Welcome to the armoury

The ever present image of the knight in popular imagination is the mounted warrior in shining armor. If you've followed this blog  for any length of time, you may know that I'm fond of taking popular misconceptions of the middle ages and dashing them to the ground, however you can rest assured that this particular trope isn't inaccurate. Not entirely.

But what color was armor? We certainly have innumerable artifacts

(Milan, ca. 1400, KHM)

and period depictions of fighting men wearing brilliant polished steel,

(France, 1350-1355, Works of Guillaume de Machaut)

more than enough to say for certain that people in the middle ages did wear polished steel on the field of battle, however this wasn't the only color represented.

Delving into the manuscripts and looking at extant pieces, we see a wealth of colors available, from bluing

(Augsburg, before 1560, KHM)

to russeting

(Milan, 1495, KHM)

to blackening.

(Dutch, 1490-1495, KHM)

In manuscripts, russeting

(France, 1350, Roman de la Rose)

and blackening

(Vienna, 1448, Bibelparaphrase)

seem to be particularly prevalent.

However, one must be cautious when dealing with manuscripts. In particular, there was a convention in illuminated manuscripts of using silver leaf to make metallic weapons pop and shine brightly. Given time however, this silver will tarnish, and turn black, giving the appearance of black armor to what was originally meant to be bright and shiny, as illustrated below.

(France, 1350-1360, Roman de la Rose)

It is often easy to distinguish if this is the case if the weapons in the scene also appear black, or if the black armor appears smudged and blurry, both as in the above image.

Gilding is another particularly popular style of armor decoration, most often used as a form of accent to white or black armor in the middle ages.

(Hagenau, 1443-1446, Parzival)

and we see gilding to the extreme in the Renaissance.

(Arbois, 1508, KHM)

The final common option was painting. Less expensive than the others above, this was likely an option for poorer soldiers who wanted to look fancy, and give their armor a measure of protection from the weather. There are numerous extant pieces of painted armor in various musea, such as these Sallets,

(German or Austrian, 1505-1510, Philadelphia Museum of Art)

(Germany, 1490-1510, Royal Armouries)

this breastplate,

(German or Austrian, 1470-1490, Philadelphia Museum of Art)

and this breastplate and helmet for the Gioco del Ponte.

(Italy, 17th century, The Met)

The final point to consider is how much extant armor there is that may have been blued or gilt when it was made, but is no longer. Bluing and gilding will fade with time,

(Germany, early 16th century, Swedish Royal Armouries)

and many pieces were polished clean in the name of "conservation" by their housing institutions.

I hope this has been entertaining and informative. Cheers!

the image from the manuscript: (France, 1350, Roman de la Rose)

I was like oh that's pretty, I like the lacing on the sleeves— OHHHH

THE CUNT!!! THE CUNT!!!!!

⚜️ Unfinished field armor of Charles V

Austrian (Innsbruck), ca. 1511–1512

Steel and leather

This example was commissioned from the Innsbruck master Hans Rabeiler when Charles was eleven (the future Emperor Charles V). The work, however, began too late. As Charles continued to grow, it soon became clear that the armour would no longer fit him. The costly decoration intended to be executed in Augsburg had not even been started, and the harness remained unfinished.

This incompleteness is precisely what makes the piece extraordinary. On its unpolished surface, every hammer blow and every trace of the armourer’s painstaking labour is still visible — a rare insight into the making of a 16th‑century costume armour. It is the earliest surviving example of this type, imitating contemporary clothing with its chased horizontal slashed “puffs” and vertical “pipes” on the fauld.

The armour lacks a visor — likely never completed — as well as the lance rest originally intended for the right side of the breastplate.

🏛 KHM, Vienna

- -

⚜️ Незавершенные полевые доспехи для юного Карла V

Австрия (Инсбрук), ок. 1511-1512 гг.

Сталь, кожа

Этот образец был заказан у инсбрукского мастера Ганса Рабейлера, когда Карлу было 11 лет (будущий император Карл V). Однако работу мастер начал слишком поздно: мальчик быстро рос, а дорогостоящая декоративная отделка даже не была начата. Доспех был доставлен ​​Карлу в Антверпен лишь в 1514 году, но к сроку, понятно, он уже опоздал.

В итоге доспех остался незавершенным. Именно поэтому он так ценен для историков. На неполированной поверхности виден каждый удар молотка, каждый след кропотливой работы.

Некоторые детали доспеха отсутствуют: забрало шлема и фокр (крюк для упора копья) на кирасе.

Это самый ранний из сохранившихся «костюмных доспехов», он имитирует модную одежду того времени.

На шлеме отсутствует забрало, которое, вероятно, так и не было изготовлено. Также отсутствует фокр (упор для копья), предусмотренный на правой стороне нагрудника.

What follows is a collections of engravings depicting the uniforms worn by soldiers with a specific military ranks during the French Revolutionary Wars.

Source: Gallica. High resolution picture: x

First row, from left to right:

Adjoutant général

Chef de brigade

Général de brigade

Général de division

Général en chef

Second row, from left to right:

Aide de camp

Commissaire ordonnateur des guerres

Porte enseigne

Capitaine des grenadiers

Soldat des troupes de ligne

Single pictures under the cut:

A phenomenally chiseled Sword,

OaL: 38.5 in/97.7 cm

A beautifully gilt Sabre decorated with precious gems and enamel,

OaL: 38.2 in/97 cm

Weight: 2 lbs/900 g

Sword produced by Jacob Brach of Solingen, Germany. Owned by Gustav II Adolf of Sweden, early 17th century.

Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.

Here are Celtic bronze swords…

…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…

… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…

Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.

Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…

…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.

This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…

…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.

A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.

I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).

A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.

The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.

Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.

Again, the clue is the centre-line.

Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.

Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.

There’s no doubt about this one either.

The reason - though that was a part of it - wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.

However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.

Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…

…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…

There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.

These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.

NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.

The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next one’s blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.

So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.

Here’s a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesn’t even have an odd-shaped blade…

Just a very flexible one…

If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to start…

Riding Habit

c.1770-1780

England

over 700 years of european history:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.