Anyone who has tried to assemble a piece of furniture from Ikea or Wal-Mart knows that describing the instruction manual as "medieval" is far too kind. However, a researcher at the University of Warwick in England thinks medieval builders had a superior system for conveying construction information on everything from Gothic churches to Tudor houses.

The Age of Armour website offers detailed tutorials on how to make a variety of historically-inspired armor pieces, and a couple of Gothic font designs.