Bannockburn 2003
These are images from the reenactment of the battle of Bannockburn 2003,
arranged in no particular order. Clicking on each thumbnail will open a page
with the full size image, plus annotations.
These pictures were taken on the Sunday. The weather was better on Saturday, and we had
a few more participants. The overall impression was good, and with a few exceptions better than
in 2002 where (it being the first year for this event) we had more participants from the 10th and
15th centuries. It's clear that most people had a good idea of what they should look like and went
to some effort to achieve it. Many thanks for that.
I've noted any anachronisms purely for the purposes of discouraging emulation. I do appreciate
people from other periods taking part in this event, and understand that it's not possible to change periods
overnight. What I would suggest though is that if you're unsure about whether your clothes or equipment are
correct is that you A) ask beforehand and B) leave them off if you're not sure. Dressing down to simple
tunic, single leg hose and braies makes you completely fine for this event.
In particular, I'd highlight the number of skimpy tabards in evidence here, by which I mean simple
front-and-back fabric, tied at the side or belted around the waist. A Tabard Is Not A Surcoat.
Surcoats of this period were knee length down to ankle length, closed at the waist, lined, and voluminously
skirted. A tabard is very quick to make and can cover up some anachronisms, but only by adding inauthenticity
on top. What's surprising is the number of people here wearing basically fine kit who rather spoiled it by
throwing a tatty tabard over the top. It gives a false impression to the public, it perpetuates the feeling
among reenactors that it's correct for circa 1300, and it cheapens the effect of the
people who took the time to get it right. With a few
notable exceptions
tabards don't add anything, so please, no more of them.
Please feel free to
about anything here. I am always delighted to discuss any aspect of reenactment, and have already corrected
and amended many of the annotations here after receiving feedback from participants.
Also, please do not link directly to this page, as it is subject to being moved. Instead,
link to www.colinmacdonald.org.
All images except for this one are
© 2003 Colin MacDonald and licensed under the
Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial 1.0 license.
Update: me!
I've added a large annoted image of myself at the bottom of this page. Shred away!
The traditional self aggrandisement
And this is me. This image was actually taken in May 2004, but it shows my equipment pretty much as it was on Saturday at Bannockburn 2003 (I switched to portraying an archer on the English side on Sunday). I'm portraying Angus Og MacDonald, a Scots Islander who brought a substantial following to the party at Bannockburn. That I'm a MacDonald with a patriarchal ancestry in Tiree didn't really have much of an influence on my decision to portray Angus; I just rather liked the arms.
Not to bang my own drum, but some points of interest:
♣ I'm wearing a knee length, full sleeved and mittened hauberk of 8mm internal diameter square section butted rings, with slits in the sleeves to allow the hands to come free, and laces to secure them closed. It's also extended with triangles at the front so that it doesn't gape open across the groin and upper legs. This looks very much like some illustrations of the period.
♣ Separate mail coif, a development from the integral coif common around 1250, and much easier to wear.
♣ Substantial re-enforced kettle helmet (not an ARP or Tommy helmet), and modern (i.e. new for 1314!) sugar-loaf great helm (which I am now convinced wouldn't be worn on foot).
♣ Single leg hose in very lightweight mid green wool.
♣ Ankle length leather turnshoes (which are tolerably authentic from circa 800 right through to circa 1400, cost all of £25, and have lasted for years!).
♣ Identifying shoulder ailettes (typical for this period) and simple elbow roundels, which were just starting to appear.
♣ Generous gored surcoat in heavy linen, lined in unbleached linen.
♣ Heater shield, slightly curved (although it's relaxed and flattened a little since I made it) and faced in heavy textile before being painted.
♣ Provenancable (and plausible, i.e. not a 16th century galleon) arms on surcoat, shield and ailettes.
♣ A double belt arrangement as shown on some illustrations of this period, consisting of a thin tie belt with brass decoration, plus the distinctive "low slung" sword belt secured with a decorated brass buckle, dyed, with silver decoration. This looks like it's going to fall down any second, but is actually quite secure and it keeps the centre of mass of the sword stationary outside the pivot point of your hip rather than sitting above it and bouncing around. Try it and see!
♣ Hand-and-a-half sword, a copy of a sword currently on display in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow that they date as "early 14th century", but which Oakshotte places as far back as the mid or even early 13th century.
Things that you can't really see, but which are just as important!
♣ Padded akheton (just visible at the sleeves) in pale blue linen.
♣ White (unbleached) linen braies.
♣ Naalbinding wool socks, very practical indeed.
♣ Hardened leather upper arm rerebraces under the mail, based on an extant hardened leather rerebrace dated to "early" or "first quarter" of the 14th century. The original has decorative embossing, which implies that it was intended to be worn outside the mail where it can be seen. However, I know of no illustrations of this, and it also has textile lining, which suggests that it may have been intended to be worn under the mail (why pad the inside of armour that's sitting outside the mail?). On balance, I choose to wear mine under the mail, which also hides the fact that they aren't decorated.
♣ An axe, of a generic non-Scandinavian style, riding behind my right hip. Sword plus axe seems a little showy, but remember that Bruce famously used an axe to dispatch Sir Henry de Bohun in the prelude to Bannockburn, breaking it in the process. Even if an axe was preferred as a primary weapon, it seems likely that a sword would be worn as well as a backup and a status symbol.
♣ A basilard (long dagger, or in this case something akin to a very short sword with a 14" blade) round at the small of my back. These are often shown in manuscripts of the period appearing in combatants' hands as if by magic, but are rarely shown scabbarded, so tucking it away round the back seems like a reasonable compromise.
♣ The sword belt holds the scabbard in a distinctive Z shaped arrangement, and the scabbard itself is decorated with embossing with black dye and gold leaf highlights.
There are still substantial improvements to be made to this outfit though, including:
♣ The shield should have a guige (shoulder strap). It's just over 24" (60cm) tall. Shields were getting shorter in 1314, and this isn't unreasonable for a cavalry shield (but then it should definitely have a guige), but it could be a little longer for use on foot. This was a genuine snafu on my part; I didn't take note of which way the wood wanted to bend when I was roughing out the blank, and had to rotate it 90 degrees to get a bend in it, even after steaming it. Lesson learned.
♣ The mail should be riveted, not just butted, and round section fully flattened down rather than square section. This would also allow it to be a lot lighter!
♣ Mailled chausses! By 1314, these are shown more often than not even on men fighting on foot. The Edwards I and II were constantly bemoaning the reluctance of men properly to arm themselves to perform knightly service, but if I'm portraying a major lord, even a Scots one, I should really show the full range of available equipment.
♣ Padded upper leg cuisses, perhaps with simple knee cops. I do have the cuisses, I just wasn't wearing them when this picture was taken.
♣ The akheton should be more substantial. It's only 4 layers of relatively light linen. It should be at least a dozen layers, or stuffed. I have a very substantial tube sewn and stuffed akheton, but it's simply too heavy to wear with butted mail over it (while on foot, anyway). As a compromise, I also sometimes wear (at Bannockburn 2003 but not in this picture) a speculative interpretation of the mysterious "curie" that was sometimes mentioned at this period. Single piece plated iron or steel cuirasses were contemporaneous with Wisby style coats-of-plates, and so they didn't obviously develop from them. What I have is a rigid hardened leather front and back clamshell with some light metal plating on it. It's purely speculative, but serves as an illustration of a possible antecedent to the single piece steel cuirass, which puts more emphasis (than a coat of plates) on the substrate rather than the plating itself. The rigidity provides very substantial protection from reenactment weapons, although it should be noted that making leather rigid also makes it much easier to cut through, thus the metal plating.
♣ Damn those hose riding down and bunching. They should be tight. I'm going to try lacing them round the knee and tying them behind it (there's some provenance for this), and/or tying them to a separate and tight waist belt - they're currently attached to points on the braies, which are held up with an internal fingerbraided woolen waist tie, which tends to let them ride down.
♣ The elbow roundels should be permanently attached, or at least attached invisibly, rather than laced on.
♣ The ailettes (especially the right one) should be riding higher.
♣ The charcoal grey contrasting edging on the surcoat is pure affectation. It looks great, and is quite common among reenactors, but that's no excuse. I should walk the walk.
♣ The coif needs to be shaped a little so that it tucks in under the chin and then splays out better, and also needs to be secured around the forehead (as is obvious from this image!). Coifs are often shown with a band or lace around the forehead, and I intend to try this out.
♣ The sword scabbard is missing its chape at the bottom.
♣ I should probably be wearing an iron or steel skullcap under or over the coif. In my defence, I'm rather blessed in the cranial department, and find it hard to get helmets that fit.
Other than that, I'm fairly happy with this outfit as representing a reasonably well off - but not absolutely top drawer - knight of the period. Mail chausses are the most glaring omission, but the long hauberk and generous surcoat mitigates that somewhat. Anyone who could afford mail defences at this time could and should display a lot of textile as well.
Please
Suggestions for improvement are always most welcome!
