Posts: 1,504 Location: Brisbane, Australia
Sat 03 Sep, 2016 4:43 pm
I think it's just cloth. First, the pattern on the cloth is too sparse to be brigandine rivet heads. Second, the folds in the cloth wouldn't be possible if it was armour.
Figure 3 in
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/..._1480_1620 shows a horse with a patterned cloth cover over mail.
I don't recall ever seeing any brigandine horse armour. I've seen plate (iron/steel), mail, plates and mail, and cuir bouilli from Europe, and mail, plate and mail, lamellar, quilted, hide, and scale from outside Europe. The closest to brigandine I've seen is this Chinese fake brigandine:
http://www.metmuseum.org/content/interactives...1_pop.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/35726
where there are no plates, only rivets. This suggests that the Chinese used brigandine horse armour, but I haven't seen any surviving examples.