Today's update:

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The Paper Armoury: Our Top Shelf
An article by Sean A. Flynt

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The Anglo Saxon Broken Back Seax
An article by Frank Docherty

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Darkwood Armory English Rapier
A hands-on review by Geoff Freeman


As always, you can see our Complete History of Updates listed right from our home page.

Please note that in the article, "The Paper Armoury: Our Top Shelf ", each book is linked to a page on a retailer's site that has the book available for purchase. If you click on these links in the article and then follow-through with an actual sale during that same session, myArmoury.com will earn some affiliate credit from that sale. All proceeds from these sales will be used to purchase book prizes for upcoming contests. The knowledge contained in the books is encouragement enough to buy them, but I also hope that knowing you're giving back to the site and community might further convince you to augment your own library.

A couple books don't have links, as they're no longer commonly available: you'll likely find them in the used market or perhaps new from a more obscure source.

Cheers!

Thanks to Sean, Frank, Geoff and Nathan for another week of great articles & reviews. The book thing is especially cool!


Bill

Very good update once again. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised when I saw that Ashdown's European Arms & Armor made the list. I have rather strong feelings against that book, but I guess it does still have some value. I still do not believe that his information on "banded maille" is correct, but the rest of the text is valuable; just don't trust the illustrations too much.

I only see two problems with this update, and both of them are in the "Paper Armoury." First, I already own about half of these books, so I can't go out and buy them all. Second, I only own about half of these books, so I can't afford to go out and buy them all. I want my cake, and I want to eat it too!!

Keep up the good work!

-Grey

I like that one about The Anglo Saxon Broken Back Seax,
they are so hard to get some information about them out there, and when i found something
it's always about the big one and the runes on it, i like the small ones more,
they are more useful to work with and handle, and i will buy one when i found one :D

Nathan! there are no link to it in Features :)

How could i miss that :D

The funny thing with the big seax with rune's on it, is that people always look at the easy ones (pic 1)
and i have always wonder what the lower ones are, is it a pattern or is it a name? (pic 2)

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Pic 1

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Pic 2

As to the fighting qualities of the Seax I think that the comparison to Bowie knives is very hard to avoid: I can't be the first person to notice the resemblance. Does anyone else think that the Bagwell Bowie "Hell's Bell" as made by Ontario knives resembles some single edged Medieval daggers ?

The Ashdown book does reflect what was considered at the time, 1906, the right interpretation of maille being sometimes "banded" which I think was first proposed by Violet Leduc in the 19th century as an explanation of drawings showing maille: A very literal view that the horizontal lines separating rows of maille actually were a structural features of the construction of maille made of leather and holding together overlaping ring. This was all very imaginative but very wrong.

Still the book has a lot of interesting things in it, even if some 19th century opinions have been proven wrong.

I'm glad you both brought up Medieval Military Costume because it's a book I don't own. I forgot about it, frankly, so I'll be adding it to my own "someday" list. My main struggle with books now is that I have most of the readily available titles on arms and armour and am left with hard-to-find and very expensive titles now: so unfortunately, my own library augmentation is now going to be very slow.

"The Paper Armoury: Our Top Shelf"

... Talk about 'Ask And You Shall Receive.' (something similar was discussed in a thread just weeks ago)

On a related note, I finally got a hardcopy of Swords in the Age of Chivalry today (well, ordered it last week, it arrived today). Time to study.

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to say anything derogitory about Ashdown's book. I own it, and it can be a very valuable resource. Like Chad, I would have debated including it, but in the end it probably would have made the cut.

Jeremy Scott Steimel, has the right idea. I need more of these books (though I too suffer a bit from Nathan Robinson's problem of owning the easy to find ones), and it might as well help out myArmoury. Now I just hope I can find space in my barracks room for another book shelf!

-Grey

I've been finding that many of the newer books being published are far superior to the older "classic" titles. Many of the older works are full of inaccuracies and misinformation. Some of the newer one present much more accurate information. So just because it's old and rare doesn't neccesarily mean it's any good. Personally I'm past the point were I'm going to pay a large some for a book just to add it to my library. Being able to say "I have one of those" isn't enough for me anymore.

The desire for those books goes well beyond that, Patrick. Many of the difficult to acquire titles are foreign-language publications that document items rarely seen on this side of the globe.