[William P]

The topic is pretty much my question, essentially Ive been leafing through, mostly pintrest and google to get an idea of 13th century and early 14th century knights in continental Europe. in PARTICULAR a well to do brother knight of the hospitillar order but i'd imagine armour trends were somewhat similar for secular knights and kingdoms as well

during the 13th century, how fast and to what extend did other pieces of armour like, arm defences knee cops etc become introduced?
currently my major source is the compilation of osprey books known as knight: noble warrior of england which tracks the evolution of the english knight from 1200-1600 over the course of 2 books joined together one for each century

things such as this http://dick-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Englis...ght_03.jpg 1250 apparently
http://s11.postimg.org/5ibg24egj/English_Medi...003892.jpg 1290 apparently

however i am unsure just how accurate these are, the macejowski bible for example makes no mention of any of the solid plate defenses shown in the modern artworks.

[Dan Howard]

The real answer is that we don't know. Before "all white" armour became fashionable, most metal-plated armour was covered in cloth. It is impossible to tell from an illustration whether that cloth is concealing a solid plate, or an assembly of smaller plates, or whether it is just padded cloth. Sometimes rivet patterns can give a clue but not always.

[Philip Dyer]

[Neil Bockus]

I'd echo what everyone else said, but it's been stated 3 times now that we don't really know. Another source for your consideration looking into this subject: The King's Mirror. It's a mid-13th century manuscript (ca. 1250) which includes a section that describes how a warrior ought to be armed. The King's Mirror states that one ought to wear a plate chest defense, though its role isn't as the primary armor; it's worn in addition to the mail as a reinforce, as well as good iron knee cops worn over mail and linen breeches. Everything else is layers of mail and linen. The plate defending the chest should vertically cover from the nipples to the belt line, and is worn UNDER the hauberk, according to the manuscript. It doesn't mention how wide the plate should be, nor how it is constructed. Also, supposedly King Richard I and William des Barres wore iron plate reinforces during their duel in the 1180's, so plated defenses seem to begin taking up a reinforcing role as early as the late 12th century.

[Mart Shearer]

In the 13th century:
Helmets with face masks at the beginning of the century, but full protection over the back of the head not until around 1230.
Knee cops after c. 1225.
Skinbaux / Schynbalds covering the front of the shin after c. 1250.
Roundels over the point of the elbow no earlier than c. 1275, though still uncommon into the early 14th century. (the identification and dating of the effigy attributed to William Longsword II being much disputed)
Other than that, we don't see any sort of plate reinforcement over the limbs in the 13th century.

Pairs of plates covering the mail are usually hidden under the surcoat, but are generally considered to start appearing around 1250.

On the scale gauntlets, there are references to gauntlets of baleen, though we have no evidence from a literary source of their construction or appearance. The scale gauntlets are largely derived from the images in the St. Denis manuscripts of 1317. (BNF Fr. 2091-2093, and the later copy BNF Latin 5286)

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8452762k/f265.item
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84478804/f84.item
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9066031c/f95.item

[Mart Shearer]

[William P]

what about the coat of plates and such? im aware of the so called 'reinforced surcoat'
but in general what's the generally agreed timeline for the evolution of the coat of plates?

also at what point was the cuir boulli cuirass used?

[Mart Shearer]

[William P]

[Mart Shearer]

"Pair of plates" is the phrase most frequently found in medieval inventories for what is usually called a "coat of plates" today. They're the same thing. Randall mentioned the plates from the Norwegian King's Mirror of about 1250 calling for an iron plate from nipples to belt worn beneath the mail. Some of the pairs or coats of plate excavated from Wisby have only the front plates.

As far as the adoption speed by the monastic orders, it seems armor was always in short supply in the Holy Land. I've seen a number of regulations calling for knights returning to Europe to leave their armor behind for others. With a generally accepted date of adoption of c. 1250, you wouldn't see pairs of plates in use until the 7th Crusade (1248-1254) and later.

[Dan Howard]

The word "pair" had a different meaning back then. It didn't refer to two items but a set of similar items. A "pair of plates" is better interpreted as a "set of plates". As Mart said, it is referring to what we call a coat-of-plates.

[Mart Shearer]

[Randall Moffett]

Textual evidence really makes up in many ways for the issues mentioned with art. By the last quarter of the 13th century we see more and more evidence of plate being used to support mail. Toward the very end of this beginning of the 14th we see more and more plate objects, such as pairs of plates intended for commoners. By the 1320s plate for the knightly class and up is pretty much common in much of mainstream Europe to various degrees. Seems legs go before arms in general for limbs.

By Edward II's reign in England we see evidence in the various accounts, Calendar of Patent Rolls and such, of requirements for pairs of plates and gauntlets for common troops.

Ralph de Nesle's inventory indicates a late 13th, early 14th century lord would have access to more or less head to toe plate in addition to their mail. His inventory also has loads of plate likely to be used for others. In England the first reference to plate torso armour is in the later part of Henry III's reign, in the same entry as a visored helm interesting enough, so the gent was likely wearing pretty state of the art gear.

I do not see any reason to assume the Sleeping Guard or saint Maurice are from the 13th. In fact both have characteristics that to me are more mid 13th than late, the wide pommel on Maurice's sword and such, but I can see the argument. As well we have several depictions of cuirass armours on effigies from the 2nd half of the 13th as well to corroborate it.

How fast is far to complex to answer. Some of it is economics. It likely impacted the commoners pretty late compared to knights and nobles. AS well regionalism plays a part. In some places more rural some knights really linger in the past of military technology. Some places are at the tip of the spear so where is important to when in these cases.


RPM

[Daniele Trentin]

Hi guys, I think I can say something about Italy.

We have various text sources that are communal statutes for the northern Italy. I have to state that I don't have any of them, I'm still looking for, but I have talk with some reenactor friends about this topic.

They gave me some interesting informations.

First of all, there are rumors that in the site of the battle of Val D'Elsa (northern Italy) were found some iron breatplates - not coat of plates, full breastplates similar to the XIV century ones. It would be interesting to know more, but this discovery is not still public. But I think it could be likely: the King's Mirror mentions such breastplates, and Aldo Settia (one of the major italian medievalists) says they could have been used (I don't have the source yet).

A similar find might have been done on the site of the battle of Montaperti (Tuscany, 1260), another friend of mine told me of some metal plates which seems to be similar to XIV century coat-of-plates. But this is only a rumor by now, I'm not sure if they're true or not.

In communal statutes (as you may know) there is often a part with the regulations for the communal army, especially about the defences to be used: the level of defensive pieces required is often calculated on the value of the civilian robes, and there are penalties if you don't have the required gear. In these statutes it is often used the word lameria, which is associated with a defence similar to the St.Maurice's surcoat or an early coat-of-plates. This lameria is often required as an alternative to the panziera (which is a short-sleeved short hauberk), and for higher-level fighters such as knights or cavarlrymen it is required over the hauberk.

The term lameria is not the only one: it is often mentioned also thecorettum, later corettum de fero but is not clearly known what this item is. It is possibly of leather (the word corettum deriving from corio, corame which means leather) so it could be something rigid (like the one we see in the Macejowski bible, the garment worn by the right man here ).

About time references, it seems tha these terms are seen from the second quarter of the XIII cenury onwards to became common from dhe mid-century onwards. Unfortunately we have no pictorial references, so we can only imagine how they are made.

Another reference I am aware of, some german knights during the 1260 battle of Benevento are said wearing some kind of rigid armor (perhapa a lameria) over their hauberk, and french knights fighting them had to hit under their armpits to injury them.

I came across this. Towards the end of the document there are regulations for the city wards in London, and they were required to wear plates and aketon or gambeson and aketon or aketon and corset. We are in 1297.

[Dan Howard]

[Bartek Strojek]

There is curious thing excavated in modern Putgarten in old Polabian fortifications:

http://asmund-pgd.blogspot.com/2012/09/magdeb...wiety.html

Considered to be "Reste eines eisernen Brustpanzers" by Hans-Dieter Berlekamp in "Die Funde aus den Grabungen im Burgwall von Arkona auf Rügen in den Jahren 1969-1971"

It certainly looks quite a like, there 'catch' is that it's dated to 12th century.

Dunno if there's anyone can tell more about it, but it's interesting, certainly.

[Mart Shearer]