Horn Armor
I was reading some the De re militari primary source documents and I found a very unusual passage. In a fight between Henry V and the city of Cologne

"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."

The rest of the document can be found here. http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/cologne.htm

Any idea what this horn armor may have been? I have never heard of such a thing, but I am not an expert. :P
Re: Horn Armor
David Walker wrote:
I was reading some the De re militari primary source documents and I found a very unusual passage. In a fight between Henry V and the city of Cologne

"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."

The rest of the document can be found here. http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/cologne.htm

Any idea what this horn armor may have been? I have never heard of such a thing, but I am not an expert. :P


I'm not familiar with that specific passage, however during the Transitional period (c. 1325-1415) many armorers experimented with lots of kinds of armoring materials. One that was fairly popular was baleen, and while it's often mistakenly called "whalebone", I believe it's more correct to say it's the tooth-like plates used in feeding. In any case, this horn-like substance was fairly tough yet flexible--in essence, it was medieval plastic. It's mentioned briefly in Edge & Paddock and in Blair. I would be surprised to learn it was being used as late as 1415, but you never know.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. It is not Henry V of England, it is the Holy Roman Emperor by that name. The year the event took place was 1114, though it was not written in the chronicle for some half century IIRC.
I would guess this could be some sort of scale armour made of horn plates. One Anglo-Saxon helmet - the Benty Grange - was supposed to have had horn plates instead of the usual iron spangenhelm plates.

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