Mail

The availability to mounted warrior elites of iron armour of high quality, particularly mail, was instrumental in the fall of Rome and in the establishment of European feudalism. Until the 10th century, however, there was little qualitative difference between the body armour of the western European knight and the Roman legionnaire’s lorica hamata. Then, during the 11th century, the sleeves of the knight’s mail shirt, or byrnie, became longer and closer-fitting, extending downward from the middle of the upper arm to the wrist; at the same time, the hem of the byrnie dropped from just above to just below the kneecap. Knights began wearing the gambeson, a quilted garment of leather or canvas, beneath their mail for additional protection and to cushion the shock of blows. (Ordinary soldiers often wore a gambeson as their only protection.) Use of the surcoat, a light garment worn over the knight’s armour, became general during this period. Both gambeson and surcoat may have been Arab imports, adopted as a result of exposure to Muslim technology during the Crusades.

Norman men-at-arms were protected by a knee-length mail shirt called a hauberk, which was a later version of the Saxon byrnie that was split to permit the wearer to sit astride his horse. Though 11th-century men-at-arms probably did not have complete mail trousers, the hauberk apparently had inserts of cloth or leather, giving the same effect. It also included a hoodlike garment of mail worn over the head to protect the neck and throat; this had a hole for the face much like a modern ski cap. The hood was backed by padding of cloth or leather, and a pointed iron helmet with nasal (a vertical bar protecting the nose) was worn over it. The knight’s defensive equipment was completed by a large, kite-shaped shield, nearly two-thirds the height of its owner. The size of this shield was testimony to the incomplete protection offered by the hauberk.

During the 12th century the open helmet with nasal evolved into the pot helm, or casque. This was an involved process, with the crown of the helmet losing its pointed shape to become flat and the nasal expanding to cover the entire face except for small vision slits and breathing holes. The late 12th-century helm was typically a barrel-shaped affair; however, more sophisticated designs with hinged visors appeared as well. The helm was extremely heavy, and the entire weight was borne by the neck; for this reason it was only donned immediately before combat. Some knights preferred a mail coif, no doubt with heavy padding and perhaps an iron cap beneath. One 12th-century depiction shows an iron visor worn over a coif of mail.

By the early 13th century, European armourers had learned to make mail with a sufficiently fine mesh to provide protection to the hand. At first this was in the form of mittens with a leather-lined hole in the palm through which the knight could thrust his hand when out of action; by mid-century the armourer’s skill had developed to the point of making complete gloves of mail.

Plate

The earliest knightly plate armour appeared shortly after 1200 in the form of thin plates worn beneath the gambeson. External plate armour began to appear around the middle of the century, at first for elbows, kneecaps, and shins. The true plate cuirass appeared about 1250, though it was at first unwieldy, covering only the front of the torso and no doubt placing considerable stress on the underlying garments to which it was attached. Perhaps in part for this reason, the breastplate was followed shortly by the backplate. From the late 13th century, plate protection spread from the knees and elbows to encompass the extremities; square plates called ailettes, which protected the shoulder, made a brief appearance between about 1290 and 1325 before giving way to jointed plate defenses that covered the gap between breastplate and upper-arm defenses. Helmets with hinged visors appeared about 1300, and by mid-century armourers were constructing closed, visored helms that rested directly on the shoulder defenses. Plate armour, at first worn above mail as reinforcement, began to replace it entirely except in areas such as the crotch, the armpits, and the back of the knees, where the armourer’s skill could not devise a sufficiently flexible joint. In response to this enhanced coverage, the knight’s large, kite-shaped shield evolved into a much smaller implement.

The first suits of full plate armour date from the first decades of the 15th century. By 1440 the Gothic style of plate armour was well developed, representing the ultimate development of personal armour protection. Armourers were making gloves with individually jointed fingers, and shoulder defenses had become particularly sophisticated, permitting the man-at-arms full freedom to wield sword, lance, or mace with a minimum of exposure. Also during the 15th century the weight of personal armour increased, partly because of the importance of shock tactics in European warfare and partly because of the demands of jousting, a form of mock combat in which two armoured knights, separated by a low fence or barrier, rode at each other head-on and attempted to unseat each other with blunted lances. As armour protection became more complete and heavier, larger breeds of horses appeared. Mail protection for horses became common in the 13th century; by the 15th, plate horse armour was used extensively.

The unprecedented protection that plate armour gave the man-at-arms did not come without tactical, as well as economic, cost. A closed helm seriously interfered with vision and made voice communication in battle impossible. No doubt in response to this, heraldry emerged during this period and the armorial surcoat became a standard item of knightly dress. Ultimately, the thickness of iron needed to stop missiles—at first arrows and crossbow bolts, then harquebus and musket balls—made armour so heavy as to be impractical for active service. By the 16th century, armour was largely ceremonial and decorative, with increasingly elaborate ornamentation.