Books of historical weapons Interest

[temper]

I made the title general so we can re-use it *laugh*
But I recently read about a book that details Viking Weapons techniques

http://www.hurstwic.org/activities/text/events.htm#book

[Once Debauched]

I recently purchased European Hand Firearms of the 16th,17th & 18th Century. by HERBERT J. JACKSON.  I've only had time to thumb through it but I'm pretty pleased with it as it has a good amount of pictures for reference.  I'm all about the pics!

There's also a gent out of TX who is selling small books on eBay I found quite interesting.  The books are by The House of Gutenberg (his company I believe) and were sold for many years at faire.  The two I purchased are Medieval Punishment & Torture (pictures and an explanation for each device shown)  and Making Medieval Weapons and Armor at Home. 

If interested you should be able to see what he has available by going here  http://hotlinecy.com/freeinfo.htm

[Morgan Dreadlocke]

Le Costume, l'armure et Les Armes Au Temps De La Chevalerie.
#2 le sie'cle de la Renaissance.

By Fred And Liliane Funcken

Very detailed colored pencil drawings of just about everything. The text is in French but even an American savage can compare the picture #'s with the dates Also have "The age of Chivalary pt 1" same authors. This ones in English. Had another by the same authors, was pts 2&3 of---something---. Delt mostly with castle construction and siege engines. All of them are well worth obtaining. The art work is very similar to the Osprey "Men at Arms" series.


45 different sword frogs on that page!

[DuCoeur]

Found it at Barnes & Noble in the bargin bin...Medieval Combat by Hans Talhoffer translated and edited by Mark Rector.

Awesome illustrations of all kinds of combat techniques.  From unarmed combat, to sword, club and even and interesting section of Male vs Female combat. 

Originally published in the 15th century.  A must for martial artists or anyone interested in the period.

[Poldugarian Warrior]

   
   Stones' Arms & Armor Book  , visit www.museumreplicas.com to see the cover. I bought this book and it's fascinating albeit only black and white photos or drawings, but info and terminology is remarkable, it even uses the foreign language names for weapons and even the equipment used to maintain said weapons. For the most part this book was firts published in the 30's, but contains only info on antique weaponry. At $40.00 it's a bargain, it has so much information. You need to set away time to read this huge tome. It's setup like a big dictionary of weaponry so it's very easy to find the term your looking for because it's all alphabetized. Hope this helps.



   


 

[Phillip McGuinness]

Found it at Barnes & Noble in the bargin bin...Medieval Combat by Hans Talhoffer translated and edited by Mark Rector.

In the bargain bin? I paid full price for that one!

[Poldugarian Warrior]

DuCouer got lucky. I've always been a fan of the bargain sections of stores, you never know what unique things you can find and the bargains are great. So Phillip keep searchin the bargain bins. I usually go to Border's and find my books. I've also checked Salvation Army stores, and Pawn Shops, and picked up really good books that are out of print or just hard to find, but I couldn't beat the prices.

[groomporter]

The bibliOdyssey blog just had an article featuring pictures from Volume I of 'De Arte Athletica' by Paul (Paulus) Hector Mair (mid-1500s) with a link to where it is available online at the Bavarian State Library. It includes images of men fighting with halberd, long-sword, quarterstaff, sickle, dagger, dussack, scythe and a enlarged variation on a flail.

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/02/pugnacious-puffy-pants.html

[ALS]

Stones' Arms & Armor Book  , visit www.museumreplicas.com to see the cover. I bought this book and it's fascinating albeit only black and white photos or drawings, but info and terminology is remarkable, it even uses the foreign language names for weapons and even the equipment used to maintain said weapons. For the most part this book was firts published in the 30's, but contains only info on antique weaponry. At $40.00 it's a bargain, it has so much information. You need to set away time to read this huge tome. It's setup like a big dictionary of weaponry so it's very easy to find the term your looking for because it's all alphabetized. Hope this helps.

While Stone's has some pictures of some rare items ( many from his own personal collection) take what is written with a grain of salt a research further. It not that Stone was making it up or trying to fool anyone, it is simply that so much new materila and research has come about and so many discoveries made in the nearly 100 years since Stone's book came out that some of whats in it is no longer the case. The book is weel worth having as a quick reference and for the pics but the text can be outdated.

Pick up 1) Armour from the Battle of Wisby 2) Arms and Armor of the Medieval Knight 3) Techniques of Medieval Arms Reproduction, the 14th Century 4) The Armour from Medieval Rhodes ( hard to find out of print book but so so worth it) and Imperial Austria, Treasures of Art, Arms and Armour from the State of Styria to start with. Osprey Men at Arms books are always good to have, there are some occasional inaccuracies with the text but the color plates in each book are uaualy quite good and a good reference source.

[Poldugarian Warrior]

Osprey is really the way to go, for modern research. I wanted to find out about Hungarian and Polish armor and arms, and that was the publisher I picked up books from, and they really are worth the money. Though they are quite expensive you really do get what you pay for. The Stone's as you said is great as a quick reference which is what I got it for., and gives very basic definitions of weapon and armor use. It's really hard to say what books to get. I usually look into what I'm researching and go from there. If it's something that you may refer to in the future you may want to buy a quality book, but if only for the present than the cheapest book or magazine article may be the best option.

[ALS]

Generally speaking the better a reference sourrce is the more expensive it will be. Texts on the subject were printed in small numbers and seldom reprinted. The internet and amazon opened the door to make it proffitable to reprint a few of the older general titles as the copyrights could be had for a relatively small amount of money ( Stones Guide, which I paid $110.00 for back in the early 90's for a hardcover copy of before its rerelease, and Arms and Armour in Colonial America 1517-1783 which I paid $100 for back in the 90's. Both books can be had for $20.00 today in reprint) but alot of the big gun titles, the ones with tons of close up pics of rare seldom seen examples ( mostly European books ) will probably never see reprint between the copyright costs and the steady decline in people reading and buying books ( Americas three biggest publishers are on the verge of bankruptcy ) the publishing houses will never venture the capital to reprint them. You can turn up copies of these heavy hitter texts but it will not be cheap. They are however an investment that will continue to escalate in value over time due to thier rarity. I've got about $7-8000.00 worth of these hard to find texts, I got them at really good prices through scouring used book websites, ebay and stuff like that, i've tracked many of these titles at book auctions and stuff and seen many go for 30-40% more than I paid which takes the auction value of the stuff i've picked up to around $12-13,000.00 so just as an investment even if I didn't use them for research, they doing better than the stock market right now ( who am I going to brag to about that? ).

[Poldugarian Warrior]

Makes perfect sense. And who knows if times get bad, the rich will still have dough and will buy the books from you at cost so they'll have somethin to read, and trade up for even more money. But, you'll still be able to make some dough. I'm surprised of the one title. Arms and Armour in Colonial America    1517-1783. Were they still wearing armor into the 1700's here in America? I mean the Spanish Conquistadors I would believe because they were always pictured wearing the cuirass, but for evry other nationality here in the colonies, such as the Dutch, French, and English I thought that was only in Europe. Of course the arms are self explanatory, but armor, you just don't think colonial America and armor.

[temper]

I apologize if I've posted this elsewhere:
This bookseller has some really good titles:
http://www.chivalrybookshelf.com/
This has an interesting selection and I'll let you be your own judge
http://www.paladin-press.com/category/47
And these are free historical manuals if you are inclined to do your own translation
http://www.umass.edu/renaissance/lord/

[ALS]

I'm surprised of the one title. Arms and Armour in Colonial America    1517-1783. Were they still wearing armor into the 1700's here in America? I mean the Spanish Conquistadors I would believe because they were always pictured wearing the cuirass, but for evry other nationality here in the colonies, such as the Dutch, French, and English I thought that was only in Europe. Of course the arms are self explanatory, but armor, you just don't think colonial America and armor.

You bet, and lots of it. The Spanish were the most heavily armoured Europeans in the Americas but all the various nationalites here used it. They're pretty substantial collections in the southwest of Spanish arms and armour as well as in South America. The Massachusettes Historical Society has a decent collection of arms and armour some dating and being owned by the original boat laod of pilgrims but a good amount comming out of the walls of 17th century homes in the state ( it seems to have been a thing in MA to wall this stuff up over the years ). Massachusettes is home to the oldest military unit in the country the The Ancient Honorable Company of Artillery formed in 1630 and still active today. I owned at one point a breast plate of proof that came out of the basement wall of a 350 year old house in MA. The basement flooded and the wall subsided and it was in the rubble. Theres a fair amount from the Sweds and then Dutch from PA, and some down in FLA from the Spanish. A bit north of the border from the French as well and of course that vast finds from Jamestown.

[Poldugarian Warrior]

That's cool. I'm not sure if you've ever seen the movie. The Crucible which is based on the book and the witch trials. But, in the movie they have some guards dressed in armor, and that sort of sparked my interest of armor use here in the America's. I also wonder since the French in British also explored Michigan and Canada and those outlying areas. Could discarded armor be found in those areas, or in the many shipwrecks of the lakes. So even though most armor use was waning into the 1700's it wasn't totally gone as once was thought.