I am having difficulty researching the piece of neck armor known as a standard. Googling "mail standard" "standard armor" etc has been completely hopeless. Can anyone help me, please? In particular, I would like to know how the armor was constructed, when it was introduced and how long it continued in use. I am under the impression that the standard is a sort of padded collar, sometimes reinforced with mail or lames and sometimes with a bishops-mantle-like extension over the shoulders. Is this at all correct? Any info or points in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

hi Scott, yes I can see the difficulty in googling mail standard. AFAIK a standard and a bishops mantle were the same thing, you might also try searching with the word pisane which is also another world meaning the same thing.

Try this!

:)

Thank you both for your quick replies. Mark, as you can see, I am not very computer savvy, but thanks to forumnites like you I am learning a little bit all the time. Stephen, thank you for the synonym, I will see if that helps with my research. I still have a lot of research to do to fully answer my questions, but now at least I am off to a good start.

the bishop's mantle is a much larger thing, covering to the shoulders.
There's some standard info. here: http://www.historiclife.com/Armory.htm

They seem to first appear during the 14th century, and are worn under aventails on bascinets, or with great helms.
Some seem to have a leather lining folded over the top, while others seem to take to form of late 15th century designs.

http://effigiesandbrasses.com/monuments/charl...815/large/

http://effigiesandbrasses.com/monuments/roger...170/large/

Sean, thank you for the link, that is exactly what I needed. I want to make some authentic solid/riveted mail, but I want to start with something relatively small, so I figured a standard would be perfect. Now I have some very detailed instructions!
I thought that there was some distinction between a standard and a bishop's mantle, I just wasn't sure what it was. I have been under the impression that "standard" was a period term but "bishop's mantle" was not. Is that correct?

Thank you Jojo for the links to the effigies. Too bad the standard only started being used in the 14th c, I was hoping for a piece of kit that would fit in with both a 15th c and a 12th-13th c kit. Oh well, ces't la vie.

http://www.tforum.info/forum/index.php?showtopic=26698

Len: Woah! That is a fantastic thread! Thanks so much.

Scott: I think David Teague had a thread over at The Armour Archive that showed how he contstructed his standard; I've just had a quick look but couldn't find it ... see how you go!

Mark

PS Wasn't meaning to be a smart-alec with the 'Let Me Google That For You' link - I just find Google's domain-specific search can give you not only targeted results, but also allows the use of inverted commas to get compound / combined word sets.

This looks like a good standard to study (at bottom). http://www.britishplate.org.uk/under_the_armour.htm You can see where the expansion rings are put in a few rows up between the points. Wish they had a picture of it being worn, but it looks like it would fit right.

Jojo, nice find on the second image. That's the earliest standard I've seen. The first one might be attached to the shirt?

Here's a thread that shows pics of one of the standards that David Teague assembled: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...t=standard

Everything posted here so far only seems to be padded at the collar. I was wondering what your thoughts are on a piece that is fully lined, such as this one:

http://www.diu-minnezit.de/realie_vollansicht...ellermarke

I have built this maille collar. The lining of the lower part is pure speculative (the text mentions that). I was simply fed up with my doublet becoming stained. The upper part bases on an original.

Mark, no prob, I didn't take it as anything but helpful.
James, I am not entirely sure what you mean in your last post. Do you simply mean that if you were to do it again, you would do one with dags? Or do you mean that the body should be made up of triangular pieces fitted together?

Here's one made with squares and triangles http://www.tula-svarga.ru/catalog/artefacts/e...a/245.html

That 6 in 1 collar would be more like the one here http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewto...;p=2109048