Teutonic Knight, 1360 -- myArmoury.com

Terry Thompson · Posted: Sat 29 Sep, 2012 12:30 pm Post subject:

It's not an issue of allowance. You can do whatever you want. But why go through all of the trouble to represent something that may have never existed (A german knight wearing an englishman's armor) when we have so much evidence of what did exist?
Just like we know that the silk road existed, trade occured, yet you have to agree we don't see a lot of evidence for knight's weilding katanas, or wearing menpos or genoese arbalists with cho-ko-nus.
Perhaps it was a social status thing to be able to afford armor crafted for yourself in a national style (patriotic knights?). Maybe, it was taboo. We just don't know. But what we do know is that there's no evidence that they wore it. We can speculate all we want, it doesn't change the evidence of what we know they wore.
But it reminds me of the discussions that arose when someone posted an old news article about the Helgo viking horde find Sweden. The presence of an Indian Buddah (dated to 6th c), and an Egyptian scoop, gave people all sorts of great "evidence" of kopesh weilding vikings, and support for the presence of Madu's used by viking raiders.
Good times...good times.
No one is saying it's a bad kit. But to see you walking through a renfair, I would ponder - there goes an English or French knight c1390 with a really long surcoat. Not - there is a Teutonic knight c. 1360. If that doesn't bother you, then you're golden.

Reece Nelson · Posted: Sat 29 Sep, 2012 1:15 pm Post subject: tutonic Knight 1360

The best advice that was given to me, was to never assume that something was done, unless you found hard evidence to prove it. I personally look at the historical art, effigies and surviving examples ( that of course have been dated for that specific time) to determine if my idea for a kit works. What most people tend to do is, gather several things they like from many sources and put them together as one for a kit. Not to say that they didn't trade and what not, but its just not enough to justify the pieces for this kit...

I think you would have been better off with just sticking to one specific effigie and/or art to accurately depict a knight from 1360. That way you can specifically specify who, when and where you took it off of. Just having a few sources, compared to a lot.

I think what you have here is great, and its not too far off from where you need to be Happy

-Reece

Nathan Quarantillo · Posted: Sat 29 Sep, 2012 1:39 pm Post subject:

But this isn't the same as a knight wielding a katana. That's from an entirely different culture and thousands of miles away. What i'm talking about is trade over a border, or regional influence. Nations weren't defined as they are today, and nationalism wasn't a concept yet.
Do we know how a knight had his effigy made? Did he send in a drawing of himself, or did someone look at him, or did he simply provide the face, and the sculptur create it?

Actually, do we have any effigies for Teutonic knights? Are we assuming that they would be just like every other German knight? After all, the requirement was that one must speak German, not be German. (Though of course the large majority would be German)

I understand my kit isn't exactly German, and I didn't state it to be. I do plan to Germanize it further. I'll accept that it's not "German", but I wouldn't think it as totally off.

Ryan S. · Posted: Sat 29 Sep, 2012 2:10 pm Post subject:

I think the issue of trade and foreign influence is something that is brought up a lot. I am not sure why, but it seems certain fashions and region styles were maintained even when the goods were imported. Also, we should remember that distances were much harder to travel, communication restricted and conformity valued.

Perhaps you should make up a more detailed origin for your knight? Where is he from, where is he stationed (there were after all balliwicks outside of Prussia and Germany). Also, weren't The Knights issued armor?

Luka Borscak · Posted: Sat 29 Sep, 2012 4:22 pm Post subject:

I don't know if Teutonic knights were issued armor but I think foreign influence on armor fashion might be weak because plate armor must be a good fit and people who could afford plate would surely order armor made specifically for them. So not much import of plate armor going on... For munition grade armor it might be different...

Jojo Zerach · Posted: Sat 29 Sep, 2012 10:11 pm Post subject:

Nathan Quarantillo · Posted: Sun 30 Sep, 2012 9:36 am Post subject:

Also there was a practice of the armourer making everything until it was just almost finished, with the merchant who sold the export armour skilled enough to do final fitting and finishing of the armour to the buyer.

Also Teutonic Knights were issued armour, but they were allowed to use/keep sets owned before their entrance into the order. They were also allowed to accept gifts (with their immediate superior's approval of course).

Lafayette C Curtis · Posted: Mon 01 Oct, 2012 2:15 am Post subject:

Just don't bother to represent a Teutonic Knight as such, then. Change the soft element of your kits to represent the English expeditions that went to the aid of the Teutonic crusades in the mid-14th century--one of which was (if I'm not mistaken) led by the Black Prince himself. That way you'd get plausible reasons for both the Teutonic setting and the generally Anglo-French appearance of the kit.