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Craig Peters
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 Posted: Tue 15 Nov, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject: Cuir Bouilli & Knights |
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How common was it to see knights wear cuir bouilli jambeux in England in the 14th century? Would it have been common and not at all unusual? Or would such a knight tend to have been poorer and less well-equipped than some of his contemporaries?
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Craig Peters
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| Posted: Wed 16 Nov, 2005 9:59 am Post subject: |
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Anyone? 
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Wed 16 Nov, 2005 10:12 am Post subject: |
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| Craig Peters wrote: | | Anyone? |
Given that this post has only been around less than 12 hours, I'm surprised you're already clamoring for an answer. Consider that most people in the US were asleep for the majority of the time this post has been around. Our friends in Europe were likely at work for most of that time, away from access to the net and/or research that might have answered the question.
I'm sure someone will come along who can help. If you haven't received a reply in a day or two, then feel free to start bumping it back up.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Wed 16 Nov, 2005 10:59 am Post subject: |
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Craig,
I'll look at some sources later this afternoon/evening and get back to you. I think there's some disagreement about whether monuments depicted iron/steel or leather defenses in a lot of cases. In some cases, like Charles Henry Ashdown or J. H. Hefner-Alteneck, they seem to have called things one or the other based on criteria I can't discern.
Some of the earlier researchers (like Ashdown and Hefner-Alteneck) tend to overuse cuir bouilli, where more recent scholarship may have refuted that.
I personally don't think it would be out of place in the early part of the century. Later in the 14th, though, it might be more unusual for the cosmopolitan upper-crust types. The country bumpkin knight of the same time may have used it more.
But that's just my conjecture at the moment, not backed up my my sources at home.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Felix Wang
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| Posted: Wed 16 Nov, 2005 11:17 am Post subject: |
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From what I have heard, there seemed to be a regional variation in the use of cuir bouilli. This material seems to have been quite common in Italy in the 14th century, and less frequently used elsewhere.
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Craig Peters
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| Posted: Wed 16 Nov, 2005 11:42 am Post subject: |
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| Chad Arnow wrote: | | Craig Peters wrote: | | Anyone? |
Given that this post has only been around less than 12 hours, I'm surprised you're already clamoring for an answer. Consider that most people in the US were asleep for the majority of the time this post has been around. Our friends in Europe were likely at work for most of that time, away from access to the net and/or research that might have answered the question.
I'm sure someone will come along who can help. If you haven't received a reply in a day or two, then feel free to start bumping it back up. |
The reason that I'm pushing for a reply is that it's relevent for a Chaucer presentation that I'm giving in less than 4 hours today. After that, the information is only useful for interest's sake. I'm examining the equipment carried by Sir Thopas in Chaucer's Tale from the Canterbury Tales. In some cases, it's quite ridiculous for use on the battlefield, but I'm also entertaining the possibility that some of his equipment might indicate that he's not as "idealized" as he appears, undermining his status even further. In other words, if "his jambeux were of quyrboilly" illustrates that he's probably not a wealthy knight, it undermines his pseudo-idealized status in the text.
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Felix Wang
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Chuck Russell
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| Posted: Wed 16 Nov, 2005 12:23 pm Post subject: |
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sigh, now your gonna make me go home and dig up all my 14thc sources ehhehe.
if memory is correct i believe there is 1 rerebracer found of leather.
i believe king rene's tourny (15thc) book says something about leather but i cant remember. ug i hate it when i know the answer but have no sources at had to back me up or to give.
please forgive if i skrewed up here  i've just gotten back from a 10 hour trip
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Craig Peters
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| Posted: Wed 16 Nov, 2005 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Felix. That bit of information is actually immensely useful to me, since Sir Thopas is an effeminate knight who loves fine clothing and whose appears is rather like the idealized woman of courtly romance. As I suspected, it's no accident that Chaucer deliberately mentions "quyrboilly" in the arming scene with Sir Thopas, and it appears I was right. This little detail only serves to reinforce his effeminacy.
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Wed 16 Nov, 2005 7:33 pm Post subject: Re: Cuir Bouilli & Knights |
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| Craig Peters wrote: | | How common was it to see knights wear cuir bouilli jambeux in England in the 14th century? Would it have been common and not at all unusual? Or would such a knight tend to have been poorer and less well-equipped than some of his contemporaries? |
Alright, I'm in front of my books and will try to pull something together. Firstly, I think looking at the whole 14th century is a little broad, as I'd think it would have been more common early in the century than later. Also, I don't have a lot of English-specific sources, but England seems to have been perhaps a bit behind the rest of the continent in fashions, due to their geographical isolation. So if it was popular on the mainland it got popular in the Isles, but perhaps just a wee bit later.
To add to the confusion, terminology is often inconsistently applied. It could be jamber or jambeux or jambarts; greaves and schynbalds could be used as well, though the latter two usually refer to plate defenses.
Blair's European Armour isn't much help with the cuir bouilli question in regards to lower leg defenses, unfortunately. He mainly talks about plate and splinted defenses for the lower leg. Ditto the Edge/Paddock Arms & Armor of the Medieval Knight.
The J. H. Hefner-Alteneck book Medieval Arms and Armor : A Pictorial Archive shows 17 effigies of knightly/noble figures of the 14th century, pretty much all German. 3 of them just have mail chausses. One has very small schynbalds, covering just the front of the shin. The rest look like plate or are splinted (metal strips attached to a backing). Hefner-Alteneck describes Conrad of Bickenbach (d. 1393) as having leather lower leg defenses. By the way, if you're interested in transitional armour, the 17 effigies in this book from the 14th century are hard to beat, especially when the book costs about $10.
As for Ashdown's An Illustrated History of Arms & Armor, I think some of his research shows its age. In the chapter dealing with 1325-1335, he does mention that cuir bouilli is "so prevalent," though. When talking about "jambarts" in his chapter covering 1335-1360, he says "Perhaps the defence most in vogue was of the splinted kind, which consisted of parallel bands of steel arranged in vertical lines and embedded in pourpoint with studs showing, or affixed to cuir bouilli. The latter was often used for vambraces and cuissarts."
That's hardly definitive word from any of these sources, but it's all I can find at the moment.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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