Knightly Armour Progression

[paleologos]

In this thread I am re-posting some posts of mine that I originally posted in the Unit Preview thread.
I am making this for ease of reference.

The 1st Tier.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) The short sleeves.
B) The length of the hauberk reaching half way between the belt and the knees.
C) The slits of the hauberk on the sides, not front and back.
D) No mail for the legs.
E) Round shield.

The 2nd Tier.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) The sleeves get longer.
B) The hauberk gets longer.
C) The shield is now the raindrop shape, a Norman invention but it's popularity spread quickly across Europe.

The 3rd Tier.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) The helmet acquires a face guard and -sometimes- a rudimentary kneck guard, this is the forefather of the great helm.
B) Thicker torso protection.
C) Mail mittens are added.
D) Mail protection for the shins is added.

The 4rth Tier.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) The hauberk gets longer.
B) As the face protection becomes standardised, the need for heraldry arises, so we have a heraldic surcoat and shield.
C) Mittens and shin protection also becomes standardised.

The 5th Tier.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) The helmet is now less than half a generation from the true Great Helm (or can be considered the first generation of great helms).
B) As the quality of armour improves, the need for a large shield diminishes, it is now the wedge type, though the raindrop types are not yet obsolete and the first "heater" types also appear.

The 6th Tier.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) The helmets now are the true Great Helm types.
B) Coat of plates added above the hauberk for extra torso protection becomes standard knightly equipment.
C) True "heater" shield type becomes standardised.
D) Extra protection for the knees (doesn't show very clearly here) also becomes standardised.

The 7th Tier.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) Coat of plates becomes longer but the plate pieces in side it become smaller, this is "primitive" brigandine.
B) More importantly the first plate pieces are added for limb protection.
Here we see plate pieces for shoulders, elbows, knees, shins, and the upper part of the feet.
However, other examples also include plate pieces for upper arms and forearms.

The 8th Tier, part A.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) The brigandine vests become standard.
B) Plate and splint pieces for limb protection become indispensable.
C) Shield is now optional.

The 8th Tier, part B.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This is the Churbourg Harness (not sure about the spelling).
Note:
A) Torso plates are made of 7 or 9 pieces.
B) The skirt is brigandine.
(What else do I need to say about this?)



To be continued...

[paleologos]

I am resuming from the post above.

In this post I will present the renaissance plates.

The 9th Tier, part A.
(The southern Germany school of armour making, aka Gothic plates.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) Body almost fully encased in plates.
B) Bevor plate protecting the throat and neck.
C) Grooves/corrugations designrd to "catch" a blade's tip and guide it's glide so that the force is deflected.
D) The plate sabatons.
Unlike what their shape might suggest they were not intended to be used offensively.
See, this is the time that a wealthy soldier's harness was an opportunity for conspicuous consumption.
This meant that in order to demonstrate the craftsmanship that their purse could afford they would need to shed the heraldic surcoat.
But at the same time they were very jealous of the trappings of their social rank.
At this time the length of the sabatons was seving this very purpose and a King might be seen wearing sabatons about half a meter long!
Clearly, these "boots" were not meant for walking!

The 9th Tier, part B.
(The Milanese school of armour making)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) Body almost fully encased in plates.
B) Bevor plate protecting the throat and neck.
C) Smooth surfaces.
D) Modest, practical sabatons.

The 10th Tier.
(16th century plates)'
This is a photograph of King Henry VIII's Italian made harness.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) The rear protection of the thighs and legs is shed. The rest becomes thicker.
B) Ridged Helmet.

The 11th Tier.
(Greenwich Style, developed in England at the commant of Henry VIII)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note:
A) Excessive attempts at decoration achieve a grotesque but nonetheless interesting outcome.

Now, any and all of the above suits of armour could and would be expected to be used by properly equiped men-at-arms.
A man-at-arms was a man whose profession was soldiery.
He could be a knight of the landed aristocracy with a pedigree tracing to the companions of Rolo, 1st Norman duke at Normandy, or even Charlemagne himself.
Or he could be a ministerialis of the Holy Roman Empire.
Or he could be an adventurer or plain mercenary.

If the man-at-arms was a knight, either noble or ministerialis, he would be landed and therefore feudal.
After the first crusade, when the first western knights returned they brought with them more than tangible treasures.
The tenets of the Furūsiyya became Europeanized as the code of chivalry and henceforth all knights would also be "chivalric".
And when the demands of war necessitated and the technological advancements allowed the manufacture of plate armour, the hitherto feudal-chivalric knights became "gothic" as well.

[paleologos]

Reserved.

[I3lackfox]

Seems like you did really a lot of work paleologoss :o.

[MightyPotato]

May the holy texturer and unit creator paleologos save us from these gothic aberrations xD!!!

[paleologos]

Seems like you did really a lot of work paleologoss :o.

Well I've been doing an amateur's research on this since I started work on knight's models, which was three years ago.
The original posts here are not new, they posts numbers #681 and #682 originally posted in the Unit Preview thread.
I just thought they would more useful and be easier to access in a stickied thread of their own.
In case people disagree with the results of my dilettantish research, I would welcome their opinions and a conversation on those.

[Overlord.ru]

Are you really going to implement all those looks??? That would be just epic!!!

[+Marius+]

That is a nice sum up of armor development.
Simplified to the max, yet very informative at the same time.

Just a little nitpick;

Tier 10 armor should not be Henry VIII's light field suit(he had full suits as well) in my opinion, as three quarter armor suits are not really best suited(hehe) to represent early 16th century armor and especially not as an upgrade.

I would rather go for the most famous early 16th century display of armor from the Metropolitan Museum;

http://i.imgur.com/fCxLBKt.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DCKTVkm.jpg

or this Pompeo della Cesa suit;

http://41.media.tumblr.com/2398b9316...kdyo1_1280.jpg

Perhaps something else, just that it is a full suit of armor.


Also, perhaps adding the Maximilian style armor as an alternative version;
http://i.imgur.com/mMf61px.jpg?1

http://api.ning.com/files/3TBpPAKa3a...rikAnsicht.jpg

After the first crusade, when the first western knights returned they brought with them more than tangible treasures.
The tenets of the Furūsiyya became Europeanized as the code of chivalry and henceforth all knights would also be "chivalric".

The Europeans had their own codes and tenets before they came to the Middle East, there is no evidence that chivalry originated from furusiyya.
The cultural exchange during the crusades went both ways, so some stuff was indeed incorporated from each to the other.

[paleologos]

Tier 10 armor should not be Henry VIII's light field suit(he had full suits as well) in my opinion, as three quarter armor suits are not really best suited(hehe) to represent early 16th century armor and especially not as an upgrade.

Well, I agree that the harnesses in the images you link are not an upgrade in terms of coverage or thickness in relation to tier 9.
I could be wrong but they seem to me as stylistical evolutions (early baroque - or a tad earlier?) of the no-nonesense Milanese style.
As such they were more likely to serve as a consumation of a nobleman's trappings than as a useful accessory to the evolving military trend (see gunpowder).
Ergo, I decided to go with three quarters for tier 10 (admittedly arbitrary) as an indication that the assessments of the gunpowder threat had become fully disseminated by then.

The Europeans had their own codes and tenets before they came to the Middle East, there is no evidence that chivalry originated from furusiyya.
The cultural exchange during the crusades went both ways, so some stuff was indeed incorporated from each to the other.

I have no doubt that Europeans had their own codes before the crusades.
However consider this thought experiment:
You take a few modern women back in time, during the crusades and show them the table manners of European knights and Arab farises.
Have those ladies seated in the same feast with the warriors.
And ask them to assess the degree to which they become recipients of "chivalric" considerations by Europeans and by Arabs.
I would certainly not regard as "chivalric" the war conduct of European knights during the first crusade but it gradually became more like it.

[+Marius+]

Well, I agree that the harnesses in the images you link are not an upgrade in terms of coverage or thickness in relation to tier 9.
I could be wrong but they seem to me as stylistical evolutions (early baroque - or a tad earlier?) of the no-nonesense Milanese style.

Well they do get thicker on average.

As such they were more likely to serve as a consumation of a nobleman's trappings than as a useful accessory to the evolving military trend (see gunpowder).
Ergo, I decided to go with three quarters for tier 10 (admittedly arbitrary) as an indication that the assessments of the gunpowder threat had become fully disseminated by then.

Alright, but I would argue that such developments came later and should perhaps be set in another tier.

However consider this thought experiment:
You take a few modern women back in time, during the crusades and show them the table manners of European knights and Arab farises.
Have those ladies seated in the same feast with the warriors.
And ask them to assess the degree to which they become recipients of "chivalric" considerations by Europeans and by Arabs.

They would assess the European nobles to be the better option.

The days of Arab/Persian "gentle" Islam were over, the new Muslim warrior class were various local warlords, former slave warriors, mercenaries, Nomadic/Turkic warriors etc.

There are plenty of accounts of Muslims being shocked by the liberties Christian women enjoy in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The Europeans even had unisex bath houses.

I would certainly not regard as "chivalric" the war conduct of European knights during the first crusade but it gradually became more like it.

Knights did not roam around marauding and stealing peoples furniture, they were to rich for that and dealt with war as if with sport, ransoms, horses and actual money(coins)were their goal, not stealing peoples belongings and committing random acts of violence for no purpose.

The men who sacked Jerusalem were an army made out of outlaws, pilgrims, mercenaries, brigands etc.

If you research the sources about the first Crusade, you will notice that, on numerous occasions, Muslims were spared simply by entering verbal agreements with crusader nobles, while others, who met common soldiers instead of nobles, were killed.


This is most apparent during the siege of Sidon, when a much smaller, proper army under a proper Christian king, allows the entire population of a Muslim city to leave with all their wealth when they surrendered the city, they were even given a detachment of warriors to keep them safe fro marauders until they reached the closes Muslim town.


Heck, the relationship of the new Crusader landed class and the locals was so stable, that at the battle of Sarmin, merely 16 years after the sack of Jerusalm, about half the entire Crusader army were local Muslims fighting alongside Crusaders against the Seljuks.


You seem to be forgetting that, apart from the Fatimid lords, nearly every other Muslim "lord" in the region was from a recently arrived steppe warrior culture.

[Wallachian]

Great explanation of the progression of armour. But as Marius noted there is a gap when you went from the Gothic/Milanese to the XVIth century armour. That armour that you posted is the mid to late XVIth century armour when as you said parts of the plating was removed from the legs.

But in between the Gothic/Milanese and that stage there is also the flutted armour stage also known as the Maximilian armour. This flutted style evolved from the gothic armour but it had a lot more bulbous surfaces and more rounded areas to deflect blows. Including all the variants it was in use from about 1500 to 1530.

[achilles-91]

I dont knwo how i didnt noticed this thread before. Great research Paleologos.

Do you plan to create some those for medieval 2?

[paleologos]

God willing...

[achilles-91]

Well, il send you pm tomorow. I will give you some matterials that can be very helpfull to you.

[kostic]

I like your thread paleologos ! With M2TW, I often had the impression to be the only one to grumble for the credibility gap of suits. I even tried to throw me in the modding to correct it. But it's old...
http://www.moddb.com/members/kostic38/downloads or http://www.moddb.com/games/medieval-...wnloads/kps-04
I try SSHIP. It's seems good but the général look 14 or 15 ème century at 1100... and his bodyguards have knights' aspect of the second half of 13 ème century!

Sorry for my bad english...

[paleologos]

I recently discovered this video: The Evolution Of Knightly Armour - 1066 - 1485.
I did not have a chance to see it yet but it seems interesting.

[Point Blank]

Wow excellent thread!

[kostic]

Excellent synthesis work on the evolution of armor ! Thank you for putting me the link because the subject fits perfectly with my work objective for SSHIP.