[Josh MacNeil]

http://museumreplicas.com/p-378-huntingdon-gr...-hood.aspx

Just curious about the historical accuracy of this piece. Is this pure fantasy, or would an archer actually have worn something like this? Even if it isn't historically authentic, it still looks functional. Thoughts...?

-JM

[Dan P]

I can't speak of the pattern but the green color would have been uncommon at best I think. For people who desired concealment natural tan or brown would have been just as good and cheaper.

[Nathan Robinson]

I wonder what they're trying to replicate.

But I can say this: from fabric choice, to pattern, to fit, to construction details and trim, it's not accurate to anything specific, for sure. You may consider visiting Historic Enterprises for comparison.

[Dave W.]

Looks sort of Robin Hood esc to me...sorta inspired by fiction and fantasy.

I'm not sure about your everyday hunter/woodsman, but on the battlefield a archer would not look like that.
This is probably a more accurate photo of a Medieval archer.

[Glennan Carnie]

If you want to dress up like Robin of Sherwood, then it's fine.

As far as we know, archers didn't wear 'special' outfits, with special sleeves, etc.

Small point on hoods (as I could go on all day about this): In the images we have from the mid- late 14thc (when the hood was prevalent) all the archers I've seen are wearing a tight-fitting hood with a short mantle, as opposed to the hood with the deep, elbow length hood. This makes sense if you've ever tried to shoot in a deep hood (being slapped in the face by your mantle stops being funny after a while!)


And also note, in all the images with a deep hood it is cut to run straight across the body, NOT dipping down in an arc like the segment of a circle. The only difference is the cut. Visually, it makes a big difference to how 'accurate' the hood looks, though.

[Mikael Ranelius]

The cut of the sleeves looks pretty odd to me; I’ve never seen it before. For an authentic pattern for a short-sleeved 14th century over tunic/surcotte I’d suggest something like Herjolfsnes no.45:
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/cloth/herjol45.html

The leather bracers are completely fictional. In fact, after a brief glance at their catalogue, everything looks fantasy-inspired.

[Steven H]

[Dan P]

Oops. Guess I learn something every day here

[James R.Fox]

Sirs-According to "Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World 500 -1500" which I just got from Amazon.com, the average English heavy archer would wear a tight fitting tunic, a cheap canvas jack stuffed with wool and /or steel plates, an open face helmet, breech and hose. The bottom of the breech and hose would on many occasions be cut out due to the runs from bad water. According to the French chronicles of Agincourt, all the English men-at-arms and archers had cut the bottoms out of their breech as the water at their camp was bad. This was a common medieval problem, as despite the popularity of Roman authors on war,they didn't have centurians to make the men put sour red wine in their water in a 2-1 ratio water to wine.

[Josh MacNeil]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm not really knowledgeable about historic clothing. I'm more familiar with armor and weapons. If this piece and much of MRL's clothing is more fantasy than historic in nature, I wonder where these false ideas of what period clothing looked like actually came from. To me, this particular piece almost looks like a mutated Gregorian monk's robe with short sleeves and decorative trim. Probably why I was drawn to it... I always thought robes like that were wicked cool looking.

[Nathan Robinson]

[Michael Ekelmann]