Wednesday, January 23, 2019

A Quibble

It would be nice to see more accurate depictions of the historical Crusades and the people who fought them. We get depictions like the enclosed image from "Throne: Kingdom at War" regularly. In fact, this image is more accurate than most. What we are shown here looks like a late 11th early 12th century crusader knight. The helmet looks right, with the unfortunately flat top. The mail is called chainmail, which is redundant, and it doesn't seem to cover the hands as it should. Not that uniforms of the time were necessarily uniform in design, the cross on the surcoat would normally be over on the left. The sword would actually be steal, not just iron, and it would be on the other side. Spurs? Well, the jury is still out on those - for Crusaders of this period. What is missing is the spear, which would be the main weapon. I wonder if we can assume that this is a knight or even a Templar who would ride a horse into a fight? I do appreciate that we do not see plate armor anywhere, as is often depicted in our modern depictions of the 1st Crusade.