[Jay Stranahan]

Yes, gentle sirs and dames, despite the apparently ridiculous title this is an earnest inquiry. I was noodling around on the Internet a few nights ago, found an article on decorated European armor with accompanying photos at the NY Metropolitan Museum, and read something that electrified me:

>From the late thirteenth century onward, plates were added to reinforce the mail, particularly at vulnerable points such as the shoulders, elbows, and knees, and since these were usually exposed, they would often be decorated in various ways. For the torso, plates of metal, hardened leather, horn, or bone were riveted to the inside of costly and colorful textiles such as velvet, brocade, or cloth-of-gold. The exposed rivet heads of these defenses, known as coats of plates, and later brigandines, are often arranged in decorative patterns.

https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-decoration-of-european-armor

I want to assume that the curators at the Met know what they are talking about. But frustratingly, they give no cites or source material for these assertions. So my question for this knowledgeable forum is threefold:

1) Are there any sources for coats of plates made out of precious cloth? I know there were brigs faced with velvet; there's a photo of one at the Met. But I've never seen or heard of one made from cloth of gold. The idea of facing a coat of plates with a reproduction (synthetic) period-correct brocade like the ones available at Sartor of Bohemia and going into battle looking like a total pimp appeals to me... but my inner authenticity Nazi rebels at the idea until and unless I can find an offhand mention of it in some manuscript or other.

2) Are there any sources for coats of plates made of anything besides iron? I have seen brigs with leather plates for sale, but assumed that was fantasy armor. I can vaguely recall exactly one mention in a letter written by a Renaissance-era Englishman to another, telling him that a jack stuffed with tow and with horn plates is the lightest, most comfy thing ever, and will even (IIRC) stop a pistol ball. But I can't recall the source off the top of my head, and I know of nothing from the High Middle Ages. Perhaps you can do better.

3) Bone makes crappy armor. It's too brittle. Either the Met is BSing us or they are referring to whalebone -- in other words, to baleen. We know there were baleen gauntlets, sleeves, pauldrons for tourneys, and even baleen cuisses and greaves. But I've never heard they were used for body armor. Artificial baleen -- the kind Victorian reenactresses use to make bodices -- can be cut with shears, so I don't imagine it would offer a lot of protection against arrows or spears unless you threw on a mail hauberk to catch whatever came through. But it would offer wonderfully light shock-absorbent protection from everything else.

[Sean Manning]

[Dan Howard]

The Greater Annals of Cologne covers the conflict between Heinrich V and the city of Cologne in 1114 AD. It mentions a corps of soldiers wearing horn armour. Based on the time period, I would say that it was a scale or lamellar cuirass, rather than a jack or COP.

https://deremilitari.org/2014/02/warfare-between-emperor-henry-v-and-the-city-of-cologne-1114/

"....There was in the emperor's army a corps whose armor was made of horn and so could not be pierced by iron. When these removed their armor, however, in order to get a little air, for it was very hot, they were immediately covered with arrows, and all but six fell on the spot."

IIRC both Edge & Paddock and Blair say that whalebone (baleen) was used in the 14th C to make coats of plates but I don't think they cite a primary source.

Edit: found it in Edge & Paddock on p.68 (no source cited)

[Sean Manning]

In the fifteenth-century Bertrandon de la Broquiere calls what we would call a lamellar armour a brigandine with gardebraces. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1037921/ So probably if a fourteenth-century Englishman saw one of the Eurasian lamellar armours, he would call it a pair of plates, whether the scales were iron or horn or rawhide.

[Sean Manning]

moffat-et-al-baleen-in-britain mentions whalebone spaulders, sleeves, and gauntlets but not pairs of plates

Better not tell the Viking re-enactors about the annals of Cologne.

[Ryan S.]

I don't have any evidence for it, by I find brocade used for brigandines very plausible. The main argument against it, would be that the pattern of the cloth wouldn't show off the fancy rivets.

I am skeptical of horn being able to stop iron, maybe it was very thick and that was why it was so hot.

[Graham Shearlaw]

There's a few cited sources in
The use of Baleen for Arms, Armour and Heraldic Crests in Medieval Britain
By Sonia O'Connor

[Dan Howard]

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

Starting with the most direct answer: we do have evidence for brocade, silk and fine cloth coverings on brigandines and coat-of-plates, plus gilded armor etc.

"Joao Preto, Portuguese squire fighting in the Siege of Tuy, 1398, wore 'humas solhas cubertas de velludo verde com huma bamda de trena douro'" (Vestidos para Matar, p. 96. Our translation)

My Medieval Portuguese knowledge is not as good as it could be, but he's saying for sure the coat-of-plates was covered in green velvet with, from what I understood, a stripe of gold-thread cloth.

Again:
"D. Joao, Master of (the Military Order of) Avis, had, according to Fernao Lopes, hũas solhas postas em pano de sirgo verde per que o Meestre era conhecido quamdo as vestia (Ibid)

The translation would be: a coat-of-plates covered in green silk, for which the Master was known when he wore them.

Master Joao gave this armor to a men-at-arms named Afonso Henriques, in order to pretend to be him while they stormed the walls of a city, during the 1380's Civil War. At that occasion the garrison in the walls threw a huge rock that killed him on the spot, and made a big fuss about it, thinking they had killed the king.

For visual references, it's quite safe to say that King Afonso V of Portugal and Prince Joao (future King Joao II) both wore silk brocades over their brigs:

[ Linked Image ]

[ Linked Image ]

Ash is the only dude I know that makes Pastrana pattern brigandines for sale. He has three models:
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1370978897306623&set=a.173295726020416

He still have D. Joao's sleeveless gambeson, which he wore at Aljubarrota (1385), over his plate armor, and later gave to a monastery as an offering. Most of the color and the gold-threads are gone, but both outer layers are made of silk.

Froissart mentions, during the English participation of the Portuguese wars, that an English squire mentioned how a Portuguese lord was killed by a ginete's heavy dart during the siege of Lisbon (1384), while wearing full armor: his gambeson, which was worn under mail and CoP, was stuffed with silk.

Couldn't find references for the Castilian's Moorish Guard, a royal bodyguard that employed converted and knighted Moors. They had a second payment made in brocade, velvet and silk by weight, and were expected to wear rich clothes and fight as jinete light cavalry. They were supplied with the lastest armor too, according to registers, but I couldn't find a reference of them wearing velvet and armor at the same time.

(edit: some Portuguese characters are not recognized by the website, which turns them into a "?")

[Jay Stranahan]

My thanks for the well-informed answers, complete with lavish source material. I want to retract part of my initial premise: that fine brocade might be used as facing material. I was grazing around on the web site at Sartor of Bohemia and found the following:

>The main thing to look out for with brocade will raise its head on your very first cut ? fraying. Especially when cutting across the grain (crosswise), the weft threads start immediately to slip free of the warp and come loose on all sides.

>It?s the very structure of brocade that?s to blame. A fine, dense warp is interlaced with thicker weft threads that are dying to come loose. On top of that the threads are slick and smooth (for a nice gloss) and really slip over each other.

>So how do you keep the whole seam allowance from coming apart as you sew? You really can?t be too careful. The best thing is to finish the edges for all pieces immediately after cutting, either with a zigzag stitch or an overlock on a serger.

Perhaps you know this already and are laughing at me, but I have never worked with brocade yet. It seems obvious that you cannot wear something into battle that springs apart like a cheap bale of hay whenever you cut it. It does not admit of possibility. Now velvet, which I have worked with and is amply attested to, is a different animal. It is closely woven and very tough, almost canvas weight. It makes an excellent facing material -- if you can afford it. If you want to adorn yourself further you can always go the route they did with the Black Prince's jupon and adorn it with gold-threaded embroidery.

I thought I should enter all of that into the public record, so that it may dwell on this excellent forum in memory imperishable, and help someone answer their own queries some years down the road.

[Sean Manning]

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

[Ryan S.]