[T. Arndt]

I am looking at putting together a 14th century kit targeting the last quarter of the century. I have been studying some effigies and have been consulting Arms & Armor of the Medieval Knight, which seem like very good reference points. I have also been review older posts here (lots of good stuff!).

What surprised me is the level variation on the effigies. For example splinted cuisses, which are more common earlier, fade out very slowly, with the last effigy having them being 1386. Conversely, more complex multipart knee copps, while very common towards the end of the century, can be found as early as 1327. I think this makes for a great century to base a kit on as it is hard to be wrong (within reason)!

Anyway, these are the plate components I was considering, I would appreciate any feed back . I intend to wear these with a gambeson, hauberk, coat of plates and Klappvisier.

MT 14th-15th Century Arms with Integral Spaulders
MT Besegues
MT Splinted Cuisses
MT 5-Lame White Knee Copp
MT (Schynbalds) Plate Greaves (53% the weight and 34% the price of full)

[Terry Thompson]

For the last quarter of the 14th century, if you're looking at doing a knight's armor you're probably looking at a globose breast or corrazina. Coat of plates were probably still in use last quarter of the 14th, but most likely a knight would have had the means for a full breast-plate. I know that coat of plates appear on effigies into the 1360's but they are the minority even then for people of means.

A point about the arms is try to find someone that does the spaulders properly. I feel that a lot of armorers do the lames on the articulated arms make them too large. They often are too large or come down too far down the biceps...sometimes overlapping the rerbraces almost completely.

A last thought is about splinted cuisses. Once again by the fourth quarter of the century, you mostly see effigial evidence of solid plate cuisses by a much greater frequency. The splinted cuisses appear to have stopped being popular in the 1360's in England. Perhaps a bit later in Germany (~1400), as the Germans seemed to have been partial to the decorative riveting or light weight of splinted armor. If you do decide to go with splinted cuisses, there's evidence to suggest that some cuisses were probably more like coats of plates, with horizontal plates beneath a cloth covering suspension, not vertical plates like you see most people using today and a few effigies. The reasons are: 1) the staggered spacing of rivets are not indicative of linear vertical splints (possibly this was just artistic license). And 2) wearing vertical splints on your thighs does not allow for optimal freedom of movement in the legs. It's not definate, but it's something to consider.

My best suggestion to people is find a period effigy/brass/illumination that you really take a like to and try to be as faithful to it as you possibly can within the realm of what will work.
-Terry

[T. Arndt]

Hey Terry,

Thanks for the input. You have some good points about coats of plates, spaulders and cuisses.

Based on your comments, my armour preferences (for weight, cost and athletics) and reviewing some effigies I am going to target the 1360s specificity. Thank you for helping me narrow my focus.

I think if we consider the Battle of Visby took place in 1361, and effigy evidence, that the coat of plates was very common at this time. I am going to hazard the wild guess that if I was a Knight or Man-at-arms in the 1360s using splinted cuisses I am more likely to also be using a coat of plates (and vice versa), although that is a conjecture. One note about this decade is that besegues seem to be almost non-existent, so I am not going to worry about those anymore.

I did some quick reviewing of the effigies and I counted the number fell into these groups:
Group A: With only mail thigh protection
Group B: With splinted thigh protection
Group C: With plate thigh protection

I found between 1359-1370:
A: 1 (3.3%)
B: 14 (46.6%)
C: 15 (50.0%)

Of course there were some effigies which I could not tell anything about their cuisses by looking at-

[Tomas B]

My first advice is to determine some things to focus your kit. Those can be a time frame, location, a certain piece of armour, etc. You'll also need to determine how historically accurate you want to make your kit.

One thing I see a lot of people do is go through the effigy and manuscript evidence and grab things from all over. I'd recommend you chose a region (not a country). So instead of looking at effigies for all of Germany you may only be using ones from Bavaria. On the other hand if you want to be accurate-ish grab from a country and remember to restrict it to a ten year period. You see a lot of pan-European, pan-14th Century kits out there that ignore the regional uniqueness of armour in this period.

The reason it is often a good idea to try to replicate a specific effigy is that (unless the artist totally got it wrong) your armour was actually worn in period together. One problem with this is you can end up with dozens of clones of one specific effigy walking around at a large event.

Of course I have been researching my kit for over a decade but is still only in my head.

Cheers,

Tomás

[Allan Senefelder]

Mr. Ardnt, we haven't had time to get pics up on the site yet but we can do the 5 lame knees attached directly to the splinted cuisses for you if you'd like should you choose ultimately to use us for your kit. Just wanted to put that out there for you.

[Scott Hrouda]

I find the study of 14th century European armour development an incredibly fascinating, diverse and occasionally frustrating subject.
Originally I had a long winded post in mind, but instead I will pose a question.

Dr. Douglas Strong has done this community a huge favor with his research An Analysis of 1300 Effigies Dated Between 1300 and 1450. Has anyone taken it a step further by cataloging the same component and era data into a complete kit basis accessible via specific search criteria

Note: I see that Effigies and Brasses offers the ability to add tags which, in effect, would serve the same purpose. The tagging of this immense and valuable resource is understandably incomplete due to the size and complexity of the task at hand.

[edited to correctly identify Doctor Douglas Strong]

[T. Arndt]

[Ian S LaSpina]

[Robert Brandt]

[Randall Moffett]

Robert,

This is one reason I feel effigies are a poor way to gauge armours dates. Most effigies simply use the date of death of the person the effigy is of. Doug's system was to add years after with the idea that it was generally done years after the persons death, which is not always the case but may or may not be the norm. As well I am fairly sure that effigies were made starting with templates or blanks of some nature so we see some rather old armour being on these gents likely due to convention.

Personally I like effigies for getting an idea of the look, style and design but avoid dates unless there is no other way.

Doug's work is awesome and very useful but like any work cannot be used for everything.

We have been talking about doing the same thing with Manuscripts as they typically have firmer dates due to their text. Problem I am having is that living in the US again I cannot go and look at the originals and the number of websites and books with the complete MS illustrations is very limited. This would help immensly but at this time I cannot find a way to execute this project. For example the majority of knights in the Taymouth Hours (Thompson-Yates 13) are in full plate armour with fairly complex bascinets and the dates are 1326 or so.

RPM

[Kel Rekuta]

[Scott Hrouda]

[Jojo Zerach]

Yes, what region are you going for? Most of the pieces you linked don't really go together.
Besgews go out of use (in England) around 1350.
Klapvisors are German, but arms with integral spaulders are English. 5-piece knees are from the 15th century.
Splinted cuisses and articulated knees also don't really go together.

If you're going for 1360 now, I would go with
Bascinet
Coat of plates
mail shirt
surcoat
plate arms with integral spaulders
Cuff gauntlets
Splitned cuisses
floating knees
Half or cased greaves
sabatons

[Robert Brandt]

[T. Arndt]

[Jojo Zerach]

[William P]

i find it interesting that the 14th C western europe also makes extensive use of splint limb armour, i thought that this sort of armour was relegated to byzantine and more east dwelling armies, like the rus, arabs and saracens.

seems i was mistaken

[F. Carl Holz]

in light of the discussion on the use of effigies and brasses, this might be of interest:

An Analysis of 600 English Effigies Dated Between 1300 and 1450
http://talbotsfineaccessories.com/armour/effi...figies.htm

[T. Arndt]

[Ian S LaSpina]

One trap people fall in to when planning a kit is picking the armor they like first, then trying to make history support the conclusion they want to arrive at. I made that mistake when I started out, and it's a long and expensive road to remedy when historical accuracy becomes a priority.