The Definitive Book for Restoring Medieval Armour!
Few historical icons match the evocative power of the medieval suit of armour. Forged from sheets of iron, then beaten with hammer and stake into elaborate sculptures of defense, the knight's armour symbolized his martial prowess, his social station, and his nobility of purpose-the very essence of chivalry in the Middle Ages.
Today, a growing community of medieval reenactors, collectors, historians, and martial artists have revived the art of the armourer, reanimating the steel's role as a functional defense for modern combatants participating in tournament competition as well as celebrating its beauty purely as a work of art. Through his skill, the modern armourer has succeeded in communicating across the ages, mooring the chivalric ideals of the Middle Ages to the iron sheet that is his medium, and through that sheet, to us.
Through poetic prose and practical instruction in his Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction, Dr. Brian R. Price presents a lavish introduction to some of today's finest craftsmen and their work as well as a step-by-step guide for novice and intermediate armourers who desire to delve into the tools and techniques of this specialized art form. With more than 1,000 stunning photographs of medieval and modern designs, Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction has proven a major contribution to the restoration and preservation of one of the grandest physical representations of the ideals of the Western world.
"Three guys are responsible for it [the Renaissance of modern armouring in Ukraine and Eastern Europe] - J.R.R. Tolkien, John Howe, and you [Brian R. Price]." -Anton Antoshyny
This book is also available from Echo Point Books in hardcover (ISBN 1648372740).
Price, Brian R.: - Dr. Brian R. Price has been involved in the medieval fighting arts since 1981, fighting competitively within the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), reenactment, and since 1999, within the Western martial arts / historical swordsmanship community. He has experience in several other martial arts and modern fencing as well as in jousting. He is an accomplished armourer, author of the influential Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction.As an author, he has written numerous works in several fields, including the 1996 Book of the Tournament, Ramon Lull's Book of Knighthood and Chivalry, and the forthcoming Eagles, Falcons & Warthogs: Gen. "Bill" Creech, Col. John Boyd and the Struggle to Remake the Tactical Air Forces in the Wake of Vietnam (Naval Institute Press). He has contributed to numerous works including King Arthur in Popular Culture, Medieval Warfare magazine, and the Journal of Medieval Military History.Since the late 1980s he has made studies of the medieval tournament, medieval armour, and knighthood, as well as holding interests in kinesiology, learning theory, intelligence, warfare, and American political history. He holds a Ph.D. in medieval and military history from the University of North Texas (UNT) and a BA in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). From 2011-12 he served a double-tour in Afghanistan as a Senior Social Scientist and socio-cultural advisor.Since 2011, the now-Dr. Price writes on strategy, airpower and counterinsurgency, as well as on American military history. But his oldest interest has been in chivalric culture, which he has long exercised, first within the SCA, then with the founding of the Company of Saint George, the first American Tournament Society, and finally with the Schola Saint George (SSG).In 2000 he co-founded the SSG with Dr. Robert Holland, and began working on an interpretation of Fiore dei Liberi's text and on the medieval poleaxe. He has taught classes continually both to the Schola groups and at seminars in North America, in Canada and in Europe. Mr. Price studied with Theodore Katzoff at the Westside Fencing Center in Los Angeles and taught swordsmanship at the same location for two years. He has lectured at Stanford University, at the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan and he taught graduate courses for six years within Hawai'i Pacific University's Diplomacy & Military Studies Program. In 2003 he was admitted to the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame and in Nov. 2018 he joined the faculty at the USAF's Air Command & Staff College, where he offers courses in planning, COIN theory & practice, war theory, and American military history.A native of Texas, Dr. Price now makes his home under an enormous mound of books and armour in Wetumpka, Alabama, not far from Montgomery. He has started a column on Substack, Agincourt to Cyber War.
