Hello, everyone! I found this sitting in my dad's storage unit, and neither of us can identify exactly where it came from. All we know is that it's old. Any thoughts?

I am building out a fictional “medieval knight” kit and was wondering if anyone knows what color of leather was common for belts, boots, straps?

My guess is brown, as it’s more natural. Does anyone know of historical examples of knights with black leather accessories? Or is that a more recent Hollywood / LARP development ?

My kit is totally for fun, and not trying to represent a specific era for reenactment. Just trying to decide between black leather or brown leather.

My gambeson / tabard are deep green, and light blue for reference. Leaning towards brown. Thanks!

I'm trying to go for a general Anglo-Saxon 10th or 11th century ish look. A little worried my helmet is too big. (As if this subreddit needs yet another huscarl with a big ass helmet.)

Been thinking about adding a custom Poleaxe to the list of many things I'd like to purchase once I am successful in life and have the money to do so. Curious to know however if a design like this, though simple and maybe crude, would work well as a poleaxe. I really like the idea of having a rugged looking poleaxe that had the same kind of big axehead/hammerhead construction as modern sledgehammers and splitting axes do. Was wondering if that was dumb or not tho, since I don't seem to see any poleaxes anywhere with such a different design.

I made a half fauld+tasset combo for my custom suit of armour cosplay. Just for photos and larp. No combat. I wanted it to be semi historically accurate inspired by 14th and 15th century armour. I went with mainly tassets instead of a full tonlet. I kind of like having the fauld to be separate from the cuirass because it is easier to equip. However, it looks kind of strange and could also be a chink in my armour because there is a small gap, whenever I move, between the fauld and the cuirass.

In addition, I was wondering how to gird a sword belt around my waist if there is a fauld and tassets? Would I wrap the sword belt around the fauld or behind it? Or could I maybe get away with having my sword slung over my shoulder? It's a mixture of a long sword and great sword, kind of big and almost more for two handed then one handed usage. Not sure the proper terminology for this.

Many thanks in advance!

Is the helmet on the left too huge? Its an Anglo-Saxon Spangenhelm, and the outside circumference is 31 1/2 inches.

The helmet on the right fits on my head snugly but with absolute no room for a coif or padding, so I know its at least a little too small.

I know a coif is meant to be worn under the helmet, but is it too big? It looks almost a little silly on my head.

If this has been covered elsewhere, just point me in the proper direction. Mostly I'm looking for a place to begin research. I write medieval fantasy and I've just been trying to work better tactics/realism into my writing.

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One of the things I'm trying to emphasize much more is the importance of spears, especially in formation. This is alongside (of course) shields, helmets, communication, formations themselves, and the other sorts of things that are often overlooked in entertainment or fiction literature.

One thing that has always seemed unclear to me is just how much can be done with a spear and shield. I know it's incredibly common, but especially out of formation in disorganized combat, it just feels intuitively like thrusting a spear with one hand would be much less powerful, much more prone to losing control of the weapon, and generally provide much less of an advantage over sword-and-shield than (obviously) solo spear does vs solo sword. I've seen Lindybeige's somewhat makeshift 'experiment' at some HEMA event, but I've not really looked into it beyond that.

I guess some adjacent questions might be:

- How frequent or infrequent was fighting out of formation? Like one-on-one, melee, etc- In that vein, how frequent were small skirmishes and what was the typical context? I've heard they were incredibly common but I've not really looked into it yet. I have just gotten about 60 percent of the way through Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror which is the first proper history book I've read on anything medieval.- Is sword-and-shield a common default for people once formation breaks down? Or is it suboptimal even then? I would imagine super long polearms (a la Swiss mercenaries or even Greek phalanx???) would be of limited use once things got messy- How often did things get messy?

I know spears offer a huge advantage when it comes to simple training cost, affordability, durability, etc. I wonder how often people forewent shields to travel lighter, and if so what sorts of weapons they would carry; and I wonder how often they forewent polearms to travel lighter, opting for a shield instead.

Idk if any of those make sense.

Cheers!

Does anyone know of better way to sell or buy pre-owned swords. Facebook marketplace place barely allows it unless you are really crafty with you listing title and craigslist is trash. There has to be more people out there than me that want to sell swords they either don’t like or don’t need anymore. Thanks

I always see samurai armor that is pretty much always lacquered but was Western European armor ever painted or dyed in any way? If so what would it look like? I’d like to paint my armor to be historically accurate.

I am trying to make armour similar to this pic though the pauldrons are very different

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https://i.redd.it/meekluj94qtc1.gif

In this picture it has a fauld and a tasset but sometimes armour sets only have tassets like this one:

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https://preview.redd.it/wvt9w2h24qtc1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c3cd1f55503eed76b81fe9097654f50971e8913

Sometimes they have a very large exaggerated fauld almost like a skirt

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https://preview.redd.it/m7qf2k054qtc1.jpg?width=203&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b1fcf79add2353f09edf607e9ca1654c72cac66

And sometimes they have no fauld or tasset but are more connected to the cuisse

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https://preview.redd.it/3o06ncgh4qtc1.png?width=3714&format=png&auto=webp&s=a96eface008750109e49c0fab7d915ff46c728b3

Here is my armour and for now I am using a surcoat over my maile and beneath my chestplate though I know that a surcoat is usually worn over the chestplate. Not sure what the correct term is for beneath the plate.

I also have bracers in this pic but I am making proper guantlets like this:

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https://preview.redd.it/0ruvxmlp4qtc1.jpg?width=884&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57ac695f1dffcf3ad04199858a51e0609006a8e9

Also not shown are my greaves, poleyn, cuisse, vambrace and rebrace. I did not make a gorget because I don't know how to just yet. I am only using cardboard and craft foam to make it, lol.

For larp and photoshoot only purposes I dont know if it's worth it but a gorget would look super cool. I also do not have couters. Though I got some simple knee pads for £10 from amazon and painted them silver for my poleyn. I was thinking of getting another one for my elbows. Would that suffice? Or should I make it look like it has the over lapping strips like in the image?

Any advice on this would be much appreciated!

Here is my armour with the leg and arm protection:

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I have since painted the cuisse

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Knee pads are painted

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Gauntlets and vambrace (both need painting and still WIP)

Please let me know if I am missing or forgetting anything. I have most of the components. But not all. And I know its very different to the picture. I made this in stages. Eventually I might make a fresh suit from scratch that looks like one specific cohesive suit. This is a bit mix matched right now. Any advice would be much appreciated.

P.S. I probably will not make sabatons because they would get ruined if I use them as this is all just cardboard and craft foam.

I went on an autistic spree of posting about meteor hammers like a few months ago so feel free to ignore this if you're still tired of me.

With that out the way I'm ok ish with flexible weapons, and the run down is they were mostly carried by assassins or mercenaries because they have the offensive power and reach of a pole arm(12ft of reach with either a spear point or 1-2lbs metal rock travelling 40-90mph at the end of it) but you can hide it under your shirt or have slung across your belt. But have no defensive capabilities besides area control and wrapping the opponent up..

Anyways the thing that got me to post about it again are these sparring clips from bensei and that his sparring partner needs 2 Spears and a shield to be evenly matched. Bensai is really good with one both with the flow and martial arts side of the weapon and has other really good sparring clips to show it off.

The crazy thing to me is in all the clips he's never doing anything technically difficult and i feel like someone could become combat effective with one in a couple of mouths. Not nearly as fast a sword or spear that use instinctual movements for but it's kinda difficult to beat the big no go zone it makes.

Idk make a coffee sock to practice with and try it at your hema gym and see what happens