Making A 15th Century Brigandine Part 2

In 2022, I made my first brigandine based on the "archer's brigandine" in the Musee de l'Armee in Paris. Since then, I made two more: one wool and, more recently, one that is covered in silk velvet. Since I learned so much over the course of making all three, I decided to write a "part 2" to my original article. This time, I'm going to skim over much of the process--you can see the details of how I did everything in the original article--and instead, this post will cover what I've learned and how I've begun to make a better brig.

Lesson One: Pattern

With my first brig, I did a lot of math to calculate the size of every single one of the 260 plates. Subsequently, each plate was slightly different than another. For my second and third brigs, I opted for more standardized plates. Basing the appearance on a couple brigs from Froissart (see above), each plate could be a rectangle. With a little math, I made each rectangle the same height, so all that would change is the length of the rectangle and any shaping of the ends due to a curved front, side, or armscye. This applied to like 90% of the plates. A handful had to be slightly shorter like the top rows (sides and back) and the neckplates were just their own unique shape.

To achieve the tailored-appearance I was looking for (tightly-fitted with a wasp-waist), I needed to make a pattern. Unlike paper patterns which I normally make and use for clothing, I needed to simulate the stiffness and bulk of the steel plates. To do this, I traced out my doublet pattern onto some Amazon cardboard boxes, sizing it up slightly (really just guessed and added an inch all around, I think). Additionally I had to:

1. Combine the two back pieces into one, filling in the V at the neck that is normally cut out on the back pieces.
2. Cut the side off the front patterns and simplify them into a rectangle (separating the sides into their own panel was almost a lesson-learned by itself).
3. Add the peplum/skirt to each body piece (normally the peplum are separate pieces).
4. Widen the armscye.

In total then, there were five pattern pieces: two fronts, two sides, and one back (only one front and one side is shown in the picture, above). With a little duct tape, I taped them together, bent in the waist a bit, and gently rounded the fronts and back. Pushing the front edges together while wearing this cardboard pattern, I found that the only alterations I had to make were along the front, so I marked out how much I had to remove and cut it out.

Satisfied with the fit, I removed the tape and transferred the cardboard patterns to paper, for ease of working with them (as shown in the picture above). It's from these that I patterned the plates. I wanted the plates to be 1.5" tall, so it was just a matter of distributing them across the pattern pieces, also accounting for the fact that they should overlap each other by 1/4". So to sketch them out on the cardboard patterns, I drew parallel lines across the patterns 1.25" away from each other. I did also leave an inch-wide gap along the waist, where I would rivet the final waist plates.

 Unlike with my leather brig, which has a ton of small plates, I made my wool and silk brigs with fewer long plates (to match what I was seeing in the Froissart images). So each row on the brig front was a single plate. The sides were two plates wide, and the back was three plates wide (see pattern pieces above). I traced out each plate from the cardboard patterns onto lightweight blank newspaper and gave an ID to each plate (the fronts were all "A," the sides were "B" and "C," the back was "D" (DL and DR) and "E," the neckline was "F," and the waistline plates were "W," just to be a little different. Starting from the shoulders, each plate was then numbered (i.e. "A1," "A2," etc). What made the earlier standardization (of the plates being generally 1.5" tall) so useful was when I had to trace them out onto the steel sheets. I was able to just draw parallel lines onto the steel at 1.5" intervals, and then use the paper patterns to stencil out the exact lengths and edge-shapes (instead of meticulously stenciling every plate).

Lesson Two: The Waist

Perhaps more a sub-lesson of One, I wanted the waist to be tighter and more of a "wasp waist" than my first brig. When I patterned the whole thing out in cardboard, I slanted the side seams (front-sides and back-sides) in towards the waist, and then out again for the peplum. The patterns for the sides remained as rectangles. In hindsight, having made two brigs from the same pattern, I think I could have inclined the sides a little bit more, and certainly increased the flare out on the sides at the bottom.

Lesson Three: Covering Material

My third lesson learned was about the material used to cover the brig. After making the second--wool--brig, I learned that medieval brigandines might not have been as commonly covered in wool as is supposed, today. In the Howard accounts, an occasional brigandine is covered in "cloth" or sometimes even more specifically "crimson cloth." This is probably a reference to wool, and the crimson cloth might even be scarlet, which confusingly is a type of very fine wool broadcloth (not necessarily a color). It seems anyway that wool brigs are overrepresented and are generally a reenactorism--made because the relative cost of the fabric and the ease by which it can be worked and repaired. Ironically, you're more likely to experience a rivet pulling through wool fabric than you would with leather or (more tightly-woven) silk--it's really not as good a covering fabric as the other two. Regardless, historical brigs seem to be made largely from leather (in the Howard accounts, there are references to "white leather" which is probably just undyed leather, black-dyed leather, as well as one specific mention of "deer leather") or silk (silk velvet is mentioned a lot, in particular, but also damask). I've read about fustian and linen covered brigs, but haven't seen those references myself. So for my third brig, I kept the same light-blue color, but just made from silk velvet.

Lesson Four: Rivets

On my leather brig, I used flat-headed brass rivets, which worked fine for the project, but the more research I did, the more I found round-headed rivets on originals. For my wool brig, I used some 3/8" brass rivets with round heads, only to find that the heads occasionally pulled through the covering fabric (perhaps just a wool problem, but I wasn't taking my chances for the silk brig). Before making my silk brig, I did some intensive digging online and found some with 3/8" heads and only 1/8" thick shanks (Landco317 on Ebay was selling them). I found these rivets to be both the perfect size and they didn't pull through the fabric at all. 

The one drawback to these rivets is that they don't come with a shorter shank. At 1" long, they're more than 3/4" too long. So, annoyingly, I had to cut them down to size (I found 4mm to be the perfect length). My usual nippers just wouldn't cut it, so initially, I used my bandsaw with a metal-cutting blade, but considering how short the shanks needed to be, it was tricky to hold onto the rivets. I ultimately landed on a small, one-handed bolt cutter. So, just a disclaimer if you follow this process: you'll have to cut the shanks considerably before you use them. One benefit I found from this is that I now have a ton of brass I can melt down into rings and such.

Lesson Five: Riveting

While the process remained much the same as when I made my first brig I did learn from that first experience to rivet each panel separately first, and then sew them together. In brief, this is a quick recap of my whole process:

1. Sew the covering fabric to the canvas interfacing, right sides together.
2. Pull them right-side out and topstitch them.
3. Trace the plate rows onto the canvas.
4. Rivet the plates to the fabric, starting with the fronts at the shoulder, working down to the waist, stop and work from the bottom up to the waist; then the sides; then the backs; and finally the neck-plates and the waist-plates.
5. Sew all five separate panels together (fronts to sides, sides to back).

This fifth step--waiting to sew all the panels together until after the plates were riveted to them--made it more manageable to work with. Previously, I was trying to hold up half the completed brig, which was curving upwards and was heavy, while hammering a rivet on the other side and sometimes at an odd angle. Riveting each panel separately eliminated the awkward angles and desire for additional limbs to hold things.

Lesson Six: Spaulders

Copying the first Froissart image above, I made a set of brigandine spaulders. This was a tricky part for me because I don't have the setup to dish out steel into a cup shape for the shoulder plate. Instead, I was inspired by a post from Armour Services Historical in the UK (check them out here or on Facebook!). For their spaulders' shoulder part, they used three plates: two sides and one center. The center piece gets bent downwards to account for the drop in the shoulder, while the sides get bent either forward or back. If you look at the paper pattern in the image below, you'll see that I notched the top of the shoulder. This dart is essential for creating a smooth, curved shape in the fabric. The rest of the spaulder involved six more rows of plates--each row is a single plate, curved to fit around the upper arm.

To attach the spaulders to the arming doublet, an almost-square shaped piece of leather was riveted to the center-two rivets at the top of the spaulder. To reinforce the rivets on the inside, I cut some square washers out of some sheet brass (just didn't seem right using modern, round washers). I then punched two holes in the leather to fit points through. A strap and buckle were needed to further secure the spaulders to my arm, so I riveted a leather strap to the second plate from the bottom, and a buckle with a brass plate to the other side of the plate.

Lesson Seven: Galvanized Steel

For the plates, themselves, I took a non-historical approach. While I tried to be as accurate as possible (everything is handsewn and hand-riveted; the covering fabric is 100% silk and the canvas is 100% linen; the thread is also linen), where I decided to compromise slightly on was the finish on the plates. Historically, the plates were tinned to waterproof them. When I made my leather brig, I had a friend electroplate the steel with tin, but it didn't work out as planned. Galvanized steel is similar to tin-plated steel, only that instead of tin, it's zinc. Galvanized steel does have a distinct crystalline sort of pattern to it, but I found that when the 1.5" tall plates are cut out from the sheets, it's hardly noticeable--they look like they could have been tinned.

Lesson Eight: Shoulder Buckles

This was something I learned while making the leather brig. I finished making it and was trying it on for the first time when I realized I can't put it on! After nearly 200 hours of work, this was not a welcome revelation. What was preventing me from wearing it were the inflexible shoulders and too-small armscye. I had to meticulously cut out the shoulder seams, trim the shoulder plates, and rivet in a couple of shoulder straps. It was a lesson learned early-on, but still while I was making the brig. Since then, I've always made the fronts detachable from the back with shoulder straps.

Review

Now that I've made three brigandines, I feel much more confident in constructing them. One thing I would change if I ever made a fourth is to accentuate the waist more. I might also attempt to make the next with smaller plates again, but honestly, I appreciate the fewer, longer plates to the many many small ones. 

For those reading this who want to make their own brigandine but don't have a massive workshop, what you need at minimum is a ballpeen hammer, a heavy steel plate (scrap steel or something from a DIY store) or anvil to rivet on, a one-handed bolt cutter (for trimming the rivets), a drill for making the rivet-holes in the plates (drill press ideally, but it could be done with a handheld drill; alternatively a punch), something to cut the plates (I use a bandsaw with a metal-cutting blade, but you could use a hacksaw or manual plate cutter), and at least a file if not a belt sander for cleaning up the plates after cutting them. The last three are the tools that could save you a lot of time and energy, the bigger they are (i.e. bandsaw instead of a hacksaw, belt sander instead of a file), so if space or money are concerns, you might consider reaching out to a friend with these and knocking it all out in a day, or seeing if there is a tool rental place near you.

Feel free to "contact me" on the right if you want to make your own and need some advice. If you found this helpful, let me know in the comments below. Additionally, if you'd like to follow my medieval group's happenings, check out the Paston Project on Facebook or our website. Thanks for reading!