WIP Dark Age chieftain

[Christian]

Hi all, I've been pretty strung out at work so this weekend I thought I'd treat my self and took a bit of time to do some work on the Dark Ages figures I've been amassing. Well, just one for now, but I'm in no hurry!

So, here he is, considering the heavens before battle...



And on the battlements, staring into the thick fog...



Hope you like it

[von Lucky]

Love the shield design and weathering - like giving your general a white charger, the miniature will stand out on the battlefield.

[Furt]

Very nice - love the simple palette. 

The shield is a triumph.

Do I get to be him? 

[Blackwolf]

He looks good

[LeadAsbestos]

Well done!

[Little Odo]

Nicely done!

[Red Orc]

I've seen the 'Falkirk sett', it's a bit of brown and cream chequered cloth. There's no evidence it came from a kilt. My understanding is that kilts were a later 'Scottish' (that is, Irish) development. The Votadini, however, were 'British' (that is, Welsh - long before they ever reached what is now Wales, if they ever did). My assumption is it was from a chequered cloak.

Lovely painting on a slightly strange looking mini. I think the red cloak is awesome. Apparently one of the ancestors of Cunedag was known as Paternus 'Pesraut', which means 'red cloak' it seems. According to John Morris (now very unfashionable historian of the Arthurian Era) he may have been a Roman military officer placed over barbarian federate troops, and may have been the son of someone called Tacitus from Kent.

[Christian]

Thanks for the kind words, gents!

@Furt: Ha ha, maybe... unless you want to play the rampaging Saxons?

@Red Orc: Ah, thanks for pointing that out! I think I rushed my initial post a little... while the tartan pattern was in use around the time, I've not read anything to suggest it came from a kilt either. My post seems to indicate that, though What I was trying to do was appropriate Gripping Beast's "Picts" (also used as Scots) range as the Votadini. The "kilt" I'm referring to is the long-sleeved garment worn by the miniatures... which I don't have a name for I am assuming this is a garment worn by the Brythonic and Celtic peoples, but I could be - and most likely am - wrong  

So far, two of the sources I've read indicate that the Votadini were allies of the Romano-British and established a kingdom in what is now Wales. I did come across the 'red cloak' after painting, it was a bit of a happy accident! Phillips and Keatman (1993) argue that it is from the Votadini nobility that a certain warlord, known to history as Arthur, emerged.

References below for anyone interested in that sort of thing I've found the first two to be quite good. The first having quite a large range of illustrations and photographs, the second just being a tantalising read. I see they've referred to three volumes of John Morris' Age of Arthur.

Scullard, H. (1988) Roman Britain: Outpost of the Empire,Thames and Hudson
Phillips, G., Keatman, M. (1993) King Arthur: The true story, Arrow
Trevelyan, G. M. (1970) A Shortened History of England, Pelican

I wouldn't mind checking out any resources you can recommend Red Orc. I am really enjoying the research, even if I don't stick to it in the end. I think at least some kind of acknowledgment of these things is important, and rather interesting

[former user]

oh man, it's the Celt=Kilt=Tartan discussion again   

first things first: I really like the way You painted that early medieval miniature.
The sculpt is a bit... I don't know the ranges, is it plastic? the cloak looks very plastic...

Anyway

So, multicoloured weaving patterns are hardly surprising, and repetitive patterns that create stripes or checkers will inevitably pop up in the archaeological record, because it is the natural thing to do when one weaves with coloured threads. With two colours of thread You can weave three, etc.

Now from a checkered design to a tartan is a long way and not unspecifically natural, as every textile specialist can tell You, It is thus why one can create a special trademark with it, be it for a family or for Burberry's.

Also, from long tunic with no pants on or piece of cloth wrapped around me with no pants on to a  skirt with a specific pattern of pleats and a special way to cut the cloth is also a long way.

from what I read, the history of the scottish kilt is pretty well traced back to the 16th C, and the garment has since undergone a rich evolution.
We wargamers are pretty average people who like to believe the fabrication of traditions that are supposed to go back centuries. See british regimental histories and the way they are represented in visual appearance.
Truth is that it is hard to reconstruct what tartans many of the kilted regiments wore before the Napoleonic Wars.
Or certain clans and families in everyday life.

But it is perfectly normal for us to want to represent unit coherence by giving them a uniformed token with a special "background", and all this before military uniforms or even heraldry were invented.
Go to a roman reenactment and see all the red shields derived from an archaeological evidence of five. Compare with "notitia dignitatum" colourful variations and make Your own thoughts  ;-)

So if anyone likes to paint chequered cloth on their figures to symbolize "scottish" - perfectly fine. But please don't overstretch it to historical authenticity or constructing a lineage of over 1500 years....
There are hundreds of examples that this doesn't work.

Emblematic visuals establish themselves out of context and cease to matter once the context is gone.
Picts painted themselves while the others didn't. Spartans used red cloaks and "lambda" to make themselves recognizable and inspire fear in their enemies because it would have been otherwise impossible to distinguish them in a melee of thousands similarly armoured pushing against each other. Tuareg are clad in dark blue because they controlled the indigo trade from central Africa across the desert. Once that was done blue became tradition and other colours are worn in everyday life. French troops had red pants for half a century because the administration wanted to push the madder industry, and it became a french symbol even when they had to buy the anilin colour from Germany.
And so on.... 

[Christian]

Thanks, OP edited to avoid any confusion. It is just a decorative device appropriated from the metal figures on the website. I think you have misunderstood.

These cannot represent "Scottish" figures - as Scotland did not exist in its current form at the time - and the term "kilt" (sic) was used in the absence of a more technical term.

I think it could be a leine, which I've taken to be a rudimentary Dark Age garb - as "multicoloured weavings patterns" seem to be - but may be a specifically Celtic piece of clothing. As the sources I've cited previously refer to the Votadini as a Celtic people I don't see a problem. But if anyone has a primary or secondary source that specifically states that these are the 'wrong' figures to use then I will just have to throw them out and start all over again...

[former user]

there is no problem, Your Votadini Cief is lovely 

[Red Orc]

sorry, double post

[Red Orc]

I agree with former user (who, after all, was there at the time, as his name attests  ), the figure looks lovely.

Thanks, OP edited to avoid any confusion. It is just a decorative device appropriated from the metal figures on the website. I think you have misunderstood.

These cannot represent "Scottish" figures - as Scotland did not exist in its current form at the time - and the term "kilt" (sic) was used in the absence of a more technical term...

Being 'Scottish' long predates 'Scotland'. There must have been 'Scots' to have a 'Scotland' (much as the 'English' predate the formation of 'England' by some 500 years or so). There were 'Scots' in what became Scotland at the same time as this Votadinian lord (though, of course, he could be from Northern England, as the modern English county of Northumberland was also Votadinian territory). But those Scots had come from Ireland (if one accepts that bit of historical narrative, I don't have a problem with it) and settled in Argyll and the Hebrides - western Scotland not the south-east.

...
I think it could be a leine, which I've taken to be a rudimentary Dark Age garb - as "multicoloured weavings patterns" seem to be - but may be a specifically Celtic piece of clothing. As the sources I've cited previously refer to the Votadini as a Celtic people I don't see a problem. But if anyone has a primary or secondary source that specifically states that these are the 'wrong' figures to use then I will just have to throw them out and start all over again...
...

I don't think the figures are wrong - if there's any problem with them, it's that the figure isn't wearing trousers (bracca = breeches). A knee-length tunic-like article of clothing looks fine to me. From what you've described - a garment with sleeves - I'd just call it a tunic. 'leine' is a Gaelic word I think. The Votadini spoke Welsh. No idea what the old Wesh term for tunic is, about the only word I can think of is '*guna', a proposed word from one of the Celtic languages suggested as the origin of our word 'gown' (that we actually get from Latin, but the Latin origin isn't known).

'Celtic' is a pretty meaningless term archaeologically. It can refer to elements of art styles, but for maybe 15 or 20 years there's been an increasingly vociferous move away from using it to describe cultural groups. The idea of a 2,000+ year 'pan-Celtic' culture is a non-starter. The Ancient Irish didn't dress the same or use the same weapons as the Ancient Britons. The post-Roman Britons (eg the Votadini noble you've shown) didn't use the same weapons or dress the same as the contemporary Irish, and neither the post-Roman British, nor the early Christian Irish, dressed the same as the Irish or Scots in the late-medieval or early modern period (when kilts and tartan come along). The Britons were culturally (and linguistically, and probably biologically) closer to the Gauls than the Irish - and no-one ever shows Asterix wearing a kilt.

As to kilts - we think of them as skirts, but as former user says they go back to the 15th-16th century and have developed. They're more like saris or togas really. A long bit of cloth wrapped round the body and over the shoulder. There's no evidence that the British in the 5th-8th centuries (when the Votadinian kingdoms flourished) wore any kind of similar garment.

Finally, on tartans... is any chequey cloth 'tartan'? If it is, fair go. But the 'Falkirk Sett' is just cream and brown. That gives a simple 3-colour cheque.



That's my best 5-minute rendering of the 'Falkirk Sett'. It could be the origin of tartan in Scotland. It might not be. Many cultures have had chequered cloth. I don't think a chequered cloak or a tunic is at all unreasonable for a figure of a 6th-8th century (or there abouts) British nobleman. But it's extremely problematic to link that to late-medieval Scotland. Linguistically at least there is a fundamental divide between 'British' and 'Scottish', and in terms of their history, relationship to Rome etc, the 'Scots' (Irish) were barbarians whereas the British were Roman citizens. The Northern British (between the Walls) probably saw themselves as the inheritors of Rome too - they'd been incorporated into the Empire on a couple of occassions and were in the late Empire probably client states, possibly even having had Roman dynasties imposed on them, as the name 'Paternus' (Cunedag's ancestor; also Quintilius Clemens, Antonius Donatus and Decianus, who may at the end of the 4th century have been placed as rulers or commanders over tracts of the inter-Wall territories) might suggest.

As to sources: Morris is considered very old hat now, but I think he's brilliant even if most of what he claims isn't now taken seriously. If you can get hold of 'The Age of Arthur' I'd advise you to do so.

[Hildred Castaigne]

I don't think the figures are wrong - if there's any problem with them, it's that the figure isn't wearing trousers (bracca = breeches). A knee-length tunic-like article of clothing looks fine to me. From what you've described - a garment with sleeves - I'd just call it a tunic. 'leine' is a Gaelic word I think.

Yes, it is. In fact, the word is still used in modern Irish.

It means 'shirt'.

[Christian]

Sure, Hildred, it's just the closest word I could use to refer to that particular item of clothing All the figures in the Picts, Scots/Scots-Irish, and Welsh ranges from Gripping Beast are dressed in the same attire (however, some, but not all, Welsh have shorts underneath the mystery tunic). It just so happens that these figures are from the Scot Saga box, not that I'm trying to pass off Scots as Welsh... they are dressed and armed in a very similar fashion. Adding shorts is a relatively easy conversion that I may attempt to avoid making the tunic a peculiarity.

Anyway:



I'm trying really hard to avoid - or at least acknowledge - anachronisms here, but it really seems to be a matter of vocabulary. Still, thanks for the contributions