ARTICULATIONS
One of the very most important parts of making an armour is to get the articulations
right. Each component must overlap the next in a way that allows it to move
in some way. Each layer must not interfere with the next. The breast plate
and backplate are frequently made of several pieces. These are articulated
with sliding rivets on either side or several leather straps. Never ever
overlap the back plate with the top plates overlapping the bottom ones.
This puts steel points directly on the spine. Overlap backplates with the
bottom plate overlapping the next and so on. This allows proper “V”
shaped sections which will move well and flex without pressing dangerous
points right into the back bone. The fauld at the base of the breastplate
is usually held only by internal leathers. Only this way can it properly
function. Yes almost all museum pieces are riveted there for display. The
tassets hang from the fauld by leathers or what they called tacejoints.
The leathers have to be long enough that the tasset can fold up to the breastplate
and not catch. This is overlooked by almost everyone and few examples exist
in museums that have tassets affixed as they were originally. The tassets
themselves have a feature found in many other armour components. The tasset
is made of strips of steel. The back of the tasset is held together by pivot
rivets and the front is held together by leather straps or sliding rivets.
The gorget in the old days was either very simple or very, very complicated.
The simple type divided over the shoulder with a seam on each side and had
a pivot pin on one shoulder and a keyhole pin on the other. The complicated
kind had a backplate that went over the shoulders with shoulder caps. This
required a nightmare of exact fitting and usually only kings and such had
them. Of course all Blankenshield gorgets are the more complicated kind.
The brasserts (arms) start at the top with pauldrens. There is a horrible
usage of the misnomer “spaulders”. Stop it please!!! There is
and was no such word. There was a “spaudler” That was a gorget
with a series of shoulder lames that went to the elbow. And there was an
“espallier pauldren” Which was rather like what they are erroneously
calling spaulders today. In the espallier or great pauldren the articulation
is basically the same. The espallier pauldren however makes things much,
much simpler. Basically it does not overlap the breast or back plate. It
only hangs from the top of the shoulder. So while the order and overlap
of the components is the same the function is completely different. In the
pauldren there are four articulation systems. The top plate or plates, the
hourglass shaped main plate, the rack of lames below it, and the turner
or rerebrace cannon. Once again the only pauldrens to be found with all
the fastenings intact are at Graz and Solothurn. The top plate is shovel
shaped and reaches from breast to back and is fastened at the front and
back either to them or a gorget or both with straps and buckles or special
hardware. It reaches the tip of the shoulder and is sometimes composed of
several “V” shaped pieces held together with very loose rivets
that allow them to spread. Around the upper arm is a tube of steel called
the rerebrace. It mostly had a rotating tube inside a tube that is a Blankenshield
specialty piece and most avoid it. The rerebrace had, at the top of it a
stack of several thin slightly curved strips of steel held together by pivot
rivets in the back and leather straps inside the front. This reaches from
the rerebrace to the top plate. These units do not overlap and to cover
the space between them a large hourglass shaped plate is used. The thin
waist of the hourglass being over the tip of the shoulder. In front of the
shoulder the triangle is cut away across the bottom so as to allow the arm
to rotate up to the face and the triangle at the back is spread out at the
bottom to maintain the overlap when the arm is lifted. This is very important.
When the back of the pauldren can be moved clear of the backplate it will
catch when the arm is up. The hourglass plate is fastened to the upper and
lower units in the same fashion as they are fastened together. The top plate
has loose rivets at the front and back that allow lift and pivot respectively.
So fasten it to the hourglass front and back at the very corners of the
shovel shape with loose pivot rivets. The stack of lames over the rerebrace
is held by pivot rivets at the rear and leather straps inside the front.
So fasten it to thehourglass with pivot rivets in the back and internal
leathers in the front. This allows the front of the unit to collapse with
the raising of the arm forward and the side of the unit to rotate up to
accommodate the arm being lifted to the side. Inside the hourglass plate
the stack of lames and the top plate tend to tangle so a couple inches in
front of the pivot rivet holding the top lame of the rack of lames to the
hourglass plate, you put a sliding rivet. That holds the rack of lames firmly
against the hourglass plate allowing the top plate assembly to move freely
under it while allowing the stack of lames to rotate properly. In the tube
around the upper arm there is usually some means to accommodate the rotation
of the arm in old armours. Not so in most modern ones. In the old days they
mostly made two cones. One inside the other with a rim on the top of the
inner cone that engaged a groove on the bottom of the top cone. This must
be very substantial and very loose while still functioning reliably. When
a turner is used the proper elbow articulation is all riveted together with
pivot rivets. A deep elbow plate called a couter has a thin strip of metal
called an interstaciary lame on either side of it. This lame pivots to the
couter. Sometimes several strips are used. The other side of the thin strip
is held with pivot rivets or semi pivot semi floating rivets to the rerebrace
on one side and the forearm plates called the vambrace on the other. The
vambrace is made of two gutter shaped plates with a hinge on one side and
a strap and buckle on the other. Usually the outside of the couter is exaggerated
into what is called its wings to protect the joint. Sometimes the couter
reaches all the way around. These are called bracelet couters. When there
is no turner there was several ways to accommodate the rotation of the arm.
Really cheap armours used an espallier pauldren which was basically a miniature
great pauldren that did not overlap the cuirasse. Mostly chainmail protected
the gap either over or under the plate. Then the stack of lames can be carried
all the way to the elbow. This allows the use of couters riveted to the
interstaciary lames. A way to use great pauldrens with no turner was also
used a lot in Switzerland. The stack of lames went all the way from the
great pauldren to the couter in a rack of loosely riveted plates with only
leather inside the arm. Then the elbow was very large with a seam on the
inside and the upper and lower arm were held together by four leather straps.
The couter was then fastened to these straps only. These elbows have to
be HUGE though and the originals all seem to be made from a butterfly shaped
plate with the long tails of the butterflies wings overlapped and riveted
together to make the cone after some depth has been pounded into the piece.
Just work it out in paper first. Look to the arsenal at Solothurn for many
examples of this kind of loosly leathered huge elbow. As well as the book
European armour by Claude Blair. I strongly suggest this kind of elbow for
beginners. The leg articulation is very simple. Usually two interstaciary
lames are over and two under the deep knee plate called a polyn. All are
pivoted together with rivets on each side. The thigh plate called a cuisse
reaches around to the side of the leg as well as the front and is held up
at the hip with a strap and buckle to a belt or suspenders. The lower leg
is protected by a tubular cannon called a jamb, jambart, or greave. This
is two gutter shaped plates hinged on one side and buckled at the other.
The front needs to be flared a bit under the knee and over the instep. The
sides need to be raised over the ankles and the rear flared to accommodate
the tendon. Probably the most common armour injuries are hamstring and instep
injuries from the lower edge of this important piece of armour. Hamstring
tendons cut far too easily and especially armour intended for jousting must
have adequate relief for and clearance of that tendon. Gauntlets, like tassets
are held by pivot rivets along the top and sliding rivets along the bottom.
A closed helm has face protection that all pivots at the temples and rotates
up. An armet has hinged cheek plates that cover part of the face as well
as a visor that rotates down. Of course the pivots used in helmet visors
should be heavier than those in the rest of the armour. Usually there are
lames at the back of most helmets pivoted at the sides. The lame closest
to the head frequently cannot really move and is called a standoff lame.
|
