Naturally, I’m not just going to do that, I’m going to make a big long post about reproduction armor and armor in art.
I’ll be including pictures like this, most of which I’ve posted before. They’re by an Italian armorer named Augusto Boer Bront that runs the XIVth and XVth Century European Armor Facebook groups.
The above photo talks about how the aventail of a bascinet should sit on the wearer’s face. When it comes to bascinets, this mistake is a frequently made one, and a good pair of reproductions can be seen below, in the forms of the armor worn by Ian LaSpina (left) and Reese (right, I don’t know his last name,) both of whom have YouTube channels (I’ve linked them, you should check them out if you’re interested.)
This photo is a good example of how an aventail should fit though.
Ian LaSpina’s kit is an early XVth century English kit, sporting the classic heavily enclosed English style with a standard houndskull bascinet and hourglass shaped gauntlets (also lacking a textile covering for the breastplate) marking it as belonging to the 1400′s to 1410′s.
Another common mistake is the fit of a breastplate. You can see quite clearly on Ian’s kit above that the breastplate sits right on his natural waistline, giving way to the “paunce of plates” or metal skirt that covers the rest of his torso. This setup allows for freedom of movement. If breastplates stopped at the hip, like many reproductions and artistic renditions do, then the wearer wouldn’t be able to bend.
You can also see how the breastplate is domed. A breastplate must be domes like that, to encourage weapons and projectiles to glance. If it were flat, weapons could strike at right angles, imparting the entirety of their force and rendering the armor significantly less effective.
A few more things can be gleaned from this picture of Ian in an older version, less complete of his kit. The shape of his helmet, and the fact that his visor covers the vervelles. Vervelles are the points on the bascinet were the aventail is laced on. On a side-hinging bascinet, the visor should cover them, as pictured above. Bascinet shape is also very important, as expressed in the above diagram.
Moving on from Ian LaSpina, we can take a moment to appreciate the armor of one of the biggest names in the community: Dr. Tobias Capwell.
It’s absolutely stunning, isn’t it? Dr. Capwell’s armor is also English, like Ian’s, however his is later, about 1440. It’s blackened entirely, with gold trimming, and it is beautiful.
Here is Dr. Capwell wearing a reproduction set of the famous Avant harness, pictured below. This is the absolute epitome of what Milanese style armor in the late XVth century was like. The helmet is not contemporary with the suit, so it was omitted from the reconstruction.
Now, because I was asked to post pictures of people in armor, I’ll throw in this photo from “The Great Tournament of Schaffhausen” in Switzerland. The man on the left is wearing a classic suit of German Gothic armor, to his right you have Dr. Capwell in what looks like his English 1440 suit, pre-blackening, and the two gentlemen on the right appear to be in Milanese style Italian kits. It’s hard to say what the woman in the back is wearing, but it looks like it could be Gothic or Italian.
I’ve now included so many pictures of people in full plate that I would feel remiss not including at least one photo of someone in something else. So, here is Tom Biliter in a set of German Gothic armor (probably late XVth century,) but rather than a standard cuirass, he is wearing what’s known as a brigandine. A brigandine is a series of small overlapping plates riveted to a textile backing.
Here are a couple of pictures of Ian LaSpina wearing a reproduction of the Churburg S18 armet. This armet is from the armories of Churburg castle in Northern Italy, and dates to about 1410.
One final thing I’d like to touch on in this titan of a post: the applications of these principles in the design of fantasy armors.
Often when you see fantasy armor designs, they are quite ridiculous. They are large, have vast openings, don’t fit right, and so on. Now, the physics of these fantasy world are generally the same as ours, therefore the same principles of armor making should apply.
“But OP,” I hear you cry, “I want my armor to look fantastic and cool. How an I do that if I have to abide by dumb physics?”
Well first off, I’m not saying you have to abide by physics, but if you want to, you could do something like this.
The Sovereign armor. This armor was 3D printed by Melissa Ng, and designed with help from a name you’ll recognize by now: Ian LaSpina.
It’s super cool, very fantasy looking, but still applies all of the basic principles of how armor fits, allowing Melissa to move around properly, so the armor doesn’t restrict her.
So, this has been my armor post. If you’ve stuck around this long, good on you. I hope I’ve said something new to you, or at least shown you an armor you’ve never seen before. Cheers!
Aaaaw man, am I into this. One of my big problems with HEMA generally is the focus on blossfechten as a main thing we’re doing, separated from a historical context. The whole “hey, we’re training for an unarmored duel” is largely nonsense, because the culture where unarmored duels became normal is a 16th century innovation. In the Medieval period, it was extraordinary that Fiore dei Liberi, a man who was a travelling master at arms, fought five times with only a gambeson and leather gloves.
His noting that is to tell us what an amazing badass he is, because fighting without armor is insane. Lichtenauer’s art is great and all, but I’m increasingly dissuaded from viewing it as a) common and relevant (which we know it wasn’t, it was intentionally hidden) and b) efficacious in the Medieval context. Outside of peasant scraps and crime, most combat was conducted wearing armor, and for the people with training in the era, most of that was done where the combat began on horseback. Even in tournament, you were completely armored, and injury rarely resulted. Armor and training was a significant part of what maintained feudal power, I guess, is what I’m getting at, and the blossfechten concept is either ahistorical and a result of misinterpretation, or a particular development from folks who loved the art in the period, and not incredibly relevant to what actual Medieval people did as SOP in combat.
Aliquid de Magis 