Search the posts of Guthrie on this forum - apart from being knowledgeable and helpful, he's published a book on the subject.

Congratulations, you have found yourself in a minefield but at least you've realised that rather than finding out the hard way. Almost all societies of 100+ members will have become a Company Limited by Guarantee for exactly this reason. Some are also registered charities, though the benefit of this...

http://www.woodententpegs.co.uk/ - they supply ash pegs in a range of sizes, and accessories such as mallets. Good pricing, and I've had excellent service whenever we've ordered from them

So chairs definitely extended beyond kings and bishops

In buildings, yes. As a portable item to be used on campaign or carted around (literally) wherever you went, no.

Quiverstock's chair is simple, elegant, and wrong for C13/14. There are curule chairs or stools from the Roman period, but the folding X-chairs with arms and back seem to appear first in Renaissance Italy, maybe from about 1500 onwards. Until then, chairs seem to have been rare and used by Kings and...

This looks to me like the butted mail which Armour Class used to make back in the 90s and early 00s before the Indian riveted mail became available. The tailoring of the shirt to expand at the bottom, and to spread across the chest, is typical of the fitting adjustments they typically added, and fro...

Is the assignment due on Monday? It matters because there will be those who deny that it happened, or rewrite it to paint their country as less belligerent, less culpable, or less illegal. Fiction teaches us how good fiction can be, but fictionalised history is just as bad as those who rewrite it. A...

Not if your shortcut is

http://www.livinghistory.co.uk/forums/s ... d=newposts

It might be worth putting a redirect in place - I've spent the last 2 days thinking the site was gone...

Beware of selective reading or quoting, as what the YAT report actually says is: At Coppergate only one-third of the Anglo-Scandinavian wool, whether raw or processed, was pigmented (and the medieval wools were all white). White wool is vital if the fibre is to be dyed and dyeing formed a significan...

With respect to Crecy, the cutting down of lances to make usable spears is purely an artifact of the cavalry being dismounted. They had several lances each and a sword, but on foot what they really needed was a spear. Plus by "cutting down" I assume they didn't shorten the length, but inst...

The standard reference for this period is Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era, 1050-1350 This gathers together manuscript evidence, carvings, effigies and other sources, and is as good a reference as we can ever hope to get. The only reference to shoulder protection is the small plates attached to ...

Griff,

Do let us know if EH want to do Bannockburn at Kelmarsh

JSTOR can provide access to a review of the fresco's dating and attribution which is detailed:

Joseph Polzer
Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen
25. Bd., (1983), pp. 103-141

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... ni_015.jpg

Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, dated 1328, by Simone Martini

Though note that there is some discussion over the dating and the content e.g. http://smarterritorialist.wordpress.com ... tribution/

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. In terms of durability, they have varied across the range from likely to break on fir...

They're the family groups who exist to provide a focus for badly educated Americans who wish to revisit their ancestral homelands, and who may wish to donate a few pennies in the process for the upkeep of the clan chief's sadly neglected baronial pile. Think tartan wallpaper and carpets, kilts, Eton...

http://www.clanranald.org/cln1/duncarron/bruces-scotland-tour They've started to show a small level of interest in the kit of this period, though apparently thrown together cheaply and without any attempt at getting the details correct, and then combined it with Disney - spot the difference: http://...

I can feel a letter coming on... if I was to draft something asking the NTS to ensure that the event is free from tartan, commemorative rather than celebratory, and has the re-enactment co-ordinated either by a named individual or committee of experienced re-enactors who have been involved in large-...

For my sins I seem doomed to go through government reports line by line, and in the report from the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee's meeting of the 24th April, David McAllister, the "National Trust for Scotland’s project director for the battle of Bannockburn project" says this: Bra...

Nige,

2003 or 2004, I forget which one. But I do remember the steam...

The numbers were high because Plantagenet Events went out of their way to get a large number of people from England to attend, who were drawn mainly from groups which did the WotR period or who were part of generic "medieval" groups. They had a kit guide, and in the main they tried to get ...

True - Hastings in particular has always managed to attract large numbers from France, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Poland and Russia, but that's on the basis that they can cross the channel and drive for an hour to get to the show. Adding 8-10 hours to the trip might not be as attractive, although fl...

If ClanRanald are organising it, I have my doubts about it being the biggest re-enactment ever on the site given the number of people who will stay away if it turns into a wangfest. I may be wrong, and ClanRanald may have every intention of making the event have some resemblance to the period, and i...

I'm afraid the chances of that are very low - English Heritage keep close control of media access at the event, and anyone wanting to film on anything more professional than a handycam will need permission from (read: will be required to make a payment to) EH otherwise they're likely to be escorted ...

Ooh, that's nice... I've no idea on the company, but if you get some do let us know how it goes, and what colour you go for. I wonder if they can be persuaded to do short runs of a different pattern - it might look a bit silly if every C14th re-enactor in the UK suddenly turns up in the red and blac...

Andy Goddard's pages from a long time ago still have the basic information in a readily accessible format - see http://www.bumply.com/Medieval/clothing01.html The C13th is a time of change, so what is OK in 1200 is not OK in 1250. Andy's stuff is a little later again, so for example the coat of plat...

Any two handed sword quoted as "Viking" is fantasy, rather than a re-enactorism. Take a look at Oakeshott and Peirce . In the Viking period, the longest blades are around 90cm in length, and the grips are conspicuously small to the extent that most would be uncomfortable or impossible for ...

For the Templars, "Black" would likely have been more of a dark grey or dark brown depending on the breed of sheep used, rather than a true dyed black - the order's Rule was based on that of the Benedictines, who were themselves criticised for apparently using expensive dyes or multiple ov...

Matt - I'm no expert on archaeology, but given that we've generally got taller (better diet, less manual labour), I suspect the average height will have risen; a 3-4' axe in 1066 may have been in similar proportion to a 4-5' axe in 2011. Ah, but those who used them in C11th England were the top 0.5...