http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen021.jpg
Question...
Printable View
I'm guesing Hospittler of one of the higher positions?
I would say that its a little bit overstylized Teutonic knight of high rank.Here are couple of his his orderly brothers:
https://img223.imageshack.us/img223/...rchargelq0.jpg
It seems to be Great Master of teutonic order. But I think that in reality he didn't have that cross over helmet.
There was one phase when it was fashionable to have, well, pretty much anything atop your great helm as decoration. As such paraphenelia was normally made out of something like papier-mache or somparable materials the effect, one way or another, was purely cosmetical.
To give a simple answer: No.
Decorative things like the "crown" atop the helmet were only worn in tourneys and during other social occations.
Well except the crown cross thing on the helmet is the rest historically accurate?
Originally Posted by :
Yes.
Well except the crown cross thing on the helmet is the rest historically accurate?
The shield looks a little small for a knight.
Shield size varied according to custom, period, social standing, etc. For those fighting on horseback with the lance, the shields trended smaller as the quality and specialization of the armor trended higher, with the shield eventually disappearing altogether from high-end armors in the late middle-ages/early renn.
Your Megaknight depicted in the first post is clearly kitted out for some form of ceremony/parade. Anything that could catch an edge -- particularly when you were trying to duck your head away from a shot -- and anything that could tangle you up/encourage a fall would be discarded in battle as a matter or practicality. The romans did the same thing with all the horsehair crests you see in movies, just a parade item.
Originally Posted by The_Doctor:
What?!
Yes.
No, it must certainly is not. To begin with, the fabric seems to be silk, there is some form of pattern on the lance, the knight wears colours (gold) that were not used by the Teutonic Knights, he's got a flag attached to the lance, the "clothes" worn by the horse are way over-decorated (as the clothes belonging to the knight), the knight wears some form of robe and on top of that: the horse has some really odd proportions.
Perhaps, a teutonic knight in the mid-to-late 13th century (judging from the armour) could have looked like this at a tourney or parade or something (apart from the gold), so in a way it's all historically correct. But no knight would ever have dreamed of going to battle dressed like that.
If I remember correctly, most Catholic Warrior Monks wore white with Red Crosses (See English Flag, not UK, for a look-alike).
The Warrior Monks, despite their prowess on the Battlefield, wore chainmail, a large helmet like the one pictured (minus the bells and whistles) and a white tunic with a red cross on it. Most fought on horseback, but could dismount.
The colours they weared depended on the order which they belonged. Templars weared the most famous white tunics with red crosses. Hospitallers black tunics with white crosses and Teutonic Knights weared white tunics with black crosses.
What about knights of Santiago?
I think they wore the same thing as the Templars.
I don't recall the original poster making a distinction between parade or battle uniform. The picture shouldn't be dismissed simply for being impractical on the battlefield, as knights often wore things they wouldn't dream of taking into battle. The picture is obviously very stylized and fanciful, but for the most part his harness looks pretty accurate to me (though keep in mind that equipment was in a constant state of evolution over the entire medieval period--I would assume about 13th century for this guy).
Ajax
I'm under the impression most of that junk could right well have been worn into combat. The helmet decorations were made from light, fragile materials (only natural given what those great helms weighed, really...) so they wouldn't exactly "catch" anything beyond careless little birds...
I know the Teutonic Order's main colours were black cross on white, but they also had a whole lot of additional varitaion for different ranks, serjeants, "guest" crusaders and so on which was doubtless a very common practice among the Orders. Still, the one in the pic has in practice a gold cross on white - beats me if there ever was an Order or rank that used such scheme.
It is definitely Teutonic knight. Highest members of that order had special version of cross on shield.
BTW - they normally looked similar - but with polish sword into throat :)
Originally Posted by KrooK:
:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
BTW - they normally looked similar - but with polish sword into throat :)
how can you say from a frigging puppet that the material its made of is too light to be worn into battle.. DUH and the mantle ofcourse is of iron... and their lance is iron too...?
~:confused:
What you say!!
Pretty damn stylized, but overall there's nothing major wrong with it.
His lance doesn't have that cylindric piece before the handgrip, that keeps the lance from sliding. (I have no idea what it's called)
I don't believe the earliest lances did either. I wouldn't consider it a necessary component. Perhaps the leather straps attached to it are meant to serve a similar purpose.
Originally Posted by KrooK:
Gotta love our resident Polish Nationalist! :2thumbsup:
BTW - they normally looked similar - but with polish sword into throat :)
Ajax
edit: While it may very well be a Teutonic Knight, keep in mind that considering the stylized nature of the piece overall it could just as easily be no more than the artist's idea of what colors and designs would look impressive.
He doesn't seem to be wearing any rigid body armour, so the "flare" in the lance would be useless anyway - if not outright dangerous. I don't think you'd want to transfer the impact directly into your damn ribcage after all...
I 've noticed that the horse wears mail under the tunic. Does that mean that this was normal? I mean, I see pictures of knights with tuniced horses but I always thought that fabric was not a particularly good armor, but mail underneath would make a lot of difference.
It seems to be knight from XIII , maybe very beginnin of XIV century - he have no plate armour but helmets and some minor parts. And look at helmet - it seems to be oldest version of full helmets.
Originally Posted by KrooK:
Usually called the 'great helm' or casque. He'd probably have a mail or leather skullcap on underneath it as well, to prevent it from being crushed into his head by a blow.
It seems to be knight from XIII , maybe very beginnin of XIV century - he have no plate armour but helmets and some minor parts. And look at helmet - it seems to be oldest version of full helmets.
The picture looks, if a little clean and fanciful, quite accurate to me, and probably mid- to late-13th century as many people have already said.
Mix of chainmail and plate armour, fine, and the horse wearing chainmail as well, under a padded or thick cloth caparison. Not sure about the helmet design, but then this is probably a 'parade order' knight! You wouldn't want to fight in a cloak, it could be used to pull you off the horse...equally, I don't whether spurs would be a wise idea when your horse is wearing curtains like that!
His greaves seem a bit odd though...jointed strips...? Don't know if there's anything historically innaccurate about that, just not seen it before. Anything with vertical joins like that can be split by a blow, although I guess anyone hacking at his leg would be using a horizontal stroke as he went by...
Originally Posted by The Stranger:
No lances were wood. Even the ones that had the fluted bit were made from wood. Carved on a lathe. The only metal bits would be the tip.
how can you say from a frigging puppet that the material its made of is too light to be worn into battle.. DUH and the mantle ofcourse is of iron... and their lance is iron too...?
Originally Posted by matteus the inbred:
They were very common, sometimes even made of thick leather or even wood.
His greaves seem a bit odd though...jointed strips...? Don't know if there's anything historically innaccurate about that, just not seen it before. Anything with vertical joins like that can be split by a blow, although I guess anyone hacking at his leg would be using a horizontal stroke as he went by...
Originally Posted by :
Early on, yes. This was replaced later with white on red
Hospitallers black tunics with white crosses
........Orda
Originally Posted by Cataphract_Of_The_City:
Just because it is shown in this one single picture does not mean that it was standard equipment. Horses seldom wore any armour since this was very expencive, IIRC, arrmoured horses were rare even in the late medieval period. It is possible that more horses than we today know of actually wore quilted armour, and it's just that this doesn't show in the pictures from this time. But overall, I don't think horses had armour very commonly, as this would've exhausted the horses a lot faster.
I 've noticed that the horse wears mail under the tunic. Does that mean that this was normal? I mean, I see pictures of knights with tuniced horses but I always thought that fabric was not a particularly good armor, but mail underneath would make a lot of difference.
Armour levels changed seriously during the 14th century. Until around the middle of it most horses had quilt at best and maybe in rare cases a chamfron (head protection; "horse helmet" really) of something a bit more solid, and knights wore mail although increasing amounts of hardened leather reiforcements were being added on top of that. Assorted famous massacres where knights got chopped up, skewered or shot at way too much by commoner grunts plus the Hundred Years' War and a few technological refinements led to the mail being topped by first coats-of-plates and later individual pieces of solid plate plus substantial greaves and vambraces by the last quarter, and articulated full plate had made its entry by the last decades of the century. Horses, being large and vulnerable (at least in comparision to the increasingly untouchable rider) targets and prone to panicking when wounded, were similarly getting a lot more defensive gear.
By the end of the Hundred Years' War a man-at-arms with up-to-date gear would be protected by articulated full plate of tempered steel and mounted on a plate-barded horse. That's technick'ly what we calls a "tough nut".
Note that the level of defensive gear worn by lesser troops was on a similar upward spiral, although obviously always a few notches below what the top dogs could afford. This was partly because the rapid evolution resulted in knights constantly discarding older equipement to the market, and partly due to the aforementioned technological refinements which pushed prices down, but in any case great many infantry grunts were by early 1400s as well equipped as a knight of the late 1300s.
The divider between "light" and "heavy" cavalry was mainly that the former left off the large pauldrons of the full plate to improve the mobility of their arms and rode un- or lightly-barded horses, for example. A "light" infantryman differed from his "heavy" colleague chiefly in some details of weaponry, and wearing considerably less leg armour to improve mobility...
Originally Posted by matteus the inbred:
You'd actually be surprised how inconvenient stuff people cheerfully wore into combat without thinking twice about it. Merely as one example the heavy cuirassieurs of the Early Modern period almost invariably wore a brightly coloured sash across their body, whether as some sort of identificator or out of sheer soldierly vanity I don't know.
You wouldn't want to fight in a cloak, it could be used to pull you off the horse...equally, I don't whether spurs would be a wise idea when your horse is wearing curtains like that!
Period drill manuals bluntly recommend grabbing the enemy's sash and pulling him off the saddle by it if the opportunity presents itself. Which didn't keep anyone from wearing them. :shrug:
As for the spurs, aside for being a symbol of knightly status (not that every horseman didn't use them) they were a very important tool at controlling the mount, especially when your hands were preoccipied with fighting. The "long stirrup" method of riding European heavy cavalry used (it has something to do with the use of couched lance, but I don't know the details) actually required developing a really long and inconvenient-looking type of spur for no other reason than to reach the flanks of the beast. Anyway, obviously neither armour nor caprison (the "curtains") covered the parts the spurs were supposed to press into. Although it might seem somewhat counterintuitive this didn't actually create a "weak point" in the animal's defensive gear - as the rider's armoured legs went right over that part.
I have to agree with Watchman
Knights into that era were wearing coloured clothes on their armours.
It has some advantages;
- lower chance that someone from your army mix you with enemy (remember that enemy have similar armour)
- show opponent that you are rich and you can pay ranson, so they earn nice money if they don't kill you
- secure knight and his horse from sun (remember that wearing steel armour into sunny day might be hard experience - look at Grunwald battle) - especially into Holy Land or Spain
Originally Posted by lars573:
i know that... i was being sarcastic ;)
No lances were wood. Even the ones that had the fluted bit were made from wood. Carved on a lathe. The only metal bits would be the tip.