[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

I was reading a book about the War of the Roses and I came across a late fifteenth century's illustration representing the Duke of Normandy. Although he certainly didn't wear such armor, I found it curious how the artist made the horse's armor. My questions are: is there any evidence for the use of brigandine bardings? If there aren't, it's nonsense to have a barding made of brigandines?

[Philip Dyer]

What makes you think it is brigandine horse armor and not just a regular cloth horse cover?

[Timo Nieminen]

I think it's just cloth. First, the pattern on the cloth is too sparse to be brigandine rivet heads. Second, the folds in the cloth wouldn't be possible if it was armour.

Figure 3 in http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/..._1480_1620 shows a horse with a patterned cloth cover over mail.

I don't recall ever seeing any brigandine horse armour. I've seen plate (iron/steel), mail, plates and mail, and cuir bouilli from Europe, and mail, plate and mail, lamellar, quilted, hide, and scale from outside Europe. The closest to brigandine I've seen is this Chinese fake brigandine:
http://www.metmuseum.org/content/interactives...1_pop.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/35726
where there are no plates, only rivets. This suggests that the Chinese used brigandine horse armour, but I haven't seen any surviving examples.

[Mark Griffin]

Def cloth. Can't think of any evidence for brigandine barding.