The Armourer And His Craft From The Xith To The Xvith Century

As soon as the armed man realized that iron and steel were the best defences for his body, he would naturally insist that some sort of a guarantee should be given him of the efficacy of the goods supplied by his armourer. This system of proving armour would be effected by using those weapons commonly in use, and these, in the early times, were the sword, the axe, the lance, the bow, and the crossbow. The latter seems to have been the more common forms of proof, though as late as the seventeenth century we have evidence that armour was proved with the "estramaon" or sword blow. -from "The Proof of Armour" Not a history of defensive armor but rather a guide to the actual making of armor, as well as the regulations that governed the artisans who made it, this is a fascinating-and practical-handbook on the production, selling, and wearing metal traditional medieval body armor. First published in 1912, this classic book-by British historian and author CHARLES JOHN FFOULKES (1868-1947), curator of London's Royal Armouries-draws on records of the time to detail the tools and appliances of the trade, the decoration and cleaning of armor, the use of leather and fabrics, and much more to offer a complete reference for readers of period fiction and history, wargamers, costumers, and anyone fascinated by the craft of the armorer. This replica of the 1912 edition is complete with all of the original diagrams, illustrations, and photos.

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Standard reference offers comprehensive, detailed record of 500 years of European armor — manufacture, materials, tools, cost, weight, and more. Over 100 illustrations. Bibliography.

The fourteenth century witnessed a late medieval arms race; an era that began with knightly combatants armed in mail - and ended with them dressed head-to-toe in the complete plate armour that is commonly associated with knights. Although well documented in art and effigies, only a very few examples of this early plate armour survive. In this first-of-its-kind series, Douglas Strong brings together three decades of research to offer a lavishly illustrated catalog of these surviving pieces with a detailed record of their provenance, characteristics, construction details, and current whereabouts. Filled with color and black-white photos, line-drawings, this 8.5 x 11 hardback is a piece of artwork in its own right. VOLUME I focuses on the bascinet, the ubiquitous helmet of the period. Developing out of a small skull-cap worn beneath the great helm, it quickly evolved into a complete head defense of its own, becoming the helmet that defines the knightly harness of the second half of the fourteenth century that survived in common usage into the early decades of the fifteenth century. Organizing the surviving examples into broad, morphological categories for both helmets and visors, Douglas Strong not only creates a catalog of surviving pieces, but presents a basic typology, the first of its kind, into which future discoveries can be fit.

This work considers how chivalry was interpreted in 15th century Scotland and how it compared with European ideas of chivalry; the resposibilities of knighthood in this period and the impact on political life; the chivalric literature and the relevance of Christian components of chivalric culture.

This book examines literary depictions of the construction and destruction of the armored male body in combat in relation to early modern English understandings of the past. Bringing together the fields of material culture and militarism, Susan Harlan argues that the notion of “spoiling” – or the sanctioned theft of the arms and armor of the vanquished in battle – provides a way of thinking about England’s relationship to its violent cultural inheritance. She demonstrates how writers reconstituted the spoils of antiquity and the Middle Ages in an imagined military struggle between male bodies. An analysis of scenes of arming and disarming across texts by Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare and tributes to Sir Philip Sidney reveals a pervasive militant nostalgia: a cultural fascination with moribund models and technologies of war. Readers will not only gain a better understanding of humanism but also a new way of thinking about violence and cultural production in Renaissance England.