean, nobody I know has ever heard of Lycea. However,a few minutes on google http://www.lycianturkey.com/ tells us that they were a remarkably influential group back in the day. That day being the 500 odd years Before the Common era. (Thats the politically correct term we use instead of BC nowadays)
The Lyceans were the ones who gave us "proportional representation", a term which is usually meant to mean "democracy", at least, democracy as it is though of today. Their forms of government were studied by republicans for millenia.
They were rare fighters. Fought the Greeks who were coming in from across the pond, fought the Trojans who came south looking for women and gold, lets face it, they were on a cross roads, and they fought everybody who wanted such a nice coastline and fertile, horse friendly fields. They fought the Persians about the same time as the Spartans, with much the same fury. A contemporary account tells of how they were not about to let the Persians get their wimmen-folk and their holy relics, so they burned their church down on top of them. cut and paste follows of the report from an eye witness...
"The Persian Army entered the plain of Xanthos under the command of Harpagos, and did battle with the Xanthians. The Xanthians fought with small numbers against the superior Persians forces, with legendary bravery. They resisted the endless Persian forces with great courage, but were finally beaten, their womenfolk, children, slaves and treasures into the fortress. This was then set on fire from, below and around the walls , until destroyed by conflagration. Then the warriors of Xanthos made their final attack on the Persians, their voices raised in calls of war, until every last man from Xanthos was killed."

Wow. What a way to fall off the radar!
The Lyceans rated their own room in the British Museum. Their architecture and sculpture was so seminal that most of what we now think of as "Greek" temples, sculpture and even political systms were actually invented by the Lyceans. I have posted some snapshots I took at the British Museum, and have concentrated on an event they commemorated in sculpture that dates to 429 BC....the invasion by Athens. You can tell the Athenians by their big round shields, and you can tell the Lycans by their little cute caps and they artist always shows them winning.