"Ottonian Infantry" Topic

4 Posts

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Druzhina	29 May 2014 8:22 p.m. PST
There are a number of manuscripts known as Codex Aureus (Golden book). Ian Heath seems to have based his Ottonian Infantry on the Codex Aureus of Echternach or Codex aureus Epternacensis. This is dated to 1030-1050. Ian Heath's date of 983-991 fits the date of the re-used cover of the codex. Are there any better candidates to be his source? The soldiers in Herod the Great Receives the Magi are armoured, but those in The Massacre of the Innocents, a scene that often has armoured soldiers, are not. Armed men in other scenes such as The Parable of the Vigneron Homicides have only spears & shields and wear boots & don't have swords or the decorated collar of the soldiers of the Massacre. MIRROR SITES Ottonian Infantry by Ian Heath The Codex Aureus of Echternach or Codex aureus Epternacensis Druzhina 11th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers
goragrad	29 May 2014 8:57 p.m. PST
Interesting. Hadn't know the Heath work was online. Have it in softcover, but when away from home… By the way, first mirror site is a dead link.
GurKhan	30 May 2014 2:50 a.m. PST
If that is Ian Heath's source – and it does look as if it may be – then he's gained a beard, but lost his coif or aventail and the shield-pattern. Heath might have got it via something like the drawing in Oakeshott's Archaeology of Weapons – librarum.org/book/34573/196 – which gives the 983-991 date and also loses the shield-decoration; but then Oakeshott doesn't seem to have the unarmoured figure.
Druzhina	30 May 2014 10:08 p.m. PST
By the way, first mirror site is a dead link Yes, its bandwidth is used up till the end of May. Heath might have got it via something like the drawing in Oakeshott's Archaeology of Weapons – librarum.org/book/34573/196 – which gives the 983-991 date and also loses the shield-decoration; but then Oakeshott doesn't seem to have the unarmoured figure. Yes, Heath probably uses secondary sources for most or all his figures. He sometimes uses features from more than one figure in the sources to produce his reconstruction, which may explain the beard. Oakeshotte is listed in the bibiography. Druzhina Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

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