Assembled The Cuirass

[Eldorado]

Folks,

Assembled, finally, the cuirass this evening and would love to hear what you all think.

The look I'm going for ultimately is something like this:

[MADMAX22]

That turned out really good. You gonna update with pics when all garbed up.

[hivemind]

Very nice!

[UKRay]

I do like to see things that push back the boundaries a little and give us some fresh ideas to play with. Nice job!

I've never seen leather armour quite like this and I'm looking forward to seeing the whole job completed. Don't forget to post pictures.

Ray

[Eldorado]

I do like to see things that push back the boundaries a little and give us some fresh ideas to play with. Nice job!

I've never seen leather armour quite like this and I'm looking forward to seeing the whole job completed. Don't forget to post pictures.

Ray

You know, I hadn't either.

But I'd seen a ton of "Dragon armor" and fantasy styles. I'd also seen variations on Braveheart's brigandine or 13th Warrior's pieced armor, but nothing that demonstrated wealth. While the fantasy designs (with horns and scales) are usually really impressive, I'm much more connected to historical accuracy. Though there are apparently no good examples of leather armor that have survived, I have to believe that a Lord would want to demonstrate his position and protect his back, while going to festival day ... and not be encased in heavy steel.

Consequently, my assumption was that they would want a tooled cuirass that would be lightwieght and cool, but make it clear that they are rich, powerful, and still the boss. So, I stole the basic layout of the steel ones. I have a dozen or so pictures from the Greenwich Royal Armories taped up around my workshop, to keep me in the right frame of mind. Besides, the wife looks elegant and the older armor I created out of latigo has me looking like I'm fresh from the battlefield. Mismatch of styles.

I'm working on the tassets now and its taking a bit of thinking to get the design right. By the 16th century the tassets were usually 5-10 lames and created a very exaggerated hip appearance.

The biggest problem with this piece is that it took so long to tool and is so large on the table, that my wrist and arm were often resting on tooled features when doing others. As a result, the parts that were done first have slightly less definition than the later ones.

Thanks for posting your thoughts. I'll send up more pics when the tassets get done. After that is a fully articulated gorget. I might not get it all done before summer and the faires come around.

Eldorado

[hivemind]

Though there are apparently no good examples of leather armor that have survived,

Current thought on leather armor from the history of Europe goes like this: there are thousands of examples of leather belts, shoes, pouches, tack, vests, and other leather products found all over archaeological sites throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. However, not one single example of leather armor has ever been found at sites of battles, stongholds, armories, burial mounds and graves, or anywhere else. The only leather armor that's been found are padded jacks that were worn under maille, and a few kid-sized stuff that was obviously made as a toy for children.

That's it. Leather armor is an invention of Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy literature. Don't get me wrong, I love leather armor. I wear it when I fight and make a lot of it. But don't kid yourself - what you're making is "historically styled", not "historically accurate".

Ug, sorry about the rant...

[Eldorado]

Current thought on leather armor from the history of Europe goes like this: there are thousands of examples of leather belts, shoes, pouches, tack, vests, and other leather products found all over archaeological sites throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. However, not one single example of leather armor has ever been found at sites of battles, stongholds, armories, burial mounds and graves, or anywhere else. The only leather armor that's been found are padded jacks that were worn under maille, and a few kid-sized stuff that was obviously made as a toy for children.

That's it. Leather armor is an invention of Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy literature. Don't get me wrong, I love leather armor. I wear it when I fight and make a lot of it. But don't kid yourself - what you're making is "historically styled", not "historically accurate".

Ug, sorry about the rant...

Can't disagree with the historic record, but definitely prefer to model off of historic stuff rather than Dragonlance or somesuch.

I suppose I can choose to believe that the leather just decays so quickly that it won't be found. But of course, it would seem that some rich gentleman could/would have kept some nice in his personal armory.

On the other hand, I did locate a few weeks ago an academic analysis of armor as depicted in the statuary/carvings on the top of tombs of knights. I thought I bookmarked it, but I may have done so on a different computer. If I locate it again, I'll post. Through the 14th and 15th centuries (I think) the writer was pointing out parts of these marble effigies that were likely to be cuirbolli (sic). These included both pauldrons and arm armour that showed a tooling and design that wasn't being done in steel at that time - e.g. no examples in steel have survived. Things like lion faces in the shoulder piece and such. The stonecarver might have been engaging in artistic license (just as we may be today), but the writer didnt seem to think so.

Also adding to my hope that something like this was actually used at one time, is that the British Royal Armouries does have leather breastplates and leather helmets in its collection. However, while they note their existance, they don't publish a picture and note the dates to actually be the late 1700s. Not exactly evidence, but again providing some indication perhaps.

[hivemind]

That's interesting, and if you do find some scholarly evidence of historical leather armor from anywhere between 100 BCE and 1500 CE, I'd be grateful if you'd pass it along. But this: "I suppose I can choose to believe that the leather just decays so quickly that it won't be found." doesn't address why there's plenty of other leather items - shoes, purses, belts, etc. - but no armor.

But yeah, I'm totally with you on making historically-based leather armor. I just did a suit of lorica segmentata for a friend from 12oz saddle skirting, and my own current combat armor is historically-styled articulated arms and legs with a Milanese-style articulated cuirass and plackart.

Edited March 17, 2010 by hivemind

[Eldorado]

That's interesting, and if you do find some scholarly evidence of historical leather armor from anywhere between 100 BCE and 1500 CE, I'd be grateful if you'd pass it along. But this: "I suppose I can choose to believe that the leather just decays so quickly that it won't be found." doesn't address why there's plenty of other leather items - shoes, purses, belts, etc. - but no armor.

But yeah, I'm totally with you on making historically-based leather armor. I just did a suit of lorica segmentata for a friend from 12oz saddle skirting, and my own current combat armor is historically-styled articulated arms and legs with a Milanese-style articulated cuirass and plackart.

I would be cool to see the lorica and the combat armor.

I think I found the site I mentioned at http://www.arador.com/articles/spaulders.html There is a discussion of effigies and cuir boille. Obviously, these things are either brasses or stone carvings, so we don't know for sure. But it seems to raise the possibility.

I also noticed mention of Cuir Boille in one of the Osprey books. They are analyzing a statue or bronze of a horseman horseman that stands in Venice and was made around 1480. http://www.scribd.com/doc/6826438/MAA-136-Italian-Medieval-Armies-13001500ocr. I'm not sure of the academic reputation of Osprey, but they don't seem to be aimed at D&D folks.

There's also some mention of cuir boille in this piece, though how this writer knows what he is saying is true is not clear. http://gladius.revistas.csic.es/index.php/gladius/article/viewFile/187/189

This site is also interesting, but I recognize that this is not really definitive - http://www.angelfire.com/ms/middelton/peterm.html

I guess at best these are food for thought, because it is odd that we would have shoes and such, but no armor. I guess my only speculation would be that there would be at least a pair of shoes for most feet and a belt for every person (understanding that there was much poverty, and maybe not everyone had these things). However, leather armor (or armor pieces) would belong to far fewer people. So the odds would be significantly higher that the common items would be found, while specialized items might not be. But I must confess that this is just supposition.

Thanks much for the thoughts and I would love to see pics of your work.

Eldorado

[yan]

The "handle" of sword are beleived to be made of either wood or leather. As far as I know, there are no good example of middle-age (or older) with this part intact.

I think the main reason why we can find shoes, bags, belt from that periode is the quantity of those. Nearly everyone would use shoes belt and bag but only a few would use armor.