Who invented plate armor

Greece introduction of this type of armor morphed into new forms of plate armors, most notably in Rome where Lorica Segmentata became popular during several centuries.

However, after fall of Roman Empire single-piece chest plate armors fell from popularity for a long period of time because of difficulties with manufacture and very high cost. Almost one thousand years after fall of Roman Empire, plate armors returned in fashion after rise of metallurgy techniques enabled medieval blacksmiths to start easier manufacture of larger metal pieces.

Reintroduction of larger plated armors started with chest pieces, and slowly expanded to the protection of the other body parts. Even though it was very expensive and hard to maintain, full body plate armors became commonplace after s with blacksmiths being responsible for creation of up to 20 individual metal parts that soldier had to wear most commonly those items were helmet, gorget, pauldrons, besagews, rondels, couters, vambraces, gauntlets, cuirass, fauld, tassets, cutlet, mail skirt, cuisses, poeyns, greaves and sabatons.

The average full metal plate armor that covered soldier from head to toe was heavy, but those create for ground combat were made to be not more heavy than kg. Armors that were made for mounted combat were heavier, with specific armor pieces being placed on the horse, covering his entire body except legs.

Even though they were expensive and hard to use, full plate armors were deemed to be cost effective because they offered great protection against bladed weapons, spears and to some extent against blunt trauma.

When early scholars of armor looked at medieval artworks, they noticed what they thought to be depictions of many different forms of armor: rings, chains, bands of rings, scales, small plates, etc. It is today commonly accepted, however, that most of these different depictions are actually various attempts by artists to efficiently show the surface of a type of armor that is difficult to render both in paint or sculpture.

Rather than showing each interlinking ring, the small links were stylized by dots, slashes, S-shapes, circles, and the like, which readily lent themselves to misinterpretation. To give a definitive answer to this question is impossible for several reasons. First, hardly any evidence survives that would provide a complete picture for any given period.

Scarce evidence is available from the fifteenth century onward as to how armor was ordered, in what time the order was completed, and how much the parts or entire armor cost. Second, a complete armor could comprise elements made by several specialized armorers. Pieces might also be held in stock half-finished and then fitted for a specific commission.

Finally, the matter is complicated by regional and national differences. Throughout the German-speaking lands, most armorer workshops were controlled by strict guild regulations , which limited the number of apprentices, and thus had a direct effect on the number of pieces that could be produced by one master and his small workshop.

In Italy, on the other hand, no such regulations existed, and workshops could accordingly be much larger, which undoubtedly must have enhanced speed and quantity of production. In any case, one must bear in mind that the production of arms and armor was a thriving business throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Armorers, blade smiths, gun makers, crossbow and bow makers, and fletchers were found in every large town. Then as now, their market was regulated by supply and demand, and time-efficient work must have been an essential part of a successful business. The answer to this question is therefore perhaps as simple as it is elusive. The time it took to make armor depended on several factors, namely, who ordered the work, from whom the work was commissioned i.

Two famous examples may serve to illustrate this point. The armorer informs Sir John that he can make the requested suit of armor as soon as the English knight tells him what pieces he requires, in which fashion, and when the armor must be completed unfortunately, no time frame is given.

In court workshops, the production of garnitures for a princely client appears to have required more time. We do not know whether Seusenhofer and his workshop were also working on other commissions during that time. The lance rest appeared soon after the emergence of the solid breastplate in the late fourteenth century and remained in use until the decline of armor. This serves to stabilize and balance the lance, permitting a better aim. Furthermore, the combined weight and speed of horse and rider are transferred onto the point of the lance, making it a most formidable weapon.

It is noteworthy that on most field armors, the lance rest can usually be folded upward so that it would not impede the mobility of the sword arm, after the lance had been discarded. The history of the armored codpiece is closely related to its counterpart in civilian male costume. From the mid-fourteenth century onward, male garments for the upper body had occasionally become so short as to almost reveal the crotch. In these times prior to the development of trousers, men wore leggings tied to their undergarment or a belt, and the crotch was hidden with a flap secured to the upper inside edge of each legging.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, this flap began to be padded and thus visually emphasized. As such, the codpiece remained commonplace in European male costume until the end of the sixteenth century.

On armor, the codpiece as a separate piece of plate defense for the genitals appeared during the second decade of the sixteenth century and remained in use and fashion until about Thickly padded on the inside, it is attached to the armor at the center of the lower edge of the skirt. While its early form was rather cuplike, it remained under direct influence of civilian costume, and later examples are somewhat more pointed upward.

It was, however, not typically worn with armor for use on horseback; first, because it would get in the way, and second, because the armored front bow of the war saddle usually offered enough protection for the groin area. Thus the codpiece is usually found on armor used for fighting on foot, both in war and tournament, and, although of some protective value, it has always been as much an element of fashion as one of defense.

One of the most enduring and popular images of a medieval warrior is that of a Viking , made immediately recognizable by his helmet adorned with a pair of horns. There is, however, little evidence to suggest that Vikings ever used horns as decoration for their helmets. The earliest use of a pair of stylized horns as a crest appears to be the small group of helmets surviving from the Celtic Bronze Age, particularly in Scandinavia and the area of modern-day France, Germany, and Austria. These crests were embossed out of bronze, and could take the shape of two horns or of a flattened triangular profile, sometimes both.

These helmets probably date to the twelfth or eleventh century B. Two thousand years later, from about onward, pairs of horns again became popular throughout Europe and remained one of the most widely used heraldic crests on helmets for battle and tournament alike during the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is easy to see that neither of these periods coincides with the period usually associated with the Scandinavian raids of the late eighth to the late eleventh century.

Helmets used by Viking warriors were usually of conical or hemispherical shape, sometimes made from a single piece of metal, sometimes constructed of segments held together by connecting metal lames Spangenhelme. A number of them appear to have been fitted with a face defense. The latter could be in the form of a simple metal bar extending over the nose nasal , or a faceplate comprising a nasal with additional protection for the eyes and upper cheekbones made of plate, or finally, a full protection of the entire face and neck made of mail.

Generally speaking, the above statement is correct as long as it is stressed that it was the ever-increasing efficiency of firearms, not firearms as such, that led to an eventual decline of plate armor on the battlefield. Since the first firearms appear to have been in use in Europe as early as the third decade of the fourteenth century , and the gradual decline of armor is not noticed before the second half of the seventeenth century, firearms and plate armor coexisted for more than years.

During the sixteenth century, attempts had been made to render armor bulletproof, either by hardening the steel or, more commonly, by thickening the armor or adding separate reinforcing pieces on top of the normal field armor. Finally, it should be noted that armor as such has never become entirely obsolete. Moreover, even body defenses have lived on in the shape of the experimental breastplates of the American Civil War, the breastplates of airplane gunners during World War II, and the bulletproof vests worn today.

Medical and anthropological research demonstrates that the average height of men and women has gradually increased over the centuries, a process that, for reasons of progressively better diet and public health, has accelerated during the past years or so. The majority of surviving armors from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries appear to confirm these findings.

However, when trying to affirm such generalizations from armor, a number of factors need to be carefully considered. First, is the armor complete and homogeneous i. Moreover, then as now, other general factors have to be taken into account, such as differences in average body height between northern and southern Europeans for example, or the simple fact that there have always been people who were exceptionally tall or short when compared to their average contemporary.

Among the famous exceptions are royal examples such as Francis I, king of France r. Neither armor is complete, and the sizes of the former owners are necessarily broad estimates, yet the differences in size and stature are remarkable: while the owner of the first armor was probably around 6 feet 4 inches ca.

As most people were expected to be right-handed, most strikes or thrusts were anticipated to come from the left, thus hopefully glancing off the armor, across the overlap, toward the right.

While there are early predecessors such as the Roman-era lorica segmentata , full plate armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, especially in the context of the Hundred Years' War , from the coat of plates worn over mail suits during the 13th century.

In Europe plate armour reached its peak in the late 15th and 16th centuries, and the full suit of armour, commonly perceived as "medieval", was actually only a feature of the very end of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance period. Full suits of Gothic plate armour were worn on the battlefields of the Burgundian and Italian Wars.

The most heavily armoured troops of the period were heavy cavalry such as the gendarmes and early cuirassiers , but the infantry troops of the Swiss mercenaries and the landsknechts also took to wearing lighter suits of "three quarters" plate armour, leaving the lower legs unprotected.

The use of plate armour declined in the 17th century, but remained common both among the nobility and for the cuirassiers throughout the European wars of religion. After , plate armour was mostly reduced to the simple breastplate cuirass worn by cuirassiers. This was due to the development of the flintlock musket which could penetrate armour at a considerable distance, severely reducing the payoff from the investment in full plate armour.

For infantry, the breastplate gained renewed importance with the development of shrapnel in the late 18th century. The use of steel plates sewn into flak jacket dates to World War II , replaced by more modern materials such as fibre-reinforced plastic since the s. It is a common misconception that the plate armour of European soldiers adversely affected mobility in a significant manner, but in fact plate armour was less heavy and featured more even weight distribution than a full complement of a modern firefighter's gear.

The Sassanian heavy cavalry units known as Clibanarii seem to have approached the full late medieval suit of armour, but little detail of exactly what they wore is known. Partial plate armour, which protected the chest and the lower limbs, was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans , but it fell into disuse after the collapse of the Roman Empire because of the cost and work involved in producing a piece of metal plate or cuirass.

Single plates of metal armour were again used from the late 13th century on, to protect joints and shins, and these were worn over a mail hauberk. Gradually the number of plate components of medieval armour increased, protecting further areas of the body, and in barding those of a cavalryman's horse.

Armourers developed skills in articulating the lames or individual plates for parts of the body that needed to be flexible, and in fitting armour to the individual wearer like a tailor. The cost of a full suit of high quality fitted armour, as opposed to the cheaper munition armour equivalent of ready-to-wear was enormous, and inevitably restricted to the wealthy who were seriously committed to either soldiering or jousting.

The rest of an army wore inconsistent mixtures of pieces, with chain mail still playing an important part. Italian suit of armour with sallet , c. By about , complete suits of plate armour had been developed. A full suit of plate armour would have consisted of a helmet , a gorget or bevor , pauldrons or spaulders , besagews , couters , vambraces , gauntlets , a cuirass back and breastplate with a fauld , tassets and a culet , a mail skirt, cuisses , poleyns , greaves , and sabatons.

The very fullest sets, more often made for jousting than war, included pieces of exchange , alternate pieces suiting different purposes, so that the suit could be configured for a range of different uses, for example fighting on foot or on horse. A complete suit of plate armour made from well-tempered steel would weigh around 15—20 kg pounds.

The armour was articulated and covered a man's entire body completely from neck to toe. European leaders in armouring techniques were northern Italians, especially from Milan, and southern Germans, who had somewhat different styles. But styles were diffused around Europe, often by the movement of armourers; the Renaissance Greenwich armour was made by a royal workshop near London that had imported Italian, Flemish and mostly German craftsmen, though it soon developed its own unique style.

Ottoman Turkey also made wide use of plate armour but incorporated large amounts of mail into their armour, which was widely used by shock troops such as the Janissary Corps. Plate armour was virtually invulnerable to sword slashes. It also protects the wearer well against spear or pike thrusts and provides decent defence against blunt trauma. The evolution of plate armour also triggered developments in the design of offensive weapons.

While this armour was effective against cuts or blows, their weak points could be exploited by long tapered swords or other weapons designed for the purpose, such as pollaxes and halberds. The effect of arrows and bolts is still a point of contention in regards to plate armour. Longbows and crossbows could also pierce plate armour up to ranges of metres ft with a lucky shot, [3] notably in battles such as the Battle of Visby. They were designed to deliver a strong impact and concentrate energy on a small area and cause damage through the plate.

Maces , war hammers and the hammer-heads of pollaxes poleaxes were used to inflict blunt trauma through armour. Fluted plate was not only decorative, but also reinforced the plate against bending under slashing or blunt impact. This offsets against the tendency for flutes to catch piercing blows. In armoured techniques taught in the German school of swordsmanship , the attacker concentrates on these "weak spots", resulting in a fighting style very different from unarmoured sword-fighting.

Because of this weakness most warriors wore a mail shirt haubergeon or hauberk beneath their plate armour or coat-of-plates. Later, full mail shirts were replaced with mail patches, called gussets , sewn onto a gambeson or arming jacket.

Further protection for plate armour was the use of small round plates called besagews that covered the armpit area and couters and poleyns with "wings" to protect the inside of the joint.

Plate armour for Henry II of France, made around , with elaborate ornamental embossing. German so-called Maximilian armour of the early 16th century is a style using heavy fluting and some decorative etching, as opposed to the plainer finish on 15th-century white armour. The shapes include influence from Italian styles. This era also saw the use of closed helms, as opposed to the 15th-century-style sallets and barbutes.

As firearms became better and more common on the battlefield the utility of full armour gradually declined, and full suits became restricted to those made for jousting see below which continued to develop. The decoration of fine armour greatly increased in the period, using a whole range of techniques, and further greatly increasing the cost.

Elaborately decorated plate armour for royalty and the very wealthy was being produced. Highly decorated armour is often called parade armour , a somewhat misleading terms as such armour might well be worn on active military service. Steel plate armour for Henry II of France made in is covered with meticulous embossing, which has been subjected to blueing, silvering and gilding. Such work required armourers to either collaborate with artists or have artistic skill of their own; another alternative was to take designs from ornament prints and other prints, as was often done.