[Patryk Nieczarowski]

hello

I've some question ...the guy from this tomb-plate has some strange kind of the neck protect ....what is it ?
is it the kind of early bevor ? ....and what is the way of attaching to chain-mail of basinet ?

maybe somone know some analogies for this kind of the defence ?

thanx for any help

[Norbert Keller]

Hi!

In my opinion this is something like this picture, its a gorget. It could be made from steel, or heavy leather+chainmail, or just leather alone.
Or maybe, its just a plate or leather collar to strengthen his mail hood.

[Felix R.]

Well, you can see the aventail attaching to the helmet and the section below the "gorget". So I don´t see it as being integral to the aventail. But a seperate piece. Maybe it is a reinforcment, English armour of Agincourt era have some neck/throat defences of similar shape, but that is about 50-60 years later than this brass. Why is it not shown in between.
Maybe it is just a kind of decoration?

[Nathan Robinson]

The whole image is stylized. I'd say it's just the leather collar on the mantle.

Thoughts?

[Thom R.]

could be ailettes on the neck rather than the shoulder

[Gregory J. Liebau]

[Nathan Robinson]

Gregory=

Great job! I still wonder what it means

[Gregory J. Liebau]

Here are three theories. I'll go from what I consider most to least likely. I'm bored, so I'm going to try to put a bit of effort into this...

First, I shall provide a literal interpretation of what Gravett and Turner are trying to depict and why they are doing so. There are no recognized examples of "plate collars" existing today that date as early as this as far as I'm aware. This obviously means their opinion can be recognized only as speculation. It is just as possible that it is cuir bouilli as it is plate, if not more so, and there seem to be enough colored and decorated bits of limb armour in English effigies surviving from between 1320-1360 to support the use of leather frequently in England. The only other black portion of the effigy is behind the (presumably) brass poleyns that Sir Hastings wears. I find it unreasonable to assume that something that would have to be as supple as to be in this location and the neck piece would be the same material (throwing color out as a possible reference), so it's unlikely that it's padded. The padding would also make 100% more sense beneath the coif where it could both protect Sir Hastings from puncture wounds due to pressure on his neck as well as protect the neckpiece beneath the mail from cuts and thrusts.

The bascinet he wears is a rather primitive design that is seen in other features from the era such as the Romance of Alexander plates. The plate only recognizably goes down to just below the ears, so there is only mail (and possibly quilted padding) below the edge of the face to protect the neck. Sir Hastings was one of the richest knights in Medieval England and led personal attacks by large forces during the events that led up to and became the battle of Crecy in 1346. So it's very likely that he wore some fine armour. This was an evolutionary period as well, and England was it's own rock... So we can never be entirely sure what to expect from the isles during the 14th century with things like this! That's probably the most constructive argument for it being plate... Because that's still being completely skeptical.

Second... It's some kind of funerary achievement. A token of the king, perhaps, or a relative or man of greater wealth? A black neck piece that they carved into his effigy with honor.

Thirdly... And this is the most outrageous but most fun one I could come up with. Sir Hugh Hastings died in 1347. This is after the Battle of Crecy... But the same year that the infamous bubonic plague ravaged Europe. I cannot find the origin of his death nor do I even know if it's recorded! If he was in fact taken by the plague, this could be a mark of his being taken by it. The neckpiece is extremely black in what interpretations I've seen, after all. I have not seen the real thing though. Is it still around today?

Who knows what it is, really? Speculating is great if we aren't trying to reaaaaaaally pinpoint it. The most conclusive answer I can give is "we shall never know, so it's no use trying."

-Gregory

[Patryk Nieczarowski]

wOw ! ...I didn't know it's so mystery case ....for me it is very interesting because it's on chain-mail of basinet - it looks like absolutly independent part

thank You guys for the answers !

Gregory, are there some exemples of similar kind of the defence ? ...I mean the period 1350-1420

[Ben Mudd]

I'd been looking for this thread for a few hours a day or two ago, but couldn't ever find it again.

Anyway, this is the whole original brass, from the tomb of Sir Hugh Hastings:

HERE

I'd like to highlight two of the other figures (mourners) depicted around Sir Hugh:

Laurence Hastings

and

Almeric Saint Amand

Each seems to be wearing what is clearly an armoured collar or gorget, of a sort that seems very unconventional to my sight at least and each of which probably represents a type of transitional harness that didn't make the cut into the later XIVth century.

The figure of Edward le Despencer seems to be wearing an armoured collar similar to that worn by Laurence, but I can't find a high quality photo or rubbing of that piece of the brass, and the original monument is now badly damaged for reasons that I don't know. Maybe WW2 or vandalism?

In any case, here's a page with photos, albeit low resolution ones, of all the figures.

And nicer photos of several of the figures can be seen here.

In any case, it appears very clear to me that some sort or plate gorget was certainly represented in this monument, although it's uncertain to my eye whether Hugh himself is wearing one and whether the material might be iron or leather. My guess would be that Laurence's is metal, because of the visibly depicted hinge. Almeric's seems like a shape that would be best executed in metal as well, but these are just my guesses.

[Sander Marechal]

To my (not very informed) eye it looks like something that later evolved into the great bascinet. I guess those collars became higher and at some point were attached to the helmet itself, creating the great bascinet.

[Ben Mudd]

An interesting hypothesis, which I would agree is visually compelling . . . except that the timeline simply doesn't seem to bear it out. The great bascinet with integral gorget doesn't appear until the early 15th century (I believe, getting that late is past what I've been studying in regards to this), whereas these separate gorgets appear a few times in the 1340's and then would seem to die out.

It would appear to me that experimentation at this point produced some neck protection styles that don't seem to survive for long, some of which are superficially similar to later styles.

Also, I find it interesting that it would appear that the aventail is actually attached to the gorget instead of the bascinet itself on both Hugh's and Laurence's helmets.

[Sander Marechal]

Good point.

I just re-read the Spotlight article on 14th century bascinets and came up with a different theory. The effigies you posted are from ~1340. According to the spotlight article, aventails started appearing ~1330. So, both at the approximate same time. Perhaps both the aventail and these collars are experiments in providing better protection to the neck and shoulders when not using a coif. Eventually the aventail could have won out due to superiour flexibility and/or range of motion. Those collars look to be quite constraining.

[Ben Mudd]

That's roughly my guess as well.

[Samuel Bena]

Nice find guys!
searching through Czech on-line library I stumbled upon these images, interestingly the manuscript is also dated in the 1330-1340 era. Its apparently a north-Italian version of the Czech Dalimil Chronicle (sorry for the low quality):






You can clearly see plate neck-defence.. it thus appears that it was in use also outside of England

I recommend checking it out in original size and picture: (click Prohlížení , then find page 11v)

http://www.manuscriptorium.com/Manuscriptoriu...nvLang=cze

Cheers,
Samuel

[Craig Shackleton]

This is not directly connected, but may be relevant.

In this thread Mark T posted a link to this image, and commented that some of the helms have a red strap going around the back of them.

You can really zoom in on the image, and it looks to me like the straps are holding on a collar similar to what we've been talking about, although perhaps more like the collar on a great bascinet. It does appear to be a separate piece though, and the helms are more like barbutes. I think.

[Iagoba Ferreira]

Here in Spain there are some early XIV century images with a simmilar feature. In Ospreys "el Cid and the Reconquista" there are photos of one tomb now in the Cloisters showing it. But I haven't seen together in use with a visored helmet...