"English Knights at Bannockburn" Topic

I am sending off some figures to a painting service overseas for the first time and I was going to have some English Knights painted. I have no trouble finding the heraldry resources, but was hoping to find color plates or pictures of models of the entire figure showing knight and caparison on the horse at the same time. Since I won't have any communication with the painter I need more than just a picture of the heraldric device on the shield. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks – Allen

The closest I can think of – obviously not in colour – would be seals, showing how, for instance, lions are placed on the forepart of the caparison.

Could you draw a basic outline? I'd hope that once he'd seen how a few of them work he could work out the remainder.

Whatever you use, make sure he realises that the heraldry is reversed on the horse's right side, so lions etc face forward. I've seen plenty of toys and some wargames figures painted as if it is the same on both sides. Same for flags.

The caerlaverock roll?

You are a brave man. I personally would send off the fodder for painting and do the Knights yourself.

Jaz
6sided.net

Swampster, I have seen the same thing a lot (heraldry not reversed). Jax, I think that may be my only solution. Wyeayeman, the Caerlaverock roll is a great resource for heraldry, but only shows the device on a shield. Thanks everyone.

Allen

Good points about reversing heraldry on barding as required, thoush I think a lot of people probably just had paling barding – perhaps in the field colour of their device. Obvioulsy you can't go far wrong with the Caerlaverock roll and it has the added advantqage of featuring a fair number of Scots as well. I don't think you'll get much useful imnformation from seals; theyre not usually heraldic…from memory I think less than a fifth of the several hundred seals from the Ragman Roll show anything (animals etc. ) that could be copnsidered as heraldic items and offhand I can't think of any at all that depict a full shield..mind you, it's been quite a while since I was looking.
Just as a matter of interest what figures do you plan on? As I've written elsewhere on this site there is a tendencey to use figures that are a generation (or even two) behind the times of the men they depict. Bacinets, barding and a fair amout of plate – excalty the sort of thing you'd expect of an early HYW army – and you'll be right on the money. Obviously your Scots should be just the same.

I am doing a mix of open faced bascinets, sugarloaf, great helm, and maybe a kettle helm or two thrown in for variety. I have also looked at a couple of early visored bascinets as well. The body armor is mail with bits of plate on arms and legs, but not an overwhelming amount of plate on any one figure. I think that this was a really interesting time of transition for armor (I suppose the same culd be said for any time period since improvements were constantly being made, but this period is of greater interest to me at least).

Allen

" I don't think you'll get much useful imnformation from seals; theyre not usually heraldic…"

The equestrian seals are often handy as they can show how arms were depicted on caparisons.
No doubt they were often idealised but it is interesting seeing the differences in different areas – English and French seals tend to show each quarter of the caparison covered by the whole arms whereas German are more likely to have a number of small shields, as also shown in e.g. the Manesse Codex. This isn't likely to be an expense thing – as high ranking Germans, Bohemians etc can have the small versions and relatively low ranking English can have large versions.