I bet it would. It might give it a more dynamic shimmering effect, almost bringing it to life! :)

It made me think of the Lascaux cave art in france. The drawings on the cave walls actually appear to start moving when examined with flickering flames as the source of light.

15th century holographic charizard data.whicdn.com/images/212915680/large.jpg

Was there such thing as high quality black armor, or is the surviving black stuff just cheaper pieces that nobody ever bothered to polish, or iron instead of steel, or whatever other low-quality armor?

Black armor obviously existed and some of really famous figures used blacked armor .

So, would the Black Army of Hungary actually have worn black armor? I know the flag was originally silver and went through this process, but it didn't occur to me the illustrations could have as well.

So your personal mesage Tobias Capwel? :) s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/21/1f/92/211f92855a33672be9f53dae2bcd1ece.jpg

Black armor seems to fall on both extremes, it was either really nice or munitions grade (i'm sure there are exceptions in between though), but the actual levels of finishing are very different from one end to the other, although both are black. Black, blued, gilded etc... armor will get its own video soon enough :)

That's a good point about the scanner. The more filters there are between us and the original artwork, i.e. a camera lens or a scanner plate the more visual changes are potentially introduced.

Knyght Errant absolutely: a pitfall to all of us Internet history enthusiasts! The ease of access to these wonderful artifacts comes at the price of missing details only well captured when examining the artifacts first hand. Thank you so much for this important warning!

I hope to cover all the common ways historical armor was decorated or finished, blued being one of those :)

This is exactly the reason some people believe we also see things like blue and red mail depicted in some scenes with a lot of figures.

The silver plague certainly doesn't sound so bad.

Did they get blue balls

well the black prince's helm is surviving and it was painted black, so the 2 tone prince? Would look great.

Don't be jealous. Grow your own.

Yes, but the Navy changed their pattern every two years, and the sailors had to keep buying new armor. It got expensive.

Sunny Afternoon or maybe he's the "bad at upkeeping armor" knight

Very good point, when it comes to clothing people really need to go a step further and look at what's achievable with medieval dyestuffs, not just look at the present hue on a piece of surviving clothing or there is a good chance they will be lead astray.

yeah, hmm this faded partly rotten piece of clothing smells. poor medieval folk having to wear this garb ^^

A lot of mail can wind up pretty dark after being annealed over and over and may take on a patina over time, but it always ends gray again if you tumble it. Later paintings are more likely intentionally depicting black armors, especially in the 16th century since we have surviving pieces of black armor.

What process was used to blacken the armor purposely and was their a specific reason why a knight would want to wear black armor?

+Raaqwar Thank you! Yes, I plan to make a video covering different types of armor decoration, including black, blued, gilded etc..

Thank you Sir Peter! :)

You are most welcome, Sir Ian!

Thanks! This phenomenon is not limited to manuscript illuminations either, it also occurs on silver gilt statues and other types of artwork finished in silver. These statues of St. George (l) and St. Florian (r) used to be silver :) s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b0/f8/35/b0f8357e7b94db6025c0a427662ee67d.jpg

my biggest cringe is when they slice at mail with a sword across the belly and the guy just drops like a sack of potatoes. or like the scenes in brave heart where peoples legs go flying off into the distance with a quick tap of the sword. its almost as comical as Monty Python and the holly grail black night scene.

Haha! I think I'd be afraid to even touch one! Thank you for the kind words, I appreciate it!

Yes, a lot of the 15th century illustrations appear to be intentionally depicting dark armor. The highlights are a good indicator of that, like you say. Then the debate becomes whether it's painted black, heated, blued etc...

I think it is a child

Aren't the words for silver and white the same in heraldic jargon?

Argent is the word for silver, but heralds can draw it using white as a representation of silver.

Unless you're the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Ha, yes. That is a famous violation of the rules. For those unfamiliar, the arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem are a gold cross with 4 gold crosslets on a silver field, which is a metal on metal violation of the rule of tincture.

Also, the cross of Jerusalem looks like a waffle.

It's the 1969 hardcover edition of "The Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duke de Berry" ISBN 10: 1555213987 ISBN 13: 9781555213985 I cannot confirm but have heard that subsequent re-prints and softcover versions are not nearly as good, but the 1969 edition is still pretty available and very affordable.

I'm not sure what kind of quantitative testing is done professionally, but from my understanding the effect is a little more obvious when seen in person (although once aware of the phenomenon many are obvious even when not seen in person by the loss of detail and 'bleed' of the tarnish etc, but some aren't). The information is out there, documented, and published but people rarely dig deeper than simply looking at the image on the internet and moving on with a certain impression in their head. The Mac Bible folios for example are published in Sydney Cockerell's _Old Testament Miniatures_ with attributions of individual illuminator's hands having painted certain folios including the ones that use silver. The Manesse Codex portraiture is all of known individuals with known heraldic devices, so we know for example that the image of Graf Albrecht von Heigerloch, whose arms are _Per Fess Argent and Gules_ now erroneously appear 'Sable and Gules' and the other figure, Johannes Hadlaub's arms are _Or, a fox rampant argent gorged gules_, so in that case the gold has muddled and the silver now appears black. The same problem also occurs on statues that have been 'silver gilt' like Michael Pacher's 1481 statues of Saint George and Saint Florian in Austria that now appear black (s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b0/f8/35/b0f8357e7b94db6025c0a427662ee67d.jpg).

Yes, commissioned by, not illuminated by.

Didnt mean to to b overly precise about a detail. great video as always!

It's no problem. I'm usually just speaking off the cuff so sometimes the way I phrase something might confuse people, which of course isn't my intent.

Yes, if it were proper, you can get leeway to break the rules, but it would still be rather unusual to violate the rules in a way that offer no contrast at all since it might be self-defeating with black on black. But in these cases specifically all the figures in the Manesse Codex are known.

In Johannes Hadlaub's case (the dog), I believe his is one of the few where it's discolored gold and not silver on the actual field, but the charge itself (it's really a fox) was silver and is now black. His arms are _Or, a fox rampant argent gorged gules._ so the silver has gone completely black and the gold, a very muddled color

Gold and silver? Would that not break the tincture rule as well with metal on metal?

Yes it does.

The Manesse Codex (that particular MS) is an anthology of works that include a portrait of each of the contributors. That particular image is of Graf Albrecht von Heigerloch, whose arms are _Per Fess Argent and Gules_ (Argent and Gules are the heraldic words for Silver and Red). So showing the crest on him may just be a way to make sure the reader can identify that that particular figure is in fact Albrecht von Heigerloch.

Not necessarily so literal, but more a way for the artist to place emphasis on certain characters in the story they are illustrating.

It's the 1969 hardcover edition of "The Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duke de Berry" ISBN 10: 1555213987 ISBN 13: 9781555213985 I cannot confirm but have heard that subsequent re-prints and softcover versions are not nearly as good, but the 1969 edition is still pretty available and very affordable.

Thank you very much!

There are examples of embellishing mail with rings made of latten (various copper alloys like brass) but painting mail wouldn't work as the mail would abrade the surface treatment off just be walking around. There is suggestion for painted elements of armor like helmets during the 13th century (also covering them in fabric or colored leather).

@@KnyghtErrant Makes sense also (in regards to the Mail). I've been watching plenty of your videos and they've been very informative, so I'd like too say thank you for that and thank you for the response.

It's my pleasure. I'm glad you're enjoying the videos!

Yes, there is plenty of black armor from the XVI c and a lot of what appear to be intentional depictions of dark colored armor through the XVth as well, then the debate becomes what are they trying to show? Black paint? Heat blued? Oil blackened?

If you never polished it, it would tarnish.

Are there any historical representations of "Black Knights" or historical Black Armor? (other than the silver on the paper of course)

Yes, there is even surviving black armor, especially from the 16th century.

No, there is no evidence for him having worn black armor. The moniker 'Black Prince' wasn't used until well after his death - when it started isn't clear -, so it's all conjecture as to why they started calling him that in the first place. One of the going theories is in reference to the arms he used on his shield of piece, which is 3 silver ostritch feathers on a black field.

thanks for clearing that up, i was a little confused haha

thanks, fixed

Hammering

Knyght Errant Yeah, but imagine the skill to hammer one of the weakest metals into a sheet of foil, sounds like alot of skill. I'd imagine they'd hammer it to a certain thickness, then use rollers to thin it out like that, and a variety of different tools, and of course alot of annealing to prevent cracking

Ryan Coakley it being soft is an advantage in this situation because gold is malleable enough to make into sheets an atom thick without breaking. Hammering probably wouldn't but much harder and differences in thickness could be removed but sanding it down I think

Edgy Bastage sanding would waste way too much of the precious metal and the dust would be hard to collect for other use. As a hobby blacksmith engaged to an artist scooled in silver smithing, I'd guess, as gold is very malleable, they would probably use dense heartwood or polished stone rollers for getting an even thickness of the final foil, or work with such small ingots to start with that the sheet of foil it could be made into never got bigger than the striking surface of their mallet in the first place.

Edgy Bastage actually, me being a smith myself, when thinning out precious metals to a foil thickness, the more malleable the metal, the harder to work with it becomes, because when you get it to a certain thickness, it can be utterly ruined with one small tap with a hammer, and when that metal is gold, the work piece really can't be hammered on anymore, whereas less malleable metals can still be hammered on, because it retains a more rigid structure than the gold

dssaas I heard rumors that the Romans used a process like that the tiny links constantly rubbing against each other will undo the process much more quickly than plate

dssaas as he said there was still historic black armor but it wasn't very common

The Japanese used to apply black lacquer to their mail armor, but there's no evidence for anything like that in Europe. Mail, after being annealed tends to look pretty dark and over time it can take on a patina that appears black, but if you tumble it (which was one of the documented methods of cleaning it) it will end up gray again. It's possible that there was historically 'blackened' mail in Europe but there is very little supporting evidence for it. Black plate armor was a thing though, and could have been painted, heat blued, oil blackened etc...

Yes of course, it was commissioned by him. I didn't mean to imply that he literally wrote and illustrated it. Listening back I did not make that clear at all!

Pure silver doesn't tarnish. It's however almost always mixed with copper to make it more durable, and the copper in the alloy does oxidize. Modern cutlery and such have an anodized layer of silver on the surface and will resist tarnishing until the very thin layer wears off (and it mostly wears off due to over-enthusiastic polishing). But the objects themselves are usually 830/1000 silver witch means there's 17% copper. All this just as a trivial fact, I have no idea what kind of silver was used in illuminations :)

If you don't do anything to take care of it for 600 years, most things are crap... :)