Merry Christmas everyone.. At this time I am looking into commissioning my first harness and I am trying to research English armor from the 3rd to 4th quarter of the 14th century and I am curious if you all could recommend any creditable books, articles, photos etc. that would highlight the small details that would make this harness uniquely English. Some things I am interested in seeing or reading about are strapping techniques and methods, buckles, curves and lines of the armor, bascinet top shapes and angles, visors and padding really anything that will take me beyond the level of detail that effigies provide.. Thank you very much for any help you can lend.

Basically I expect any sources you can be given will be eclipsed by Dr Toby Capwells new book on the subject very shortly. In the meantime look at effigies and brasses and study those, they are the best, if not only source of decent source information for what you need apart from the few existing examples of armour from Europe scattered about various collections. Sadly very few items are english of course.

i'm going through precisely the same process at the moment to complete something similar so if I can help I will once I return from the US is a few weeks time.

Google Sir Thurstan de Bowers to see what I'm doing... Can't get more English than that!

http://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Of-Medieval-...ap_title_0

Thanks for the replies gents sorry I am so late with mine..
Harry thank you for the book suggestion I actually have that book in my collection but I find it lacking in quite a few respects especially with regards to strapping etc. he does his strapping the way that I think every main streamer armorer does it and after looking at as much strapping as I could find as well as after conversations with Mac I believe its incorrect. But again thank you for taking the tome to try and help..
Mark I Googled the name and that harness look amazing I cant wait to see how it comes out for you!