[Matthew Murrell]

Hi all, I'm wondering if during the 15 th century they had such a item as Back Plackart. If so what sources show this?

Also does any body know of any good books on 15th century amour. And in particular English style armour.


Cheers, Matthew

[Michael Parker]

Have a look at these threads.

Milanese Armor
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=21152
German Gothic Armor
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=21487

Unlike the front of the cuirass, which usually consisted of a breastplate and plackart, you will notice that the back of the cuirass was often divided into many lames or overlapping pieces. I suppose you could say that the bottom part of the back plate was similar in function to the plackart on the front, since it was at the same level and the rear fauld and tassets were suspended from it like on the front, but I do not know if that part of the back plate has a particular name. Maybe it's just my imagination, but it looks like in most of the Milanese examples the bottom lames overlap the top ones, while on the German examples the upper lames overlap the bottom ones. This is especially interesting to me since in both styles, the plackart almost always overlaps the breastplate, although on that particular German Kastenbrust example in Viena ca. 1440 the opposite is true.

For that matter, breastplates can be found which have one or more lames between the plackart and the breastplate fastened together with sliding rivets.

Tobias Capwell wrote a book about 15th century English armor based on funeral effigies in churches, but I don't know if it is available yet.

[Matthew Murrell]

Cheers Michael,

Thank you very much for the reply it was exactly what I was looking for.