[William P]

so recently i was poring over an old DK eyewitness guides book on medieval life, and there is two pages on medieval soldiering, and it containes what is described as the kit of 'a professional soldier in the late 15th century'

his gear is shown in the links below, but it is comprised of the folowing
-visored sallet, no bevor,
-jack with arm splints/ jack chains,
-under the jack is what is DESCRIBED as "close fitting canvas arming doublet" so im hearing two layers of padding which is good
-mitten gauntlets
-a 'glaive' of some description, its shown at a funny angle so you dont get thebest view, but this http://www.casiberia.com/prod_Detail.aspx?id=XB2733 gives a good look, and the image of it and the jack and jack chains and gauntlet, shown here http://themiddleages.tripod.com/soldiers.htm seem to be matched pretty closely with what looks like the originals http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/History...index.html

- a sword and buckler, shown here, http://www.dk.co.uk/static/covers/all/3/5/9781405345453H.jpg thats the best image i could find on google so far of the sword

and a ballock dagger, shown here http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/History...ers-6.html


the two questions ihope to figure out,
is this actually what your common soldier would have used in the 15th C
and where is this stuff FROM? hanwei/GDFB say the glaive jack and jack chains are based of museam originals, which seems reasonable since the GDFB stuff in hanweis tocks bears very close resemblence to the exampes in the DK book
im guessing its an english kit, but im also expecting the possibility of france or germany or even italy
im hoping however to maybe try for an english kit.

[William P]

and the other thing im wondering is, would such a common soldier/ english archerwear knee cops or other leg armour?? or would it be just trousers?