15mm Tudor horse

[pete]

No problem, I just didn't want to repeat the same mistake everybody else does...

The folks at Leeds are very accommodating, the curator of the Tudor collection spend quite a long time in correspondence by email, she was also very dubious on the sort of leather 'acorn' helmets loads of the Irish Nobles are depicted in...
again, apparently a creation of Derrick...

Funny old world...

[Khurasanminiatures]

No problem, I just didn't want to repeat the same mistake everybody else does...

The folks at Leeds are very accommodating, the curator of the Tudor collection spend quite a long time in correspondence by email, she was also very dubious on the sort of leather 'acorn' helmets loads of the Irish Nobles are depicted in...
again, apparently a creation of Derrick...

Funny old world...

Indeed it is!

Where has this opinion been published, by the way? Because from an academic perspective, unless something's been published, it basically doesn't exist, because it can't really be peer reviewed until it is. Might be hasty to take the word of one academic, especially when it denies the existence of something shown in period art and not otherwise questioned -- Heath shows the shields in his book on the Armies of the Sixteenth Century, for instance.

[pete]

Well yes, one word against so many is not a great stand point...

But even Heath questions the validity of Derrick in the text of his book, before reproducing the drawings exactly...

Which is why I questioned it with the best expert I could find... The person who's job it is the curate and research the Tudor armoury.
(Can't remember her name, and I'm away from the works PC now...)

I wouldn't worry, if they are in the army list and in the Osprey book, most people will want them..,

[Duff]

Those demi-lances with the shieds on the breast plates are completely inaccurate...

I had a conversation with a curator at the Wallace Collection in Leeds about them, no surviving examples, only the one picture in Derrick's History of..., No bills or receipts for the purchase... a bit of fancy, according to the lady in-the-know...

nice lil' models though

Wallace collection is in London. Do you mean The Armouries Pete?

[pete]

Wallace collection is in London. Do you mean The Armouries Pete?

Part of the Wallace collection is still in London, most of it went to Leeds... to the Armoury

[Khurasanminiatures]

But even Heath questions the validity of Derrick in the text of his book, before reproducing the drawings exactly...

Just looked over Heath's description of the figure--he doesn't question its validity, he says instead that they are the latest depictions of English horse with shields, and that the more usual description of English light horse does not include one.

As our range was made to oppose our Irish and as the images in Derrick are from the Irish wars I think they're perfectly appropriate -- unlike in other campaigns English troops in Ireland still faced archery, darts and javelins (although now also faced proper firepower) so their use of the shield would make perfect sense.

By the way, the "completely inaccurate" figures are not demilancers, who wore 3/4 plate armour. They are light horse.

[Clayface]

So they are "completely inaccurate," despite being shown in a period illustration, because you had a chat with someone at a museum? Thanks for that.

Hey, he said there were no bills or receipts for them, so they don't exist. Can't you read?

So Pete, does anyone have a receipt for you? Because I am starting to suspect you are completely made up as well.

Pat

[pete]

Thanks Pat, I've got a birth certificate which the British State gave to me...
Its like a receipt does that count...

I suppose the point about the documentation is that the state paid for the equipment of these men and there are no records of them ever purchasing these 'breast-plates' (not shields), it the same ways as there is documentation for their lances or helmets or horses...

I wish i could remember where i put the woman's email... she was quite scathing on Derrick as a whole...

[Khurasanminiatures]

But they are shields though aren't they -- that's the way they are portrayed in Derrick's illustrations (more than once IIRC), the way they are typically described in studies of the period, and the way portrayed on the models.

Records, especially those kept five hundred years ago, are a helpful source to historians but not the only source. I think absence of a specific record to show something depicted in artwork was actually purchased does not necessarily mean that the thing depicted is fanciful.

The same is true of other receipts and records, like evidence that an imperial regiment in the thirty years war was equipped with 500 pikes. If we don't have the record showing the purchase of their muskets, that doesn't mean the muskets weren't bought ....

[pete]

Well if there isn't the evidence, it's difficult to rely on it...You have to find other sources for reference or simply say 'I don't know'...

But...
Most of your augment for the existence of these chaps is the sort of negative-proof... The lack of evidence against isn't evidence for...

The whole of my point is that we have one source for this type of cavalryman... they don't even appear anywhere else in Derrick... Mostly his images are historical... But... very late in the piece, which is plate, 10 or 12 of 15(?), at the very climax of the tale he's portraying... the final rout of the Irish... in my opinion... (the lady with the knowledge was reticent about drawing conclusions).... he makes these up... a kind of crusader knight riding down barbarians, with allusions to Arthur, that the readers of the time wouldn't have missed... The lances and big crosses are a clue... the educated 16thC mind was very good at connections between allegory and actual events... and the art is littered with anachronistic clothing, building and armour/weapons types which are supposed to convey meaning to a viewer...

It's not a popular view...
Not unlike trying to tell all those folks that game 'Arthurian', that most of what they think they know about the 450's - 600's is doubtful at best... People like their histories to be a little fantastical...
Derrick did that for his viewers in the 1590's... These minis do it nicely too...

But historically accurate? no, not for me...
(I was horribly pleased to have smartly sidestepped the whole issue when I came to looking at Tudors minis to make... we weren't making the minis for 1590, so I didn't have to disappoint people who were expecting them...)