BYZANTINE "SKUTATOS"

This is the culmination of years of research and finding the right sources to commission gear from, and it is intended to portray a late 10th Century Byzantine Skutatos. "Skutatos" is Greek for "Shield Bearer" and they were both the line infantry of their day and the spiritual successors of the classical Legionary.

The shield has a pattern based on an 11th century manuscript from Mount Athos Monastery in Greece that still exists today, and then the rest of the gear was sourced based on surviving archaeological finds, as well as art and iconography.

I am experimenting with a cloth aventail as opposed to a chainmail one, because we do have artistic depiction of such pieces. While definitely not as protective as maille, it was comfy and came in nice when the day got really hot.

Middle Byzantine is a fascinating and woefully understudied time in history. One of my areas of interest is how external pressures like geography, external conflict, and the rest shape the evolution of a material culture. And the Byzantines come from a part of the Roman empire that never fully latinized, and yet projected power as the Rhomaoi (Romans) when the western half collapsed in 476.

Side note: the Eastern Orthodox Church, which retains a lot of Byzantine era religious practices, is still referred to as "Rum" (Rome) in the Middle East Today.