Reading Alison Weir recently, the point was made in her research by a British textile expert that velvet usage would be restricted to the upper echelon of society.

Is there agreement with this? I seem to have heard (great sourcing there, you'll notice) a few references to velvet covered brigandines for quite unimpressive persons. Would this restriction for velvet only hold true in the British Isles?

My portrayal (if it can be called that) is of a Swiss footman in 1475 who is a journeyman plattner when not called up by the canton, would it be valid for such a person to have a red velvet hood?

Martin

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Martin, you can add to the list of covers of extant brigandines (not coats of plates) and fragments leather (Reale Armeria - many have been re-covered, but a few retain original portions of covers), heavy herringbone linen or hemp - it might have been a fustian, but no analysis has been done on the fibers - yet (a fragment from Chalsis in the Higgins reserve collection) , and documentary evidence aplenty for leather covers (The Howard Accounts,and numerous wills), and Fustian (ditto, and the inventory of a dowery of arms to Scotland from Burgundy in the 1440's).

It's important to note that the leather covered ones have canvas jackets as the base, and usually some fine lightweight leather as a decorative cover, and aren't structurally dependant on the leather. I've seen some fragments with the textile pattern of the foundation rusted into the base, and a fragment of leather under the nails.

I think the velvet ones are the principle survivors because they appealed as decorative elements before collection became common in the 19th century, and because collectors prefered them later. The Spanish leather covered ones exist because they just happened to be surviivors of a private armoury that didn't get broken up and sold until the 19th century - thank God, a few decades earlier, and the would have been sold off for their weight in iron.

The primer article for surviving brigandines, and documents pertaining to them in English is "excavation of a jack of plates at Beeston Castle", Arms and Armour Society Journal, Spring (I think) 1989. Although the article is about an excavated jack of plates of 16th century origin, since some of the surviving plates were cut up out of a 15th century brigandine, the author provided extensive information regarding them in his lengthy endnotes.

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Martin

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I think that'd be the place to look. Is in wills and household accounts of lower estates.

I don't know if there is book on Sumptuary laws for England during that time. If there is, that'd be the place to look to see what was "allowed".

Dave might know. He's very well read on English stuff.

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Wool velvet, yes, but plain wool, I don't think so. Most of the Medieval velvets I've seen have a silk pile (or in the case of a wool velvet, which I have never personally seen, but I know they existed, a wool one), and a weft of backing of stouter material, almost a canvas. Most of the coverings share as a common attribute toughness, and I don't think a wool cloth cover would be tough enough to stand up to the sort of abuse likely to be recieved - it sort of pulls, and felts, given certain conditions.

There was gloth of gold brigandine covers, or cloth of gold distributed to the Household of Edward IV with the intent of being made into brigandine covers. There is also evidence of a brigandine given to a favorite archer of the Duke of Brittany, mid 15th century, which was covered with black velvet, with nails that had heads capped in silver, with a pattern in gold. Plenty of evidence for the higher end of the scale, and a lot of scrambling to find evidence for the humbler samples.

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