Pulp Figures Anglo-Saxons

Last year, Bob Murch of Pulp Figures posted on Facebook an Anglo-Saxon spearman he had sculpted. It wasn't intended that it join his range, but he said he would send a pack of fourteen casts with variant heads to anyone who PayPalled him the required funds.

Monopose, but with 14 head variants. Very crisp castings.

They've been sitting around since last summer and I thought it was about time they got some paint. I also want to add cloaks to some of them, as I have in my mind the idea of a unit of grizzled veteran spearmen, and I think giving them bear and wolfskin cloaks would make them stand out a bit on the battlefield. Most of the helmets on these figures are a little earlier in style than C11th English would probably have worn, so although strictly speaking anachronistic it fits with the idea of older, more experienced warriors.

The only downside to the figures is the very thick shields they'e supplied with. Almost as unwieldy as the ones Foundry supply, but fortunately I have a pack of Crusader Miniatures spare shields to use.

The first cloaks go on. It's not that hard to do - I just rolled out some greenstuff to something approximating scale thickness and cut a cloak shape out of it. The animal skin texture is teased out with a toothpick. After doing the first two I realised it would be more sensible to add the animal fur section first. Adding it on top of an existing cloak will make the shoulder area absurdly thick. The other two might have to live with mere woolen cloaks. I'll accentuate the folds with more greenstuff once the first layer cures.

Reinforcements arrive from Victrix

"...We are fortunate that our lord and thegn, Eadric, is a man of uncommon vigor in our defence, and demands service in the shieldwall from all who are able. Look you, here, and you will see some stout fellows recently arrived and willing to give battle to our enemies. Let us refresh these fine exemplars of English valour with ale for their troubles on our behalf...but what's this? One impudent wretch has relieved his bowels beside the sacristy! And he laughs! Apostate! Loathsome abomination! I'll take this shaft of ash to your hide...aye..run, so you should, another dozen strokes await you...dare attend mass here at your immortal peril!"

I ordered a single sprue of the recently released Victrix plastic 28mm Anglo-Saxons to see what they were like. I'm not really keen on plastic figures; I find building them a hassle as is cleaning off the mouldlines. The much vaunted "advantage" of wide-ranging poseability is rubbish as usually only one or two combinations of torsos and limbs will look natural, and most poses will look like clothing mannequins with arms and legs splayed all over the place.

The detail looks very good. I notice that two of the torsos have their legs positioned too widely to fit on the 20mm bases I use. They may squeeze onto a larger command base, but with 25% of the figures not really useable getting a whole box is looking less likely.

Spearheads are nicely done but the shafts are very thin and likely to snap. I'll probably cut them off, drill out the hands and replace them with my usual wire spears.

I stuck one together; fiddly, but they're certainly much more refined than the Gripping Beast plastic Saxons. I'll bump these to the top of the painting queue to see how they fair once they're baptised with paint.

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits."

The re-clothed brethren of the abbey, and their new brothers, off to matins. Black's a tricky colour to highlight, I find. Either you go too light and the highlights look like stripes, or too dark and you can't really see them. I think I've erred a little to the latter here, I might tinker with them later on, but the Gripping Beast figures are so grotty I can't see the effort really paying off much of a dividend. In fact, two of them are so crummy they may be sent to join the leper monks of St. Scrofulus.

Properly Benedictine now.

Unclean! The two on the left are destined for the leper colony.

I've recently learned from the Regia Anglorum living history group that the rope belt is probably inauthentic for the C11th, as this is an innovation of the Franciscan order. Such, I'm afraid, is the life of compromise typical of a miniatures gamer who doesn't want to spend his life converting whatever figures are available to fit his narrow period of interest.

The rule of St Benedict does not actually specify a colour for the habit, only that it is made of cheap and readily available material, but it seems that wool from black sheep had become the custom by the time of the Norman Conquest.

Be happy in both work and prayer, brothers.

My disappointment with the Gripping Beast monks has led me to order some fine looking figures from 1st Corps in order to help fill the abbey with more contemplatives. They arrived this morning and look really nice; I especially like the poses who are at work, busying themselves for the good of their holy community - ora et labora, indeed.

Antagonists from Hibernia

Of course, it's not all preachy ecclesiastic stuff at the online home of St. Gurnard's. After all, this is a wargaming blog, and what would the valour of the English be without antagonists worthy of them in both strength and courage?

This little mob began life as a unit of mercenaries in Saga, they're the Gall-Gaedhill pack sold by Gripping Beast. The figures are later ones from their catalogue, sculpted by Soapy after the departure of the mighty Colin Patten. 

The central figure with the two handed axe I've chosen to represent one of the piratical raiders Osbert describes as being a bane on the abbey and its surrounding lands, Fergus mac Urnach. Fergus is attested in a couple of minor clerical histories in contemporary Ireland so we can be certain of his historicity, unlike the truly terrifying Odd Brynjarsson who is not evidenced outside of Osbert's chronicle. 

Typically, as victims of his raids, the English view of Fergus is highly negative; Osbert describes him as being false to his oaths, a heretic, even as a pagan, although this is unlikely, and explains his perennial attacks as being made possible by Fergus having sorcerously become proof against normal weapons. By contrast, the Irish chronicles say little about his character, and their interest in him is largely with reference to his (tenuous and never fulfilled) claim to the kingship of Ulaidh (or Ulster as it is today).

The dread Fergus mac Urnach

In the game Saga these figures are based identically, however if Fergus is to look suitably imposing as a commander in other game systems, I felt he needed a visual boost.

So I created this round base with magnetic paper in it that his own, metal, base can slot into.

Instantly he's been elevated to fearsome chieftainship - watch out, goodwives of England! The hound is a Gripping Beast figure, which I added to the base as I felt this would be more generic than a standard bearer, and allow the base to be used to raise other warriors to leadership status if needs be. After all, the life of a dark age warlord isn't one which usually ends with a happy retirement.

Oh, dear. Deposed by a former comrade....
His dog's affection clearly just cupboard-love and transferable

"A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit."

When I painted these monks originally I gave then brown habits without really thinking about it. I know now that this was wrong, that brown habits are worn by Franciscan monks whose order wasn't founded until the C13th, and that the monks of St Gurnard's would almost certainly have been Benedictines.

Franciscan in brown, Benedictine in black.
As has been famously claimed about shoes, brown habits don't make it.

Originally, Benedictines wore grey, later black, and I've been unable to discover when the change occurred. Therefore I've decided to go for a faded black which could be dark grey if necessary.

Bad habits, soon to be replaced by good habits.

Since monks are easy to paint, I'll ordain these disappointingly lumpen Gripping Beast figures I've had knocking around at the same time.

Not Gripping Beast's finest figures

Who was Brother Osbert?

The earliest surviving manuscript of the history known as De Laude Proelia Anglici (In Praise of the Battles of the English) is currently housed in the library of Trinity College Dublin, and is supposed to be in the hand of the original author; slightly later copies, though in better condition, are in the collections of the Bodleian Library and British Library. 

A loose sheaf from the original Trinity College owned copy.

It details the events of the years immediately preceding the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, as observed by a monk of an abbey dedicated to a now obscure early British saint, Gurnard of Aldestow. It is a favourite among medievalists for the informal and gossipy tone of its text, and the many incidental and characterful details it supplies about the major players in the events leading up to the conquest.  

Its author is anonymous, although tradition ascribes it to a monk named Osbert who narrates his history largely in the first person, although he never names himself in the text. Similarly, the location of the abbey itself has proved difficult to pin down - the abbey does not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086, which suggests that it was dissolved in the two decades following the Norman invasion, or perhaps destroyed in its immediate aftermath as William the Conqueror sought to crush any English resistance to his rule. 

A recent exhibition of Trinity College's medieval treasures
which included the Osbert manuscript

The narrative of the text ends abruptly soon after the Battle of Hastings, when the English earl of the lands surrounding the abbey is replaced by a Norman adventurer named Guian de Caudebec. Interestingly, we know from the Gesta Francorum that an exiled Anglo-Norman knight called Amis de Caudebec was in the retinue of Bohemond of Taranto during the First Crusade, and died in the assault on Jerusalem in 1099. The family's connection with the holy land did not end there, as a Lanfranc de Caudebec was one of the nine founders of the Knights Templar, but was excommunicated in 1121 and is supposed to have then returned to his family's lands in England.

I first encountered Osbert's history while researching my MA in Dublin where the Trinity College copy is on display in the main library. There's an appealing incongruity between the scratchy, impatient Latin text and the fine binding it has acquired at some point in its history. 

The ornate, probably early Victorian, binding of the manuscript

Some years later, as a miniature wargamer, my interest in the content of the work was rekindled as a way to add some context to the Anglo-Saxon army I had begun collecting. Now, having gotten hold of the lovely old Penguin translation (sadly OOP at the time of writing) the plan is to use the Abbey of St Gurnard as the locus of a miniature recreation of England just prior to the fateful events of 1066....

God save you, noble Sir!

"...At the Abbey we are engaged in many works designed to glorify the name of God, but such are costly and our funds are slim. If only some lord, being both wealthy and pious, and seeking to gain the favour of God with his generosity, might act as our patron! Know you of any such, my lord...?"

Welcome to the abbey of St. Gurnard, a saint greatly venerated in C11th England but having fallen somewhat into obscurity in the centuries since. The abbey which housed his relics was once a great centre of pilgrimage, but this popularity, and rumours of its consequent riches, ensured it became a target for raiders of many persuasions – jealous Anglo-Saxon lords, pagan Northmen, untrustworthy Irish and sly Welsh – not to mention the odious Scotch. 

The exact location of the abbey, prey to attacks from over the Irish and the North seas both, the mountains of Cymru and the heathlands of Alba, is a subject which vexes historians and archaeologists of the present day, and many candidates have been proposed in the academic literature without firm conclusion. Perhaps, like Camelot, it more properly belongs to the world of legend....