Danish armour -- myArmoury.com

Kertész Miklós József · Posted: Thu 06 Feb, 2014 3:49 am Post subject: Danish armour

There is an extensive amount of information about the Danish two-handed swords used during the 15. and the early 16. century. My problem is that I can not find any valid information about the armour the Danish used in that era, especially carrying the two-handed swords.
If somebody could give me some sources or post some pictures of some armours in question it would be a great help.

Thanks!

Neil Melville · Posted: Thu 06 Feb, 2014 9:06 am Post subject:

Hi Miklos,
I am sorry that I cannot help you with information about Danish armour, but you may be able to help me.
I have been researching Danish two-handed swords and have information from Bruhn-Hoffmeyer and Seitz but not a lot else. So if you could give me an idea of other sources I would be grateful. Many thanks and I hope someone else has the info which you want.
Neil

Bjorn Hagstrom · Posted: Thu 06 Feb, 2014 9:38 am Post subject:

Sweden at that time was under heavy cultural influence from the German lands in general, and the Hanseatic cities in particular. One can assume that that was the case for denmark also. (Maybe in the case of denmark the proximity to Friesland and the low countries would play part?)

So whatever was popular in Northern Germany is likely a good place to start. Hope someone with better knowledge of details can pitch in. I frequently visit the museums in copenhagen though, and might just have a few bad snapshots from the Danish Royal Armoury and a couple of the suits of armour on display there.

See, a whole post with out references and jokes about pastries.. Razz

Kertész Miklós József · Posted: Thu 06 Feb, 2014 11:55 am Post subject:

Hi Neil!

I'm sorry, by extensive I meant a lot more than about armour. I do not have more info about the two-handed swords than what I could find here, on myArmoury or by random google search.

So, I should get a German style armour if I want to use a Danish two-handed sword.

Mark Moore · Posted: Thu 06 Feb, 2014 2:32 pm Post subject:

Just pack your gambeson with cream-cheese Lil Debbie's........Ooooooooooohhhh! I had to....Sorry, Bjorn! Laughing Out Loud

...McM

Tobias Capwell · Posted: Thu 06 Feb, 2014 2:55 pm Post subject:

I haven't looked into this area of the subject in a big way, I just can say that practically all Danish visual sources which I have seen show German armour. No special export features, just straight German armour. This goes for Sweden too actually.

Interestingly Sir James Mann touched on this in his seminal article on the evolution of armour in Germany- in defining his use of the term 'Germany', he explained that it referred, for his purposes, to all of the German Lands as well as Scandinavia. It seems that he never found anything but German gear being worn there either.

Without a doubt there is still much waiting to be discovered and said about armour in Denmark. But yes, it looks like you are safe to go get a German 'Gothic' armour.

Let us know how you get on!

TC

Patrick Murray · Posted: Wed 12 Mar, 2014 8:18 am Post subject:

Hello Kertész,

It's not a very extensive writing, but I hope it helps. http://books.google.com/books?id=N2k-hrO6mkYC...mp;f=false

It's free on Google Books. It's a 48 page treatise on medieval 1300-1500 Scandinavian armies and their equipment. I've actually just started looking into it myself, and there are some enlightening points of view.; especially concerning the arming of peasant bands.

Hope it helps,

Murray

Patrick Murray · Posted: Wed 12 Mar, 2014 9:08 am Post subject:

Edit: the google books is a preview.

Shahril Dzulkifli · Posted: Tue 18 Mar, 2014 7:16 am Post subject: Danish armour

We would never know how does Danish armour look like in the Middle Ages especially during the post-Viking era. There were little or no proof at all, I'm afraid.

Lafayette C Curtis · Posted: Mon 31 Mar, 2014 3:45 am Post subject:

Not much evidence for straight Danish stuff, perhaps, but there's a strong circumstantial case that Danish arms and armour did not differ appreciably from contemporary North German stuff. And we do have clear evidence (Paul Dolnstein's picture diary) that the Danish crown hired Landsknechts for their Swedish campaigns in the early 16th century; on one hand, this shows extensive military contacts between the Danes and their German cousins, while on the other hand at least one of Dolnstein's sketches show a Landsknecht fighting against a Scandinavian man-at-arms (I haven't read the text so I don't know whether it was an earnest fight against a Swedish knight or practice sparring against a Danish one) and it's pretty obvious that the man-at-arms wore a harness in an almost stereotypical German style.

The armour of the men-at-arms in the big battle scene (probably Swedes) also seems largely German:

This might be particularly relevant to the original question, which after all referred to the late 15th and early 16th centuries as the focus of the investigation.