Category Archives: Kit

Wrest Park

I thought it worth doing a little write up of how the first show of the season went for me personally, given that it’s the first with a ton of new kit, and there were inevitable teething problems that I want to keep hold of. This will be another wall of text until I can get some decent photos from the weekend.

To begin with, Wrest Park was cold. It seems like it’s been cold each time we’ve done it – the first year the inside of the (modern) tent froze from the condensation from our breath. It was reasonably dry throughout the weekend, and when the sun came out was glorious. However when the sun went away and the wind picked up, it felt like (and probably was) somewhere down around freezing and my hands absolutely froze all weekend.

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Sadly this is, to the best of my understanding, the last of this sort of event at Wrest Park that English Heritage are running. Their budget for running events has been slashed (three cheers for Austerity), and they are winding back events all over. This is a pity, I have a soft spot for the event. The site is absolutely gorgeous, it’s a low-key beginning for the season, and it remains the first event we did with the Beaufort Companye.

The other downside for the weekend for me was that I woke in the early (cold) hours of Sunday morning with a shocking headache, that got worse as the night wore through. I suspect that this may have been a migraine (there is some family history) as I was quite photosensitive, and very nauseous. This meant that I spent half of Sunday curled up in bed in the tent with a woollen hat pulled down over my eyes hoping that the top of my head would not fall off. It eventually abated for me to get out and about by the middle of the day, but I was still fairly unwell throughout the day and into the evening.

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The first bit of new kit that we had out was the new tent from Tentorium.pl – this was the one we had been waiting on and that arrived just after the last season ended, being a ‘soldier’ tent like the other one we had from them but slightly larger and hand sewn. Like the previous, this is really well made, and was snug and warm despite the rain. Even though it got quite wet on the outside overnight, it was dry by the end of each day, and no water or wind got through the fabric at all. One thing I like about the slightly larger one is that the poles are segmented, which made them easy to deal with for transport, and felt like they were under less stress. The other thing I really liked was being able to stand upright, with plenty of room. For me, that is the definition of luxury. One thing that we will do with the tent though is make or acquire a purpose-sized groundsheet. We did have some (cotton) groundsheets to put down, but they got a bit wet, which made our bedding a little wet as well. A partly water-resistant groundsheet is one of those anachronisms I’m happy to compromise on, just for the pragmatic desire to not have other kit damaged from water, or to have a massive post-event cleaning effort.

The essential bit of new kit was of course the new giant car – the War Rig – into which we can get everything we need without stress. There’s more room available, we did not make a huge effort to pack efficiently and things are stuffed in semi randomly. There’s space on the roof racks for more pole weapons, and potentially a bench and a table, and more room in the roof box than we used efficiently.

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IMG_2765The first few parts of the new sets of clothing from Lady Malina were ready for this weekend – the slightly-less-posh yellow doublet and blue hose, and my short gown, which I’d previously posted photos of. These were superbly comfortable, the most comfortable I believe I have ever been in period clothing, which is a testament to the excellent tailoring Malina provides.

The only downside was that I discovered that for some reason I cannot put on my thigh-high boots with these blue hose. It’s a puzzle, because I’m sure that the interim hose that I grabbed from Black Swan have heavier – and more – fabric than these, but some how I just could not get my foot into the boot at all. The boots have always been a bit tight and a bit of a struggle, so I’m guessing this was just a case of a fraction of a millimetre too much. I will try them with the fancy red hose, of course, as it is my intention that is what they will be worn with. In the interim, the low shoes I made years ago are standing up well to rigours I subject them to, and I have some low boots on order which should be ready within a few months.

I also need to get off my butt and make some new shirts – the two current shirts I have were a quick and dirty effort, and I made the sleeves over-generous, and the neck opening huge. I will take the effort to make some that have fitted sleeves so that I’m not trying to shove so much fabric into the doublet sleeves, and also to give a bit of a collar under the doublet collar.

The bit piece of kit that I got to try out briefly was the new harness. This worked very well, although I am conscious of being embarrassingly out of shape, and was gasping alarmingly after only about 15 minutes of combat. As hoped for, the harness proved comfortable and flexible during combat, allowing me a full range of controlled movement. I also took the new poll-axe out for the first time, and equally found that nicely controllable. I may have to adjust my thinking and tactics a little when fighting against the bill block though: I was being very careful to seek out whatever small pieces of harness they may have been wearing and striking to them. Meanwhile they were stabbing the hell out of my breast plate, quite hard – I think I might need to return the favour if they are so intent on trashing my kit, and allow myself to strike the shoulders, arms, and chest that they kept presenting to me. I will also have to do a bit of work to practice the range of throws and grapples available to me – if I’m going to be a tank, I’m going to do my damned best to stay on my feet, even if some pissant spearman is poking my armoured chest.

There is a little bit of work still to do on the harness. I did not have time to finish the mail skirt that should be worn with it, and I think this was the reason my tassets popped off. Without the mail skirt for the tasset to slide over, the point was catching on a stop-rib on the top of my legs, which meant when I stepped it lifted one or the other tasset strap out of its buckle. I may need a different mail standard as well. We tried putting it on over the breastplate, which did not work well as it shifted around a little. We can put it under the breastplate, but it’s not clear that we will be able to get the points for the shoulders through the mail. We will try some variants on this next weekend, and see how it works out.

Scabbard, Part One

One task that is long overdue is making a scabbard for Bodyservant Bob’s messer. Before getting into that, I want to deal with the whole messer question.

There’s some folk who argue that nobody in the WOTR federation should be wearing a messer, because they are to some extent a distinctively German knife-thing. While I would agree that there are too many people in full or partial harness carrying messers, and using them as a primary weapon in battles, the same holds true of falchions and ‘hangers’. Every Western European region had, at some point through the high and late medieval period some kind of big knife-thing that functionally is just a machete or cane knife. England and France in the 14th century tended toward the broad-bladed slashy knives we call Falchions, and appeared in the late 15th century to trend toward a more sword-like blade whose handle tended to have a rudimentary knuckle bow. Germany tended to have a big hunting knife, the Swiss and Northern Italians had baselards, and in the south cinquedeas. All of which is based on surviving finds that tend to be clustered geographically.

And yet if you look at the paintings by Dutch and Italian masters of the period, you will see all four forms well represented, and you’ll see similar in texts on hunting by Gaston Phoebus and others. The key point being that we largely see these big knife-things presented as a tool commonly in use in a civilian and non-military context. Their presence in Talhoffer and Lecküchner supports this – they are presented as a weapon that is likely to be confronted in a non-military context.

It is entirely reasonable to posit that these civilian tools would have been carried on campaign and into battle as a secondary weapon for the common soldier – it’s more likely that these tools would have been at hand when called up than a good sword, but it’s not reasonable to posit someone choosing one as a primary weapon in battle, even if their NCO’s would let them do something so daft.

It’s also reasonable to posit that an Englishman would take his hanger to France or Burgundy, or that a Burgundian would bring his messer or baselard to England. We know that soldiers and military trailers travelled, and we know that troops of soldiers were employed across borders – the personal bodyguard of Charles The Bold, made up of (mainly) English archers is a good example, as are the small numbers of Burgundian crossbowmen that he dispatched to Bosworth in support of Richard.

I could rant endlessly about this, but come back to the core of the justification: Bob and I are explicitly presenting a travelling martial specialist from the continent, and there’s no reason she they would not be carrying the messer they bought from home. On top of that, she’s very (very) good with it, and it’s an ideal tool for demonstrating a variety of documented martial techniques to the public in a way that emphasises how nasty these big knives are.

Anyway, enough of the rant.

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The scabbard I’m making is based on current best-guess consensus around late medieval scabbards. It is inarguable that small to medium knives had scabbards solely of leather, the surviving scabbards for larger blades have wooden cores. The overall consensus is a wooden core shaped from two pieces of a soft wood like poplar, wrapped in glued linen, and with a leather cover stitched over. That is the approach I’m taking. I’ve been able to obtain some nice poplar (and have enough of it to finish all the other overdue scabbards), which I’ve been shaping throughout last night and today.

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I had not worked with poplar before, and was delighted by how easy it was to work. If I’m making more scabbards in this way, I will need to get some more carving tools to make it quicker, but overall it was reasonably quick. To begin with, I verified that I would get both halves out of one length of the milled poplar, cross cut it to length and then ripped it down the middle. I drew around the messer on both pieces, then used a V tool to dig a trench along that line – this gave me both a depth to aim for while gouging out the bulk of material, and helped to keep the edge well defined.

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I’ve ground to a halt on the project though, as I’m going to use rabbit-skin glue to glue the two halves together, and to size and glue the linen, but forgot to make up the glue last night. I’ve mixed the glue according to the general recommendations – about 12 parts water to one point glue, and popped it in a glass jar inside a saucepan of hot but not boiling water to dissolve it. After about 15 minutes stirring, I wound up with something resembling rabbit soup. Which I guess is the point.

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Tomorrow’s effort will involve heading down at the crack of dawn to glue up the scabbard, then leaving it sit for a few hours while the glue sets so that I can finish shaping the wood, and glue on the linen. Then, a pint.

The harness post.

The other set of photos we got on the weekend at Lesne Abbey Woods was of the new harness from Martin Bevan and some with the poll axe from Josef Dawes. It was also a brief opportunity to move around a little more vigorously in the harness and make sure there was nothing amiss.

By chance as we were getting these shots, there was a professional model and couple of photographers getting shots beside us, so I’m hoping to get some even better photos at some point from them. Meanwhile, we took photos as the arming progressed, and a few of me waving a sword or the axe about. Bo the dog was initially alarmed by this, but concluded that it was some sort of game, and happily ran around while I rattled after him – he was not entirely sure about the noise of the harness, but seemed to enjoy the game.

This was also an opportunity for Body Servant Bob to practice getting the harness on, which involved quite a lot of cursing and muttering, even though she they did a great job with poor direction. Some day I will manage to stand still and let her them do it, rather than trying to help, which I know from experience does not work.

IMG_2806Working from the bottom up, for the time being I will use the Historic Enterprises hose and the linen petti-coat that I made, underneath the harness. The hose I will eventually replace with something better fitted and of lighter cloth, but they will do for the time being – I would prefer to have a dedicated pair of hose for this as I can leave them pointed to the petti-cote rather than mucking about switching the better hose from a doublet when I need to harness up. Generally during WOTR Fed events we are stressed enough for time that is one thing I do not want to burn time doing. The only real problem with the hose is that they are fairly loose fitting, which leaves a lot of fabric to try to squeeze into the greaves. As I discussed in the previous post, I also might make some more shirts, with collars, as I found that the mail standard was rubbing my neck unpleasantly.

IMG_2820The arming doublet was from Martin as well, and needed adjustment to tighten it. This was the thing I was most nervous about with the fit, as the doublet is instrumental in making the rest of the harness work. It’s not completely clear in this photo, but the lower part of the doublet is fitting very snugly around my hips and gut, effectively forming a broad corset from which to suspend the leg harness. It possibly could have had a little bit more taken out of the small of my back, but as it stands the armour sat solidly and did not slip around, meaning the doublet is working exactly as it should. The doublet is linen throughout, and largely hand sewn.

IMG_2844One thing I very much like about the harness is these enormous Italianate shoulders. They make me look like I have a broad back and muscles. Body Servant Bob was concerned that the harness looked like it was twisted or sitting crooked at times, but it is actually me that is crooked – looking at the photos we got emphasised that because my right knee is a bit weak, I often put my weight over my left leg and let the hip cock, even when standing still. It’s a bad habit I need to break, as if I do that for any length of time in harness my back will kill me.

IMG_2847The coif looks terrible in this shot, but it’s truly not that bad. I knocked up a padded coif by essentially sewing about 12 layers of coarse heavy linen inside one linen coif, then sewing another linen coif inside it to make a thick linen sandwich. Because I’ve not worn it in anger, it still looks lumpy and misshapen, but it will smooth out after a couple of wears. I might not leave the ties on the coif – or simplify them – as they stick out from under the helmet like a bow tie, which defeats the dignity.

And finally the full ensemble. The harness is somewhat old-fashioned for late 15th C England, and is more or less an Italian export. I know that Martin took the harness from an original source when he made it for himself, so I need to dig up where it came from. Despite it being old-fashioned, it’s the sort of thing an older gentleman would hold onto, so I’m comfortable with it being reasonably feasible for the late 15th as much as mid 15th. Who needs to be fashionable?

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The articulation and mobility is excellent, although you wont see me doing cartwheels or pushups in it. For one, it’s 37.5 kg in total excluding the weight of my clothes, and for second, I don’t do cartwheels or pushups at any time. While I won’t have the absolute flexibility I have during blossfechten, I will definitely be able to use a longsword with this kit, as long as I remember the things which will be slightly clumsier. As an example while it was pretty easy for me to get my thumb onto the blade to do a zwerchhaw, the hilt sometimes got a bit tangled with the metal of my gauntlet. This will probably become easier when and if I wear gloves instead of bare hands, and short term I will continue to just wear the leather riggers gloves. As a point of interest, the only thing I was not able to do comfortably was wind up to ochs on my right side with both hands, although I could drop the left hand off and get it up there.

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The action shots with the axe did not work out so well, so I’ll have to get some later. Meanwhile this final shot illustrates the size of the axe against me, and the appearance with the visor closed. Despite appearances vision with the visor down is not too bad – about the same and possibly better than when I’m wearing my sallet, but I will need to re-learn how to see out the breaths in the visor to avoid walking over small children. As with the sword, it was evident that it will be more comfortable moving the axe when I am wearing gloves, but otherwise it was fluid and easy to use.

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There are a few things to note in this image that need addressing sooner or later. First you can see there’s a fair amount open under the arm and inside the arm, for which the obvious solution is the period one: mail voiders under the arm and possibly inside the arm. This is not top priority, and I will probably leave that until 2017 to address. With the axe in play, the arms are not particularly vulnerable, and I’m not concerned for safety. One thing I will address though as soon as possible is the mail skirt that should be with this – I’d forgotten that I need to put a belt on it, and so cannot wear it yet. Once done that will the gap to protect my inner thigh and other sensitive bits.

As mentioned above, I will tinker with the coif laces to get rid of the unfortunate bow-tie look. I may discard them altogether, as I found once the helmet went on the combination of helmet and coif did not shift on my head at all, making the laces somewhat redundant. Another side effect of the laces having a fairly bulky bow is that they pushed the top of the mail standard down a little, potentially leaving a very thin gap between the mail and the helmet, which is a bad thing. I do need to tinker with the standard as well – and possibly try the other slightly longer standard I picked up during 2015 – as I found that it rubbed the side of my neck a lot, and for extended wear would probably tear the skin. Partially this should be addressable by having a shirt with a collar, but I will experiment with a scarf, or else put a lining in the standard. Or both.

Thus, I wind up with more to go on the to-do list:

  • finish mail skirt
  • tinker with coif
  • tinker with standard
  • get better gloves
  • add mail voiders

…And even more progress…

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We went yesterday to the ruins at Lesnes Abbey Woods, which are only a few miles from where we live, to get some shots of the new clothes from Lady Malina, the scabbard from Stephen “Stitch” Pole, the harness from Martin Bevan, and the pole axe from Josef Dawes. My thinking was to get a ton of shots, under my control, in relative leisure before the season started and time ran out.

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Malina has made two doublets, two pairs of hose, and a short gown for me, all of which are excellent. The intention is to have a pair of hose and a doublet which are a bit more down-market for regular knocking around in, and a set which are higher class. Unfortunately there’s a problem with the new green doublet which needs to be sorted out before I can wear it, so I only got shots with the lower class yellow one. Despite appearances in these shots, the hose are not black, but quite definitely blue and somewhat lighter in colour.

 

IMG_2743I’m not super happy with how I look in just the doublet, as it’s revealing to my embarrassment that I really (really) need to lose weight. Despite that, the hose and doublet are an outstandingly good fit, and very comfortable. Sitting in them when they are fully pointed is not a problem (in fact I wore them in the car), which is always a good indication that the fit is correct.

IMG_2765The shoes are something of an interim pair – I made them years ago in Australia and treat them like medieval sandshoes. They remain very comfortable and robust, and are likely to survive many more years, however I’ve got a longer pair of boots for fancy wear, and have some ankle boots on order for wearing with harness.

The gown feels great, and I will take great delight in swanning about in it (Fabulous, Darling). We are being a little cunning with it as well – the sumptuary laws are being skirted by using rabbit fur, so I can pretend to be well above my station without actually breaking the law.

Stitch has done a great job of the scabbard and belt, to house the longsword from Lixa Rebellum. I gave him licence to use good fittings and mounts, and freedom to splash out with little brief other than “fancy, but not too fancy for my station.” He’s nailed it in my opinion, which will let me fulfill my role as “over-dressed tart”. Note that I will only be wearing it with the gown, generally, as it’s way too nice to take onto the field while wearing harness. Additionally I have a (sharp) rondel dagger from Tod’s Stuff that should be on this belt, and I am definitely not taking that on the field.

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There are a small number of things I need to do with this soft kit in addition to losing 5kg, but between these pieces and the other kit Malina has made I’m finally fairly satisfied that I am on the right track:

  1. additional ankle shoes, which are on the way;
  2. the glue on the scabbard chape has given up, and I need to reglue it to prevent it falling off;
  3. pattens. I do have one pair of pattens I made some time back for a particular pair of poulaines, but it would be good to have a more robust pair for the English mud;
  4. a better fitted shirt, probably with a collar. The last two pairs of shirts I made I banged up quickly for under my jack. They are fine and accurate (although the neckline is a bit bigger than it should be), but we discovered while doing up the yellow doublet that the full sleeves and body mean that there is a lot of extra fabric that needs to be squeezed under the doublet, which is why the sleeves look bunched up;
  5.  the front strap on the scabbard needs to be trimmed, Stitch correctly left this long so I could adjust the way the sword hangs.

Wallace Collection A926 Poll Axe

Wallace Collection A926

Much to my delight, the poll axe made by Josef Dawes of White Well Arms arrived today. This is an interpretation of the Wallace Collection poll axe catalogued as A926 (you can find it via Wallace Live and searching for that catalogue number).  He has done a superb job of reproducing the key features of the original, and adding his own stylistic touches. There are of course some key differences – he made the axe sharp initially, then blunted it for safety, which I believe has made for a better presentation of the thickness of both the blade and the spike. One thing that seems to happen with a lot of reproductions is that they make the overall blade width thicker in order to blunt the edge, rather than making the real thing and taking the edge back off.

At my request he omitted the engraved brass strip that runs up the back of the hammer head, as I felt it would probably get too dinged up in use, and the hand-guard was not added. Having had a good look at the original on several occasions, I do agree with the consensus that the hand guard was added at a much later date.

The overall weight is a little heavier than the original – 3.4 kg compared to 2.495 kg, and marginally shorter (176 cm vs 188.5 cm), however the weight remains within the range of other surviving examples, and I agree with Josef’s judgement that the weight difference is due to differences in the timber of the haft.

Certainly I could have sought to have an axe that was more explicitly identifiable as “English” rather than something known to be French, but the Wallace Collection is very nearby, and I wanted to have something that I could refer directly to the original for.

I have yet to have a play with it, and do want to give it a coat of Renaissance Wax before I do so, so I hope to be able to follow up with some action photos and some comments on how it handles. My initial cautious wave around in the living room suggests that the balance is excellent, and it will be fairly straight forward to control.

(all photos by Josef Dawes)

Wallace Collection A926

Wallace Collection A926

 

Schaffhouse Project

In mid 2014 I was offered the possibility of doing an event with Companye St George. At the time I knew my kit was in a bit of a mess, and rather panicked about my ability to do a good presentation. At that time I created a page to try to get a handle on what I had, what state it was in, and what it was needed. I also tried to have a work-in-progress log in the Masthead blog, but that has rather fallen apart. I will come back to the idea though, and document here over the next few days the state of my kit, which is now coming together reasonably again.

I will use the categories that the Companye’s hand book uses, so that I can keep aligned with the original document and judge my progress. Of course kit for re-enactment is very much like painting a bridge – as you approach the notional end, you realise that you have to go back and start at the other end because so much time has passed.

The categories I will use are:

  • Hat
  • Shirt
  • Braies
  • Doublet
  • Hose
  • Livery Jacket
  • Hood
  • Shoes
  • Belt
  • Purse
  • Cloak
  • Livery
  • Knife
  • Eating Utensils
  • Bedding
  • Armour
  • Weapons
  • Washing
  • Badges

And add two additional ones more relevant for UK Events:

  • Tentage
  • Camp furniture