Medieval Life Documentary: The Hidden Secrets of Knight's Armor

The image of the Lone Knight Errant, fully clad in armor, out seeking daring deeds to do, is hogwash. While it is possible to fully armor up in mail without help, it's a lot easier with help. And as for plate armor, while a few of the pieces can be put on without help, it is impossible to fully armor up alone. So besides providing a sort of on-the-job training program for future knights, squires and other servants served the vital function of maintaining the knight's armor and assisting the knight in putting it on. Keeping armor in shape for use was no small job. Men's lives depended on keeping their armor in good condition. Mail rings weakened by rust, hinges or joints on plate armor, damaged by corrosion or wear, worn or frayed straps, any of these problems could cause fatal results in a battle. Mail is the ideal shape to maximize rust. The thousands of rings in a typical piece of mail armor provide almost the maximum amount of surface area possible for that volume of metal. Additionally, the use of iron rather than steel or any more rust-resistant material to produce the wire for mail further rendered it highly vulnerable to rust, which is one reason why so little mail armor has survived from the Middle Ages to the present. Mail was very difficult to clean. All those tiny, overlapping surfaces created innumerable hard-to-reach spots. Rust could be minimized by keeping the mail packed in oil or grease when not being worn, but the only effective means of cleaning it was to abrade the rust away. This could be done by packing the mail into a barrel or heavy cloth sack partially filled with sand and then rolling the barrel or sack around. Vinegar might be added to the sand to enhance the removal of oxidation. This cleans it well, but repeated cleaning wears the metal down and weakens it. While steel holds up better than iron, plate armor rusts too and could be kept oiled or greased to retard oxidation. Oiling and greasing would also help keep all the leather straps in good shape as well as ensuring smooth movement of hinges and riveted joints. Rust could be removed with camoy or other pieces of leather, as well as with oiled rags, possibly dipped in sand to add abrasive power. A slightly easier process than having to roll the suit in sand, as described above for mail, and a process less likely to cause indiscriminate weakening of the metal through excessive polishing. Some of the decorating mentioned above could also prevent rust by covering the steel in a rust-proof or rust-resistant material, but probably a very common means of slowing rust was to paint it. Very little painted armor survives, probably because paint naturally wears off over time if it isn't renewed. And in part because armor collectors of the 19th century favored shining bare metal pieces, so any remaining paint was polished off to make the pieces more salable. Certainly, many suits were never painted, but the fact that one of the large mercenary companies of the 14th century was known as the White Company because its members wore white armors strongly implies that painting armor must have been a fairly common practice if the use of only unpainted armor was distinctive enough to be noted. For mail armor, the first step is to put on the padded clothing over the street clothes, so the knight would put on his akaton and arming coif. The akaton could be made either with or without sleeves, and could be either a pullover style or open down the front with laces or buckles to close it. The arming coif was secured by tying its laces in a bow under the chin. He would then put on his hauberk, either with or without assistance. This involved bending over, grabbing the insides of the shoulders, and then lifting the whole hauberk over his head and letting it fall down over him while wriggling into the arms and attached mail coif. Gravity helps the mail drop down snugly over the body, but it can be a difficult process, particularly if the knight has gained weight since he was first fitted for the hauberk. At best, it's an awkward process. A modern equivalent might be trying to get into a large, long, wet sweater. Some modern Hollywood reconstructions of hauberks often have buckles or laces up the front or back of the mail shirt, presumably to close up an opening designed to make it easier to get in and out of the armor. I am not aware of any contemporary illustrations that support such a reconstruction, at least for the period when mail was the paramount form of armor in Europe. Further, such openings and fastenings would have created unnecessary vulnerabilities. And hauberks can be quite well tailored and fitted even without such adjustable fastenings, so it is likely that most hauberks were constructed without them. In any event, the next step would be to fasten a belt around the hauberk at the waist and pull a little of the mail up over the top of the belt to transfer some of the weight off the shoulders and onto the hips. This frees up the shoulders some, making it easier to use the arms for swinging weapons, and in general, causing less fatigue of the upper back. Helmets were typically worn over the top of a mail coif, and an additional metal skull cap was often worn on top of the arming coif, but under the mail coif as an additional bit of protection. Leather gauntlets, often with pieces of metal, horn, or other tough material sewn to backs of the hand, wrists, and fingers, were worn to protect the hands if the hauberk did not have built-in mittens of mail. The process of preparing for combat did not stop there. The squire would also buckle on the knight's spurs if he were to fight on horseback, and his sword belt. But, by the early 12th century, the sword belt would not go on until after the knight had put on his surcoat, a flowing, sleeveless garment worn over the hauberk. The surcoat served several functions, which will be discussed later. Putting on plate armor is a more involved process than putting on mail. Starting almost from his bare skin, the knight had to be specially dressed to wear plate. The knight wore his usual breeches and hose, but little else of his ordinary clothing when wearing armor. On his feet, he wore low-topped boots or shoes with a pair of holes in the toes. An arming point—one of those braided laces tough as a crossbow string—was fitted through the holes. On his upper body, he wore an arming doublet. The doublet was a long-sleeved jacket tailored to fit the knight snugly but not impede his movement. It tapered to the waist and then flared slightly, its lower edge reaching just a few inches down the thigh. It also had a short, standing padded collar to provide some cushioning around the neck. For several reasons, the knight did not wear a shirt under the arming doublet. First, it was usually warm enough inside the armor without an additional layer to trap heat. Second, the additional layer of hot, sweat-sodden cloth provided by the shirt was uncomfortable and, with the intense physical activity of combat, would ride up or twist and possibly become binding. Thus, arming doublets, while covered in tough, durable canvas, were lined with the softest, most comfortable material the knight could afford. The best doublets had fine silk linings which assured smooth movement of the doublet over the knight's body while in combat. Silk also is a very breathable fabric and helped transfer at least some of the damp sweat away from knight's skin. As mentioned before, the arming doublets had eyelets placed for lacing on the armor and usually had pieces of mail sewn or laced on to cover the armpits and the insides of the elbows. A collar of mail was also worn around the arming doublet's collar. Called a standard, the mail collar provided the last line of defense for the knight's throat. Finally, depending on the style of helmet being used by the knight, he might also wear some form of padded arming cap on his head. Once the knight was properly clothed, the squire began attaching the armor to the knight starting at the bottom and working his way up. The squire attending the knight would buckle on the knight's spurs if he were to fight on horseback. Otherwise, the spurs would be left off to avoid hindering the knight in foot combat. Next, the squire placed the sabaton's articulated metal shoes over the knight's leather shoes and secured them by lacing the arming point from the leather shoes through corresponding holes in the toe of the sabaton. Buckles and straps further secured the sabaton at the back and the bottom of the foot. A slot in the back of the sabaton allowed the shaft of spur to pass through while minimizing exposure of the heel area. Such elaborate protection of the feet may seem overly fastidious, but it was necessary. When on horseback, the knight's legs from the knees down to his feet were the areas most exposed to attack by soldiers on foot. Much of the advantages the knight gained by fighting from horseback would have been quickly lost if his legs and feet were sliced to ribbons by swords, daggers, and axes anytime he rode down on foot soldiers. However, as with the spurs, sabatons were typically not worn for combat on foot. Feet were far less of a target when down on the ground rather than up in the stirrups. Additionally, foot combat required as much mobility and agility as possible, both attributes with which the sabatons could interfere. The squire next attached the greaves, the defenses for the calves. Greaves were composed of a pair of gutter-shaped plates attached with hinges along one side. The squire opened the hinges, placed the greave around the calf, closed it, and secured the unhinged side with the attached fasteners. These fasteners could be permanently attached straps and buckles, pivoting hook and eye catches, or spring catches, depending on the date and origin of the armor. In all cases, the hinges would be along the outside part of the leg while the fasteners would be on the inside of the leg. This positioning reflects the armorer's understanding of the potential weaknesses of his product and of the realities of combat. The fasteners are more likely to fail if struck than the hinges, so the fasteners were placed along the inside of the leg, the side least exposed and least likely to be struck. The greaves rested on top of the sabatons and overlapped them. While this is the most natural arrangement for these pieces, it also has additional defensive value and is a feature repeated throughout the rest of the suit of armor. Overlapping the lower edge of the greave over the top edge of sabaton ensures that any weapon striking down along the greave will continue down over the sabaton rather than catching on the sabaton and thus perhaps forcing its way between the two pieces of armor. As mentioned before in the description of ring and scale armors, it's the same principle used in roofing and siding houses. Shingles and siding are always placed with the lower edge of the upper shingle or siding slat overlapping the highest edge of the shingle or slat below to ensure that rain flows over and off the roof or down the siding rather than under the shingling and siding and into the house. Since most blows in medieval combat fell from above, armorers overlapped the plates downward instead of upward wherever possible to minimize the risk of the edges or points of weapons catching and sliding under the plates and into the warrior inside the armor. The next piece attached was the pole-in, the articulated cover for the knee. The pole-in was usually permanently riveted to the cuisse, the protection for the thigh, so that the pole-in and cuisse went on together. The pole-in was composed of a central cop, a curved dishaped piece that covered the kneecap, and several lames, curved rectangular pieces that provided the articulation. The lames and the cop were riveted together to cover the knee joint, allowing the knight to completely flex and relax his knee as needed. The squire would place a piece of blanket or other sturdy padding on the front of the knight's knee and then secure the pole-in by buckling its straps around the knight's leg. The pole-in usually had at least two straps, one that fastened at or just above the knee and one just below the knee. The lower strap was often secured by a hook at the back of the greave to help ensure a snug fit and no gapping between the greave and pole-in. The pole-in could also be secured to the front of the greave by having a metal pin affixed to top front edge of the greave, which would lock into a matching hole in the lowest lame of the pole-in. The kneecap of the pole-in was typically made with an additional projection along the back outside edge. Shaped like a broadened stylized spade, this projection helped protect the back of the knee from slashing blows from the side by stopping the incoming blade before it reached the leg. The projection was spade shaped to help carry the blade back and away from the leg. Moving up the leg, the next piece of armor was the cuisse, the large defense for the thighs. As mentioned before, cuisses were usually permanently attached to the pole-in by having the highest lame of the pole-in riveted to the lower edge of the cuisse. In this instance, the upper edge of the lower plate overlapped the lower edge of the top plate, contrary to the better defensive overlapping described above, and so created a potential vulnerability in the armor. However, the need for articulating the joint to permit the knee to move required this pattern of overlapping. The cuisse had a large gutter-shaped piece of metal for the and had one or more slightly curved rectangular pieces attached by hinges along its outside edge to more fully enclose the thigh. Again, to minimize the exposure of the fasteners to blows, the hinges were along the outside and the fasteners were along the inside of the thigh. For cuisses, the fasteners were always straps and buckles rather than hooks or other all-metal closures since more room for adjustment was needed for the thighs than for the calves. And since the metal plates did not completely encircle the thigh. For securing the top of the cuisse, a leather tab was permanently riveted to its top, and arming points located below the waist on the arming doublet laced through holes on the tab. It is also possible that cuisses could have been fitted with straps and buckle that permitted fastening their top edge to belts rather than directly to the jacket. This would have had the advantage of transferring more of the weight of leg armor to the hips rather than having it all hanging from the knight's shoulder. Next, the squire helped the knight into the first layer of metal armor to protect his buttocks and the tops of his thighs. The knight already had some protection for these areas in the form of the padded armor of the skirt of his arming doublet, but better yet still flexible armor was obviously needed. Thus, the squire would help the knight into a mini skirt of mail, or, if in a Germanic country, breeches of mail. The squire would draw the leather cord along the top of the skirt or breeches tight and tie it securely, in the same way that any drawstring clothing is put on. While the mail was not as good a protection as plate, it was the best option for providing the high degree of flexibility needed while still providing significantly more protection than just fabric armor. The next step was to attach the upper body armor. Breast and back plates were typically divided horizontally a few inches above waist level into two separate pieces. The upper breast plate, often called a cuirass, and the upper back plate were usually hinged together along one side and then buckled at the shoulders and along the unhinged side. The lower breast plate, sometimes called a placard, and the lower back plate attached to straps or nuts mounted in the center of the upper back and breast plates. One advantage of having the breast and back plates broken up this way was that it allowed some slight room for adjustment of the fit and some slight additional flexibility. To supplement the fasteners built into breast and back plates, and to further ensure that they stayed together without gapping, some knights wore a belt around the pronounced waist of the harness. At the bottom of the lower breast and back plates was the fold, a skirt of rectangular plates curved to fit the body and suspended on leather straps to allow the skirt to ride up or hang down to accommodate the knight's leg movement when riding or on foot. Additionally, tassets, large pentagonal plates, were often attached to the front and occasionally the sides of the fold to cover the between the upper and lower body defenses. The tassets provided an additional free-hanging layer of armor over the top of the male skirt or breeches. The tassets also overlapped the cuisses, again to help downward blows to flow over and down the knight's body without catching and penetrating. The knight's arms were protected with couders and vambraces or cannons. The couder was the articulated protection for the elbow and was constructed like the polon, except slightly smaller. The similarity usually included the presence of an oblong or spade-shaped projection on the outside of the elbow cop that protected the inside of the elbow, the same way that the projection on the polon protected the back of the knee. Much like the greaves, vambraces were made of paired gutter-shaped pieces of metal hinged along one side and fitted with fasteners along the other. The lower vambrace enclosed the forearm. The lower vambrace was often laced to the arming doublet, but later versions were frequently riveted directly to the lower edge of the couter. Through holes either in its upper edge or in a leather tab attached to that edge, the upper vambrace was laced to arming points at the shoulder and buckled shut. At the lower edge of the upper vambrace, the couder was usually permanently attached by rivets, though it could also be attached by lace from the elbow of the arming doublet. Next, the squire would lace on the shoulder armor, either pauldrons or spodlers. Pauldrons were large, shell-like pieces that covered the tops of the shoulders in front and back down to about the middle of the upper arm and attached to laces at the top of the shoulder of the arming doublet. Again, the arming points or laces were threaded either through holes in the top edge of the pauldron itself or through a leather tab riveted to the pauldron. Later versions of pauldrons and spodlers were attached directly to the upper breast and back plates by locking rivets. Specially constructed rivets with spring loaded tabs that held the armor in place. Pauldrons were fitted with additional straps to secure the lower edge around the arm, preventing them from being flipped up to expose the top of the arm. Later pauldrons were fitted with grooves at the lower edge that engaged flanges at the top of the upper vambrace to ensure no gapping. Spodlers had smaller shell-like pieces at the top to cover the top of shoulders, but then had a series of articulated curved plates attached at the lower edge. These plates were contoured to match the shape of the upper arm more closely than the pauldrons and attached directly to the upper edge of the upper vambrace. Shoulder defenses were usually asymmetrical. Pauldrons and spodlers for the left side were usually large and covered more of the side and armpit than those for the right side. This reflected the fact that knights fought only right-handed. That is, they used their left hands to hold the reins and wielded their weapons in their right hands. Gauntlets and vambraces were also often designed with this in mind as well. Left gauntlets and vambraces larger and less mobile than those on the right since less movement was required on that side and since plate armor had rendered shields largely unnecessary for knights in battle by the 15th century so they could better withstand blows. In some suits of armor, the difference between the left and right sides is so pronounced that the suits are reminiscent of lobsters, with one claw far more developed and oversized than the other. Pauldrons and spodlers on the right side frequently had semicircular cutouts on the inside front surface. While such a cutout may seem like a needless exposure of the highly vulnerable armpit, it was necessary to allow the knight to couch his lance properly under his right arm. Complementing the cutout in the right spodler or pauldron, breastplates designed for mounted combat usually had a small detachable bracket on the right side. This bracket was the lance rest which helped support the lance and engaged the back of the vamplate. The flared handguard on the lance prevented the lance from simply being forced out back under the knight's arm when he struck his opponent. The combination of cutout, lance rest, and vamplate ensured that a knight's lance would strike with the full force of the combined mass of the knight, his charging horse, and their armor. A great amount of power all concentrated in the sharp iron or steel point of the lance. At this point, the knight could don his gauntlets. Gauntlets were metal gloves or mittens made of articulated plates with flaring cuffs that could reach halfway to the elbow. Personal taste, as much as anything else, appears to have been the determining factor as to whether the gauntlets were made with individual fingers like gloves or with only the thumb separate like mittens. In either case, the gauntlets were fitted with leather gloves permanently riveted or sewn into the gauntlets, and these gloves ensured a good, comfortable fit and grip. Regardless of whether the metal portion of the gauntlet was styled as a glove or a mitten, to provide even more protection, the leather gloves could also be faced with very fine mail. Besides being a defense, gauntlets were also weapons. In the 14th century, England's Black Prince, the son of Edward III, had the knuckles of his gauntlets fitted with small metal statuettes of leopards. While the leopards were highly decorative, they would also act as tough points like brass knuckles if the prince struck anyone with armored fist. Even without such enhancement, gauntlets provided sturdy implements for pummeling if the knight had lost his other weapons and still had to fight on. The next step would be to place armor on the knight's neck and head. Before the helmet was strapped on, the squire would attach the bevore or gorget to protect the knight's throat and neck. The bevore and gorget were metal collars that buckled or laced to the tops of the upper breast and back plates. Gorgets were formed of a ring of graduated, semicircular plates that protected the neck and throat. Since gorgets completely encircled the neck, they were usually more articulated than the bevores to allow for some movement of neck and head. Bevores typically were open in back, but extended up above the wearer's jaw on the sides and front. Use of a bevore or a gorget depended upon the type of helmet the knight wore, and by 15th century when plate was at its peak, there was quite a varied selection of helmets. The armet was the classic visored helmet. The armet was a close-fitting helmet of rather ingenious construction. It was formed of a crown or skull piece with a tail that went down the back of head. In the middle of each side of the skull piece, roughly over the ears, there were hinges that attached to cheek pieces. These were plates that swung down to enclose the sides of the head, flaring out slightly at the bottom where they neared the shoulders. The cheek pieces overlapped each other at the wearer's chin. In the back, they overlapped the edges of the tail of the skull piece at the back of the neck. The squire would place the helmet on the knight's head, lower the cheek pieces, fasten them together at the chin, and then secure them with a strap that fastened completely around the neck. This strap and its buckle were protected at the back by a rondel, a small metal disc centered on a short rod at the tail of the skull piece. The knight could then lower the armet's visor, which was attached by pivots in front of each hinge on the side of the helmet. On the right side of the visor, there was a short metal peg or a tough knotted leather lace, which the knight used for raising the visor. Armets were worn with gorgets, though a form of bevor called a wrapper was sometimes also worn to supplement protection for the lower face and throat. The sallet was another common type of helmet, and it was typically worn with a bevor that protected the front and side of the neck as well as the face almost up to the nose. The sallet was a deep, domed helmet with sides reaching down to the line of the jaw and a tail that extended over the back of the neck. The sallet could have a visor or could be formed in a single piece with a solid front with vision slot. The tail came to a point a few inches behind the back of the neck and, when worn with a backplate, provided excellent protection against blows at this vital spot. Some experts have opined that the tail might have actually been a liability. That blows on the tail would have snapped the knight's head back sharply, causing neck injuries, since the helmet was firmly strapped under his chin. But this fails to take into account that the tail rested on or just above the backplate and thus could not have been snapped down to any significant degree. A third type of helmet was the barbute, which looked much like the helmets of the ancient Greeks. Basically, it was a cylinder with a domed top and sides that came down to just above the shoulders and flared out slightly at the bottom. The barbute had a T-shaped opening in the front to allow for vision as well as ventilation. Raised edges around the opening provided some protection against incoming blows, but it still rendered the face more vulnerable than the other styles of helmets. However, the target area was still quite small and the better sight and ventilation it provided was considered by some, particularly those in hot climates like Italy, to be worth the risk. Barbutes could be worn with gorgets but are most often shown with knights wearing only male collars to protect their necks. One final design point about plate armor, which is well illustrated in most of the helmets as well as the breast and backplates of this period, is the use of stop ribs to prevent the points of weapons from sliding into vital or weakly armored areas, such as the eyes, neck, armpits, or groin. As discussed previously, plate armor, both for body armor and helmets, employed very rounded surfaces that helped deflect weapon points rather than letting them hit perpendicular to surface, thus lessening the likelihood of the point penetrating the plate. However, these deflected points must go somewhere. Properly placed grooves or fluting in the armor increased the probability that the weapon points were carried out and away from the body, but there was still a risk that the points could glance off into a vital area. Thus, edges of breast and backplates around the neck and armpit were folded over and raised at 90 degree angle to the rest of the surface. This created stop ribs, solid strips of metal that would catch points and hold or channel them away rather than let them slide up into the neck or across and off into the more lightly armored armpits. Similarly, the inside edge of the tassets that covered the tops of the thighs would be finished with a stop rib to prevent lance or sword points from sliding into the groin, and helmets were usually made with raised edges around the slits for the eyes, also to prevent weapon points from sliding in. The squire completed the arming by girding the knight with his sword belt. If fighting was to be done from horseback, the knight could then mount his horse unassisted, just as he would have to do on the battlefield if he was knocked off his mount. While this sounds like quite a long and involved process, based on modern reenactments, a trained squire can fully arm a knight in less than 25 minutes, even without the motivation of the threat of imminent attack. Shields from the fall of the Roman Empire through to the 11th century appear to have been mainly circular or oblong, depending on the region. Archaeological evidence, as well as contemporary illustrations, show that round shields with central bosses were popular with the people of northern Europe, while large oblong shields were used throughout Europe. These shields were not made of sheets of metal. As stated before, large pieces of metal were too scarce and expensive for such uses, and would have been too heavy in any event. Thus, shields were made out of wood. To form a piece of wood wide enough for a shield, the shieldmaker joined planks of wood together and then placed a few strips of wood or metal across the back of the shield for reinforcement. At some point during the Middle Ages, shieldmakers developed an alternative method for forming the large sheets of wood which they needed. Instead of making just one thick layer of planks, they made multiple layers of thin planks. The planks in each layer were joined together and then placed so that the grain of each layer was at a 90 degree angle to the grain in each adjoining layer. This pattern of layers is still used in making plywood today because it maximizes the natural strength of the grain and produces a much stronger product than placing the grain in all the layers the same direction. Like modern plywood, the layers in medieval plywood were glued together, though the gluing was routinely supplemented with large metal staples. Besides these staples and any other fasteners used to hold the planks or layers together, the only other metal fittings used on these shields were for the grip and to attach the straps used to support the shield, and perhaps for edging the shield to strengthen it against cuts. To complete the shield, shieldmakers usually attached a cloth cover over the front of the shield. By the middle of the 11th century, a different shape of shield appeared. Usually associated with the Normans, this shield had a round top but the lower half tapered gradually to a point. Because of its shape, this type of shield was nicknamed a kite shield by historians and scholars. The kite shield was well suited to the Normans' cavalry tactics because it was shaped to cover the left side of the body from the shoulder down to the ankle. Though its length and bulkiness appears to have made it somewhat less practical than a round shield for combat on foot, the kite shield spread throughout Europe and appears to have remained popular through the 12th century. To compensate for the unwieldiness in handling, kite shields were supported by arm straps and a hand grip or strap rather than by just a central grip like the round shield. Also, to facilitate carrying the shield or to keep it in place even if the knight relaxed his left arm, kite shields often had a giege strap. This was simply an extra long strap that supported the shield by passing over the knight's shoulder and back, then around under his arm, back to the During the 12th century, shield makers began making the top edge of the kite shield flat instead of rounded. This change made it easier for the warrior to keep his shield held high without blocking his field of vision. In the late 12th century through the early 13th century, the flat-topped kite shield was superseded by a smaller shield, often called a heater shield. Again, this is a name created by later historians. They gave it this name because the shield's outline resembled the outline of the bottom of irons, colloquially heaters, used to press clothing. As with the shields before them, heater shields were made of wood with leather or fabric coverings and metal was used only for edging and to attach the straps. The arrangement of straps on a heater shield was comparable to straps on a kite shield. Besides its outline, another distinguishing feature of the heater shield was that it was curved rather than flat. While some curving is seen in late kite shields, all known examples of heater shield are curved to better enclose the knight's left side. Heater shields were also shorter than kite shields, usually around three feet, making them easier to use on foot. Based on tomb effigies and illustrations, heater shields were in general use from the end of the 12th century until at least the mid-14th century. By the end of the 14th century, knights seldom used shields on the battlefield. For them, plate armor made shields obsolete, though knights did continue to use shields in tournaments. In real combat, common foot soldiers used small round shields, called bucklers or targets, from the mid-14th century through the end of the Middle Ages. These shields were about 14 inches in diameter and were used to block blows as well as to deliver punches. Another form of specialized shield that did see service on the battlefield from the late 14th century through the end of the Middle Ages was the pavise. This was a large, flat-bottomed shield. Made of thin wood covered in leather, pavises were up to a yard wide and four or more feet tall. They were used by crossbowmen to provide cover while reloading their bows. As with many other areas of technology, the medieval Europeans inherited much of their early armor and armor-making skills from the Romans. By AD 400, the Romans had established a network of factories and depots throughout Western Europe for making, storing, and distributing basic armor to the legions and their auxiliaries, those barbarian tribes that had at least nominally submitted to Rome. Roman armor included helmets and body armor pieced together from plates or sheets of iron as well as mail shirts. After the collapse of the Empire, the former auxiliaries and invading barbarians reused Roman armor. In this time of Dark Ages and throughout the Middle Ages, processed metal was far too valuable to discard so armor was used until it fell apart and then the parts were reused. For example, a late Roman helmet was typically composed of a frame and four or more plates riveted together to form the crown with additional plates to protect the cheeks and back of the neck. As plates were damaged, smiths would replace them with pieces salvaged from other helmets or parts of their own manufacture if they could. Smiths would also attempt to copy the Roman originals with varying degrees of success. Gradually, the Roman armor itself disappeared but some of the design elements continued to appear for centuries afterwards as smiths copied old designs. By the early Middle Ages, AD 700, production of the large plates of iron needed for body armor had long vanished but helmets of oblong or slightly triangular plates, either overlapping or supported by a frame, could still be made from smaller pieces of iron. Other tough materials such as horn or leather boiled in wax were also substituted for metal plates in the helmets but for body armor the materials and options were then very limited. Armor incorporating plates of metal remained in use in the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium but largely disappeared from the empire's former lands of Western and Central Europe. The sketchy information provided by references in Old Norse sagas like Beowulf, illustrations in manuscripts, and architectural carvings indicate that mail continued in use and that other forms of armor based on leather or cloth were more common. These armors were typically comprised of metal rings sewn flat onto the exterior of coat-like garments. While less protective than mail, such armor would still provide significant protection against the broad cutting swords of that time. As for shields, round shields about two and a half feet in diameter with central grips covered by bosses were the most common. However, some illustrations from Mediterranean countries such as Italy and Spain show much larger oblong shields being used as well. From the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the end of the 10th century, there appears to have been little progress in the development of armor. But this is not surprising given that there were no major developments in weaponry and little change in tactics during this same period. There is much debate over the rise of cavalry warfare from the 8th century onwards. Changes such as the introduction of stirrups to Europe which allowed the rider a firmer seat on his horse and thus a more stable platform from which to strike did occur, but none of these developments were revolutionary. Certainly, the use and effectiveness of mounted warriors, most noticeably by the Franks and later by the Normans, increased throughout this period, but many factors such as improved social and economic stability at the local and regional level that provided resources and conditions amenable to raising horses on a large scale contributed to evolutionary, not revolutionary, changes in warfare. By the early 11th century, the mounted warrior was well established as the most powerful figure on the battlefield. Clad in a short or mid-length mail shirt and conical helmet and slinging a kite shield on his left side, the knight was well protected against the slashing swords, axes, and broad-headed arrows commonly encountered in combat. He was more vulnerable to spear and lance thrusts, but these thrusts were only as strong as the men delivering them. The tactic of inflicting devastating lance thrusts by couching the lance under the right of the arm and charging into an opponent with the combined mass of horse and rider was just beginning to be developed by the end of the 11th century. By the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century, halberks were typically long-sleeved with mittens and coifs built in. Halberk hemlines typically reached to just above the knee. Chasses appeared, at first just covering the front of the leg and top of the foot, and later completely encircling the leg from the mid-thigh down. Conical helmets remained in use, but the simple nose guards were increasingly replaced with face guards that reached from ear to ear and covered down to the chin. Pierced with slits for the eyes and holes for breathing, these face guards marked the start of the changes in armor design that would eventually lead to the complete encasing of the knight's head in a protective layer of metal. By the mid-12th century, plate protection for important areas other than the head were developed. Dish-shaped cops of either cuirbouli or iron, either made as part of chausses or added on by lacing, protected the knees. Discs of iron were also laced onto the halberk to protect the elbows and armpits. These pieces were called, respectively, couters and basages. The fact that the first body parts after the head to be given the better protection of rigid plates were the principal joints suggests that these areas were often targeted in combat in attempts to disable an opponent before capturing or killing him. The early development of plate protection for the joints may also reflect an awareness that joints seldom, if ever, fully healed after severe injuries. In the Middle Ages, fractures of the long bones in the arms and legs could be set with a fair degree of success, but damage to cartilage, tendons, and other tissues that make up the joints remained largely untreatable until the development of advanced surgical techniques and physical therapy in the 20th century. And even today, joint injuries can still be difficult to treat, as shown by the number of athletes whose careers are ended by such injuries. As for helmets, while conical helmets remained in service at least with the common soldiery, cylindrical, flat-topped helmets were the latest fashion for knights. At first, these helmets had face guards like the conical helmets, but by the early 13th century, they had neck guards as well, and so resembled modern metal buckets or waist paper cans with slits for eyes and ventilation holes for speaking and breathing. Specialized head coverings had to be worn under these helmets to hold them in place, since the motion of moving the head from side to side causes the helmet to spin, potentially leaving the wearer in the embarrassing, if not fatal, position of being left blind if his helmet has rotated so much that his vision slots were now facing the side or back of his head. To prevent such a humiliating and disastrous faux pas, the knight would wear an arming coif that had a stuffed oval of fabric, shaped rather like an oversized donut, attached to its top. This could be worn either under or over the knight's mail coif, and provided a snug fit between his head and the helmet so that the helmet stayed in the correct position. While the cylindrical helmets remained in widespread use through the 13th century, they were actually a technological dead end. Despite the seeming defensive advantages of fully enclosing the knight's head in metal, the shape of the helmet was seriously flawed. The flat top and perpendicular sides allowed blows to land solidly rather than glance off, with the result that swords and axes could shear through the helmet with unfortunate consequences for the knight inside. Thus, by the early 14th century, helmets returned to a more rounded, dome-shaped top comparable to the earlier conical helmet, but with many improvements. Returning to and body armor, by the early 13th century, more rigid pieces began to supplement the mail. In addition to the kneecaps, cooters, and besagius, gutter-shaped defenses for the calves and arms were developed. These early greaves and vambraces buckled around the limbs, but were also often laced to the underlying mail armor to better hold them in place. These pieces could either be solid, shaped pieces of iron or steel, or be composed of metal, riveted to a layer of stout leather. In either case, the knight now had enhanced protection against cutting and piercing. At some point in the late 12th or early 13th century, rigid armor for the torso was also developed, but no known examples survive, and the practice of wearing a surcoat over the armor makes it virtually impossible to precisely determine, from pictorial and sculptural images, what layers of armor a knight might have worn. However, during this time, household inventories began to include references to pairs of plates among the armor for knight. Additionally, by the mid-13th century, buckles are visible below the armpits of some tomb effigies of knights. Combining this meager evidence with known later development of breastplates, the pairs of plates are believed to have been a pair of plates of either cuir boulie or metal that covered the top of the chest. These plates were part of a larger defensive garment similar to a brigandine and covered the knight from his shoulders down to his waist or just above it. These garments were worn over the mail, buckling at the shoulders, and down each side. This process of enclosing more and more of the body in rigid but articulated plates continued through the 14th and into the 15th century until the complete head-to-toe suits described earlier were produced. While progress was steady, it took time and practice to develop smoothly moving joints for the knees and elbows from the simple dishes and discs of the kneecaps and cooters. Similarly, protection for the body went through an evolution from just protection for the upper chest to the whole torso in a process that included coats of plate, heavy fabric vests lined with large plates of iron or steel, and breastplates that covered just the front of the body before developing into the complete armors seen by the 15th century. While the development of more and better plate armor proceeded steadily, it was not without problems. It took the armorer and his customers some time to realize that if a person wore a good outer layer of plate armor that there was no longer a need to wear mail armor underneath to cover those same body parts. After all, the plate was at least as proof against cutting as the mail and was superior to mail in its protection against punctures and crushing blows. In hindsight, this seems obvious, but it was not so apparent to the tradition-bound warriors who were loath to needlessly render themselves more vulnerable on the battlefield. Thus, in the mid to late 14th century, the weight of battlefield armor reached a peak of some 95 pounds since the armor included padded underclothes, complete mail armor for head, body, and limbs, and nearly complete plate armor as well. Even the fittest of knights must have found this weight excessively burdensome. Thus, before the end of the 14th century, Schaus almost completely disappeared, replaced by plate leg armor with perhaps only a little mail to protect the joints around the knees and ankles. Mail shirts shrank, barely covering to the waist with shorter sleeves as well. All the changes helped reduce armor's total weight back to the range of 60 or so pounds, which a knight could reasonably bear and fight in. During the 14th century, armorers also improved helmet designs to eliminate the problems of the old cylindrical bucket helmet. Rounded helmets, called bassinets, rapidly became popular. Elegantly curved, these helmets provided the same rounded glancing surfaces that the rest of the body was beginning to enjoy. Variations and improvements on the bassinet gave rise to the other helmets of the later Middle Ages discussed previously. Additionally, the bassinets were the first helmets with movable visors and so allowed the knight to maintain maximum vision and ventilation until he had to drop the visor for combat. It's often been proposed that the modern salute is derived from the gesture of a knight raising his visor to greet a fellow knight. But illustrations from the 14th and 15th centuries indicate that the practice of common soldiers saluting their commanders by raising a hand to their foreheads was already well established by the time that visors came into use. It seems more likely the salute was derived from the traditional removal of the hat and tug of the forelock gestures long used by peasants as a gesture of obeisance towards their superiors. By the early to mid-15th century, plate armor had reached the apex of its development. While there would be some later minor improvements and embellishments, plate was now as perfect as it ever would be. But by the time plate was reaching its peak, it was already becoming obsolete. Gunpowder weapons, which appeared in Europe by the beginning of the 14th century, were proliferating and increasing in power. Other missile weapons such as steel bow crossbows with draw weights of at least 200 to 300 pounds and English lawn bows with draw weights of up to 180 pounds were also capable of penetrating armor or, at the very least, causing concussion to the knight inside the armor. It was possible to make armor proof against all these projectiles, including bullets, but such armor was so heavy as to be unwearable. For example, a bulletproof breastplate made during the English Civil War weighed 70 pounds. No one could be reasonably expected to wear such armor. But bullets alone did not end the era of plate armor. Changes in tactics, particularly the rise of large bodies of trained, disciplined foot soldiers, were the real death knell for the dominance of the heavily armored knight on the battlefield. While Frankish encounters with the Saracens in the Crusades of the 12th century had shown the weaknesses of heavy cavalry, Europeans did not effectively exploit these weaknesses until late in the following century. Then, by combining archers and gunners with other foot soldiers armed with pikes and other pole weapons, commanders found they could blunt or break the force of the knight's charge, and thus deprive them of their greatest advantage. Still, the changes in warfare were gradual, and armor still provided protection against swords and other common weapons. So plate armor, in ever-diminishing form, remained on the battlefield through the end of the 1600s. Of course, the story of European and European-derived armor does not end here. French cavalry wore steel helmets and breastplates during the Napoleonic Wars, and were called cuirassiers after their cuirasse, the French word for breastplates. In the 1860s, a factory in Connecticut produced steel breastplates that were privately purchased and used, with mixed results, by some Union officers in the American Civil War. The same armor development programs from World War I that experimented with silk armor also led to a re-examination of medieval armor as well. All the belligerents pressed their art and armor historians into service to help develop armor suited to modern warfare. The British produced a helmet with a shallow dome and broad brim. This was based on the chapeau de fer, iron hat, which was popular with common foot soldiers from the early 13th century onwards because it did not interfere with vision, hearing, or breathing while still protecting from downward blows, a reason it was particularly favored for use by troops besieging fortifications since it would protect the head and shoulders from items dropped or hurled from the battlements above. This protection against overhead bombardment was thought to be valuable again in the trench warfare of World War I. The Germans created a truncated, open-faced sallet for their regular troops, as well as visors and beavers for use by snipers, machine gunners, and others exposed to more risk. As for the Americans, they developed their own version of the truncated, open-faced sallet. This helmet was developed by armor specialists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but would have to wait until World War II to prove its worth, since the Americans simply adopted the British helmet instead of producing their own design.