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"Members of the "ordinary" Calais garrison in the 1450's had to attend muster with a bow and a bill" The City of Coventry in 1450 required all citizens to provide, Bows, Arrows, Body armour and Helmet and "oder stuff belonging" , presumably some form of unspecified side arm. However the City watch, ...

To stray still further from the original point of the thread. The idea of Henry Tudor being at Edgecote isn't new - Joan MacAlpine advanced it in her book "The Shadow of the Tower", 1971. However I think from memory she has Tudor rescued by Sir Richard Croft, though its along time since I read it. U...

There was an excellent article on this topic by some of the Beauforts in the May 11 edition (No 87?) of Skirmish entitled “Did French Pikemen kill Richard III” ? The theory was first advanced in Michael K Jones’s book, Bosworth Psychology of a Battle and the article tested and explored these points ...

The Byzantine Emperor - Leo V - "The Armenian" (775- 820AD) issued an edict against Sausage makers, stating that they should be "severely scourged, smooth shaved & banished from our Kingdom forever". I dont know why. One of Henry V's quotes albeit 100+ yrs later r than the 13th Century was "War with...

Thanks Grymm, your suggestion would make alot of sense.

The final picture you've posted is the one I was originally referring to of Antoine the Grand B*****d of Burgundy, your clearly rather more adroit at posting pictures than I am.

Thanks all. One gain the impression that both marked or different coloured cock feathers were used, but this wasn't uniformly the case. The remark from Ascham seems to suggest that it was agood common-sense idea (to have a different coloured cock-feather) but that not everyone did it. Interesting to...

Colin - Muster details and composition of Forces

The Coventry Leet Book - Has several entries detailing the contingents the city supplied. Typically 100% archers. Though the contingent for Barnet has a mixture of horse foot and guns, entries are abit vague on exact role and equipment in some cases.

Thanks for the advice. I'm inclining more to going for silk bindings. I wasn't aware that Richard Head stocked Goosefeathers - last time I looked a couple months ago all he sold were Turkey feathers. The horn inserts he sells are Buffalo and the 2mm thickness is nominal I've found that they can be a...

From my personal experience anything involved with re-enactment and worn tends to stink of woodsmoke pretty quickly ! Wouldn't this have been fairly good in itself of protecting the items, but of course would assume they are worn regularly ? Most people don't seem to have had many sets of clothes an...

Thanks for the advice, which is useful, though most of it didn't directly address the question I'd asked ! Clearly there is some contemporary evidence (the Portrait mentioned above) that Cock Feathers were marked for certain (possibly luxury sets of arrows), is there any other evidence either way fo...

I'm in the process of attempting to make a new batch of "authentic" arrows and trying to improve on the standards that of those that I have previously made. An issue that has occurred to me is identification (or not) of the cock feather. Today we typically use a different colour to denote the cock f...

York City Levy (15th Century) draws most of their membership from between the Tyne and Tees.

You can probably find their details on the L & M website.

and a bit more; Towton Head – The Towton Head (as depicted by Hector Cole – I’ve not seen any of the originals, so cannot comment on whether Hector's reconstruction is accurate) is not a conventional bodkin but is closer to a leaf shape, it also bears a resemblance to a Tudor Bodkin (also on display...

Flodden Display (Etal Castle) - This dates back to the late 80's & early 90's and the armour was relatively early Richard Dunk, so a bit dated and not up to the standards of reproduction we see today. He used to be in the original Staffords and Bills & Bows. Not sure of his sources but most of the ...

Beaufort Companye (Wars of the Roses) are based in the Midlands with several members in Notts (including South Normanton) and Derby's. They are actively recruiting archers and archer related skills at present. See there website and facebook page for contact details, both can be obtained with a simpl...

I’ve joined this somewhat late (due to having to keep my nose to the grindstone with the day job). A lot of the topics discussed here have been included in a previous thread on the Forum, which is still available “lacquering leather armour (has become Archer vs Armour)” and which is well worth a rea...

How does the bow appear strung ? Are both nocks to the left by this amount ?

I have a 70lb bow which has a slight twist, but this corrects when strung.

My understanding is that crude soft leather gauntlets (effectively thick gloves) and mittens existed, there was a find from London ? which is featured in one of the "Dragons" on the Company of St George website. Whether these were worn in warfare and/ory may have had a degree of padding as with Jack...

Clive Hallam-Barker has written an article in this months skirmish asking for re-enactment groups to come forward.

His contact details are 01890 - 820901, clivehb@gmail.com

Louis XI, King of France (contemporary with the Wars of the Roses) was a supreme intriguer and use of spies, particularly against his principal enemy - Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. You may find the following books useful for details; Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry 1100-1500, Yuval ...

Red & Black, a griffin sejant (Standards & Livery Badges of the Wars of the Roses, Pat Mc Gill) Red & Black, badges variously as follows (Heraldic Badges of England and Wales, Michael Powell Siddons, 2009 - Vol 2.1 - Ghost - I have Vol 2 of your Xmas present on Loan from the British Library, I could...

I shoot on the field using a thin leather glove on my shooting hand, thin leather glove and padded mitten on my bowhand. My buckler hangs my sword via a small rope loop (I tried leather but it either snapped or was too stiff to do tight Knots and came undone, and having a buckler drop on your foot i...

Generally I think that standard re-enactment kit maybe slightly heavier, and the average thickness slightly greater than period armours, though period armours were probably tailored to the threat better, i.e thicker in the areas that matter, thinner in the areas that don't.

Cleggy/Black Pear Tudor Jack plates were approx 1.6mm thick work hardened wrought iron plates. Arm & leg harness is typically ~1.5mm. Also worth bearing in mind is how much the plates overlap and whether in some areas you are getting a double thickness, also whether it would be worn in conjunction w...

Is period armour thicker? (not much experience of actual period armour so would really appreciate input!). Modern armour is made to protect against deliberately non-deadly force, so is it lighter than period? I guess this depends on the armourer's work and whether it is a "reproduction" or purely f...

Now Blore is over I can return to the discussion. I think Black Pear is right and that technological improvements were driven by a need to improve armour, it just wasn't as systematic and quick as in later periods such as the second world war. After all the french experimented tactically to find sol...

I do remember being shot at at the same time as shooting back, that gets you woken up in quick order. Yes nostalgia ain't what it used to be, I remember being winged by a crossbow bolt in the shoulder, shot by Graham Smith from a range of all of 12 feet, whilst sprinting up the stairs from Wingfiel...

Simon - some good points some of which have been raised in previous threads. Have a look at the "How to do Battle better" and "Combat archers" threads for example. Command of archers, ranks unit sizes (or for that matter any kind of troops in the Wars of the Roses) is unclear. No real evidence from ...

"Sorry if my lack of details caused confusion". Not at all -its all useful stuff. warbow also has some interesting stuff on Wisby, with albeit crossbow bolts embedded in skulls etc, but even though it mentions that many of the corpses were buried in armiour its not clear from the text how much had b...

Colin - At the danger of going even further off thread, its not clear to me whether these majority of these casualties (Blood Red Roses) were from the battle or the pursuit, my personal view is that they are from the pursuit, many of the injuries blows to the head, from front side and he rear seem t...