Hello. As promised, today we will talk about luxury. And for this it is worth continuing from where we left off last time (the previous issue should be somewhere nearby). That is, we finished at the width of the armor.
It is no coincidence that such concepts as size and wealth are close together. For a long time, the ability to dress in a large number of expensive fabrics or other materials was a sign of great wealth. By the way, the tradition of wearing a handkerchief (pashe) in the breast pocket of a jacket came from here, since the fabric for this item of clothing was often chosen from the most expensive.
In previous issues, we already talked briefly about decorating tournament armor, but now let’s look at this point in more detail.
Before the era of the dominance of Protestant morality, any rich person tried to flaunt his wealth. For the times of knights, going out meant feasts, events at court and, of course, tournaments. But, of course, you can’t show up at the lists “in furs and silks,” so the tournament armor was decorated as best they could. And the principle “the more the better” worked in this case too.
As mentioned earlier, no one would make the armor immensely wide, otherwise the knight simply would not be able to move normally in it. But this rule does not apply to sabatons – plate leg protection. Some of these “boots” reached truly enormous sizes, which is why they received the name “bear paw”
Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, the developers did not add similar armor to the first part of Dark Souls, but another element of foot decoration is still present on one of the sets.
And we mean the set of casinoandfriends.net the Blade of the Lord, which is worn by Sioran, mourning next to the grave of Artorias in Olacile. More precisely, the conversation will focus on the toes of boots, the elongated shape of which has real historical prototypes. Such shoes not only helped the foot not slip out of the stirrup, but was also a sign of status. Moreover, the length of the sock of the sabaton varied depending on the nobility and for some duke it could reach more than half a meter.
By the way, the Sabatons had, so to speak, a “civilian” prototype, leather shoes with the same long toes. According to one version, the expression “live on a grand scale” came from the manner of medieval dandies to wear fancy shoes.
Someone might wonder how knights could walk with such things on their legs?“But, firstly, beauty requires sacrifice, and secondly, noble people still preferred to ride on horseback.
Also, in order to show off, distinguished gentlemen could use other decorations. For example, sabatons were shaped directly by the legs. In the game, this can be seen on the Dark Spirits set issued by Kaas, provided that the player is a member of his covenant. In reality, similar sabatons were worn by Henry VIII himself.
And since we’re talking about one of the most famous fashionistas of his time, the polygamist king, we can’t help but talk about one of his most famous armors.
But first, it’s worth making a small remark. We have already understood that armor can be combat or tournament, but we have never talked about one type of armor, namely ceremonial armor. This type of protective equipment could only be afforded by a few – kings and emperors. In fact, the ceremonial armor was so decorated and filled with non-functional details that they were often never worn at all, but simply kept in the royal treasury as some kind of curiosity. To simplify greatly, combat armor is military equipment necessary for survival, tournament armor is both expensive sports equipment and a suit for going out, and ceremonial armor is, well, something like a golden toilet, a luxurious and fashionable thing, but it has no practical use.
But let’s return to Henry VIII. Without a shadow of a doubt, we can say that one of the most wonderful armor sets was copied from his ceremonial armor. And we’re talking about the protection kit that Domhnall from Xena, an optimistic dealer of expensive items, wears.
Unfortunately, the original set of armor of Henry VIII has not reached us in its entirety; only the helmet has survived, which the developers transferred to the game, with some changes.
The rest of the armor is the fantasy of the game creators. I must say that the surviving images of the original look much more luxurious than what is presented in the game.
Many people joke about the horns on the helmet, in the sense that at least one of Henry VIII’s wives was not faithful to him, and thus Emperor Maximilian I, who presented this armor, wanted to trick the English monarch. Although, perhaps, the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire had an even worse joke in mind. For all its absurdity, this armor is a masterpiece of German craftsmen, famous throughout Europe, while England, at that moment, could not boast of producing much simpler armor.
In addition, on the chest there is a typical female Chuvash decoration – a monista made of coins, most likely, according to the developers, this decoration should hint at Domhnall’s profession.
I guess that’s all for today. This thematic issue turned out to be shorter than the others, but in general there is nothing to say within the framework of today’s topic. And remember: “He who has a lot of good things is not happy…”