[Carl Scholer]

Ok this isn’t what it looks like. I’m not here to argue which armour provides superior protection. I think we can all agree to one degree or another that plate was adopted over mail because people felt that for whatever reason plate was the superior choice of armour. My question instead is how much of an advantage do you, the members of this forum, think plate gave over mail. Specifically I’m thinking about the usefulness of these armours as it applies to conflicts between mounted knights and men at arms. Do you think that a knight in say early 13th century harness with its mail, great helm, and heater shield would be at a significant disadvantage against an early 15th century knight in white harness and pig faced basinet, or would the advantage given by the more up to date harness be fairly marginal?

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

Mail might weigh a little less than plate (30 lbs roughly versus roughly 60 lbs), but it hung mostly on the shoulders. Even with a belt around the waist and ties below the knees (which did alleviate the problem some), the concentrated weight could be tiring. Plate is much more form-fitting, and the weight is spread out all over the body. Each piece is strapped or laced onto each body part, so the weight is distributed beter than with mail.

Personally, I've even noticed a bit of a different feel when I put my coat-of-plates over my mail (granted, cheap and heavy butted mail), because the pressure of the plates seems to distribute the weight better. I feel less pull on my shoulders when I wear the plate with the mail, even though the two together is obviously heavier than separate. I actually prefer the combination to mail alone (just my personal observations, remember).

A fit knight in plate armour could leap into his saddle without touching the stirrups, climb the underside of a scaling ladder using just his hands, and perform other remarkable feats. Of course, the helmet will be stuffy and hot, and on a very hot day, either knight might collapse from heat exhaustion! It's hard to say which would be at a disadvantage, but I think the plate armour was a bit better suited for fighting on foot.

I hope this made sense!

Stay safe!

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

I thought of another way the earlier, 13th century knight, may be at a disadvantage if he faced his 15th century descendant on foot. although one not directly related to armour. The knightly surcoat of the 13th century, depending on how long it was cut, might hamper the knight's movements. That's why the surcoat was cut short in the front in the early 14th century, and then shortened all around a bit later. I believe that Sir John Chandos was killed in battle when he tripped on the hem of his long, old fashioned surcoat. (I read it in one of my books, but I can't remember which one.) That could definitely be a problem for the 13th century knight!

Stay safe!

[Michael S. Rivet]

Well, maille and plate work differently. Maille absorbs and deforms under stress. It may be impervious to a percussive cut by a sword (trying to keep the can of woms closed here) and decent protection against penetration by spear or arrow, but the force still passes on to the foundation garment and the fleshy substance beneath. That could cause moderate to severe impact trauma even if the maille was left intact.

Plate, on the other hand, is not only impervious to cuts and penetration (except possibly by heavy blows from spiked warhammers or similar nasties), but causes blows to skip off the surface of the steel. Strikes are less likely to land squarely on target, and should they do so, the plate itself distributes the force over a wider area. Hence, plate provides superior protection to various kinds of impact trauma.

So your maille-clad and plate-clad knights might duke it out for a while without ever breaking the other's armour, but eventually (assuming blows land equally often and with equal force behind them), your chap in the maille is going to get a bit bruised and battered.

[Patrick Kelly]

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

[Carl Scholer]

I'm really liking the responses so far, thank you.

You’re right my post is a bit nebulous, but I’m definitely not trying to get any concrete or definitive answers on the subject, just opinions and speculation. I’ve been essentially racking my head over the subject for the past day now so I should probably voice some of my thoughts on it to help clarify the source of the question. At the moment I’m thinking that the advantage given by plate armor over the previous mail armor was not terribly significant. Plate certainly gives good protection against bone crushing blows and the thrusts of lances and arrows but the older types of kit also included the shield to provide protection against these sorts of attacks. In grappling and fighting with daggers I’m not entirely sure how pronounced of an advantage the plate armored fighter would have although I assume the mailed fighter would be in greater danger from thrusts. But in summation I don't think a later period harness has anything that would give an absolute or gross advantage to fighter over an opponent wearing an older style of mail harness.

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

[Dan Howard]

Russ Mitchell cited some entries from Kassa's archives (17th century) in which a mail haubergeon cost 6 times as much as a "double" breastplate. The production time for the mail was 2 months whereas the breastplate was only 2 days. There must have been a very good reason why someone, even as late as the 17th century was willing to pay top price for a mail shirt when plate armour was both cheaper and more readily available.

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

Dan,

Could the reasons be that mail was still lighter? More flexible? Could be worn beneath other items, even civilian clothing in an attempt to conceal the fact that you were armed (although it didn't work so well for Richard the Lionheart)? John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, is shown wearing a mail shirt under his clothing in an anonymous portrait. This is ironic, if it was meant as protection against a "dagger in the back", since he was murdered by the French on the bridge at Monterreau. Nobody's arguing the fact that mail was still in use throughout the medieval period and beyond. It did have some advantages over plate! However, if it was better in all circumstances over plate, plate would never have been adopted!

Personally, if I were a 15th century man-at-arms, I would want a mail shirt or brigandine coat to wear "on the road", and leave the stuffy plate for the battlefield! However, in a bloody melee, I would want the best protection available! Of course, mail was fine for the Irish, among others!

Stay safe!

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

I guess I should never say that I have no more to say about a subject, because I always find more to say!

I read an interesting, if doubtful, statement in The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders by Desmond Seward. In the chapter about the three sieges of Rhodes, when the author is describing Mehmet's siege of 1480 and how the Knights Hospitaller beat the Turks back, he states that "great elbow guards could catch and snap a sword". I find this dubious at best, but I guess it might be possible to catch an opponent's blade in the large fans of some of the late 15th century couters. Has anyone else heard of this pretty remarkable feat, or was Seward making it up? The book was an entertaining read, but I'm not sure of its accuracy. (And this statement made such an impression that I recalled it while taking part in this discussion, even though I first read the book years ago.)

The reason I brought this up here is, if this is possible, it would give the 15th knight in plate another advantage over his foe. He could catch his opponents blade, them drive the point of his own weapon into a nice soft spot! Of course, the 13th century knight's shield edge could be used in a similar way, to catch his opponent's weapon.

I'm not stating that this was a possible use of couters, just wondering about what I read!

Any further information about this statement by Seward would be greatly appreciated!

Stay safe!

[Michael Edelson]

Plate not only feels more restrictive, it is more restrictive. Even the best articulation cannot accomodate the full range of motion of the human body. Mail, on the other hand, does not restrict motion. This, to me, is its greatest advantage.

Mail is (again, to me) more comfortable, as there are no leather straps to dig into my flesh. Mail does not mind if you gain or lose a few pounds or a few inches of bicep. Mail is significantly faster and easier to put on than plate. It is possible to put on a full mail harness by yourself...I have never seen a plate harness that can be donned solo. Ditto for removal.

Mail is easier to store and easier to polish in case of rust (just put it in a bucket and shake the bucket for half an hour and you're done). Mail, when stored, is very compact. You can carry a hauberk, coif, chauses and gaunltets in a very small pack.

All that said, plate is cooler. Knowing human nature, it is not entirely impossible that this was the greatest reason for its popularity.

[Hisham Gaballa]

Mail was worn in the Ottoman Empire and Iran up until the mid-18th century and India until the early 19th century. It was still being worn in the Sudan and Sub-Saharran Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Ottomans did encounter enemies in the 15th and 16th centuries who did wear full plate armour; the Italians, the Hungarians and the Holy Roman Empire, yet they never adopted it themselves (although some types of mail-and-plate armours such as the krug had more plates than mail). This was because the Ottomans had a completely different style of warfare in which archery was paramount and mail offers a high degree of protection against arrows. The kind of "man-to-man" melees with axe, mace, lance and sword which characterised European warfare usually only occur in the final closing stages of a lot of Near Eastern, South Asian and Central Asian battles.

The other factor is undoubtedly climate. Mail (and its underlying padding) can "breathe" so it is probably cooler to wear. Anyone wearing full plate armour in Iran or India will probably end up dead of heat exhaustion from lack of ventilation. That's my theory anyway.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

[Steve Fabert]

The answer to the question may differ considerably if some assumptions are stated clearly. Are you interested in combat on foot, or on horseback? And what offensive weaponry are you assuming the contestants will be using? I think the answer may well be very different if you view the armor as one component of the entire 'weapon system' rather than a separate variable to be matched with identical weapons and fighting methods on both sides. If each knight is allowed to choose his weapons to match his armor, there may be little to recommend one choice of armor over the other besides personal preference.

I doubt that it was an accident that two handed swords came into fashion for foot combat at about the same time as plate armor began to predominate. Single handed swords and shields seem to have gone well with mail for many centuries, before the use of plate became common. It makes sense to reduce the shield to a buckler and then dispense with it altogether, once plate defenses were available, but not before then. Once both hands are free to swing a weapon, different offensive choices may offset other positive attributes of mail-based equipment packages.

I have no experience with fighting on horseback and so can't say whether the apparently obvious virtues of plate for horsemen is a reality or just an appearance. Do the horsemen among us feel there is any advantage to wearing mail while mounted, or is plate protection clearly preferable for fighting on horseback?

[James Barker]

[Greg Coffman]

Small point

[Steve Fabert]

Greg:

You are correct, I am not suggesting that plate armor caused either shields or bucklers to become obsolete. I am referring instead to the rarity of two handed weapons being wielded by men wearing mail, who do not seem to have been willing to dispense with the protection of a shield in the same way that 15th century plate users sometimes (but not always) did. If you do not choose a two handed weapon, then it would still make sense to use the offhand to carry a defensive shield or buckler whether your torso is protected by plate or by mail.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

I don't think there's much question that a man in a hardened and well-fitted suit of plate would have the advantage over a man in mail. For example, imagine 15th- or 16th-century heavy cavalry facing 13th-century knights. I can't see any outcome other than the gendarmes routing 13th-century guys.

I think it'd be about the same on foot, though probably not as dramatic. In individual combat, skill would be the most important factor, but the guy in plate would have the advantage. If the guy in plate had a two-handed weapon, and the guy in mail had a sword and shield, then the plated warrior's advantage would increase. I think 15th-century men-at-arms, wearing full harness and wielding polearms, would have little to fear from 13th-century knights.