Reconstruction of A Wisby Type I Coat of Plates By Alexander-Philippe de Bergerac (Scott Martin)
Introduction: The battle of Wisby, fought on July 27, 1361 was of interest at the time, as it transferred control of Gotland (an island in the Baltic, now a province of Sweden) to Denmark, and the commensurate control of a significant fraction of the Baltic trade along with it. This battle is also of interest to modern scholars due to the significant finds of medieval arms and armour that have been recovered from the mass graves there. One of the most interesting finds are the coats of plates that have been recovered, which cover a wide range of types and styles, and suggest that the levies defending the city had been equipped with a wide variety of armour, much of which was obsolete at the time of the battle (such as mail almost identical to that found in Norse burials). The Type 1 coat of plates, of which several examples were recovered, is an excellent example of In addition to the significant quantities of Mail found at the site, a number of transitional armours, especially lamellar and textile based armours were recovered. While these armours have been depicted on reliquaries and funerary bronzes throughout the 14 th century (see fig 1) prior to the excavations in the early 1920 s, none of these armours had ever been recovered. It is perhaps due to this unfortunate circumstance that we can attribute the Victorians with the invention of studded leather as a type of armour from the 14 th century, as an explanation for the regular rivet heads placement. Another contemporary brass, from the tomb of Mahieu de Montmorency (Tavergny, France) dated from 1360 already shows evidence of the later pair of plates or solid breastplate defence being in use prior to the battle, adding further evidence to the idea that the Wisby levies were relatively poorly equipped for the period. Figure 1: A Brass in Ingham church Figure 2: the Chevalier Mahieu de Norfolk 14 th century Montmorency, 1360 (Laking, Fig 192) (Norman, Fig 34) Page 2 of 7
Historical Context: It is notable that lamellar or textile-based armours significantly predate this period in other parts of the world: the Metropolitan museum of Art has a several plates dating from the 5th century in Persia, and 6 th century Japanese sources (Figure 3). The Romans were also known to have used lamellar armour, the most well known of which is the Lorica Segmentica, which was an iron armour in use as early as the first century BC. Use of the Brigandine armour, which was the most common armour of the 15 th and early 16 th century continued until the use of firearms rendered most forms of armour obsolete. A fince example of this style of armour can be found at the Cleveland Museum of Art, a picture of which can be found as Figure 4. Figure 3 (left) Sassanian Gilded Bronze Lamellae, 5 th -8 th century AD Grancsay, fig 114.17 (right) Japanese Lamella dating from the 6 th century AD at the latest Grancsay, fig 114.18 Figure 4 A Brigandine armour (1500-1525) Fliegel, p65 Page 3 of 7
Motivation: While I have seen many Coat of Plate armours used in the Society for Creative Anachronisms, I had never seen a coat of plates reproduced from the original pattern. In addition, I had often heard remarks made about how the Type I coat of plates was constructed upside down such that a typical blow (from above) would catch on the armour and thus reduce its effectiveness. It is curious that such an inferior armour would be so represented in a mass grave. Could these armours have been so useless that they were simply discarded, or is the Dr. Thordemanns conjecture (that the bodies were in an advances state of decomposition and thus had to be buried with expediency) a more likely conjecture? My interest piqued, I decided that the best way to determine how useful (and usable) such an armour was would be to reproduce one. After a brief survey of the materials that I expected to need, I noted that this type of armour seemed to be particularly well suited for beohard-style (wooden baton) combat re-enactment, due to an excellent mixture of mobility and protection, the relatively inexpensive materials, and the durability offered, since edged weapons would not cause degradation in use. Procedure: As my primary source, I used Bengt Thordeman s research work (originally published in two volumes) Armour from the Battle of Wisby but a less expensive source for the plate layout and rivet diagram can be found on page 72 of Arms and Armour of the medieval Knight (Fig 5) Figure 5 Structure of a Type I Wisby coat of Plates, Edge Et. Al. P72 Page 4 of 7
As this armour was intended to be used in SCA combat, some modifications to the pattern were made, putting a series of plates down the back of the armour to provide spinal protection, as well as additional plates to re-enforce the kidney and shoulder blade area. To visualize the Coat of Plates in its unmodified configuration, simply imagine that the plates added to the back section of the armour do not exist. This armour was made to fit my wife, Kirstie, and as such was sized for a person of average build and 5 2 in height. Judging from the reconstruction, the large frontal plates were responsible for approximately 1/3 of the circumference around the wearer, and overlaps of approximately 3/8 on each plate seemed approximately correct. This resulted in a plate template of approximately 11 x 2 ¾ for the frontal horizontal plates, and 6 ½ x 2 ¾ plates on the sides (with slight increases in plate size as the plates progressed around the back. Once the plates sizes were determined, plates were made in card stock and laid out. From this layout, a pattern was made (thanks to Bethany) for the textile portion of the armour. The first stage of construction was to make the foundation garment, which resembles a T with a hole for the neck. The material used in the reproduction is three layers of cotton canvas covered in a layer of heavier outer material. Much appreciation goes out to Bethany, who chose appropriate fabrics and was responsible for the sewing, since I am completely useless with textiles. At the same time, the plates were cut from 20 Gauge stainless steel, deburred and center punched to match the hole pattern observed in the original armour. In period, this was likely done with drift punches, and while it could be done with a drill, I was thankful to have a metal punch with 9/64 bits. Once the plates and textile covering were ready, the plates were laid down on top of the covering, and all of the holes were lined up and marked on the garment. Roofing nails were then hammered through the garment into a plywood blank, at which point the nails were extracted from the plywood, the garment reversed and the plates threaded onto the nails. The nails were then trimmed, and peaned snug. The holes that also served to hold the fastening hardware (three loops and two sets of straps) had the appropriate hardware added before these nails were peaned. The reason that roofing nails were used as rivets (or arming nayles ) was because the heads are a much closer match to the type of rivets used for this purpose in period than round headed rivets. While these nails are a fairly close match, they should properly have been slit nails: I have included in the exhibit a number of brigandine nails cast from a 15 th century original (from the Higgins museum) to allow a comparison. Observations: I was surprised to find that the rivet heads cover a significant portion of the surface: enough so that they would serve to protect the textile part of the armour from damage. Working out the "period" ratio an (approximately) 500 square inch area with 170 rivets 170 rivets is approximately 3" square per rivet! since a rivet head is about 1/4" in area this means that almost 10% of this garment is rivet head! It is also worth noting that the Page 5 of 7
rivets (even after trimming them down) add about 1/2 Lb to the weight of the armour. This is quite a considerable fraction, since the metal weighs about 3 Lb, (fabric is ounces!) so the rivet weight is 10-15% of the total armour weight. If I had used "period" metal weights and leather, then the rivet (nail) weight would likely still be adding 5-7% of the total weight of the armour. In addition, an incredibly small amount of metal was wasted. The metal I used was a 2' x 4' piece: of that I used a 2' x 21" chunk, and my total wastage was about 8 square inches. In the 14th-15th century, the single most expensive part of this (or any) armour would be the metal (whether originating as hammered sheet or iron billets) and this would not change until well into the 16 th century. This incredibly small amount of wastage would be quite significant in the economics of production, especially once one considers that most of the metal "lost" in the holes (which would likely have been punched) and from the "trimmed" rivet ends could be re-forged usable iron billets. Conclusions: I have always liked the "knight in shining armour" image of the medieval time period, which is why I have always concentrated my study of armour around the latter half of the hundred years war. More formally, this period would be considered post-transitional or Gothic. By concentrating on this time period to the (oblivious) exception of all others, I have obviously missed quite a number of technical innovations, each appropriate to its particular time period. Many of these underline the compromises armourers (or more generally people) had to make according to the technologies and materials they had available. It's all well and good to build a breast and back from 32 square feet of steel, leaving 1/3 or more of it on the floor, but this amount of wastage would not be possible in the 14 th century, where iron bloom size, more than anything else, limited the size of plates available for armour production. While I "knew" that steel (or iron) was less common before the introduction of the "white harness" that I love, until I built a piece of "transitional" armour dating from before this period, I did not have a visceral grasp of this. Not until I looked around the base of my Beverly shear after over an hour of cutting to find 10 small scraps of steel did this really hit home. So an interesting question arises: did the "white harness" come about (as all the history books seem to indicate) as a result of technological innovation and a need to defend against ever improving weapons, or did this armour (and indeed the weapons themselves) come about simply because Ferrous metals were more readily available? Page 6 of 7
Bibliography Armour from the Battle of Wisby Bengt Thordeman (Originally Published in 1939 by Almquist and Wiksells Boktryckeri A.B.) Chivalry Bookshelf 2001 ISBN 1-891448-05-6 Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight David Edge and John Miles Paddock Bison Books 1988 ISBN 0-86124-414-1 Arms and Armour Essays by Stephen V. Granscay Cynthia Clark, Editor The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986 ISBN 0-87099-338-0 Arms and Armour the Cleveland Museum of Art Stephen N Fliegel The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998 ISBN 0-940717-47-6 A Record of European Armour and Arms Guy Francis Laking Ken Trotman Ltd. 2000 ISBN 0-946879-88-5 Page 7 of 7