03-30-2012, 02:43 AM
Quote: Having the sword suspended from the belt, would likley require the need for a shoulder cross strap to keep the belt from being pulled down.
Ummm...no. For a start, you're assuming that the scabbard is hung from the wide belt, for which there is, I believe, no evidence?
I (and lots of other early medeival reenactors) wear a scabbard suspended from a narrow waistbelt and have never felt the need to have it supported by a 'Sam Brown' strap.
But then I firmly believe that the norm was not to wear any belt except the sword belt over armour, and certainly not the wide belt set with all your day-to-day crud hanging off it. I think they're 'undress' belts, usually just worn over tunics.
There's an old re-enactor fallacy that wearing a belt somehow helps to relieve the weight of a mail shirt but it's exactly that, a fallacy...unless somebody's invented a magic anti-gravity belt that I'm not aware of.
"Medicus" Matt Bunker
[size=150:1m4mc8o1]WURSTWASSER![/size]
[size=150:1m4mc8o1]WURSTWASSER![/size]