German medieval armour

[Erpingham]

Following my arms and armour interests, and particularly my houndskull fixation  , I came across this book by Christopher Retsch.  Retsch, along with Ralph Moffat, is one of those busting the myth of the houndskull as a helmet. He makes his case here that it is a mail hood (what English writers tend to call a coif) (see Chapter IV.1.5)
More importantly, the book is actually about what medieval German armour terminology meant across the range and covers armour across the classes, including city militias and peasants.  Very interesting for those with Medieval German armies, perhaps. It is in German, which I realise few of us are comfortable in, but it is full of source material.   Nice pictures too. 402 pages so lots of it.

[Duncan Head]

Ooh - I thought for some reason that your link was to buy the book, or something like that, and then found that it downloads all 402 pages. Nice! Very interesting, though I am one of the many who struggle with German.

[Erpingham]

I am one of the many who struggle with German.

But, by my recollection, you are better at it than me. And yes, after our mutterings elsewhere about academic book prices, a well-produced academic freebie 

[Nick Harbud]

...and for those who are even less competant when struggling with the Hundeschädel, there is always Google Translate.

[Martin Smith]

...and for those who are....struggling with the Hundeschädel, there is always Google Translate.

...or possibly penicillin....

[Duncan Head]

...and for those who are even less competant when struggling with the Hundeschädel, there is always Google Translate.

While Google will cope with the main text, it falters when faced with the quotations from mediaeval documents included in the book!

[Erpingham]

...and for those who are even less competant when struggling with the Hundeschädel, there is always Google Translate.

While Google will cope with the main text, it falters when faced with the quotations from mediaeval documents included in the book!

You beat me to it Duncan.  Middle High German is not available on google translate  However, I find the human edge is that we are less literal.  Practice coping with Middle and early Modern English, where you penetrate the fog of random spelling variations but are working towards a language which is at least slightly familiar, helps make the leap.

[Nick Harbud]

Middle High German is not available on google translate  However, I find the human edge is that we are less literal.  Practice coping with Middle and early Modern English, where you penetrate the fog of random spelling variations but are working towards a language which is at least slightly familiar, helps make the leap.

Well, I am sure that at least some of the output from Google's attempts can prompt the occasional guffaw from those whose erudition vastly exceeds a piece of stupid software. 

On this subject, I was once shown this translation tool where one input a sentence and it translated it consecutively through several different languages before ending up with the one it started from.  The results from modern English were hilarious enough.  One can only imagine what it might make of Middle High German.

[Erpingham]

I've used translation more on French than German.  I found it gives a good general sense but unfamiliar words are just left.  Sometimes these are easy to identify (e.g. the general shift in modern French that removed the "s" from many words e.g. estre to être) but others take more detective work.

[Denis Grey]

I took the Middle High German option as part of my degree course.  However, that was roughly half a century ago.  I wouldn't want to attempt to tackle it again now.