Winged helm crest: part 3 equestrian gear

I am planning to make this a heraldic display for use on horseback during demos, school presentations and possibly for use during Skills at Arms games. There are some limitations to work within.

- The helm and armour available to me at this time. The helm very similar to the bulbous faced bascinet shown below.

1410-1418 France

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/3989/8571/

In the second image, below, you can see the difference between the two kinds of bulbous faced helms, both worn at the same time. The helm on the left is like the ones above and is worn with a maile standard or coif. The helms shown on the right, below, are worn with articulated throat and neck plates. This is part of what makes them grand bascinets.

1410-1418 France

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/3989/8574/

As far as armour available, I will be using a set up like this one. Differences: my grieves are not fully cased, I do not yet have sabatons (I like these round toed ones) and I do not have a maile skirt to wear under the faulds of the corizana.

1440-1418 France

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/3989/8580/

Moving on to the horse gear, here are some images that also show the bulbous faced bascinet and related armour used in 1440-1455, in association with horses and helm decoration. Only one of these shows a tournament setting. In that case, though the animal style helm crests are present, at this time they are shown without a torse to cover the join between crest and mantle.

This first image shows a couple of bulbous faced helms. One is worn with full plate, the other with a fabric covering on the chest. Of the open barding, shades of red are shown: bright red x 3, pink x 1, purple x 1. Gold seems to be the most common trim tone and is applied to all parts of the barding. 

1440-1445 France

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/3932/10776/

The image below shows an ornate grand bascinet with 3 feathers rising from the top. The saddle has the same covering as the barding and bridle.

1440-1450 France

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4382/8772/

A short tailed horse with a pink harness. Note the double girth bands - Useful to avoid slipping while you are swooping over the sea to finish monsters? Perhaps the chest band is not just decorative, but also serves as a simple chest guard to stop back slip.

1450 France

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4404/8776/

The following is the only image in this time period that I have been able to find the could, potentially show both a suitable helm and equestrian use with animal helm crests. The equipment for the horses is significantly different from other barding shown. This suggests that if animal helm crests were to be used while riding during this later period (1440-50, rather than 1410-20), it would be most appropriate in this format, not open war.

1447-1449 Hagenou, France

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4936/14849/

Bridles

    a                           b                      c                     d                       e                           f

(a) This bridle is the one I would like to replicate. The horses I ride usually do not use bits so the nose band shown is the closest to what we currently use. 

(b) (d) (e) (f) These bridles do not show the nose band to be in use. I cannot see a cheek strap, either, though this may be due to positioning. All of these horses use a bit. 

Chest straps

      

a                          b                       c                            d                     e                     f

Form

(a) (b) single strap with a short hanging strap centre front.

(c) (d) (e) single strap

(f) full covering that works up to leg protection

Decoration

(a) (c) (d) large gold coloured roundels used on joins and regular intervals on strap. 

(b) (d) (e) smaller gold coloured studs and/or rectangular plaques spaced 1 plaque width to 2 spaces.

(f) gold roundels or bells on the lower edge of the chest skirt.

Roundel size

(a) roundel full width of the strap, centred

(b) roundel slightly wider than strap, centred

(c) roundel full width of the strap, on edge, small studs along upper edge of the solid band

(d) roundel width of the fringed part of the strap, which is 4 x wider than the upper band, on centre of the thin upper band. Small studs along the upper band, rectangular plaques on the lower fringed section.

(e) roundel, the full width of the strap including both the upper band and fringed part, seen on join at rear. Small studs along the upper band, rectangular plaques on the lower fringed section.

Rear straps

  a                     b                        c                    d                 e                       f

(f) no rear straps

Horizontal straps

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) One horizontal strap

(a) (d) clearly show the horizontal strap passing under the tail

Others are not visible. None show the strap passing above the tail

Vertical Straps - hanging

(a) (c) 3 vertical straps under the horizontal strap

(b) 2 vertical straps under the horizontal strap

(e) 1 vertical strap under the horizontal strap

Vertical - Support, above

(b) 2 vertical straps above the horizontal strap

(c) (d) (e) 1 vertical strap above the horizontal strap

Uneven vs Matched

(a) (c) more hanging straps than upper vertical straps

(b) (d) same number of hanging straps as upper vertical straps

Decorations - Roundals

(all) shown roundels on joins in straps

(a) (b) roundels on hanging terminals

(c) (d) no roundel on terminals

Decorations - trim

(a) fine fringe on edge of hanging vertical straps

(b) small gold studs along centre

(c) small gold diagonal bars or crescent studs all along straps

(d) some sort of gold detailing on straps, finer than studs, may be gilding or thread

(e) Small studs along the upper band, rectangular plaques on the lower fringed section.

Reins

a                                b                         c                   d             e                      f

 Width

(a) (b)  narrow along the full length

(c) (d) wide, hanging, seen at nose only

(e) Horse faces right, seen at shoulder, wide on hanging length, narrow where handled

(f) narrow-medium, all straps the same width on bridle, rein and chest

Number

(a) (b) double reins, from bit to handling

(c) (d) (e) (f) single reigns

Points to consider

I need to think about how the open barding will be attached, which saddle it will be used with and how to make sure the straps are attached safely and comfortably. I will need to think about whether I make a bridle from scratch, using a historical or a similar, familiar modern style or if I make a cover for an existing bridle and reins. Righto, I am off to pattern a horse.

Extant bird crest, sans wings

The website lists this crest as sold. I have found items on auction websites before, only to lose the information when the next lot is listed, so I aim to preserve the text here. The website lists...
 "A German heraldic crest for a tournament Great helm, Zimier, in 14th-15th century style. 

Formed as a Swan's head, accurately constructed of gesso and coarse fibre, probably jute, over a hardened sculpted leather core, the base hollowed for fitting the crown of the helmet skull, with pairs of lace-holes at the sides, painted white and heightened in grey, the base and the beak with traces of gilding over a red base coat, and in "aged " condition throughout. 
H. : 37 cm - Wt. : 1095 g"
http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/cimier-heraldique-pour-grand-heaume-de-tournoi,-40-c-ee0776023c

Points to note
* The lower edge is gently scalloped.
* There are two lacing points on the lower side. They are spaced at a ratio of 1:2:1 for hole:space:hole. They are a little over one hole diameter above the bottom edge. It would be a reasonable conclusion to expect another pair of holes on the other side.
*Based on the image size and the described height, the holes are around one centimetre in diameter, and the base is near to 22 cm in diameter.
* the lower edge does not appear to have an internal dome/cap.
*The lower edge has a 3.5cm wide band of smooth finish - potentially a thicker leather band to provide rigid support.
* The eyes are sculpted, while the feather detail is entirely painted on.
* The neck, at it's narrowest point, is 6 cm diameter.

I am getting a better idea of how this crest is going to look.

Leather helm crest: Part 4 leather hardening

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/a/archers_bracer.aspx

This item is made from leather and has been hardened using water, in a technique known as cuir bouilli. I wonder if the wet sand suggested by Cennini can be made to create hardened leather in this way?

Leather helm crest: Part 3 leather pattern

After making the clay badger model for the crest, I let it dry for a day. On the second day the leather was firm enough for me to use some wood carving tools to finish the detailing and clean up the model. It would have been possible to cover the wet clay in a plastic bag and keep it moist for up to a week, but it wasn't necessary this time.

Before cutting up leather to make the crest structure, I will make a pattern. I chose to use felt, as it has only slight give and is easy to stitch.

I began by cutting a few pieces into manageable sizes with overlaps of at least an inch. The overlaps were trimmed down as I joined the pieces, so the excess fabric did not affect the pattern's ability to wrap. You can see the threads I used to tie the basic pieces onto the body first. I started to stitch from the nose back, using fairly long stitches in a contrast colour thread.

  

The ears were freed by cutting a split in the head pieces. These holes will be unnecessary in the leather model, as I plan to attach the ears to the outside of the head using separate pieces. 

Once the rough cover was pulled together, I trimmed the seams further and went back to tighten up any loose or puckering areas. 

Once all of the pieces fitted reasonably well, it was time to open the pattern pieces out. I wanted the finished item to be around the same size as the clay model. Since the felt pattern was made over the clay model, it was bigger than needed, and since plaster / gesso would be layered over the finished leather structure, the pattern pieces needed to create a smaller item than the felt cover. This was achieved by cutting on the stitch seams and not adding a seam allowance back in. 

The black lines are placement markers to help put the pieces back together. I numbered the pieces and transferred the felt pattern onto heavy card. Each piece was labelled and is stored in a bag. To keep my patterns neat, I like to mark them with-

* The item name

* The owner's name

* The date of creation

* If there is a seam allowance (SA) or not. If so, how much on each side, as certain sides of a garment often get different SAs.

* Number of pieces

* Description of the pieces (CF= centre front etc)

* Any placement marks

* Indicate any folds ( v--------------v)

I was planning to sew the leather with butted joins, so no seam allowance would be needed. I was only looking to make a rough structure from leather, with all of the texture done in gesso grosso and all of the surface detail completed in gesso sotile.

 In order to create a slightly smaller leather item, not exactly the same size, the pieces were trimmed a few millimetres in from the pattern pieces on the leather. I have chosen to try a piece of leather that is 2 - 3mm thick (slightly more pliable than belt leather). The pattern was inked on, as it should be covered by the gesso. The leather was also chosen because it is marked, making it less useful for other projects. I am hoping the water hardening and plaster layers will firm it up. I considered doing some tests but since structural integrity cannot be simply scaled up, doing tests on smaller pieces would not be truly indicative of the finished strength, and full size tests would be very costly. I still hope to do some striking tests with the plaster layer, at a later date.

The holes were marked with a rotary tool and every second spot was pierced with an awl. I will stitch through these holes. Again, it is not necessary to make a perfectly neatly stitched item, as all stitching will be covered in plaster. On future items, I would love to refine the process and do fine work at every level. Spacing the stitches out serves another purpose - since the stitching is tensioned and retensioned as each new piece is attached, the looser, longer stitches are more suited to tacking. In fact, short, neat, overlapped seams or saddle stitching would make the assembly process harder. 

Starting with the larger pieces, I lined up some of the placement marks and began to sew. The curved needle is helping to secure pieces at the placement marks until I stitch up to that point. Because there are very few corners and straight lines, it is a bit tricky to know how far to curve and sew each piece to the next. For this reason, I had 3 - 4 needles on the go.

First, I joined the front and the pieces from one side. Then I attached the nose and worked back from there.

Once the body was attached right around (in a box), closed as much as possible of the head. At this point, I was working with a hand reaching either through the head or through the base for most stitches. I attached the ears separately and closed the head.

The ears were trimmed to look less like a teddy bear and the sewing was complete on the basic leather structure.The next step will be to stuff them with wet sand and wait until it all dries.

Wax tablets documentation

The following is the documentation for my wax tablets and tooled leather pouch. It is not a helm crest, but some of the leather work techniques will be used in making the leather base for a crest. 

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Kingdom Arts and Sciences Competition

Storage

Event                                                                 12th Night, 2013

Entrant             Lady Heilwich Gheerts                                         

Wax tablets to store information 

&

A tooled leather pouch to store the tablets

Summary

I made a wax tablet with 3 pages to record market takings and a leather pouch to store it. The tablets are based on15th century pieces from Switzerland (Asplund 2012).

The pouch is based on a tooled leather purse, Metropolitan Museum of Art (see reference pages at the end of this document).

I planed the timber by hand and used a reproduction bow saw and reproduction knife to cut it to size. I chiseled out the recess and poured blackened bees wax in. I cut and stamped the leather to decorate the front of the pouch which I then sewed together using waxed thread.

Next time I would get more appropriate timber, such as oak (European) or Huon Pine (more local and better for carving). I need to practice my plane maintenance, general woodworking skills and lining up holes to prepunch for stitching leather. I enjoyed tooling the leather design, I really enjoyed planing (very rhythmic and the wood shavings are beautiful) and am happy to have finally entered a Kingdom competition.

Comprehensive Documentation

Inspiration pieces

The set of wax tablets in a pouch are based on an extant set of wax tablets from the 15^th century, found in a monastery in St Gallen in Switzerland (Asplund, 2012), and an extant piece of tooled leather from an incomplete purse, also 15th century, held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
   

Tooled leather purse, French, 15^th century

17cm x 18.9cm x 1.9cm

Wax Tablets - Planning and Construction

Wax tablets have been in use for many centuries before the Middle ages – Arculf, the Frankish Bishop was said to have drawn maps on wax tablets and extant examples exist from Ancient Egypt and the Bronze Age. The main extant waxed tablets that I have aimed to replicate are listed on Randy Asplund’s webpage as follows;

‘I had the good fortune to visit the medieval monastery of St. Gall in St. Gallen, Switzerland where I was permitted to examine and measure a tablet codex (book) of eight panels quite closely. They still had the 15th c. German writing cut in the black wax. All of the interior panels were two-sided while the end panels were only waxed on the inside surfaces. There were no holes cut for binding cords, and instead there was a sort of glued-on parchment along the spine. I do not know if this parchment hinging was added at a later date. …

The dimensions of the tablets are about 14.8cm tall x 8cm wide x 4-5mm thick at the edges. The border surrounding the waxed recess is about 7.5mm along the length and about 1.1cm wide along the short sides. The depth of the waxed recess is about 0.75mm, which leaves about 2.5mm to 3.5mm thickness of wood under the wax of a two-sided tablet… A set of eight boxwood tablets were found in York …Her description also reports that there were no hinges or other bindings, and that the tablets were discovered inside a leather case which also contained a small metal stylus.’

The examples shown in the references section display enormous variety.

Process

I have tried to use as many hand tools, materials and techniques as close to the original as possible.

  

I started by trying to source a timber that I knew was in use during the 15th century in Europe. I was unable to buy an oak, rosewood or beech in suitable quantities and I did not like the ivory substitutes. An Australian wood sculptors and workers organisation suggested that the darker merranti timbers were suitable for carving. Although merranti is an Indonesian timber, not European, it was free, came recommended and made a suitable colour substitute. I tried planing down a piece and found the grain far too coarse to chisel out the 0.75mm deep wax recess. Then a friend helped to remove some pews from a church and had excess timber. I have not been able to get the timber identified but at a guess I would say it is probably Silky Oak (an Australia grevillea tree with oak-like leaves, often used around the time of the time these pews were made, for cabinetry). These pews already had 15th century style arched fretwork on either end, showing the timber to be suitable for carving.

The timber pieces were far too thick so I used a table saw to rip them in half (from 34mm thick down to two pieces of uneven thicknesses). The smaller of these pieces was 10mm - 7mm thick. I bought a wooden boxed hand plane of a similar style to those shown in 15th century images and sharpened the blade. It was quite a challenge to learn how to align the blade only using my eyes, hand and the wooden wedge. I used a frame saw of a similar style to 15th century saws to trim some nail holes from the end of the piece and began to plane it to a uniform thickness. The base of the wooden box plane was not smooth enough and my skills in aligning the blade made it necessary for me to finish the timber with a better quality metal based hand plane. After another hour or so of planing, I was able to get the timber down to 5 mm thick. The beautiful shaving curls were gathered up in a basket and put aside for fire lighting and stuffing, just as you see small children doing in some images of carpentry workshops in the Middle Ages.

I used a sharp knife to trim the pieces to size by repeatedly scoring until the pieces were cut through. The thin pieces of timber were starting to bow in the humidity so it was necessary to sort the pieces into pages in a certain order to ensure they fitted well together. 

I measured the internal recess for each page and marked it out. Given there is such variety in wax tablets from the period, I chose to use dimensions that are reminiscent of the scale of the extant item but more suited to my pieces of timber. I scored the wood to 1 mm deep and used a wide, shallow carving chisel to remove the void. 

It was necessary to work with the grain and even removing such a small volume of timber produces masses of lovely wood shavings. I found the use of a work board with an end stop board and another chock holding it to the table, invaluable. I made the one in the picture above from pieces of scrap pine.

I lit a candle with steel, flint and char cloth, and then held a reproduction 15th century eating knife over the flame to collect the soot. The wax was cut from a large block and heated in a small ceramic cup in the oven. The soot was mixed into the liquid wax to darken it.

Filling the void in each leaf with the blackened wax proved to be a major challenge. I tried to paint to wax on with a thick brush, as suggested by Randy Asplund. Randy was able to see the extant item in person and wrote in his article that he believed the wax had been applied with a brush rather than poured in. I tried this but the wax seemed to cool and harden as soon as it touched the wood, making a clump on the brush that stopped any more wax spreading on to the tablet. I tried heating the tablet in the oven before applying the wax but it still cooled too quickly. I tried pouring the wax from a spoon and this made the wax form smooth pools.

In the end, I used the spoon to fill the recess with several hardened pools of wax and scraped the excess wax back with the back of a reproduction 15th century eating knife. This left scrape marks on the wax and dug out a few chunks of cool wax. A warm oven melted and smoothed the wax surface but also melted the wax into the open pores of the timber. I found it easiest to smooth these marks with my finger.

Leather pouch - Planning and construction

Inspiration pieces

This pouch was made in the style of a kidney purse, due to the similarities in the basic shape of the cover piece with belt holders and the popularity of the kidney purse in the mid fifteenth century. The leather piece the front is inspired by was a single piece of tooled leather, with a basic rectangular shape and slightly rounded corners. The text on mine says 'armours metient' which is a portion of the full text from the extant item;

'armours•metient

metient•ence•prigon

armours•metient  

'love holds me

holds me in this prison

love holds me'

Translation by the MMA

The concept of a love focused inscription is a common theme in the fifteenth century.

It seems that during the fifteenth century, leather was decorated using tooling, dying and cut work (examples in the references). I chose to decorate my tabulae pouch with tooled work.

I used the same font as was shown in the original leather piece and used design elements that were in a consistent style, such as the single motif to fill a space and bars of less decorated leather between the rows of text. 

 I measured the required pouch size and formed a pattern. I transferred this to the leather and cut it out used a sharp knife and metal ruler. I transferred the lettering to the leather using rubbing and then cut around the letters to about 1mm deep. I cut along the border lines and around the other images. Then I sprayed the leather with water, flexed it to open the boundary cuts and began to stamp down the background with a metal stamp and a hammer.

It was necessary to use a smaller triangular stamp to ensure the corners were imprinted before going back over the stamped area with a larger stamp to smooth the indented surface. The stitching holes were pre-marked, lined up and pre-punched. The seams were stitched and the pouch was oiled.

  

When stamping the leather, the first pass with the triangular tool differentiated the raised letters from the printed background (top left of image). The second pass was made with the larger square punch (upper right). The final pass used the larger flatter tool to smooth the background further and the edge to clear up the visual edge of the lettering (bottom left).

Evaluation

In order to get timber that is more historically accurate, I will purchase 6mm pieces of timber in what ever size pieces are on offer next time, instead of trying to make do with free timber, or would like to try quarter splitting and then sawing timber to size.. I enjoyed planing the timber down and my technique improved noticeably during this project, though I need to learn how to correctly position and chock the blade piece of my wooden box plane. Having a recess of less than 1mm on the tablets was actually achievable (I was not sure this would work when I started). Painting on the wax to create a smooth surface was not. Next time I would try to add more char black to the wax to ensure the under surface was not visible, or even try using other dye stuffs to make the yellow and green wax you sometimes see in wax tablets in images. Next time I will get to work while my friend has his forge running and try to make a stylus from metal.

References

Tooled leather purse, French, 15^th century. Accessed December 2012

http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/170018848?img=0

Asplund, Randy (2012). Wax tablets and Stylus. Accessed December 2012.

http://www.randyasplund.com/pages/article/waxedtabletstylus.html

Priest-Dorman, Greg and Carolyn Priest-Dorman. Making and Using Waxed Tablets: Some Highlights in the History of Waxed Tablets. Accessed January 2013.

 Ivory Waxed Tablet (accession number 71.279 )

France, ca. 1330-40, by an unknown craftsman. 

H: 4 9/16 x W: 2 1/2 in. (11.6 x 6.3 cm)

~*~

The Summoner’s Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales tells us of a friar who

‘…bore two ivory tablets, well appointed

Also a stylus elegantly pointed

He always wrote the names down as he stood

Of those who gave him offerings or food…’

~*~

Wood and wax tablet showing the birth certificate of illegitimate twins

 April 29, 145 AD, from Alexandria, Egypt.

13.5cm x 18cm

Advanced Papyrological Information System website

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/apis/x-2222/4529P2.TIF?lasttype=boolean;lastview=thumbnail;med=1;resnum=6;size=20;start=1;subview=detail;view=entry;rgn1=apis_all;q1=wax

*NOTE* This is one of many wax tablet birth certificates shown on the this website.

~*~

6 wax tablets in pouch, late 14^th century, French

KBR, ms IV, 1278

http://www.kbr.be/collections/manu/nouveautes/iv1278/iv1278_eng.html

Accessed January 2013

~*~

14^th century ivory wax tablet

KBR, ms. IV 1277

http://www.kbr.be/collections/manu/nouveautes/iv1277/iv1277_eng.html

Accessed January 2013

~*~

William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.: Tabulae

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.

‘ Tabulae and Tabellae more frequently signify waxen tablets (tabulae ceratae),

 which were thick pieces of wood usually of an oblong shape, covered over

with wax (cera). The wax was written on by means of the stilus. [Stilus.] ‘

~*~

A boxwood writing tablet with a three-piece ivory hinge

Found in a ship wreck in Uluburun from 1300 BC.

http://www.bloganavazquez.com/2009/12/19/el-barco-de-uluburum-causa-y-consecuencia/  Accessed January 2013

~*~

Two boys go to school, Livre des Vices et des Vertus

BNF Fr. 20320, fol. 177v, 15th century

http://www.larsdatter.com/tablets.htm

~*~

Leather tooled pouch from Novgorod Archaeological Museum showing carved lines and external stitching.

http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/slavic/leatherpouch.html

Accessed January 2013

~*~

 Cut and tooled leather pouch from Novgorod Archaeological Museum

http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/slavic/leatherpouch.html

Accessed January 2013

~*~

     75 AD     A Fresco showing a couple in Pompei painted with a wax tablet and stylus. Currently housed in Museuo Archeological Nazionale

http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?category=Paper+%2F+Papyrus+%2F+Parchment+%2F+Vellum                                      Accessed January 2013

~*~

 Jean Bourdichon 1505-1510

The four conditions of society: Work

http://frenchhistory.tumblr.com /post/33633417405

*NOTE* This image shows several tools, including two versions of planes, gouges and chisels, knives and a frame saw resting behind the man. I now have a lovely big basket of wood shavings, just like the child.