Verrry nice...

Awesome! thanks Phil!

Any suggestions of where to go to buy some simple prick-spurs (with a very small prick - oo-er! - a safety requirement..) suitable for 13c?

I'm just looking for off-the-shelf, don't have the budget for custom-made - but can do the leatherwork myself.

Ta.

Is that really a caparison, or is it a limitation of the material or craftsman to do individual horses legs given it's size?

I know! I tried my best not to mention it. I really did. The problem is though without evidence of it for that period, how can you re-create it? There is evidence of mail being work just over the cotte as late as the 13c - so regardless of whether they had textile armour in the earlier periods, I'm ...

And back to the question of generic 'Dark Age' re-enactment - I'm pretty sure we're looking at a timeframe before aketons/gambesons/jacks (whatever we want to call them) were present. So without any real evidence of specialist 'arming clothes' - I would assume that the mail just goes over 'normal, e...

Wow. The battle every 2 hours.. Not enough time to be worth de-armouring between. . Not really sure I have the energy for that,. Not three days of it, with a long drive etc.

Maybe 20 years ago...

UN-hardened leather is really quite bad at protecting from bladed weapons (I'm reliably informed)

Oily chainmail can ruin a good tunic; Absolutely.. (which is one reason to wear two.. an old, plain, oily one to take the damage) Maybe linen over wool would work better as it wouldn't snag as much and would last longer in terms of wear.. The problem with leather is that it doesn't breath - and cer...

Wool. Maybe two of them if you want that bit more protection.

Leather? Absolutely not.

I'm of the 2-gamby view (but it's hard to say for sure since you never see them shown with different colours). Kingsmirror describes wearing a gamby over mail (and one under) - makes sense to me that if you couldn't afford mail, the two gambies (with the same kind of thickness/construction) is still...

How about these:

http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/ ... -bible.jpg

http://www.executedtoday.com/images/Jacquerie.jpg

Heh, yeah. I often (stupidly) try to use common sense to see if what I observe well, makese sense! I'm convinced that there was a shift from spear+shield to 2-h weapons amongst infantry when going from the 12th to the 13th century. It makes sense when you look at it next to armour developments. Henr...

I suspect this one is probably the best you'll find: http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/maciejowski/leaf10/otm10va&b.gif It's difficult to guage who would be a serjent and who a knight - especially since is wasn't uncommon for serjents to be mounted too. I tent to look at this image a...

The chronica Majora shows an archer shooting with arrows in the belt. To be fair, he was in a boat so couldn't stick them in the ground, but it does indicate that it was done.

There are some depictions to be found. If you have a copy of ospreys English mediaeval knight 1200 to 1300, page 12 shows one on an elephant! The Mac Bible also has an image of an infantry man in a siege with a large, earlier style flat topped kite. You could also try looking at the dead in the manu...

However, if it is the case that such things have no evidence to base them on, is it not the case that the manufacturers / vendors of such items are guilty of both mis-representing them as being from the medieval era and also of defrauding their potential customers who might be buying these items at...

A good guide: http://forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/Tunics/TUNICS.HTML Worked very well for me.. (pic): http://s914.photobucket.com/user/DoCReenactment/media/Harewood%202013/IMGP0048_zps5d5ef11b.jpg.html?sort=3&o=24#/user/DoCReenactment/media/Harewood%202013/IMGP0048_zps5d5ef11b.jpg.html?sort=3...

There are plenty seperate collars shown in the mac bible, as mentioned - but not of the style you're talking about. These are just the collar and don't include the shoulder/chest part. Of course from a manuscript, who can say whether they were padded or not.. I've com across literary references of b...

https://plus.google.com/photos/10391011 ... 8361666961

Courtesy of Dawn of Chivalry.

Enjoy

The "Practical" name generally refers to mass-produced stuff by Hanwei, which arrives in the UK at about £30 wholesale. They're available from several places at about £60-80 including delivery by UK post. Although these don't look anything like the Hanwei range - or anything like that sty...

They should advertise that better. I've certainly been put off buying from there more than once simply due to the additional costs.

I actually think it's a really, really good "Brave" interpretation.

I'm curious if someone did want to contact the "movers and shakers" from the Uk reenacting scene, what would that list look like? Who are the "top ten" most influential people in terms of providing numbers for events in UK reenactment at the moment? :) I'm not sure they really e...

Hm.. I did have half an eye on this for a future event... Now? May have to get some wood just in case I need to fashion a bargepole.. Watching carefully...

I'd say it depends a lot on when you start.... We have new members starting now and we're telling them to get shoes/hose/braes... the rest can be loaned by the group. We had new members starting right at the end of the display season - all they will be doing is training for the next 7-8 months - so ...

Here's a c13 pic: http://dawnofchivalry.wikispaces.com/Hose You can see that the back is kind of mid-thigh-ish, the front goes all the way up to where it attaches to the braes - but the braes also hang quite low (the waistline on them was really low too - just sitting on the hip-bone). You'll also n...

Agh.. this is really annoying me because I can't find my sources on this. Been so long since I looked into it. There are a couple of images/effigies/carvings(can't remember - gah) which do show a slit. Most show it being vertical (ie in the direction of wrist to fingers), but there is one showing it...

Any ideas on stopping them from sticking to your knuckles (and burning them!) while you flatten it?

Also, would I be correct in thinking that this was just the 'base' oatcake, and that there may have been other variations of it - with other 'stuff' thrown in where available? Berries/fruit etc.

Underarms should be fairly straight forward. You have your tube for the body, with a slit left for each armhole, so if you look at it from the side while pulling the armhole open it will be an upside down teardrop shape. Then if you have the sleeve you are to join with the same amount of links width...