Well - not from the best source available - but these saleable genealogies are flowery nonsesnse added to hard data. So this small extract could be interesting and a lead for you: Known as the Agincourt Roll, it lists the following soldiers who sailed with Henry V to Normandy on Sunday 11th August 1...

Did you want the whole call - or to find some interesting, lesser MaA to portrray - if the latter you might (hefty old might there) have some joy by taking some of the named nobles from Brother Ranulf's ;ist and searching to see if there were lists/examples of their indentured retainers, because the...

#snip , but surely not sophisticated weapons such as pollaxes which as far as I know were knightly arms. I don't think that's so. Although favoured by ker-niggits and up upon the battlefield, I think their use was more widespread. A Paston letter springs to mind: I suppose ye should have such thing...

Have they got worse vision than a visored salet and bevor? Can't be that much worse surely? If it fits well, the vision is about as rubbish as a sallet. But once you're in, you're in, there's no popping the visor up for a gander or (more importantly) a breath of air or gulp of water. At least, not ...

Quite so - and from the point of view of the OP I would say anything from nothing to half plate would be fine - either end of that scale would need some sort of justification though, and suitably rich soft kit in the case of the latter. Free tennantry having bought or aquired full plate seems a bit ...

And: 1400- 1600 AD: At this time the great explorers were the Portuguese who were the first people to sail around Africa and on to India, Japan and China in the East. Their little ships were called Caravels and they used cork to make parts of these ships because of its strength and light weight but ...

Apparently for soles:
http://corkcutter.info/page/view/the-hi ... f-cork-use

Floats for nets too I imagine, but there's no date for that.
http://corkcutter.info/page/view/what-d ... tters-make

This is just one site I grant you!

In fact, looking at gregory23b's MED, I could make a strong argument for harnessed just meaning liveried. Search the word 'harneis' and meaning 1 is armour (unspecified type) and meaning 3 is "Personal apparel, clothes, livery; wering ~"

Discuss...

Interesting.

Sounds like it may be on the cusp:
http://www.beekmanwine.com/prevtopap.htm

And one link further down reveals it to be a bit later than the blessed 15C
http://sustainablematerials.com/resourc ... -stoppers/

Back to your linen cupboard then...

;-) indeed. Even armourers, when asked, say that they painted the insides. They didn't, simples. The red oxide thing stems from some kind of modern urge to protect against rust or to protect soft kit from a bit of dirt. just give it a wipedown before and after, fine. Quite so! But how does one best...

Harness/harnessed does not just mean plate, but dressed for war, it could just as easily be jacks. A good friend, has pointed out that within the records of the guild of Pewters (within the 15th C), it is stated that they supplied several FULLY HARNESSED liveried archers to the city of London.........

Have a look here - there are a number of images used to illustrate the article which might give a good indication of when it appeared.

http://www.thearma.org/essays/SwordandBuckler.htm

One piece of evidence for musters I would LOVE to find is whatever prompted the 1475 troop type list in the Osprey WotR book. Does anyone know what evidence led to that list? It would be a fine example for Colin and a pivotal bit of info for me at the moment.

... and as boring as this may sound, where you have a budget to work to, buy fewer pieces of quality rather than be tempted by greater coverage of good. And kit is often made or broken by the bits and bobs (a good doublet and hose, belts, scabbards etc) than by the armour you wear for a while...

Rather than think military, think civilian with the potential for war. I grieve for the want of Like button. x2 There is a world of re-enactment, some is very bash and beer oriented, some very authento-pedantic with a wealth of in between. All are great if that's what your into. Find a group you li...

What era are we talking? Or is it any single era?

I propose we wait a while and then have an armoured fighting get together somewhere. I know Mark L would be up for that too, there are a few of mine who could join the fun...

Good stuff Matt - hope it goes well!

The fact is that any reenactments of this period should have AT LEAST 50% (and in many cases far higher) of the people playing archers to look anything like a medieval English army. And by archers, that is the term for English Infantry - ie bow armed and with the capability and expectation of comin...

Additionally, I don't see any 'up-armouring' in the 16th century. On the contrary, common soldiers continued to wear sallets, brigandines, jacks and mail shirts, just as they had done during the wars of the roses, and 'knights' wore the same degree of full plate as they had at Agincourt. I think I ...

you can also possibly assume that people could draw heavier bows than we think is likely because cultures untouched by major technologies seem to naturally be stronger ancient greek Olympic javelin throws are though to have marked 150m and some Aboriginals can throw spears 110m also native american...

Hi,
I don't recall ever seeing riveted construction for 15C armour where the rivet wasn't providing some degree of articulation. So whilst welded sallets look right (from the outside) a riveted one would look wrong.
Unless someone has come across one? but if they had it would be an exception!
Cheers

Any more observations out there Avoid conclusions on scant evidence - if pushed I'd recommend summing up why we don't know... :D Except: Rerverse engineering can suggest a range of draw weights that would be indicative of what was used. If, say, ordinances required archers to achieve a mark of 220 ...

It was pure speculation indeed, but I don't think that's a bad thing. It is taking what we know and attempting to create an hypothesis about what we don't know. There are so many blanks. So while it would be silly to theorise that all archers wore purple braies as a sign of their puissance, theorisi...

Found this one, which I think is of the Battle of Poitiers. I'll have a look for others. Cool - this one was one I looked at from the usual suspects (ie images from books to hand on the bookshelf :) ) - the archers don't have bags/quivers on them - the sack on the floor might imply that arrows are ...

Back to Jim's original point: It's interesting that in the typical battle depictions of the time, archers seem to be predominantly shown with no bag/quiver. I know that many aspects of the images beg questions, but if they were a common feature of an archer I would have expected them to be shown as ...

English soldiery shot - some would have been better than the norm (retained ones, enthusiasts et al), come war, it is not unreasonable to presume these would pick / be given better kit. Once the hand to hand starts the riff raff may pick up their other weapons as required - or keep their bows on han...

In the transcript of the Inventory of Sir John Fastolf (died 1459) there are references to a payre glovys of mayle, of schepys skynne and of doos Thanks for posting this Ghost - I had been looking to remember where I had heard of evidence of maille backed gloves, this was it. Looking at the list it...

Good work chaps - it looks like good quality stuff. Bravo!

It was sugested to me that on men it was to mimic arming doublets but that sounds dodgy to me. I just think it was to be different. Hi Marcus, To add weight to your counter argument - what evidence of laced sleeves on arming doublets are there? Most of the pictures I have seen (Northern European an...