ANST - Nasty Ballista i

[Mark Harris]

Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace said:

*If, however, you can show examples of, say, Medieval kings, commanders, and
*knights who eschewed ornamental armor and adornment in favor of the cheap
*munitions armor of their lowborn troops, you might have an interesting
*research source for an A&S entry.

But we aren't creating just the life of medieval kings, commanders and
knights. Yes, we assume everyone, unless told otherwise, is of noble birth.
But there is no requirement that everyone be of noble birth. I would say
we are doing re-creation of all classes of the Middle Ages not just the
nobility. As such I would say there is a place study of the items, behaviours
and thoughts of all classes.

I do think items that are created should be items that were actually used
by the particular class. Be careful of trying to create ornamental armor
that was given as a gift and stuffed in the treasury somewhere. On the
otherhand, ornamentation on armor that was actually worn and used is to
be encouraged if it can be supported by evidence. For instance, although
horned helmets have been found, I think the concenus is that they were
not used in actual warfare.

*Also, Gnith says he's found no surviving examples or clear illustrations of
*period seige weaponry.  What about models or maquettes?  Have any of these
*survived?  

I seem to remember a number of illuminations showing siege towers and engines.
No, they are not the equivalent of modern engineering drawings or even
Leonardo
De Vinci's (sp?) drawings but we use such works for the details on clothing so
they should work here also. I will go digging in my library. There are also a
number of detailed drawings in Payne-Gallway's Crossbow book of siege engines
but I will have to recheck this to make sure the Victorian ideals are not
creeping in.

Stefan li Rous
markh at risc.sps.mot.com


============================================================================

To be removed from the Ansteorra mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe ansteorra".