[Ísleifur Helgason]

Does any know what type of breastplate and/or body armour was most common among the Landsknecht from 1487-1500?

And how much credibility does the "no backplate" rumor have?

p.s. I am mostly talking about foot soldiers and not officers.

[Mike Ruhala]

Maximilian I commissioned thousands like the one I attached to equip his troops. As you can see a back plate was available but they really did go without it fairly regularly. IMO this is a highly historically significant cuirass that well deserves quality reproduction on a large scale.

[Edward Lee]

[Mike Ruhala]

The top two overused explanations for things in the arms and armor community are probably firearms and fashion.

In this particular case I don't know of any record of a hauptmann or other concerned party stating exactly why they commonly dropped the back plate. Taken in context of the rest of their gear and the way they fought which are subjects we do know something about it seems pretty clear that they often chose to go without a back plate because it saved them several pounds on their overall loadout yet cost them only a small fraction of their passive defense, probably something on the order of 15%.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1502_Die_Schlacht_im_Walde_anagoria.JPG

[Daniel Staberg]

When an set of chest armour has been made with a backplate it is actually impossible to wear the breastplate without the backplate as all of the straps are mounted on the back plate. Wearing the breastplate on it's own would require manufacturing and mounting both straps and additional buckles and is not something you do on the spur of the moment.
A breastplate that was worn on it's own had most probably been made to be worn alone from the very begining or been deliberatly altered by an armoureer.
Maximilian's surviving archive actually shows that some of the infantry armour he purchased and issued was breastplates only.


It should be noted that the "Schlacht im Wald" painting does for the most part not show landsknechts, the majority of the infantry shown are in fact Nürnberg militia who bore the brunt of the combat in the battle. The söldner in Nürnberg service are found only in a small part of the painting as they arrieved late to the party while Kasimir von Brandenburg-Kulmbach only fielded a small number of Landsknecht and Swiss alongside his cavalry and peasant levy and the artist chose to focus almost exclusivly on Kasimir's cavalry which was most hotly engaged. I have details of the battle and a number of close up photos of the painting taken by me in the 16th Century section of my blog
http://kriegsbuch.blogspot.se/search/label/16th%20Century

Based on my on my practical experience with landsknecht armour and pike fighting the backplate provides a good deal more than "15%" of your actual protection in combat and there is a significant difference in how vulberable you are with or without it. Because you stand sideways when using the pike the back or rather the rear half of the side of your body gets more exposed than one thinks. When we started sparring with pikes we were suprised by the number of thrusts that were able to hit that area and it made it quite clear why the doppelsöldner who formed the front ranks were required to wear fairly extensive armour.

One very good source for early Landsknecht armour and apperance is the drawings by Paul Dolnstein who served in a number of campaigns as one. In particular he both drew and provided written descriptions of the armour in use during the 1502 Danish-Swedish war and the 1504 Landshut war.

[Mike Ruhala]

[Craig Peters]

What about the factor of price? If Maximilian commissioned thousands of sets of armour, leaving out the back plate would probably reduce the cost by half. Financial considerations should not be underestimated, particularly since no emperor had unlimited coffers to draw upon. Looking at it another way, if he had enough money to pay for 1,500 landsknechts dressed in back and breast, then (assuming leaving out the back plate reduces the cost by half) he would have enough money to provide 3,000 men with breastplates. Considering how many more men would be at least partly armoured, only commissioning the breastplate might have been immensely practical from a strategic sense.

[Daniel Staberg]

[Mike Ruhala]

That's not an unreasonable assumption, Craig. The trick here is that for whatever combination of reasons this particular time frame, the late 15th/early 16th century saw the mass production of high quality armors at affordable prices. The particular cuirass under discussion actually incorporates a number of cost-cutting features that would reduce the price relative to a number of other common armors of the time. For example the curves are relatively simple, minimal fluting, the faulds are constructed in such a way they can be adjusted in or out... the shape of the top of the breast and back plate accommodates some variation in fit though personally I believe that mobility was the bigger concern. Nevertheless Daniel is correct that breast-plate-only variations exist, whether that was aftermarket adjustment by an armorer or they were made that way I can't confirm but I'd lean towards taking Daniel at his word.

Digging through my archives I found some more pics I have of that pattern of brustharnisch and I found what I believe is a more intact example of the back plate which incorporates faulds for additional protection over the lower back. I didn't have any pics of the breast-plate-only configuration but that is likely just selection bias on my part, I've been thinking about commissioning this brustharnisch for quite a while and I was interested in the complete setup.

Daniel, as far as stance goes I would suggest trying your feet and hips (nearly) sideways to your opponent/s and square your torso more. Point your knee at your opponent but I'm sure you already do that. This does two things,first it gets you better coverage from your breast plate and second it allows you to step forward with a thrust and rotate your torso adding strength and solidity from your core and body weight to your action. In my experience this is a little different than how many Eastern martial artists and modern sport scientists approach body mechanics but is the most common case for the great majority of traditional Western martial arts and many other athletic and even dance activities. You definitely will still expose a bit of your back at times and there's ways to account for that either with help from the other guys in your ranks, your timing or peculiarities in the execution of particular offensive or defensive actions but unfortunately that's all stuff that's much easier to show in person. Too bad we're separated by an ocean, I'm actually a really huge enthusiast of the KDF staff weapons and I bet we'd have a lot of fun playing pikes together.

Oh yeah, again easier to show than tell, but there's a neat trick you can do with thrusts from weapons that don't have a cutting edge like a small sword, epee du combat or in this case a pike... allow an incoming attack to miss you by just a little bit, then when the point is past take opposition against the shaft of the weapon with your body and ride right up it to land your blow. If you're familiar with how you use the guard on weapons like the rapier, small sword, saber, etc to "snowplow" past an opponent's blade it's essentially the same thing except you're using your back/shoulder/traps/arm/whatever instead of your weapon and again, don't try it on cutting weapons unless you're appropriately armored. Anyway another point of consideration with a sideways initial stance is that it exposes what is these days called the "armpit gap" in your armor, they can go right through the arm hole or even your shoulder and reach the vitals. It's just much more effective to square up your torso in a leger stance when wearing torso armor, modern police and military circles seem to have independently discovered that in the 20th century as well and squaring up when armored is commonly taught in combat shooting today.

[Daniel Staberg]

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a a series of good photos of a slightly later (1508) breastplate that was part of an order of 4000 that Maximilian placed with the city of Nürnberg
http://philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/...8000715|2#

This is probably represenative of the "breastplate-only" style with it's lack of hinges and the cut outs just above the fauld which helped the straps remain in place. (This type usually had two long straps riveted at the shoulders which were then crossed to form an "X" on the back before being tied or secured with a buckle on the front like a belt, a simple but cheap and reasonably effective way of securing the breastplate.)

A similar breastplate from Hermann Historica which probably belongs to the same large order, a few diffrences in how the last plate of the fauld is shaped for example and it does have hinges. But the hinges could be a later addition.


IMHO the presence of the cut-outs above the fauld strongly points to the breastplate being made to be worn alone, however it is not t impossible use it together with a backplate from technical viewpoint. But both the artwork and preserved armour seems to suggest that breastplates worn with a backplate tend to lack the cut-outs.





Close up of the breastplate above with the tassets removed




The presence of hinges at the shoulder are also a hint that the breastplate was intended to be worn with a backplate though as always there is the possibility that the hinges were added after construction either during the breastplates working life or when part of later day collections/displays. (The Imperial armoury in Wien has a number of examples of the later as a number of their 16th Century armours have had the tassets fitted with a later style of leather strap and buckles attachments rather than the original attachments.)

[Mark Griffin]

Thanks for the great pics, very useful!

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

Since Daniel posted about Dolstein's drawing, I would like to ask something related to them, but more generally to the overall landsknecht use of helmets:

In generall, I often see portrails of landsknecht wearing literally little to no armor at all, helmet included. Dolstein is perhaps the only execption I know so far.

I know Landsknecht used to hate wearing armour outside actual battles, so that's probably explain why the carvings shows them in a more "casual manner" (as if they were in daily campsite live). Still, I have to ask: is it true that most of the Landsknechts, at least in the period 1487 to 1515/1525, were known to not be so armoured as, for example, the swiss were? The aketon or other padded garment was worn beneath the clothings to ease the cuirasses worn other their dresses?

Before, I even thought that landsknecht would literally march to battle using only casual dresses and hats, but I saw in some of Dolstein's drawing that they used some sort of helmet under the hat, like this:


http://d16452122.u206.worldispnetwork.com/ima...CT0600.jpg

[Daniel Staberg]

[Graham Shearlaw]

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Daniel Staberg]

Dolnstein grossly exaggerates the number of Swedes, the army at Elfsborg was only local levies from the province of Vastergotland not a national effort. (And even when mustering a "national" force it was not possible to gather and sustain a force of 15000. Even the later Vasa Kings with their firm control of a central goverment and a regular army was hard pressed to reach that number.) The actual number was at most some 3000-4000 men, quite possibly less.

Swedish rising against King Hans had nothing to do with any lost prestige but was the result of long standing resentment among the Swedish nobility against his habit of puting foreigners as governors of Swedish castles, positions they saw as their natural right. With the destruction of the Grosser Garde King Hans had lost the very military unit which had granted him victory of the Swedes in 1497, with the feared Landsknechts gone and the Danes in general disarray the timing was right for an insurrection.

The Kalmar Union died well before 1502, I'd say that it was effectivly gone when Christoffer of Bavaria died in 1448 as he was the last King of the Union who was not opposed by either a Swedish King or a "Riksföreståndare" (Steward/regent). Whatever control a Union King could establish proved both limited and shortlived, and they had very little gain to show for their considerable investment of troops and treasure. Still the Union had given the Danish kings a taste of Imperial rule and they would launch go to war in both the mid-16th Century and early 17th Century to try and wipe out Sweden as an independent nation.

[Niels Just Rasmussen]