[Travis Gorrie]

I do not know if this question has an obvious answer or I'm just missing it, but here it goes.

Why did plate armor (lorica segmentata, breast plate) fall out of fashion during the Middle Ages?

It seems that plate armor (of some form) was superior to mail as protection, since the bulk of the Roman army wore Lorica Segmentata and not mail. And that armor in general gradually evolved in the direction of plate. Also I am assuming that Lorica Segmentata was superior to mail since the Roman's could afford to outfit their troops with the best armor and this was what they predominantly used. (Someone please correct me if this assumption is incorrect)

So why were the medieval knights of the 11th, 12th, 13th centuries typically wearing only mail hauberks? I would assume that mail armor with a breast plate would provide vastly superior protection than mail alone, and this technology was around since the Greeks. But it was not until the 14th century that plate returned to the battlefield.

Here is a rough timeline of knightly armor based on ‘Arms and Armor of the Medieval Knight’ by David Edge and John Paddock:

11th century – mail
12th century – mail and maybe coat of scale
End of 12th and 13th century – mail with cuir boulli cuirasse
14th century – mail with Coat of plates
Mid to late 14th century - return of the breast plate and Plate cuirasse
15th century – full plate harness

Any insight would be appreciated; this question has nagged me for a long time. Thank you.

[Max von Bargen]

The best answer to your question is that it fell out of favor long before the Middle Ages.

During the later centuries of the Roman Empire, lorica segmentata fell out of use and mail again increased in importance as the army became more Germanized and the treasury went into decline. After the fall of the western Roman Empire, the states that remained were ruled by the descendants of the barbarian tribes that overran it, who used mail as their form of body armour. So by the Middle Ages, the body armour that was used was a natural progression of the armour worn by their predecessors. And actually, some might argue that a full-length hauberk was better protection than lorica segmentata--but let's not get into that here.

As for breastplates, the types of breastplates used in the Classical period tended to be made of bronze (but some of iron and/or other materials may have been found), which did not provide as much protection as the breastplates of the Middle Ages. Many of the breastplates used particularly during the (late?) Empire were for ceremonial purposes IIRC. All breastplates of the time were quite expensive and only officers usually wore them. Again, this was probably another custom that vanished with the western Empire.

Hope I've been able to help. It's an interesting question.
Max

[George Hill]

[Travis Gorrie]

Max,

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate your response. I would have thought (hoping) that the reason was more than just cultural fashion. I still find it hard to believe that the arms race did not cause the return of plate much sooner, especially for the richest few knights.

And as for your quote:

[Alexander Hinman]

This (quite huge) topic has been touched on before, albeit without any decisive conclusions reached.

Here's the thread:
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=6492

I find the question immensely interesting, but I'm rather unsure of how to look for definitive answers. As far as we no, no-one wrote 'Well, we got tired of (x, y, and z) issues with plate-type armour, so we switched over to maille.

[Travis Gorrie]

George,

Thanks for the info. It was my understanding (probably based on Hollywood) that the Romans went to lorica segmentata and never looked back. I also did not think that padded cloth armor was worn under mail (by anyone Romans, Celts, Vikings, etc) until well into the Middle Ages. Thanks again for responding.

[Dan Howard]

This thread is a good discussion about why segmentata was phased out of use.
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55605

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Merv Cannon]

I was gonna post ths as a new topic but thought I'd place it here as its relevent. I have recently had a large 'debate' over at A -Árchive about one of my favourite topics...that is the clasification of arms and armour. Seems to me that people over the ages got to be freely creative and experiment and mix and match to find out what works best. in a given circumstance and we go about boxing it up and classifing it and stamping it, which is fine, but we must realise that we are working from only the tip of the iceberg.......much of the good and "unusual" (because its not displayed) gear is stored in Museum basements and private collections and never sees the light of day. So the same old gear gets debated and rehashed and reproduced. (eg.Churberg, Churberg, Churberg.........)
Anyway, I wont go over all ths again as you can read all about it here.....

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=65546

I thought I would include a couple of images from an illustration of the Battle of Crecy although it is obviously done in the 15thC. It shows scale and lamellar Aventails and Coifs and 'Gorgets'...even on the Nobles.
You just dont see this stuff reproduced......at lease very rarely !

[Blaz Berlec]

And what about this one, scale helmets:



This fresco of Saint George killing a dragon is from a church of St. Kanzian, Selo above Zirovnica in Slovenia. It was painted around 1430, these parts were back then called Duchy of Carniola, part of Holy Roman Empire.

Another, much more famous example:

[Blaz Berlec]

And another one:

[Al Muckart]

Hi Merv,

[Dan Howard]

[Steven H]

It looks to me like the first and second pictures provided by Merv show a typical mail coif and a lamellar style gorget/bevor type piece.

The second picture provided by Blaz appears to clearly show a lamellar coif/mantle piece on one of the figures on the left.

So there is some lamellar armor there.

[Al Muckart]

[Elling Polden]

If you have ever tried to draw a 13th century battle scene, you know that drawing mail rings, even quick and dirty, is extremely tiring on the wrist

[James Barker]

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

Certain authors and historians, such as Eduard Wagner, believe that scale aventails were definitely used as an option to mail in medieval Eastern Europe. The book Medieval Costume, Armour, and Weapons by Wagner, Drobna, and Durdik shows many drawings based on manuscript images and other artworks (Sorry, I don't have access to the primary sources they use, but it definitely gives an idea where to look.)

Plate 6 of the Wagner, Drobna, and Durdik work shows archers from the King Wenceslas Bible. One wears what appears to be a bascinet with a scale aventail. The others clearly wears mail aventails.

Plate 13 shows a soldier from the same manuscript wearing a bascinet with a scale aventail and a detail of the helmet and aventail.

Plate 15 shows yet another soldier, this one armed with a poleaxe or halberd, wearing a scale aventail.

Plate 17 shows a depiction of a soldier from an early 15th century manuscript. The soldier weras what appears to be a scale gorget and skirt, but it may just be an anachronistic attempt at depicting "Oriental" armour.

Plate 19 shows a nobleman from the early 15th century Krumlov Manuscript wearing a scale "skirt" (fauld?).

I don't want to cause "confusion", but I will cite one of the "dreaded" Osprey colour plates, since it is a second but similar interpretation of the same source. In German Medieval Armies 1300-1500 by Christopher Gravett, plate D shows a Bohemian archer of the late 14th century wearing a bascinet with a scale aventail. The plate is based on a depiction of an archer in a "Bohemian Bible" (probably the King Wenceslas Bible).

There is also an English image or two that can be considered to have scale gorgets or aventails. I'll have to do some digging to find the specifics. I'll also see if I can find images from "primary" sources.

I do not wish this to become another debate about artist's renditions or the validity of sources! I'm just trying to point out that others interpret some aventail depictions as being scale, not mail. Scale was occasionally, if only rarely, used throughout the medieval period (check out the scale versus mail thread for some examples), so why couldn't it be used for an aventail?

I'll see what else I can come up with!

Stay safe!

[Aaron J. Cergol]

Rome is not my area of expertice, but from what I've learned is that whoever defeated the romans- they wanted to get rid of all things that represented Rome. they wanted nothing to do with Rome so they didn't continue on with their armour. That's just what I heard/read. I could be wrong though.

anyways fast forward to the early/mid fourteenth century and take a look at a COP (coat of plates) several look almost identical in design to a lorica segmentata. kinda' strange.

hope this helps, and please if I am wrong someone tell me,

Aaron

[Max von Bargen]