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Pedro Paulo Gaião




Location: Sioux City, IA
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PostPosted: Thu 01 Sep, 2016 6:13 pm    Post subject: "Dressing in late 14th century armour" video's di         Reply with quote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGl_UXc9HIE

This week they posted a very interesting video on Onsrud's Facebook. As the name suggests, they reconstituted a late 14th century based in some sources, which includes the Black Prince's effigy. I found the video very interesting and would like to discuss a few things with you:

There is some reference point out the use of this type of "white breast plate" in the period in which the Black Prince lived (or died)? Why wore mail chausses under the plate leggings in the fourteenth century, but not in the fifteenth one?
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James Arlen Gillaspie
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Location: upstate NY
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PostPosted: Mon 05 Sep, 2016 8:02 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I'm deeply dubious about full mail chausses under greaves. Have they read Dr. Capwell's book? I'm thinking at the very most mail knickers (instead of voiders at the knee) and the little patches of mail at the base of the greave that they wore for so long into the 15th century. Keep in mind when the effigy was made, which was some years after the death of the Black Prince. I'm also seeing a backplate of some sort in that effigy, with a very interesting shape.
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Kai Lawson





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PostPosted: Mon 05 Sep, 2016 8:19 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I don't claim to have that much expertise with this timeframe as far as armor goes, but does anyone else think the mail shirt and bishop's mantle and helm with aventail seems a bit much? Wouldn't a laced close-necked shirt and some sort of semi-rigid neck defense or early gorget and them helm with aventail make more sense, and save weight?
"And they crossed swords."
--William Goldman, alias S. Morgenstern
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James Arlen Gillaspie
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Location: upstate NY
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PostPosted: Tue 06 Sep, 2016 8:52 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The bishop's mantle is totally over the top, at least as far as the Black Prince effigy is concerned. Mail 'standards' and 'pisans' show up pretty early, though.
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Mart Shearer




Location: Jackson, MS, USA
Joined: 18 Aug 2012

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PostPosted: Tue 06 Sep, 2016 2:25 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Kai Lawson wrote:
I don't claim to have that much expertise with this timeframe as far as armor goes, but does anyone else think the mail shirt and bishop's mantle and helm with aventail seems a bit much? Wouldn't a laced close-necked shirt and some sort of semi-rigid neck defense or early gorget and them helm with aventail make more sense, and save weight?


By the 1350s, a mail standard or Pisan of mail covering the neck would have been common beneath the aventail, although mail shirts with attached collars were also beginning to appear. Unfortunately, the mail in the video hangs loose at the base of the neck, offering no protection for the throat. Although I haven't studied the Black Prince's inventory or purchase records, I would be surprised if someone of such rank wasn't using a Pisan of plates, or solid plate gorget beneath the mail aventail.

Like James, I doubt full mail chausses would have been worn at that time beneath plate legs. Inventories mention mail cuisses, chaussons, and voiders of various types.

ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui
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Pedro Paulo Gaião




Location: Sioux City, IA
Joined: 14 Mar 2015
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PostPosted: Fri 09 Sep, 2016 8:47 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

James Arlen Gillaspie wrote:
I'm deeply dubious about full mail chausses under greaves. Have they read Dr. Capwell's book? I'm thinking at the very most mail knickers (instead of voiders at the knee) and the little patches of mail at the base of the greave that they wore for so long into the 15th century. Keep in mind when the effigy was made, which was some years after the death of the Black Prince. I'm also seeing a backplate of some sort in that effigy, with a very interesting shape.


I'm certainly not an expert to talk about it, but I usually read that fourteenth century's armor used to be heavier than those of the next century as they mixed mail and plates for protection rather than having the mail serving merely to protect the openings that the plates doesn't protect.

By the way, what is a "pisan of mail"?
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Randall Moffett




Location: Northern Utah
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PostPosted: Sat 10 Sep, 2016 6:54 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Pedro,

I am not sure. We clearly do have some who opt for the full shirt all the way into the 15th as Monstrelet states in his chronicle. Full mail chausses I can see to a degree but there is less clearance in many ways with the legs. It could be as Mart is saying or perhaps something akin to what Chris Gilman came up with for his splendid harness. Unless the back of the greaves are open and we can see mail though I think it is hard to say with clarity but even then it might just be the rear being mail.

That said for many years I usually supposed the bits of mail were not very common in the 14th. I had come across a few hear and there but nothing to make me think the full mail was not largely still present. That is until Thom's PhD research started coming out. Even when he told me about some of his finds I did not really grasp how common until it done.

I still wonder what likely is the combination. It is not hard to find inventories of knights with the full plate harness and mail shirt. That said I have not seen any with what I know to be full mail chausses.

There does seem to be a great deal of use of full mail chausses with the padded cuisses and poleyns for the first half of the 14th.

I am pretty sure the nech mail could use some revision, there is a backplate of some nature needed and who knows on the legs but over all it is neat.

RPM
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