Название: European Armour: Circa 1066 To Circa 1700
Автор(ы): Claude Blair
Издательство: B. T. Batsford Ltd
Год: 1958
Страниц: 241
Язык: English
Формат: PDF
Размер: 113 MB

THE writing of a short general history of any large subject is bound to be something of an exercise in the art of cramming quarts into pint pots, and the present work is no exception. I have tried at least to touch on all aspects of the history of medieval and later armour but, because of Umited space, I have dealt with some of these less fully than others. As the book is designed primarily to satisfy the long-felt need for an up-todate English text-book on armour it seemed to me that the main emphasis should be placed on providing basic information; I have therefore devoted over three-quarters of it to an account of the evolution of field armour, chiefly from the point of view of form and construction. A particular difficulty that faces all writers on the evolution of armour arises from the fact that, although all the parts of a harness belong together, they developed independently. I have accordingly treated them independently in the hope that the reader will be able to obtain an adequate impression of the development of the complete armour from a study of the half-tone plates. Ideally, however, I should have preferred to have an introductory chapter on this subject...