[kronckew]

cool!

too often we concentrate on the weapon, and forget it is part of a weapons system. the scabbard, scabbard mounts, belting, strapping, attachments, etc. all work to provide the system, and are important to provide the context of their use, and the where, who, what, why and when to complete the picture...

tournament accoutrements would have been high status items requiring the best detailing and decorative art, beyond the more simple found on the battle field.

many of these small but important bits of information are never found on battle fields. sometimes NOTHING is found where a major battle was supposed to have occurred. i think it was agincourt (or was it crecy?), where thousands of french nobility and men at arms died and tens of thousand arrows expended, not a single arrow point, no lost weapon fragments, no graves, have ever been found on the fields where it supposedly happened. only 4 graves can be successfully located at a nearby church. conjecture is the earliest references to the battle site were just guesswork, written many decades or centuries after the battle.

i suspect, our sports arenas, tend to be more fixed locations, colosseums in europe still being used, no longer for gladiators, but still for the bulls. areas for target practice and practice of arms for and in tourneys in cities tend to be fixed and maintain if not the purpose, the names of the sections. many lost items awaiting discovery.

tudor london, showing archers in the fields north of moor gate and bishops gate: for info - the minimum practice target distance for a man of 24 was set by law at 220 yards. all men were required to practice on sunday.