Juggling life, liberty and happiness

At the end of April 2008, I was contacted by Baron Erich of Zweihammer Armory about making him a wappenrock for his Laureling ceremony. He was the Baron of the SCA group I played with while out in California for several years, and I was thrilled to be asked. As my schedule had opened up, I was able to take on the commission.

As he is progressing towards a more period appearance, he wanted something documentable, that he could wear without needing to explain anything, yet he wanted the German flash and over-the-top appearance that he sees on the German guilds in California. He also wanted to be able to wear it over armor and without.

Challenges of the commission:
- He wanted to able to wear it over armor and without, I wanted it to look great either way. Armor changes a person's measurements considerably in the shoulders, which the garment hangs off of. If the shoulders weren't made right/supported correctly by the tailoring layers, the garment would look slack.
- The armor he wanted to wear it over wasn't finished yet!
- He was losing weight during the whole process
- No fittings in person, he lives in California and I live in Virginia, 3000 miles away.


I asked him if I could keep a public diary of the project as I went along and he thought it would be a great idea.
I intend to do a full write up on my website at some point, but as I'm in the middle of revising it, I decided to put it up on Picassa for now.

Here is the construction diary, with the period images and extant garment that I used to base my design on.

Red & Black Waffenrock Construction Diary

( remainder behind the cut )

I'm in the middle of pulling together the pictures to teach a class on Saturday, and of course I'd find something that I wasn't looking for. {Very big grin}

In this drawing of Caspar Strum by Durer, 1520, Caspar is wearing what looks to be a square necked rock (we only have his head and shoulders to go by), but Durer has captured the small detail of the thread marks that come through the garment when the fastener was sewn onto the garment. Look closely at the right hand corner of the neckline square, also check out the cool detail of the point that fastens his shirt.

By the stitch marks, I'm guessing that its an alternating hook and bar closure.

Of course his Burgher style Schlappe is way cool too!

Found one that clearly shows a rock with a cloak over one shoulder!

Top picture, bottom right hand corner, yellow rock, grey cloak with red trim

http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/kurzweil/feb2.htm

I've been doing more research (so what else is new?) and have been looking at what are commonly known in re-enactment circles as waffenrocks (armour rock) or wappenrocks (heraldic rock). Other period names for them are leibrock (body rock)or paltrock (pleated rock).

I want to make one for Henry to wear for our next event in a few weeks. Small boys are commonly seen wearing them and I thought he'd look good in one. Boys typically wear the ones with square necks, which is also a grown man's style too, but men have other style options as well.

One key issue I have with most modern recreations of waffenrock, or paltrock, is how they fasten. Most of the ones I've seen have laced on the side seam. Being one of those annoying people who always want to know if that's how things really were done, I had to go look through the artwork and see if I could see how ones in period sources fastened. So far I have found no evidence of a side fastening paltrock, but plenty of evidence for them fastening on one shoulder using a variety of methods, either buttons, ties or hooks and eyes.

I've put it behind a cut to save you from having to scroll forever

( So, here's the short list of research on how these fasten.  )
[Link rot fixed 10/14/11]