Scabbard for an Albion Poitiers for wear with a Plaque Belt

[Sir Patrick]

Sir Brian, that excerpt expresses that knights were in short supply.  It doesn't really express the wealth requirement of a knight other than mentioning being 'equipped as' one.  And they were probably drawing from the gentry, not the commoners.  Even William Marshal was the son of a minor nobleman, so let's not pretend he wasn't already well off.

I would say the Marshal had a leg up as far as opportunities for advancement, but I would challenge that he well off. When he had completed his training and had been discharged from William of Tankeville's house, Marshal's horse had been killed and William was so poor he had sold his knighting cloak so he could eat. He was contemplating selling off his sword when Tankeville found out and gifted his a new destrier.

[Ian]

Yes, the very fact that he was gifted something worth a fortune shows how that class took care of itself.  And yes I will totally agree that in the early Middle Ages it was a different state of affairs.

[Ian]

But you guys always have a knack for steering the conversation away from what I was talking about, the late middle ages

[Sir James A]

We also have to remember to look at it within the context of the specific period as well. The gold and jewels and finery all pertain to a 14th century knight, but if you go back to the 11th century, the bar was probably a little lower.

Agreed. It's difficult to determine materials from effigies, since they aren't colored, but here's some period artwork as examples. They're all early 16th century, which I know is later than 14th century, but good artwork from those centuries is something I don't know much about...

Portrait of a Knight of the Order of St. Stephen
Michele Rosini (Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio) (1503-1577)


Relatively plain armor, no etching, no vast seas of gold; some brass or gold roped trim with leather edging.

Portrait of a Knight, Barthel Bruyn
Barthel Bruyn (1493-1555) (painted: 1531)


Simple fabrics, no rings, a gold necklace, a simple fur

A Knight of the Rehlinger Family
Unknown German Artist, 1540


Fancy Maximillian style, which would have been waning out of popularity in 1540. It's nicely etched and fluted, but no gold or jewels.

Portrait of a knight
Vittore Carpaccio, 1510


Still in schynbalds long after they went out of fashion, when even basic men at arms were wearing cased greaves; simple scabbard, simple cuirass with some rolling and recessed edges, and basic decoration on the rest.

A Knight with his Jousting Helmet
Giovanni Battista Moroni, 1554-58

Simple black clothing, and his helmet and the armor on the floor are very utilitarian with the decoration primarily being brass hinges / buckles / strap ends. He does, however, have one heck of a fancy crest. But I think this example is VERY comparable to Sir Ian's armor, with minor differences (roping, brass hardware).

Yes, there are many period armors that have all sorts of (to us) excessive decoration and all manner of fancy-shmancy stuff. But the vast majority of those that I can think of off the top of my head are literally Kings, Princes, Dukes and the upper-elites. There are plenty of surviving harnesses that don't show any of that adornment, and they are the majority, not the minority. Which is important, because armor of royalty was likely not worn as often as the knights who earned their wages in battles; King Henry had multiple sets of armor made for him that he never even wore!

Let's say out of 10 people on a battlefield, only 1 is a knight. The paintings of battles show the majority of them in full armor as similarly equipped; there aren't a hand full of them running around in parade armor. I think there's a tendency to over-romanticize and over-inflate the status and appearance of the more common knights. And the ones in the paintings are ones who had the money to spend on art work, which was probably a luxury that commoners didn't have in period.

Sir Patrick brings up some great points. I don't argue that knights didn't have a lot of money, and I don't argue that they didn't SPEND a lot of money. I think there's an over-emphasis on them spending a large sum of their money on armor fancy clothing to look excessively wealthy, rather than having to spend it on their manor / house / farmland, horses, stables, their retinue, and so on. I think my examples from the paintings show there were some knights who didn't look like they are featured on MTV: Cribs of Europe.

[Ian]

There's nothing simple about black clothing, fur linings, silk, etching or gold.  That's 'spensive.  They're all showing off their status in those pictures.  I don't know how else to communicate the aesthetic of a late medieval rich person.  You have to look at the cut of the clothing, the materials used, the fabrics, furs, decoration.  It all forms a picture.  You can't look at any one thing in isolation or through a modern lens.

No one said they have to look like a modern hip-hop star.  But even from your own examples of Renaissance gentleman, you can see that my kit doesn't bare the details in fabrics, gold, decoration, or furs that theirs do.  Once again you're zeroing in on armor alone... I can't break you of that habit.

The last dude to a modern person looks like he's wearing simple clothing.  In period someone would be like "Holy crap!!! How did he afford pure black dyed silk and wool???"

Knights were also not common.  In Late 14th century England, the population was by consensus around 2.2M people.  There were by estimates less than 1,000 knights according to the research in Daily Life in Chaucer's England.  That's about 0.04 % of the population.

[Sir Patrick]

Agreed they were not common. "History of England put them at 800 at one point, down from just over twice that two generations earlier. As I stated earlier, the 14th century knight is rich (he'd have to be just to maintain his station). Even if he was out of favor and on "hard times" he still would have put on the best possible showing bc the hunt for more land (and by extension more power and money) would have demanded it. In short, his mom would have gone naked to ensure he looked the part.

As far as understated clothing goes, here's an analogy:  In my wedding picture I'm wearing a black tuxedo with a black bow tie and white shirt. Brad Pitt has on the same outfit at a red carpet. Wanna bet his cost a hell of a lot more?

[Sir Patrick]

One more aside about the declining numbers if knights. Throughout the early feudal period, a knight or other nobleman could exempt themselves from their required military service by paying a "Scootage Tax". During the reign of King John (who was desperately short of funds for his campaigns to win back the Planagent continental holdings), the king preferred to collect the Sootage rather than obtain the service, after discovering he could hire more Routiers than he could field knights for the cost. As a result, magnates realized it was cheaper to pay the Scootage than to employ household knights (and by extension get ALL the revenues from the knight's parcel of land, about 30 acres). Medieval downsizing/outsourcing.

[Sir James A]

There's nothing simple about black clothing, fur linings, silk, etching or gold.  That's 'spensive.  They're all showing off their status in those pictures.  I don't know how else to communicate the aesthetic of a late medieval rich person.  You have to look at the cut of the clothing, the materials used, the fabrics, furs, decoration.  It all forms a picture.  You can't look at any one thing in isolation or through a modern lens.

No one said they have to look like a modern hip-hop star.  But even from your own examples of Renaissance gentleman, you can see that my kit doesn't bare the details in fabrics, gold, decoration, or furs that theirs do.  Once again you're zeroing in on armor alone... I can't break you of that habit.

It's not a habit, it was easier to find period pictures of knights in armor than without.

I know solid black (or bright) clothing was expensive back then because it was a "first" dye and others of lesser financial means would have their clothing dyed in the same diluted dyes. What I was trying to specifically address with armor paintings is the below post... it's just not accurate to what I see.

It is because he is not bedecked in gold and jewels and silk brocades worth more than all of his regular clothes combined. It is because his gauntlets do not have a garnet inserted into golden sockets on each of his knuckles and his plaque belt is not hand chiseled out of gold, inlaid with hand-dyed, molten glass enamel.

Note that the man only has one ring, not nine or ten or twelve golden rings with etchings and gems and precious stones in them. Where is the necklace of gold and the golden bracelet?

Yes, silk brocade with gold thread is still expensive and a status symbol, whereas black wool no longer is. If a pair of black wool chausses in period was the equivalent of $14,000 today due to dye, cut, material, etc, yet we can spend $100 for an item of similar quality, does that make our appearance wrong / inferior? We have cheap deep black wool. We have cheap fur. If the gold and brocade is not what an *actual* period portrait is wearing... are we trying to compare the amount of money spent on items or compare appearances?

It's like you said, without a modern eye, our dark black clothing and custom made armor would be a show of wealth, rather than "yeah I saw those on a website from some place in India". Is the impression wrong when it looks substantially similar but costs much less than it would have historically? That's where I'm confused; for armor, soft kit, tent, etc.

[Ian]

I'm not sure where you're going with this.

To reproduce those kits requires modernly expensive items.  Gold is still expensive.  Fur is still expensive.  You can't line a coat in cheap rabbit pelts and expect it to last, fur suitable for clothing is still expensive, especially in the quantities required.  Silk is still expensive.  Gems are still expensive.  Etched armor is still expensive.  Fluted armor is still expensive.

Those are just some of the elements in every single image you posted.

According to payrolls, the lowest end knights of the 14th century made about £40 a year.  A skilled craftsman post-plague when labor was more expensive made about £5 a year, and a laborer about £2.  So the least wealthy knight made 8X more than skilled workers.

If you translate that to today, the median income in the US is about $51,000/year.  If we equate our median worker to a skilled worker of the middle ages, a low-end knight pulls in about $400,000 a year.  He could afford some luxuries.

And a rich man in period would be more likely to show off his status, as evidenced in all your own images.  I can't help you see gold, fur and silk as expensive by today's standards if you don't want to.  But they are certainly part of the 'uniform' of the rich in period.

[Henrik Granlid]

We look at paintings of battles and we see scores of srmoured soldiers, clad head to toe charging acrosd the field on destriers. We see even more men on foot in similae armour.

They're not knights.

Not by the medievl definition of a person required to bring with him a force of outfitted men at arms and foot soldiers.

What we see, the brunt of the metal-force, those aren't knights, those are men at arms.


As for the paintings previously linked:

1. Note the articulation of at the top of the breastplate, that's 3 lames or more, along with the articulated gorget, the smocked silk collar (and cuffs) and the incredibly fine maille.

2. Pure black wool and LOTS of it. A thick silver or golden chain around his neck, a long one at that. Broad furs.

3. Out of fashion or not, armour with that fine fluting (seriously, it's amazing) and etching will neither be cheap, nor found on men at arms. Also note the articulating parts and the closeness of them.

4. Simpler though it may be, there's pure black wool on the cap, the shoulders are finely articulated and very thoroughly fluted. Again in work that would be expensive as hell. Also unsure of what the furnishing on the katzbalgr is made of.

5. Black silk-velvet on the doublet under the arming cote, well fitted trpusers and an extravagant ammount of feathers on the helmet. The armour in itself has excellent articulation (as seen on the fingers) and there is nothing basic or soldiery about it. Not to mention it is a Joust-harness, meaning it is likely fully enclosing in a way field-armours almost cannot be.


Edit: Also, what tells us that all extant armours are for knights? The churburg ones were from an armoury, I.e. What you give to soldiers who need to be armed to go with the knight.


I think our major problem is that we might be speaking of different things.

I.e. Knight as a guy on horse in full armour.

And

Knight as a nobleman who brings guys on horses in full armours with him.

[Henrik Granlid]

And I think that you can absolutely use modernly made medieval materials (black wool, silk brocades etc) to recreate something that was more expensive in period, for me, that is a given.

But you will still end up dumping a whole lot of money into a kit once you go for the real deal that looks more historical rather than some website in India.

Prime example: a breastplate from Albert Collins runs about 1200 usd, a single piece raised helmet runs at least 3000.

Jeff Wasson and Platener might be cheaper, but they are by no means cheap (and they don't hand file the finish).

Basically, the higher up the scale you go, the closer you get to a historical analogue and the more expensive it becomes. Same goes for fabrics, decorations and other such things.

Portraying a medieval knight can be done with polyester cloths, plastic jewelry, mass produced Indian armour pieces and a cheap sowing machine, but it can also be done in a 25.000 dollar harness (made more expensive with gold edgings, etchings, fluting and inlays), a professionally tailored soft kit made from 150 dollar/m silk fabric (a modern suit costs about 3-4000 dollars to have made by pro tailors, so somewhere around there, it is a month's wages for him/her after all). Hand crafted jewelry, even if downplayed, for at least a few hundred.

Say some of the soft kit is made with cheap wool, that won't knock too much off the price.

You're basically looking at a 30.000+ investment before accounting for the albion swords, the horse, the handmade medieval saddle etc.


Portraying a medieval nobleman that is a knight can be done on a budget, but it is down to the individual how proper such a portrayal is and how far one is willing to go. Sir Ian is simply saying that, to him, he cannot call himself a knight proper simply because he cannot invest what it would cost to take it to the next level. And historically, he would probably be right.

However, practically, and to a lot of us, he is for all intents and purposes recreating a knight and doing it well. Just not to himself, and I can see where he is coming from.

[Sir Patrick]

^^^ +1

[scott2978]

And I think that you can absolutely use modernly made medieval materials (black wool, silk brocades etc) to recreate something that was more expensive in period, for me, that is a given.

But you will still end up dumping a whole lot of money into a kit once you go for the real deal that looks more historical rather than some website in India.

Prime example: a breastplate from Albert Collins runs about 1200 usd, a single piece raised helmet runs at least 3000.

Jeff Wasson and Platener might be cheaper, but they are by no means cheap (and they don't hand file the finish).

Basically, the higher up the scale you go, the closer you get to a historical analogue and the more expensive it becomes. Same goes for fabrics, decorations and other such things.

Portraying a medieval knight can be done with polyester cloths, plastic jewelry, mass produced Indian armour pieces and a cheap sowing machine, but it can also be done in a 25.000 dollar harness (made more expensive with gold edgings, etchings, fluting and inlays), a professionally tailored soft kit made from 150 dollar/m silk fabric (a modern suit costs about 3-4000 dollars to have made by pro tailors, so somewhere around there, it is a month's wages for him/her after all). Hand crafted jewelry, even if downplayed, for at least a few hundred.

Say some of the soft kit is made with cheap wool, that won't knock too much off the price.

You're basically looking at a 30.000+ investment before accounting for the albion swords, the horse, the handmade medieval saddle etc.


Portraying a medieval nobleman that is a knight can be done on a budget, but it is down to the individual how proper such a portrayal is and how far one is willing to go. Sir Ian is simply saying that, to him, he cannot call himself a knight proper simply because he cannot invest what it would cost to take it to the next level. And historically, he would probably be right.

However, practically, and to a lot of us, he is for all intents and purposes recreating a knight and doing it well. Just not to himself, and I can see where he is coming from.

You nailed it Henrik.

There's so much I've wanted to say on this thread but you guys have all said it before me  

But I'm curious... Sir Ian, what is your intent? Are you actually trying to reach that pinnacle of historical accuracy some day, is that even a goal for you? Due to what it takes, I'd never even considered going for it, and it makes me curious to know whether someone with your pedigree of historical accuracy is going that way or not.

[Ian]

Henrik, that you for articulating it the way you did.  I think that was an excellent explanation.

Well Scott to answer your question in a long-winded way, I really never intended this thread to imply that it was something I needed to do.  I merely wanted to point out that even though my impression may appear nice to modern eyes, there's still a gap between that and the historical reality.  I meant it more as a teaching point of "You think that's nice?  In period it would have been REAAALLLY nice."  And then the rest of the thread happened

I also didn't intend for anyone to get the impression that I'm not happy with my kit.  I'm pretty darn happy about how my kit is fleshing out.  I'm very happy portraying a gentleman squire at the LH events I'm able to go to with my club.

Is it a goal of mine to reach that level?  Sure.  But it's so far off right now that it would be a multi-decade long endeavor considering all the things that go in to this.  A complete impression is so much more than even armor and a full soft kit.  You have to consider the appropriate pavilion, painting the pavilion, furnishing the pavilion, appropriate storage containers, flatware, stoneware, glassware, little accessories, art, decoration, tools, banners, etc... it's such a grand undertaking when you consider that every little detail within that grand scope of items is under the same historical scrutiny.  And it's not like high end LH clubs get that stuff overnight either.  They're also constantly acquiring, re-examining, improving and changing over the course of decades themselves.  It's a living breathing process that never really ends.

As I improve my crafting and sewing skill I fully intend to always correspondingly improve my kit to match.  Will I ever reach that level?  Realistically, probably not on my own.  But that doesn't mean I'm not going to seek constant improvement where I can make it.  I don't care if I ever reach that level, but I find the journey so rewarding and fun that I don't see myself getting off the path any time soon.  Moreover I'm incredibly humbled and thankful for the opportunity to get to practice this and learn from some of the people who I would consider at the absolute top of this game.  I just love learning, improving as I learn, and sharing what I learn!

[Sir Douglas]

I don't really have anything pertinent to add to this discussion, but I just wanted to say that I've been quietly following it and soaking up some really good info.

But shoot...at this early stage, I'd be happy if I can get together a passable middle-class burgher setup. I think I'm a long way off yet from silk brocades, gold jewelery, warhorses, and manor houses.