I see the illustrations in the 1450-Ambraser edition of Talhoffer (aka the one always mistakenly called 1459-Ambraser) which portray some harness with the expected 4, but some harness with like 7 or 8 of those. Yet those are *not* meant to be sprawling skirt-like tonlets. Those are depicted as closely fitting faulds which happen to have many more hoops / lames than average, from which hang standard triangular tassets.

So the question is this:

Have any of you armourers seen artifactal harness with more than 4 hoops / lames of fauld, and/or made a workable replica with more than 4?

I ask because such design seems rather interesting.

Thank you,

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JLH

Eric

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www.armuredube.com

I am not an armourer, but I believe that there is a Milanese tonlet armour made for foot combat, having belonged to a chamberlain of Burgundy circa 1500, which has more then 4 faulds.

The point of the waistline and fauld on 15th century army isn't so much functional purpose, but an intentional stylistic copying of civilian fashion. The Mid to late 15th century suits you are used to seeing with 4 faulds, and tassets pendant have the faulds imitating the hemline of the male gown - it goes up or down depending on decade.

In the pictures tyou reference, in that particular region, a longer length overgown was fashionable - mid thigh to near knee, and so the armourer set his faulds hemline to that fashion. When you look at the extant suit I reference in the context of early 16th century gowns, or French fashion circa 1490-1500, the suit copying both the waistline and hemline of the mens overgown is clearly evident, (That particular suit is one of the ugliest extant full harnesses of quality I have ever seen. To my sense of style, it seems that the customer must have asked for the ugliest thing the Missaglia shop cpould produce - I think that is the shop it came out of, I may be wrong.)

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Of course another possibility for the 1450-Ambraser example I gave was that the artist got a little fanciful. Not a grievous error, but somewhat out of hand, and so perhaps it was too late for Talhoffer to get it corrected before the book went to patron. But maybe not, just conjecturing.

However, a viewer of Talhoffer's later 1459-Thott edition can definitely see faint remains of multiple wash-outs and re-inking, and a consistent & accurate portrayal of coeval harness in that edition. It seems apparent to me that he must have exercised better quality-control and editing over his artist(s) to insure a better volume that time around than previously.

Anyway, thanks again to you all for indicating the various things in your replies.

(And I shall pass on the URL for Armurerie du Duche to a friend as I had been meaning to do so anyway.)

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JLH