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Cary Clark / FAQ / Castle / terminology

What does ‘barding’ mean (and other Castle terms)?

From Bianca Nebab: !

Any piece that is used as armor on a horse is a “bard” (“barding” collectively). However “barding” can also be applied to the ornamental drapings of a horse like what you see in a tournament. “Trapping” or “trappings” are pieces that are ornamental. So it depends on the purpose. If you have the horse in a tournament joust, they are either trappings or bardings. If you have the horse in a combat situation, it’s technically barding.

From James Brown: !

The two places I look first when I run across something I don’t know are:

http://www.sca.org/misc.html: Miscellaneous links from the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) website, there’s a large number of good informational links off of here, including glossaries, and encylopedic sites.
http://orb.rhodes.edu/: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies is a great resource, although it can be a bit intimidating to hunt around in. I’d recommend the “Of General Interest” section to answer most common questions.

From Jeff Johnston: !

I’ve found http://www.dictionary.com to be fairly complete when I’ve used it. For instance, I used it for to sanity-check what a ‘gambeson’ is. (A ‘gambeson’ is a quilted and padded tunic, usually underneath other armor, like mail, to provide padding.)

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