Quite interesting things about 15th century armour

[Erpingham]

As mentioned in "Currently Reading", I'm delving into Ralph Moffat's Medieval Arms and Armour vol II 1400-1450.   I admit lists of medieval arms and armour may seem to some (well-adjusted) people as rather dry but I'm finding it quite interesting.

As well as the author's challenge to the received wisdom on what a hounskull is (he goes for mail head defence, as opposed to bascinet with pointed visor), there are lots of other helmet conundrums.  Helmet, for example, does not originally seem to be a generic word but a specific term meaning what we now call an armet.  Then there is the enigmatic "wire helmet" - presumably a helmet with a wire frame. And exactly what is a bicoquet?  The Victorian interpretation is a type of close helmet but how does it relate to the bycocket hat (the classic Robin Hood one) which is totally different?

One interesting inventory is a very detailed list of all the arrows and bolts owned by Sir John Dynham in 1422.  This gives us a rare medieval description of arrow head types (spearhead, duckbill, broad, hooked (barbed), pere and byker).  Moffat believes byker head is the correct medieval term for bodkin. I think he's not quite right.  The obvious reading is byker in the sense of "battle or skirmish" i.e. these are war arrows as opposed to the selection of hunting and sporting arrows. However, as he points out, bodkin is not used of arrows in the Middle Ages - it seems to originally have meant as small, narrow knife like a stilleto.

I recall when I mentioned the first volume Moffat's source book, someone (I think Nick Harbud) complaining about "jack chains".  Well, chain arm protection for the jack does occur in this volume, in a list of armour required by common archers in Brittany in 1425.