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My Armor kit - Historical Fiction?
Ian:
Yes, Italians did were known to where maille on the outside of their arm harness and skip spaulders. It varied by region, that's why geographical location matters so much.
I wear full plate arms, but still have to wear maille under them. You can't escape maille in the 14th century.
Sir Martyn:
Thanks for the maille feedback.
As I said, the proposed focus is Bohemia/Moravia in mid-14th century or so (post-Premysl dynasty and beofre Hussites). I recently got a couple of good sources - including one, "Medieval Armor and Weapons" by Drobna, Wagner and Durdik, to help my research. It has a lot of good reproduction drawings and more importantly, citation of sources. If I must do maille, at least hoping the haubergeon will work ;)
OK, I've now sufficiently recovered from the last lesson to field another question :)
Given the gap between my current "paladin" helm and floating gorget, it was felt I would be safer at the VARF harnesfechten demo fighting in Sir Brian's bascinet (thanks for the loan and sorry for any new dents, Sir Brian!).
For my kit -- which I'm hoping will be useable across interest groups -- would it make more sense to get a stand alone avential, or would it be better to have one that attaches to the bascinet which in turn would fit under a great helm?
I'm leaning towards the stand-alone so it would be removeable/wearable for different uses, but understand the attached is probably safer and I'm not certain which would be truer to the period. Keep in mind that the bascinet I'm planning on would have its own removable pivoting/pinned visor. Appreciate the feedback!
Ian:
You'll be hard pressed to find any bascinet in the 14th century of any style that did not have an aventail attached to it. That being said, you could certainly wear a maille pisan in addition to the aventail (see Squire Jason's thread).
It's a stand alone maille collar (which I think is what you're getting at). An aventail is by definition attached to a helmet. A 'standard' is a 15th century maille collar. A 'pisan' is the same thing, just in the 14th century (just a terminology difference).
Sir Brian:
Well if you are concerned with the safety factor for harnischfechten, then you could always wear a brigandine style gorget under the aventail. There are some that hypostasize the possibility that they were worn beneath an aventail which cannot be neither proven nor disproven from period art or effigies but is prudently plausible given how easily and deeply an acutely sharp blade can penetrate maille alone.
Ian:
There exist pisans in inventories all over the 14th century but no evidence specifically for rigid neck defense. This is why, although no artwork exists to confirm or deny, it is thought to be unlikely that rigid gorgets existed prior to Great Bascinets. Inventories are very detailed and heavily relied upon sources for the existence of certain pieces of equipment. A double layer of maille, each with its own layer of padding, as would exist with a pisan and aventail combination would provide pretty good protection, even from a thrust. You have to consider that most extant aventails are small rings, much smaller than the modern standard 9mm maille. So very small riveted rings, layer of padding, another layer of riveted rings, another layer of padding... that's good protection.
There's also a ton of artwork, specifically effigies that depict knights with no helmet on. Most French effigies are sans helmet (unlike English which almost always show the bascinet on the knight's head). The French effigies that do depict helmet-less knights either show no additional neck protection, or a maille pisan. So while there's is no smoking gun to say a rigid gorget didn't exist somewhere in the annals of the 14th century... it's extremely unlikely.
There's certainly nothing wrong with wearing rigid neck defense while doing combat sports for safety purposes. But it's unfair and a little bit disingenuous to try and call it 'historical' when nothing points to its existence. I would certainly consider wearing a rigid gorget for combat. I would just note that it is a safety compromise, and not try to claim its historicity for my chosen period. Remember, it's OK to do something ahistorical for safety purposes or for some other practical limitations, but don't try to 'force' something to be historical when there's no evidence that it was. That only serves to make the person wearing it feel better by saying it's historical, but it's not doing anyone any favors. So, there are two issues here. One is historicity, the other is safety. Don't try to force one in to the other if they don't already do that naturally, and always make note of that in a Living History demo if that particular item comes up in discussion. That being said, you could definitely get away with a steel gorget under an aventail. Especially something low profile like this (which is the one I would get if I were in the market):
(even though Erik is not doing custom work at the moment, I know he tries to keep these in stock)
http://www.wintertreecrafts.com/items/gorget.html
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