A Response to: "Can you wear medieval armour to a longsword tournament?"

 Greetings,

The following article is a response to an article posted by Keith Farrell, Can you wear medieval armour to a longsword tournament? The reason being that I have found quite a few assumptions regarding the wearing of armour, and the SCA...

I have previously written about the difference between armour and PPE. So, I am not going to go over that old ground. I will summarise, the gear that people wear during HEMA is PPE it is not armour.  There is a distinct difference between the two sets of gear, and that is the point that Keith Farrell is making in his article, unfortunately he has also made some assumptions, and inadvertently pointed out some issues. My statements for this article...

1. It isn't about what a person wears, it is about how the person acts.

2. Take a better look at the SCA, at least it has standards; standards which do not exist in HEMA,  standards which HEMA groups are only just realising they need.

Beginning "Reasons"

"However, the vast majority of events would not. It could be for safety reasons (such as making sure there are no gaps through which a thrust could slip), for aesthetic reasons (at this tournament, we want everyone to look like modern sportspeople), for liability reasons (our insurers require that we mandate that every piece of equipment is CEN rated), or for whatever reason the organisers deem relevant."

The majority of HEMA events will not let a person wear armour to them, he states and then he gives reasons...

Safety, making sure there are no gaps; if the armour is fitted to the individual, and they are wearing the appropriate material underneath, there are no gaps. Considering there are no universal safety standards for HEMA, no established conventions, only rules established for each tournament, I disagree. Unlike the SCA which has such universal standards and conventions.

For aesthetic reasons "we want everyone to look like modern sportspeople"; where I say has the "Historical" gone from HEMA, let alone the "Martial Arts"? How HEMA has lots its way is another long subject which has certainly been highlighted by this statement, which I discussed in a previous article. This is a discussion which is controversial and ironically contrary. If people wanted to look so "modern" why is there such a popular line in medieval and Renaissance period looking equipment?

For liability reasons, equipment must be CEN rated; certainly a piece of steel has more resistance than any piece of cloth. Further, I refer forward and back to the SCA's standards, and it has insurance for each of its groups and its activities, which have a history going back to the 1960s. Again, this will be discussed in more detail below as it is a subject which requires further discussion.

The final one is the classic, "or for whatever reason the organisers deem relevant" autocratic rule at its best, a way for a person in charge simply to ignore the stated or printed rules and exclude by saying, "I don't like it." for whatever prejudices they might have. So much for being Inclusive (one of the reasons I went back to the SCA,), again discussed below.

Gear Inspection

"Without knowing the provenance of any given piece of equipment, it is probably easier just to mandate that people wear HEMA gear from recognised HEMA manufacturers, so that there is the best chance that everyone’s equipment is going to be fit for purpose with no nasty surprises."

What you need is experienced Safety Marshals, and to look at the equipment. If we want to play the like with like, let's look at Red Dragon gloves, or their old "gorgets", both by recognised HEMA manufacturers, both neither allowed in tournaments anymore. "Recognised HEMA manufacturers" do not guarantee against a) old gear, or b) gear in disrepair. A person still needs to inspect the gear to ensure there are "no nasty surprises." HEMA needs to train people to be Safety Marshals (Hey, like the SCA does, an idea which I tried to transfer locally, it lasted survived briefly until people realised a) they couldn't fight as much, b) it required them to do some extra work, and c) HEMA might have to look at standardising their rules. I keep saying that for some reason).

Armour and Assumption

"For example, the people who tend to wear steel helmets for sword sports tend to be reenactors, SCA people, and HMB people. The SCA and HMB people are certainly in the habit of hitting hard when they fight – the whole purpose of wearing the steel armour is so that they can do so."

Big assumptions made here, an assumption that SCA is like HMB, clearly Keith has not had a good look at the SCA. We don't all fight armoured combat. Yes, armoured combat, big difference. There is also period fencing, combat archery, and equestrian to play with. If you hit too hard in fencing, you get censured, and potentially removed from play, the same applies in armoured combat too. So you need to be specific. Apples and oranges, both fruit, but different. In period fencing, in cut-and-thrust we use longswords in much the same manner as HEMA (with many fewer injuries), so maybe armour works after all.

Wearing armour is not a sign of hard hitting, it is a sign of wishing to protect yourself. Nothing more to make assumptions about wearing armour and the calibration of the individual based on their kit, is the same as making an assumption about the skill of the opponent based on the value of their sword, or its condition. Such things are prejudices against the individual who is wearing or using the item, simply based on what they are wearing or using.

The SCA is a nice, easy, big target, that many people in HEMA will agree with. However the SCA at least has internationally-recognised and nationally-recognised safety standards. They don't change from group to group, or from tournament to tournament. I know that I can use the same kit anywhere around Australia, and with little modification, anywhere around the world. Further we have authorised safety officers, the system has checks and balances, that HEMA does not have. Issues that I have seen. Issues that I have witnessed  as a safety officer at more than one HEMA tournament. No, it may be a bigger target but it is also a safer target for those who play within its rules.

Pre-Judgement

How would it feel if a person decided that:

"You shouldn't fence with those people because they do German longsword and that's all about wrestling and multiple strikes to the head?" OR "You shouldn't fence with that person because they are wearing pants from Leon Paul, so they will just whip their sabre about and flick your forearms?" OR "You shouldn't fence with that person because they are using a feder, because they are so light it will whip around and hit you too fast?" OR "You shouldn't fence against that one because his weapon is too heavy and so it will hit too hard?"

All of these arguments are false. All of these arguments are prejudices. They all pre-judge an individual based on what they study, what they are wearing or what piece of equipment they are using, and not by how they actually fence, not by how the individual acts. The same as judging person by the fact they are wearing armour.

If a person wearing armour was to scare people off, then why would the SCA be the largest organisation which participates in three different form of combats in the world? Hard hitting does not come from a person wearing a particular type of gear or using a particular type of weapon, it comes from the way the individual is trained, the individual's mind-set, and the individual's actions. Anything else is blatant prejudice, which a person needs to examine within themselves.

Signs and Symbols

I will state quite clearly that I have no idea about any other recreational group in the world, however I will state that the SCA has policies regarding anti-discrimination and Inclusivity which are stated in their organisational documents. The swastika is banned from display in the SCA, it has quite strict rules about Heraldry, which would be the symbols that are being spoken about here. So, there would be none of the stated issues from members of the SCA, at least.

"It is all a bit of a sliding scale. Does all of that apply if someone turns up with steel gauntlets because they want to keep their hands safe? What about steel knee or elbow cops, or a gorget with steel plates? There is clearly a reasonable end of the scale, and with some items the most reasonable explanation is that people want to wear them because they believe these items to be more protective than the more modern alternative."

Properly made and fitted gauntlet of steel protect properly and work better, why else would they have persisted with them for hundreds of years? Examine most of the gorgets available today and you will find that they are made of steel, as they were hundreds of years ago when they were used for real, little surprise. There are new ones made of hardened plastic, but their designs are the same as the steel ones. Previously there were no elbow or knee protectors for HEMA so people used skateboard pads. Later ones covered the front of the knees and a little of the side. Compare the modern ones and you will find they are copies of armour. So why wouldn't a person wear the steel ones instead? It would seem that the only unreasonable part is that people have assumptions or have double standards about aesthetics. I know the history, I watched it change.

Conclusion

"And of course, it is always worth revisiting some of our base assumptions every so often, to consider if the way that we are doing things or if the decisions we have made are still sensible and working well for us. It is always good to let people ask “why” or “why not”, and it is also important that if we feel strongly about the issue, we have a good explanation to offer in our answer!"

Yes, assumptions, there have been quite a few made in this article. I would have expected a little more research done about the SCA before making such grand statements about it. I would have expected there to be more interest taken in investigating the subject of what the SCA actually does rather than assuming that the SCA's armoured combat is all that they do. This is a big assumption. 

Go have a look at some actual armour. Go have a look at what is actually being offered. Go have a look at what people are actually wearing for armour in the SCA and outside. Make your statements based on some actual research done by some investigation of the topic at hand.

The aesthetic question is a double-standard. Make a choice. Either wear modern sporting gear or wear period gear. Admit that you are doing a modern sport version or perform it as a martial art. Pick which one you are doing. Plunder-hose for all those German enthusiasts belong to the sixteenth-century, many of the wonderful jacket designs which are coming out, likewise belong to the same period. The aesthetic question is an excuse, it is a lie. It might as well come under the autocratic organiser's "I don't like it."

I wear steel armour because I know it is not affected by heat. I know that it is not going to crack or degrade unless I allow it to rust. I know the state of the material. I know where my armour comes from, I know what it is based upon, the reason it was used. I know its history. More to the point it was made for me, so it fits me. This is my "why." More to the point I am doing an Historical martial art, so it is appropriate that I wear historical equipment or a reasonable approximation thereof, at least within my means.

If you're wondering about whether our art was practiced in full armour historically, examine Maximilian I tournament book, Freydal of 1515. These two combat with different weapons in armour, for sport, in much the same way we do, the armour is for protection, nothing more. Well not quite "nothing" there was a certain element of fashion involved, but that's another question.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Freydal#/media/File:Freydal_Repro1882_Tafel_031.jpg 

Cheers,

Henry