How did we get there from here? A late-15th-century barbuta (left: Metropolitan Museum of Art 04.3.232), a late 15th century sallet (right: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 04.3.227), and a page from the Paduan Bible Picture Book (British Library Additional 15277) painted seventy years before they were forged.
Most people interested in medieval armour think that the word sallet is first attested in the inventory of the Gonzaga family armoury after the death of Francesco I Gonzaga in 1407:
#23: Vna cellata coperta velluto carmesi pilloso cum certis dindinellis racamatis viridis “One sallet covered with plush crimson velvet with certain green embroidered fringes” #25: Quadraginta tres cellate ferri “43 sallets of iron” #124: Triginta stufe a celata “30 coverings for sallets”
That is the oldest reference in Claude Blair, and his book in 1958 was the last book on European armour by someone who spent a lot of time reading medieval documents in the original. In fact, there are another group of references from this time which have not yet been brought into the debate. These are in the Archivio Datini di Prato in Tuscany and were published by Luciana Frangioni in her article “Bacinetti e altre difese della testa nella documentazione di un’azienda mercantile, 1366-1410.” She copied and printed all of the references to armour for the head in this archive, and now I have copied them for you.
from 1406 (ADP, n. 178/15, c. 1t) cappellina d’acciaio celata, buona: s. 18 “celata chaplet of steel: 18 soldi“ celate di ferro, di più fazioni, buone e cattiva, piccole: s. 8 una “celate of iron, of many styles, good and bad, small: s. 8 each”
Dear sword & shield enthusiast, you are receiving this message because you have either registered for a class in the History Park in September or in the past, or have expressed your general interest at some point. Unfortunately, neither the class on September 1/2 nor the one on the following weekend of September 8/9 has... Continue reading: Cross-Post: Roland Warzecha Workshops September 2018
Tobias Capwell, the armour scholar who jousts, has a book out on his favourite sport. I wish there were people with a similar combination of skills writing about ancient armour! Tobias Capwell, Arms and Armour of the Joust. Arms and Armour Series. Royal Armouries, Leeds, 2018. 96 pages, ISBN-13 978-0948092831. You can find a copy... Continue reading: Cross-Post: New Tobias Capwell Book on Jousting
Oxbow Books, fine publisher and bookseller, has a book sale on. I flipped through their leaflet and picked out some things which my readers might be interested in. Anastasius Antonaras, Fire and Sand (Yale University Press, 2013) {509 glass objects from Preislamic times in an American collection} Beltrame (ed.), Sveti Pavao Shipwreck: a 16th Century... Continue reading: Sale at Oxbow Books
The first Rustkammer at Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck. Photo by Sean Manning, May 2018.
In an earlier post, I talked about videos on making armour. But what if you prefer books? Whereas 20 years ago very little was available, today there are quite a few things to read and look at.
There is one textbook on making European plate armour: Brian R. Price, Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction: The 14th Century (Paladin Press: Boulder Colorado, 2000). The book is a reasonable introduction by a mid-level armourer with a troubling history. Brian R. Price (now an Associate Professor at Hawai’i Pacific University) once ran a small press (Chivalry Bookshelf) until it emerged that he had not been paying the agreed royalties, had not obtained rights to all the illustrations, and had not registered their works with the appropriate authorities. Many of his other business (Thornbird Arms, Revival Enterprises, Past Tents, Fettered Cock Pewter, agilitas.tv, Sirivitana printer in Thailand, Midpoint Distribution Services) and martial-arts (Schola Saint George) associates had similar stories dating back to the 1980s, and in the end a coalition of authors sued him and regained control of their works in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement.* While Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction was published by Paladin Press, an independent business, many people are uncomfortable with supporting the author. (Also, this book is specifically on late medieval European armour … if you are interested in ancient kinds or kinds outside of Catholic Europe you will need other resources).
Are scale caps and aventails just a fantasy of the artist who painted these ruffians looting a house? Check out Medieval Warfare VIII-1 and find out! Photo courtesy of the British Library.
Another of my writing projects brings us to the 14th century AD, and the burning question “what kind of concealed armour could you buy in the Avignon of the Babylonian Captivity?” If you think that concealed armour is just for Assassin’s Creed and 16th century bravos, you might want to check out Medieval Warfare VIII-1!
But what if you want the original source? Medieval Warfare does not have room for sources in the original, so this week, I have pasted them from my rough draft of the article:
The Geschichtspark Bärnau-Tachov from the air, courtesy of http://www.geschichtspark.de/ Roland Warzecha will be teaching workshops on the Viking shield, high medieval shields, and the buckler at the Geschichtspark Bärnau-Tachow on the Czech border. The Geschichtspark is a unique location, with replicas of an 8th century Slavic settlement, a 10th century motte... Continue reading: Cross-Post: Sword and Shield Workshops 2018
As I have been working on my thesis, I found a reference which I was looking for but could not find back when I was writing my Master’s thesis. It described one of Edward I’s wars in Scotland where over the course of a few months, half of his infantry threw down their issued crossbows... Continue reading: Edward I’s Draft Dodgers
Peter Brueghel the Elder, The Harvesters (1565: now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession number 19.164). Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Some people on the Internet are curious about how much a shirt cost in the middle ages. Now you could try to answer that question by trying to calculate how long it would take to spin and weave the linen and sew the shirt, combining your guesses in an elaborate chain of assumptions using your modern education. A certain Eve Fisher imagined and calculated and came up with the figures $3500 or $4200 for a shirt like those depicted by painters like Peter Brueghel the Elder. This has been re-posted by a number of popular websites, and several weavers and spinners have dropped by her website to comment that they are not so sure about some of her assumptions. But did you know that we can skip all of these guesses and calculations, and the questions which they pose about whether we spin and weave as fast as people in the past, and just ask medieval people how much they paid for a shirt?
The St. George from Großlobming, Styria, in the Belvedere, Wien.
If you make your way to the Belvedere in Vienna, grumble at the steep price for tickets and gawk at the splendid, arrogant promenade sloping down towards the city centre and the lower pavilion, you will find yourself in the marble lobby of the Upper Belvedere. On the upper floors they have the Napoleon Crossing the Alps by David, some colourful paintings by Gustav Klimt, and a lot of softcore nudes for lonely Victorian gentlemen, but the most magnificent work is in a little suite of rooms on the ground floor opposite the gift shop and the cafe: a collection of statues from a little village church in the hills of Styria. I could talk about each of them, but because this blog is what it is, I will focus on the St. George.
Take a few moments to take him in: the expressive arms, the long slender profile with a high narrow waist and a deep rounded chest, the ethereal, emotionless face as he places his lance just right … some of the best things about Latin Christian art at the end of the 14th century in one statue. The little church does not have records of when it was redecorated, so when he was made can only be guessed at: probably sometime within 20 years of 1380.
