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Surely they are like any other contemporary minor lord in the British Isles? Mail shirt, helmet, sword, maybe a small horse for transport rather than fighting?
Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.
I suspect the answer is; there aren’t any.
Another answer – and possibly more helpful; would be – why so concerned that it must be an exact reproduction of that drawing by Heath? No disrespect to him or to you, but other interpretations are possible, and you could easily use other dark age/early medieval/medieval figures.
If it must be that figure I guess you will have to start sculpting, pester a figure company or pay a sculptor to make one for you
Pascal, I’m all in favour of recognising Celtic individuality, but I have to confess I don’t see a great deal of difference between standard representations of Kings of the period and Llywelyn’s Princely seal – in fact it looks as if the Welsh princes were deliberately copying a common European motif of power.
This:British Museum paper on Medieval Seals is interesting on the images of authority in medieval seals.
These English seals (below) show a stylised representation of the Equestrian seal common among European royalty of around that period.
Celtic Uchelwyr would probably be rough and ready approximations of western European (lesser) nobility in general, based on post Norman originals.
I refer to my suggestion above – start sculpting, start talking to a sculptor or talk to a figure company.
And you then will have a figure of illustration No.48 of Heath’s book (but not a precise and exact copy of what Uchelwyr looked like – as frankly, no-on knows to that degree of precision).
The descriptions of Welsh and Irish and Scots in various campaigns and hosts that tend to be remembered are those that focus on the poor foot soldiers because of their difference. The ones who blended in and the higher class warriors don’t get mentioned – not because Irish, Welsh and Scottish upper class warriors weren’t there, but because they were so like their Anglo/Norman counterparts they didn’t merit a mention in the chroniclers eye or because their descriptions slide past as unexceptional to historians and writers looking for the unusual to surprise their audiences.
With regard to retention of their ‘Celtic’ nature, this is an enticing romantic aim, helped not least by people like Gerald and his division of the country into ‘native Wales’ and ‘Marchia Wallia’. Yes there was English settlement in walled towns allied to castle invasion and taxation patterns, particularly in lowland Wales reflect southern English models, but the initial division between the two cultural developments rapidly melded and the Wales of the mid 14th century is very different from that of pre conquest Wales, right across Wales and not just in the walled towns which had broken their bounds mixed with the Welsh hinterland and produced a very different economic and cultural model from both its parent roots.
So Welsh nobility (probably mostly Anglo-Welsh after the conquest of Edward I, but considerably so even prior to that calamity) would have increasingly mirrored their western European counterparts in dress and aspiration. Barelegged Dark Age warriors would have been as confusing to most Welsh medieval hosts as to their English and French chroniclers.
Let’s examine both the illustration, and Giraldus’ description. Both of which Pascal sets such great store by.
“quote from the text accompanying the illustration in Heath’s book”
Though William le Breton and Giraldus himself also state that Welsh soldiers were unarmoured the latter nevertheless reports that some, clearly the upper-classes, wore light armour, which he describes as comprising helmet, short mail corselet, circular shield (also carried by infantry spearmen and described in various sources as being coloured white, gold, silver or blue) and – very occasionally – mail hosen. [end quote]
The shield in the illustration’s wrong, according to Giraldus. It’s a flat topped kite shield, not a round one.
The figure is wearing a knee length mail hauberk, not a ‘short mail corselet’.
Giraldus also states that they wore mail hosen ‘very occasionally’. One wonders how large his sample group was.
Giraldus further claims that Uchelwyr wore a ‘helmet’. Not a ‘nasal helm’ such as the figure is wearing.
We see that Giraldus’ description contradicts the illustration at several points. So which is correct? The figure? The text? Neither?
Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.
Why the bloody hell MUST it exist?
Ian Heath didn’t design it. He, or his illustrator drew it. For a book. It is an artist’s impression of what a Uchelwyr might have looked like. At a certain point in time, certainly not across three centuries per your OP.
Ian Heath is not a sculptor/figure manufacturer. You understand this, oui?
Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.
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