It's well known that by the beginning of the 16th century, many soldiers in the princely armies of Europe were outfitted with mass-produced munitions grade harnesses of plate armor, supplied in their thousands by the commanders. It seems that a combination of increasingly large, often standing armies with conveyer style production methods in the largest centres of metallurgy allowed for this development.

But while it seems clear that the use of such equipment was already common by the very first years of the 16th century, I'm curious about when exactly did the practice start. Perhaps it was the Burgundian army of Charles the bold? Or do we truly have evidence for this only starting after 1500?

I read somewhere here that even as early as early 15th century Milanese armourers were able to produce large orders for dukes or kings (like few thousand for example) in a matter of days. So I guess even that could be called munition harnesses...

I'd guess, if by "Munitions Armour" you mean armour supplied by the state, or the army itself, as opposed to being the property of the individual, then you'd have to consider the practice extending back to the Roman armies ?. The legions were mostly armoured by the State and the troops were deducted a certain amount from their pay.

No, in this case I mean specifically the renaissance style of mass-produced, centrally issued [plate] armor. Of course I know about the Romans' system, but it's irrelevant.

Not entirely irrelevant as they would have had to employ a similar system to what seems to have been employed by some italian armourers albeit the Romans had more armour to make. You get people making specific items in the harness (not one or two people making the whole thing) and stockpile those. These items are all marked up with registration marks and when that big order comes in from the Duke of Wherever you changing your working practices to assembly and finishing. These marks are visible on many harnesses and have been researched and detailed in a paper by Chris Dobson, ex master armourer at Leeds. You can buy the paper from his website i think.

There are no marks on any roman armours i know of but haven't looked. But its a lot easier when producing items by the many thousand to have people churning out a limited range of items and feeding them into a central assembly line. Henry Ford's productions methods were not that revolutionary as far as I'm concerned. You get a much better uniformity and quality too I shouldn't wonder.

It is actually irrelevant to my question, since it's out of my interest in the 15th century that I asked it. I'd like to know whether there is any evidence of magnates from the Wars of the Roses, the French companies of ordinnance, the Burgundian army or the Italian condottiere companies using "uniform" armor.

If you take out or refine your requirement for the armors to be "plate", evidence of issues of large equipment of "uniform" description appear in the mid-14th century in England.
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3919/1/Thom_Ri..._final.pdf

Quote:

4 Conclusions The analysis of the accounts of the privy wardrobe demonstrates the continued existence of a working armoury in the Tower of London from the late 1330s until the early fifteenth century. The history of the armoury under the privy wardrobe can be divided into three phases. From 1338 to 1360 it provided armour, weapons and equestrian equipment for men-at-arms, and bows and arrows in very large quantities together with a limited amount of armour for archers. This coincides with the requirement for large field armies in France for the campaigns in Flanders, the Crécy campaign and the Poitiers campaign, concluding with the Treaties of Brétigny and Calais in 1359–60. Much of the armour was imported from north-west Europe, though some was made in England.

Whoah, that's a lot earlier than I expected.

If you bother to read the thesis, you will find plenty of evidence that they were buying armors specificly to be issued.
John Sleaford, Keeper of the Privy Wardrobe purchased 1,743 mail shirts (lorice) between 1364-1369. Over 1,500 of these were purchased though John Salman of London. Salman likely imported most of these from Dutch and German mail-makers.

To quote Richardson,

Quote:

Other knights and ship’s masters were given a full set of armour, as noted above under mail. These sets are called ‘complete armours’ (hernesia integra) in Mildenhall’s account, such a complete armour comprising a helm, bacinet and aventail, pisane, pairs of plates, rerebraces, vambraces, mail sleeves and paunces. This shows that although the components of these complete armours were supplied independently, they were considered to form sets on issue, evidence at odds with the conventional idea that the complete armour did not evolve until the early fifteenth century. (191)

As time wore on, the Wardrobe (Tower Armoury) stopped providing armours for men-at-arms, but increased gear issued to archers. Eventually, the government shifted it's concern to artillery, and the lesser equipment became the responsibility of individuals, cities, or Great Lords equipping their retainers.

Too true. Towns often did similar things. London buys several hundred aketons and bascinets to equip a force Ed II asks to be provided of some 500 men.

If munitions falls under this sort of activity then yep they sure did.

RPM