Saturday, November 12, 2011

Arms of the Middle Ages

It seems that the arms department of the Metropolitan Museum willbe a hundred years old next year, and the displays will be redone, but without closing the galleries.  Arms and armor was one of the first five departments formed, and the collection particularly the Euopean medieval and Japanese collegections has always been outstanding.

The Met has a movie made in the 1920's (before sound) showing how armor was put on, how a fully suited man could get on a horse by himself, lie down and get up contary to the way it has been portrayed in the movies.  Nothing less would have been practical. 

Armo has also affected our language.  The example I remember is that  the places where armor pieces came together  were called points. When you put on weight and had to loosen, you "stretched a point."

We learned all of this in a course we are taking which features talks with curators and trips behind the scenes.

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