h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

15th Century fashion to be precise.
I'm dead proud of myself cos I've made a scabbard for my sword. A nice black pigskin leather over wood one. Gotta get the fittings for it yet, but I want to make my own authentic belt. I've looked on line and there isn't much that is actually authentic (or says it is!) and I tried looking at church effigies and pictures and stuff and as far as I can tell most 15th Century swords were held to the armour by magic. Or mnagnetism or something.
Do you know of anyone in your drama and reenacting types things who might know something about 15th Century dress or where to find a definitive belt? I believe there were 3 ways to attach the sword to the belt, but I don;t know what they are ('cept the french style looks like a horribly complex wrap around knot !).

If not, then ne'er mind, just thought I'd try!

So you need to find your very own 15th century then.

Right then, as best at I can remember the lead chappies (who get all the hired/best equipment for the shows) had belts with a couple of metal rings in one side of them to which two shorter pieces of leather were attached. These were either in one piece that threaded through the back of the scabbard, or two short pieces that attached to the sides of the scabbard; in a couple of cases they were attached by slightly smaller metal rings.

This design meant that the sword hung at a comfortable angle so that they could walk etc without getting the scabbard tangled up in their legs.

HOpe that makes sense, if not I may have to draw you a picture and email it on to you. I don't know how historically accurate these were though, and they were mainly used in the 12 century parts of the shows.

Unfortunately I'm not sure where these came from, but I'll have a go at contacting a couple of bods who would know.

hand drawn? You mean you can;t waste an hour or so in the library using Paint or somesuch to draw it in?
Sounds interesting, but they'd probably changed things by the 15th C, but I would be interested in any piccies or any other descriptions you have!

Cheers!

I'd forgotten about paint. , you're on. Be prepared for an interesting line drawing to arrive. I think I ought to warn you I managed to get an E in my Year 9 (third year comp) art exam - so I hope you'll be able to interpret it.

Oh, and there's a link I ought to hunt up. It's more dagger like than full sword, but as it's from a catalogue of a long bow maker (and therefore comercial) I don't think hootoo will aceptet it.

Happy New Year.

So did you get the scabbard finished?

Hoopy new year to yoo too
Scabbarb is all done except the decorations 9silver I think, mid section, top and point, can't remember the correct terms!) but belt not done yet. Not got round to it yet! Oooh, I'm so lazy!

Had a good new year yourself?

New Year was fun. Although letting a drunken B loose on my friends was possibly a bit much for one of them.....

I guess you haven't finished the decorating yet either then? I know the feeling, I still haven't completly managed to move house yet (this has been going on for four months now) but the things I've got left to bring are too bit for my car and the owner of the Newport house doesn't seem too concerened so I'll leave them for now....

Are you off to the meet?

a drunken B? That sounds like a story that needs to be told Move to email if you so desire

Decorating, um, did nowt. Well, i moved a load of cardboard boxes from one end of my bedroom to under the bed, hoover the front room and, erm. Nope, nowt else.
No painting, no gardening. Just chillin'

Not off to the meet as i now need to concentrate on getting the house ready for sale before the market crashes big style and it's only worth £2.50 !


Enjoy the meet and don't forget, full details of all the antics on return!

p.s. are you aware of any Brum meet photo's?

Not aware of any Brum photos available on line anyway. daSilva has some but he's not sharing them.

Will change to email when back at w*rk.

Shall change to email once IT have stopped sniffing around.

You're not a member of the Plantagenet Society are you? Just wondering as it looks as though I may be seeing a fair bit of them later on this summer.

nah, but we go to some of their do's. They're a little less, erm, authoritarian and overbearing. They seem to understand that we re-enactors actually go there to have fun as much as anything! Shocking, I know!

Let me know if you get speaking to any of them.

Well I won't be for a bit, but later this summer they're taking part in the Usk Battle and Banquet pageant. I was just wondering what they were like. I'm hoping to be able to fight again, but as this will be a smaller event than the other shows and we've got 'professionals' in I'm not sure what the chances of me being able to are.

I'll know more after the auditions on Sunday, but if the group don't approve of small females weilding weapons I'm going to end up being stuck.

depends, from a re-enactment pov there are three main things for being on the field (ie taking part in the combat shows) and they are 1) public liability insurance 2) authentic outfit 3) a helmet!
insurance is usually through the group you are with.
But, just depends on what those shows are.

From the production website..

"One highlight will be the re-enactment of the Battle of Pwll Melyn, with local fighters aiding the Plantagent Society."

For the other shows I've been involved with we've hired our own fight director and been covered by the show's insurance. No helmets required, but we're only useing stage weaponary made specially for us not heavy steel blades.

I'm hoping that as there are a couple of us who have all faught before, and who are all well known by the director something might be wangled for us.

All depends on what the Plantagenet have planned. Helmets is for use in close fighting, but also very useful when you have archers on the field.
The requirements I mentioned above are minimum and strict for re-enactment. If that is what they plan to do then I would have thought that is what you require. But who knows. Hopefully they might.

you could always go on as water carrier and not fight

Not fight!!! But it's fun.... even though I've never done any proper re-enactment. There's still time for that.....

Hmm, delving into the site a bit deeper it could be that they will re-enact during the day and then for the shows there'll be a switch to stage fighting which means I'll be able to fight to.

On the other hand I could just go as an archer. I've got a good eye.

well, finally found a contemporary picture of a sword belt. Much the same as your wonderful artwork, but it uses no metal ring, and only 1 hanger. The belt is lsigthly thicker and divides into 2 about 3/4 of the way round the waist, with the lower slimmer portion becoming the hanger and attached to the scabbard lower down. The main bit carries on and is attached at the top of the scabbard.
Found some slightly later ones in some paintings by Titian (can you believe our library only has 1 small 'guide to' book on Titian?). The other one was someone else, possibly becinning with P from the 1430's.

So I reckon between that and your diagam I have enough info to make the belt, just need some leather now!

Well there are plenty of cows out there, goats are in shorty supply though.

Glad the drawing was of some use. How's the painting going?