and just how tired does one get?

William,

You can't compare the field conditions at Crecy and Agincourt. When you read more about those two battles, you will find two things they had in common was that the English were trapped and the French lost.

And read what Matt said again, then look at the armour worn in those two periods as evidenced by funerary monuments at this handy website. http://effigiesandbrasses.com/
There are plenty of places to hit an armoured man where he may only have mail or thin plate.

According to Clifford J. Rogers and various primary sources, many if not most of the knights at Agincourt wore mail hauberks under their plate harnesses even at Agincourt. That may be a misinterpretation of the iconographic evidence, but "long coats of steel" really sounds like a hauberk.

A full *shirt* of mail, usually with sleeves to the elbow at most and down to the crotch.
I don't think anybody is suggesting that they usually wore full length mail chausses and sleeves under their plate. If they are suggesting that then I'd be interested to know what the source evidence is.

That leaves the arms and legs predominantly covered only by relatively thin plate.

To dress like a 12thC knight in head-to-foot padding and mail and then put plate over the top of that would be insanely hot and heavy.

On the subject of the back there are some good clues around - for example Fiore dei Liberi's treatise clearly shows solid breastplates and coat-of-plates type back defences, and that treatise is dated to only 5 years before Agincourt. Additionally there is the famous statue of St.George from Prague, dating to about 1400, which shows a similar combination of solid breastplate and coat-of-plates back.

But the arms and legs were prodominantly only covered in a layer of steel plate, and generally amongst the thinest plate you will find in a plate harness, often only around 1mm thick and at this time often only iron or low carbon steel.

I'm not sure many of us would function very well with even just an inch of steel point stuck in our shin or forearm. Even less well if we had more than one such wound.

Under partial plate, yes (eg, front-only greaves and gutter-vambraces. Under fully enclosed greaves, cuisses and vambraces by the time of Agincourt, unlikely.

Once again it comes back to the percentages. How much of the army was fully enclosed in plate? How much wore partial plate? I doubt that this question can be answered.

Hi Josh

Quote:

It was armour such as this that defeated the longbow. Note the deep plackarts, effectively forming an almost double-breastplate, as well as the huge pauldrons and elbow defenses.

I may be wrong but the suit you posted above looks specifically suited to jousting, not wading into battle on the field.

Cheers

GC

ooops, did I really quote a post from the first page? ;)

Some things to consider

With effigies and art in general they need be used with some caution for dating and percentage of use. Personally I avoid using effigies for dating at all, too much artistic tradition in many cases. As well dating is highly subjective. Half of these are dated by similarity to other effigies which have their dated arrived at by the same means. The ultimate in chicken and egg dating. And you have the other choice of date of death, which often is incorrect or adding some to after they died which is also likely wrong as well. Truth is we just do not know for the vast majority of them. And those we have dates for often show development being much more advanced than comparable ones. The Hasting Effigy is a great example. Some other effigies of the 1340s look like someone out of the 1280s or 1290s.Then you have effigies dated to the same decade or with in a few years even of two gents of similar standing and one is wearing armour nearly a 1/2 century or more old compared to the other. Seems highly suspect. And another variable to consider, if effigy centers were in use as is commonly thought by people such as Dr. N. Saul we also have to wonder how 'economy' effigies were compared to those completely tailor made. You might have a dozen or more apprentices carving out a basic slab or working on brasses that can be detailed by the master when needed, which may or may not be right away. Some effigies are so similar there can be little doubt some of these were made as part of a larger system of manufacture.

At least with manuscripts we often can arrive at dates by events in text or calendars included. even better if the date is included. This does not help always either. I can pull up gents in full armour in many illustrations for the same MS from England in the 1310s and one similar make same time will show gents in all mail. Why would they be so different if they are ultimately drawing upon the same environment for inspiration?

Now for me the place to start for dates is literature and other written accounts. By the 1330s we see plate everywhere in textual evidence. By 1320s Blair states he has not found a complete martial inventory without Coat of plates among the knightly class. For those I have seen it looks right. I really doubt many men that were knights or their betters did not have at least a fair amount of limb armour by the 1320s and 30s, at least in England. By the 1340s I'd think it highly unlikely a knight would lack plate armour on the limbs. By the 1320s there are accounts of townsmen in Southampton that are more or less in complete harness. Now these gents are wealthy but I doubt the nobility was following martial trends in this case started by merchants and tradesmen.

Now as to if men were wearing hauberks and aketons under plate, seems to be the case until the 2nd quarter of the 15th to mid 15th. Even into the Later Hundred Years War we see this being seen as the norm. Monstrelet claims the men at arms of the French at Agincourt wore aketons, hauberks and full white harness. Some others include Bertrand du Guesclin's chronicle, written around the time of his death which also gives a similar example when a lance penetrates his Pair of plates, hauberk and stops on the last layer of his aketon.

RPM