Temple Pyx
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Temple Pyx
The Temple Pyx is a mid 12th century medieval bronze gilt plaque, suggested as German in origin (although it was discovered in the Temple Church in London). It is currently a part of the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland. It is a beautiful example of High Medieval metalwork and gives excellent detail of the arms, armour and architecture of the Norman period. It features three Romanesque arches above each soldier. The soldiers all wield swords and spears, conical nasal helms, teardrop kite shields with center boss, shin length maille hauberks, shoulder to foot tunics (no doubt shorter gambesons sandwiched in between) and pointed shoes. This suggests that the estimated date of 1150 is incorrect as by the 12th century kite shields already began to lose their rounded tops and bosses (but not entirely until the 13th century), maille hauberks shortened to knee or thigh length and helmets soon evolved into kalotas (early great helm) by losing their conical tops and eventually ...
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Germans
Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, implemented in 1949 following the end of World War II, defines a German as a German nationality law, German citizen. During the 19th and much of the 20th century, discussions on German identity were dominated by concepts of a common language, culture, descent, and history.. "German identity developed through a long historical process that led, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to the definition of the German nation as both a community of descent (Volksgemeinschaft) and shared culture and experience. Today, the German language is the primary though not exclusive criterion of German identity." Today, the German language is widely seen as the primary, though not exclusive, criterion of German identity. Estimates on the total number of Germ ...
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Sword
A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to be curved and to have a sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade. Many swords are designed for both thrusting and slashing. The precise definition of a sword varies by historical epoch and geographic region. Historically, the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger; the Bronze Age sword, earliest specimens date to about 1600 BC. The later Iron Age sword remained fairly short and without a crossguard. The spatha, as it developed in the Late Roman army, became the predecessor of the European sword of the Middle Ages, at first adopted as the Migration Period sword, and only in the High Middle Ages, developed into the classical Knightly sword, ar ...
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Great Helm
The great helm or heaume, also called pot helm, bucket helm and barrel helm, is a helmet of the High Middle Ages which arose in the late twelfth century in the context of the Crusades and remained in use until the fourteenth century. The barreled style was used by knights in most West European armies between about 1210 to 1340 AD and evolved into the frog-mouth helm to be primarily used during jousting contests. History In its simplest form, the great helm was a flat-topped cylinder of steel that completely covered the head and had only very small openings for ventilation and vision. Later designs gained more of a curved design, particularly on the top, to deflect or lessen the impact of blows. The helmet was also extended downward until it reached shoulders. The great helm ultimately evolved from the nasal helmet, which had been produced in a flat-topped variant with a square profile by about 1180. From this type of helmet an intermediate type, called an 'enclosed helmet' or 'p ...
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Gambeson
A gambeson (also known as, or similar to where historic or modern distinctions are made, the acton, aketon, padded jack, pourpoint, paltock, haustement, or arming doublet) is a padded defensive jacket, worn as armour separately, or combined with mail or plate armour. Gambesons were produced with a sewing technique called quilting or pourpointing that produced a padded cloth. They were usually constructed of linen or wool; the stuffing varied, and could be, for example, scrap cloth or horse hair. An arming doublet worn under armour, particularly plate armour of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, contains arming points for attaching plates. Fifteenth-century examples may include mail goussets sewn into the elbows and armpits, to protect the wearer in locations not covered by plate. German gothic armour arming doublets were generally shorter than Italian white armour doublets, which could extend to the upper thigh. In late fifteenth-century Italy, this also became a ci ...
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Early Medieval European Dress
Early medieval European dress, from about 400 AD to 1100 AD, changed very gradually. The main feature of the period was the meeting of late Roman costume with that of the invading peoples who moved into Europe over this period. For a period of several centuries, people in many countries dressed differently depending on whether they identified with the old Romanised population, or the new populations such as Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Visigoths. The most easily recognisable difference between the two groups was in male costume, where the invading peoples generally wore short tunics, with belts, and visible trousers, hose or leggings. The Romanised populations, and the Church, remained faithful to the longer tunics of Roman formal costume, coming below the knee, and often to the ankles. By the end of the period, these distinctions had finally disappeared, and Roman dress forms remained mainly as special styles of clothing for the clergy – the vestments that have changed relatively lit ...
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Hauberk
A hauberk or byrnie is a mail shirt. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves. A haubergeon ("little hauberk") refers to a smaller mail shirt, that was sometimes sleeveless, but the terms are occasionally used interchangeably. Mail armor, likely invented by the Celts, became widely adopted for its flexibility and spread throughout Europe and Asia, becoming a staple in Roman legions and medieval warfare. By the 11th century, the hauberk evolved into a knee-length, sleeved mail shirt, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry and it remained in use in Europe until the Renaissance despite the rise of plate armor. Etymology The word ''hauberk'' () comes from the Old French word '' hauberc'', meaning "coat of mail", which originally derived from the earlier Germanic word '' halsberg'', literally translating to "neck protector". This word breaks down into two parts: '' hals'', meaning "neck", which has counterparts in various language ...
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Mail (armour)
Mail (sometimes spelled maille and, since the 18th century, colloquially referred to as chain mail, chainmail or chain-mail) is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. It was in common military use between the 3rd century BC and the 16th century AD in Europe, while it continued to be used militarily in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East as late as the 18th century. Even today it is still in use in industries such as butchery and as protection against the powerful bites of creatures such as sharks. A coat of this armour is often called a hauberk or sometimes a byrnie. History The earliest examples of surviving mail were found in the Carpathian Basin at a burial in Horný Jatov, Slovakia dated in the 3rd century BC, and in a chieftain's burial located in Ciumești, Romania. Its invention is commonly credited to the Celts,
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Shield Boss
A shield boss, or umbo (), is a round, convex or conical piece of material at the centre of a shield. Shield bosses (or sometimes, just "bosses") are usually made of thick metal but could also be made of wood. The boss was originally designed to deflect blows from the centre of round shields, though they also provided a place to mount the shield's grip. As time went on and heater shields with curved bodies became more popular, and enarmes superseded the bar grip, the boss became more of an ornamental piece. Often, bosses are not present on non-circular shields due to the differences in technique; with a round shield, one makes a punching motion towards an oncoming blow, while with a heater or kite shield, attacks are blocked by pivoting the shield about the body. A boss provides a significant advantage for deflecting blows when using a punching motion, but is not very effective when using a pivot to block an attack. Manufacture First found in prehistoric bronze, in medieval ...
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Kite Shield
A kite shield is a large, almond-shaped shield rounded at the top and curving down to a point or rounded point at the bottom. The term "kite shield" is a reference to the shield's unique shape, and is derived from its supposed similarity to a flying kite, although "leaf-shaped shield" and "almond shield" have also been used in recent literature. Since the most prominent examples of this shield have appeared on the Bayeux Tapestry, the kite shield has become closely associated with Norman warfare. History It is often speculated that the shield was developed for mounted cavalry, and that its dimensions correlate to the approximate space between a horse's neck and its rider's thigh. The narrow bottom is seen to be protecting the rider's left leg, and the pronounced upper curve, the rider's shoulder and torso. This is seen as an improvement over more common circular shields, such as bucklers, which afforded poor protection to the horseman's left flank, especially when charging with ...
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Nasal Helmet
The nasal helmet was a type of combat helmet characterised by the possession of a projecting bar covering the nose and thus protecting the centre of the face; it was of Western European origins and was used from the late 9th century to at least . Early forms The nasal helmet was characterised by the possession of a nose-guard, or "nasal", composed of a single strip of metal that extended down from the skull or browband over the nose to provide facial protection. The helmet appeared throughout Western Europe late in the 9th century, and became the predominant form of head protection, replacing previous types of helmet whose design was ultimately based on Late Roman types such as the ridge helmet and early helmets of spangenhelm construction. Early nasal helmets were universally conical in shape. The skull could be raised from a single sheet of iron or be of composite, segmented (spangenhelm) construction. The spangenhelm variety was, in general, the earlier method of construction ...
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Spear
A spear is a polearm consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with Fire hardening, fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as bone, flint, obsidian, copper, bronze, iron, or steel. The most common design for hunting and/or warfare, since modern times has incorporated a metal spearhead shaped like a triangle, lozenge (shape), diamond, or Glossary of leaf morphology, leaf. The heads of fishing spears usually feature multiple sharp Tine (structural), points, with or without barbs. Spears can be divided into two broad categories: those designed for thrusting as a melee weapon (including weapons such as lances and Pike (weapon), pikes) and those designed for throwing as a ranged weapon (usually referred to as javelins). The spear has been used throughout human history as a weapon for hunting and/or fishing and for warfare. Along with ...
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Romanesque Architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe that was predominant in the 11th and 12th centuries. The style eventually developed into the Gothic style with the shape of the arches providing a simple distinction: the Romanesque is characterized by semicircular arches, while the Gothic is marked by the pointed arches. The Romanesque emerged nearly simultaneously in multiple countries of Western Europe; its examples can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture. Similarly to Gothic, the name of the style was transferred onto the contemporary Romanesque art. Combining features of ancient Roman and Byzantine buildings and other local traditions, Romanesque architecture is known by its massive quality, thick walls, round arches, sturdy pillars, barrel vaults, large towers and decorative arcading. Each building has clearly defined forms, frequently of very regular, symmetrical ...
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