Battlefield Armour and Tournament armour, the diffrence? -- myArmoury.com

Brian Jensen

Battlefield Armour and Tournament armour, the diffrence?

Can anyone help me?

My next quistion is then, a Maximillian armour is not the same as plate armour?

Einar Drønnesund · Posted: Sat 20 Mar, 2004 9:00 am Post subject:

Tournament armour made for jousting was often a lot thicker and heavier than battlefield armour. On the battlefield you have to be quick and mobile, and you have to be able to be so for a long time. In a joust, you can wear a lot heavier armour, since its over very quickly, and you dont need to be able to move around that much.

Felix Wang · Posted: Sat 20 Mar, 2004 11:15 am Post subject:

Einar's response is very apt. In fact, some tournament armor for jousting restricted motion of the left side of the body, by using large, thick pieces that could better resist armor.

Earlier, battle armor was pretty much the same as tournament armor, since tournaments were in essence practice battles.

Maximillian armor is a style of plate armor.

Brian Jensen · Posted: Sat 20 Mar, 2004 12:40 pm Post subject:

Thanks, maybe some of you could find a few pictures , where i could see the difference with no trouble, that would be great, and thanks for responding.

Maximillian armour a plat style, i did not know there was different styles, what are the names of the "main" styles and a short description, then i can investigate further myself.

Anybody know a good book about armour?

Brian M · Posted: Sat 20 Mar, 2004 12:53 pm Post subject:

Often armor was commissioned as a "battlefield" suit, with specialized exchange pieces for the tournament. These were things like: Reinforced Bevor (face/neck plate) to fit over the standard helm, perhaps a "frog-mouth" helm which replaced the standard helm, breastplate reinforcement, reinforcements for the left arm and shoulder (the term escapes me), etc.

Allan Senefelder · Industry Professional

Armours with exchange pieces were called garnitures. They often had peices not just for tournement use but to make the
suit into a variety of different field harness rolls ( service on foot , light cavalry, heavy cavalry ect ) and were
being commisioned in the 16th and early 17th centuries .

Field harness could weigh as much as half of the weight of tournement harness( dependent on the sort of
tournement it was for . There were a number of different sorts of jousts with lances and different foot
combats , if over barriers ( waist high wooden railing ) then half armour was worn or full armour for
without . the weapons used for foot combat would vary somewhat where and how thick extra plates
were ) depending on the sort of tournement the armour was for .

Felix Wang · Posted: Sat 20 Mar, 2004 2:34 pm Post subject:

Elsewhere on this site, Nathan has a fine page contrasting Italian and German Gothic armor: http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_gothic_armour.html

A part of a Maximilian style suit is at the Met in New York: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rarm/ho_14.25.716.htm

Brian Jensen · Posted: Sat 20 Mar, 2004 3:57 pm Post subject:

Damn, does anyone have a picture of a real tournament armour with all the extra plating (garnitures) on?
i would really love seeing such a armour

Allan Senefelder · Industry Professional

Not to many of the "great garnitures "( a large assortment of pieces allowing one suit to be used in a wide number
of rolls on both the battle field and the tournement field ) survive complete there are some " small garnitures "
( a suit with a much smaller assortment of pieces typically those neccessary to change a suit for mounted
battlefield use into a suit for tournement use with blunt lances ) . The example that springs to mind quickly
is in "Imperial Austria , Treasures of Art , Arms and Armour From The State of Styria" which is still pretty
redilly avaliable . "The Royal Armoury At Greenwich 1515-1649, A History of its Technology " has the
Honourable Artillery Company's Armour for field and tilt shown with it surviving exchange pieces .