|
John Hardy
|
 Posted: Thu 25 Jun, 2015 5:51 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Philip Dyer wrote: | | The only thing I got to say is it better to err on the side of wearing slightly outdated armor than try to justify armour pieces which are in dispute in which they are first come up, armor was expensive and wasn't just thrown away and this applies the lower in status and wealth persona you are trying to portray. |
Yep. That was one thing that Heath Ledger film A Knight's Tale got right. At the start the protagonist is part of the "pit crew" for a not-very-successful old knight on the tourney circuit. And when the knight dies, he assumes his armour and fakes a lineage so the crew can continue to eat. Later another character mocks him for "wearing his grandfather's armour", then comments to a companion that "some of these country knights are little better than peasants".
All of which was basically true: the poorer knights would have worn hand-me-down armour or suits pieced together from available bits and bobs regardless of whether the styles matched, and at the lower end of the money / land scale, many knights were poorer than the wealthier peasants.
Something to consider when using effigies and brass rubbings to date armour styles: to have such a monument, a knight had to be wealthy enough to have the disposable income to PAY an artist to make what amounted to an extravagant luxury grave marker. In other words, he had to be rich enough that he could also have readily afforded the cost of upgrading to the very latest in arms and armour whenever styles changed. Which means that effigies and brasses will naturally show the cutting edge in current armour and swords that was carried by the top 1% or so of the weapon-using classes of that particular decade.
The much vaster group of poorer knights and men-at-arms who wore the armour equivalent of the modern utilitarian vehicle or even beater car because that was what they could afford will not be represented by effigies or brasses because they wouldn't have been able to afford them either. Thus I expect knightly graveyard images can provide accurate dating for when certain styles of arms and armour first APPEARED but may be relied upon more than they should be for establishing when certain items DISAPPEARED from battlefield use.
|
|
This is a standard topic
