Was Gothic style armor from germany specifically or was it simply a style?
Was northern italian any different in build? (I heard that southern germany and northern italy both built good harness's.)
unrelated
Was a 6-1 style mail ever poplular?
| Michael Curl wrote: |
| Was Gothic style armor from germany specifically or was it simply a style?
|
That may well depend on whether you ask an armour expert, an art historian, or someone like me who is interested but not an expert. I'm hoping some experts will chime in here though :)
When someone says "gothic armour" to me the images that pop into my mind are of the fluted German armours from the likes of Susenhoffer and Helmschmid, but what we call the Gothic art movement of the middle ages certainly extended outside of Germany so considering armour as a sculptural art as well as a practical defensive article, non-German armours certainly count as "Gothic".
| Quote: |
|
Was northern italian any different in build? (I heard that southern germany and northern italy both built good harness's.) |
From what I've seen, Italian armour tended to be more 'massive' and more rounded in style whereas the German tended towards the tall slim silhouette with fluting for strength, decoration, and in some places as a means of deflecting weapons away from vulnerable bits. From what little I've seen of English armour of the period it was different in style again, though perhaps closer to the Italian than the German.
Arguably the two most famous representations of each style can be seen on the feature on 15th century gothic armour right here on myArmoury: http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_gothic_armour.html
As far as I know, both Germany and Italy had pretty good iron in the medieval period and around that grew centres of armouring that produced not only the extremely high-quality examples that we are familiar with from the books etc, but also vast vast quantities of 'regular' munitions grade armour for export. I'm not sure how much or the apparent popularity in their armours stems from the fact that people like the Missaglias and Susenhoffers etc who were arguably some of the greatest armourers ever to lift a hammer lived there or because they just made lots and lots and lots of it for export in much the same ways that some countries today are known for their cars, some for their textiles and so on.
Basically in the 15th you see to trends develop sort of mid century. Slender and fluted with more acute points, think point couters and sallet tails. This was prefered by the Germans The other is Rounded in shape and edges, more full so to speak. This was basically italian style.
Both likely copied the other a bit, especially for export.
This is somewhat exaggerated for simplicity.
Italians had better steel from late 14th/early 15th whereas into the late 15th german armour still uses low quality iron often. By the end of the 15th in a few locations this changes in s. Germany though. Heat treatment of marked items in Italy during the 15th is much more common, the germans not doing much till once more the late part of the 3rd quarter. Italian and german unmarked are usually unheat treated.
If you want a good idea of this look up the Knight and the Blast Furnace by Williams.
As to the 6 in 1.... Not really. It seems to have only been used where it was deemed needed. The only one I know of being the throat section of a 15th century mail standard. The lower part is all 4 in 1.
RPM
Both likely copied the other a bit, especially for export.
This is somewhat exaggerated for simplicity.
Italians had better steel from late 14th/early 15th whereas into the late 15th german armour still uses low quality iron often. By the end of the 15th in a few locations this changes in s. Germany though. Heat treatment of marked items in Italy during the 15th is much more common, the germans not doing much till once more the late part of the 3rd quarter. Italian and german unmarked are usually unheat treated.
If you want a good idea of this look up the Knight and the Blast Furnace by Williams.
As to the 6 in 1.... Not really. It seems to have only been used where it was deemed needed. The only one I know of being the throat section of a 15th century mail standard. The lower part is all 4 in 1.
RPM
This knight and the blast furnace, should I google it or is it on this website?
Edit: Holy $%@& it costs over 300 dollars!!!, Does anyone here actually have it?
Edit: Holy $%@& it costs over 300 dollars!!!, Does anyone here actually have it?
I am sure several people have it here. It is not a cheap book but try doing a google book search on it.
RPM
RPM
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