Armour Review - A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Fight Scene

Today we will be discussing the quality of the armour shown in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and I will be giving my insights into the historical authenticity or inspiration for some of the armour featured. For this video, I will be taking a look at the famous tournament fight scene, since this contains some very interesting talking points. So, first things first, let's talk about the armour that Duncan is wearing. The armour snob in me immediately wants to call out everything, but I will be a little bit more complimentary at first, and say that overall, it's not actually bad, since this is in the fantasy context. Firstly, we will look at the helmet. This would be considered a great helm, and this specific style would have been prevalent during the later half of the 14th century. It has a visor, which is historically authentic, since there was a lot of experimentation throughout the 14th century where great helms, sugarloaf helmets, and early bassinets all shared similar characteristics and shapes as armour evolved throughout the decades. The more commonly depicted variant of this type of helmet has no visor, but instead is one completely full-faced helmet with an extended apex just below the ocular. This type of great helm would evolve to become the famous frogmouth helmet, and would grow to be reserved for jousting or tournament use only throughout the later 14th and 15th centuries. So the fact that the people behind A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms chose to use this helmet specifically for this scene is quite interesting. What I don't like, however, is the gorget. This is a silly medieval trope that crops up in almost all historical-themed TV shows or movies, and is an easy cheat for a costume department to say that the main character looks armoured while not actually wearing a helmet, just because the directors had paid a lot of money to have a celebrity as the main character of a show and doesn't want to hide their face from the audience. Gorgets are a component of armour from the 16th century onwards, and serve no place being worn alongside a great helm. Again, I appreciate this is indeed fantasy, but wouldn't it be nicer to elaborate on an authentic armour harness grounded in history, rather than picking random pieces from various periods and mashing them all together in order to call it fantasy? The mail is clearly shown as well-tailored to the body, with the use of gussets allowing for a tight fit to the arms while still allowing the elbows to bend and move freely. We see this begin in the mid-12th century, and paved the way for mail armour to become much more protective, allowing the knight to protect his arms and legs without losing much mobility. The mail also appears to be made of 8mm internal diameter flat rings, which is typically a re-enactorism, but is still okay for the purpose of the movie. In the 11th century, 8mm rings would be fine, but by the 14th century, 6mm rings were preferred for wealthy knights who could afford the best kit. And, judging by Duncan's helmet, we would have to place this ensemble to the 14th century. What I particularly like about this mail, however, is that it appears to be riveted and not buttered. Riveted mail is the historically authentic style, and was much more stronger than buttered mail, which by this time had pretty much phased out completely. The man is wearing a surcoat over his mail, but with no suggestion of a breastplate underneath. Typically, knights of the 14th century would have had plate armour, or at least a coat of plates under their surcoats for additional protection, as these became a thing in the early to mid-14th century, with globular breastplates taking over from the segmented coat of plates in the latter half of the 1300s. The surcoat looks very loose on the body, and this would not be the case with 14th century knights. In the 1200s, surcoats were beginning to be used widely, and there are many artistic depictions of clearly loosely worn surcoats being adorned on knights. However, by the mid-1300s, new fashion from Europe meant that members of the male upper classes strived for an hourglass body type, and used clothing to cinch in their waists, creating an hourglass figure both in civilian clothing and armour. This is sometimes referred to as a wasp waist, so the surcoat would be tailored to hug the wearer's body and give him an hourglass look. Also note the lack of plate armour on the limbs. No arm harness, no shoulder armour, and no leg harness. If he is wearing a late 14th century helmet, surely he can splash out with a late 14th century set of arm and leg harness as well. By the 1380s, the full cuirass was in use by most knights and men at arms, articulated to provide optimal mobility while remaining as fully protected as possible. These arm and leg harnesses would replace the full male halberds. However, the 1380s is an awkward transitional period where both male and plate armour harnesses were still heavily prevalent on the battlefield. Duncan is, however, wearing greaves, and they appear to be fully enclosed, which is a very nice detail. However, a pair of cuirass would be an ideal match to ensure his entire legs are protected, which would have been perfect considering he received multiple injuries to his legs which could have been avoided. Duncan seems to be stepping forward into the 15th century in regards to his gauntlets. These are very similar to the famous Milanese mitten gauntlets from the Misaglia workshop, a very prominent armour in Italy during the middle ages. They are currently on display at the Met Museum in New York, but the Wallace Collection hosts several similar mitten style gauntlets. Two things to note here. Firstly, the ocular, or eye slit, which is obviously far too big. Evidently, this was done so that the camera can actually see into the helmet to show the actor's eyes, which is of course fair enough. But, historically speaking, the oculars would be much thinner, especially made to protect the wearer from incoming arrow strikes, but also greatly reduce the likelihood of a blade from entering through the ocular as well. In previous videos, I have often recommended my viewers to look at contemporary artwork to see what authentic armour looked like from various periods in history, but here is a picture which shows that contemporary artwork from the middle ages can't always be relied upon, as these oculars are also clearly far too big to be useful in protecting the wearer. It's also worth noting the breath holes, which are placed on both sides of the helmet. A little known fact is that, for the majority of medieval helmets, breath holes were only placed on one side of the helmet, the right hand side. This is because knights were typically right handed, so they would often receive most of their incoming strikes on their left handed side. Putting breath holes in a helmet makes it weaker, so you'd want to put them on the side of the helmet which is less likely to receive hits. Ah, the flail, a classic medieval misnomer. Yes, flails were used, mainly by the Hussites who turned farm tools into rudimentary weapons of war. And we also have some evidence of flails being used by knights in contemporary artwork, but these depictions seem to be greatly exaggerated to the point where we wonder whether they were indeed a weapon of pure fantasy or not. The jury is still out on the use of flails in the medieval period. It is unlikely that he could take this many hard accurate hits and still be okay. The blunt force trauma alone would have likely knocked him out. Armour is designed to reduce the effectiveness of enemy weapons, but cannot stop them entirely. The knight would have likely had a bad concussion from the flail and mace hits that his head would be spinning too much to continue fighting. He'd likely be vomiting and his neck would have likely been broken from the sheer impact. Aha, gothic armour. We do love to see movie armour which has been directly inspired by real surviving armour from the medieval period. Arion's arm harness is loosely based off the A21 harness from the Wallace collection. It is an excellent example of German composite armour from the 1480s to the 1490s, and shows an expert level of fluting on the pauldrons specifically. And as you can see with Arion's arm harness, the pauldrons, the cuirass and other aspects of his harness is directly inspired from German fluted armour. Curiously, whoever designed the armour for this knight chose the cutas, which is the elbow armour, of a different harness also at the Wallace collection called the A20. This is also a composite German armour, but with more of an Italian flair. A style that is generally named which essentially means it is an Italian armour, but made in a German style. The cuirass is a little bit more fancy, taking inspiration from the heavily fluted armour of the Maximilian era, as well as the classic German gothic armour as well. The helmet is a bit more fantastical, but this is absolutely fine since there are many cases of knights, typically in the 16th century, commissioning very unique and sometimes quite bizarre helmets to be worn with their otherwise pretty typical armour. Again at the Wallace collection, we have many examples of very experimental and downright strange helmets on show. Well that looks exceedingly painful, and now you know why I make a point to include daggers in the vast majority of my How a Man Shall Be Armed videos. When you are grappling on the ground with your opponent, desperately trying to get the upper hand, nothing is more useful to you than a short bladed weapon like a dagger, which can be used to stab accurately into the gaps of your opponent's armour, debilitating them instantly. I don't personally know how much pain you can be succumbed to while under the influence of adrenaline before it becomes too much to bear, but adrenaline is a very powerful thing in a battle, which can temporarily prevent the brain from registering pain in a life or death situation. This fluted shield looks wonderful, but should actually be strapped to the knight's body via a geese strap rather than being held in the hand. This allows the knight to use both hands, being able to equip larger and more deadly weapons such as poleaxes or two handed swords, while still having the entire left side of his torso protected with the shield. This type of shield would be called a taj, and while they may have been used in warfare, they were much more commonly used for jousting tournaments. And as I had previously mentioned, the majority of incoming strikes that a knight will receive would be on the left hand side. The aesthetics of this shield is absolutely fine, as we see all types of experimental shapes and sizes of tajs and other types of tournament shields in historical context. These are some good realistic fighting moves. Some strikes are expertly parried, yet many hits are not defended, instead the knights are simply being protected by their armour, which is successfully preventing the swords from injuring the wearer. Also, fun fact, the man on the white horse is a friend of mine named Hugh Whitney. He's a stuntman who works with horses and also does jousting for English heritage at a multitude of historical venues such as Headingham Castle. At this point, I should also note that Duncan would be taking much less hits if he was wearing the rest of a typical late 14th century plate harness, especially on his arms and legs. I'm not going to discuss about the move of throwing the sword, because Matt Easton already discussed it at length on his channel, and he's a HEMA practitioner. I am certainly not a HEMA practitioner, so I recommend you check out his video for a more HEMA based review. A male skirt would have prevented that injury. As I say in many of my armouring videos, the 14th and 15th centuries saw the replacement of male armour with plate, but male was still used to cover up for gaps that plate armour couldn't effectively cover without drastically reducing the mobility of the knight. Male skirts were commonly used in the 15th century as a lighter alternative to the male shirt or hauberk, since full male protection on the torso simply wasn't regarded as necessary anymore, but the fight still required male armour. This helmet is heavily inspired from the Bolzano Great Helm, an early 14th century helmet which is currently on display at the National Museum of Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome. As fantastical as it may seem, since this is a tournament setting, antlers on helmets are perfectly fine. We see a wide range of crazy looking decorations on helmets during medieval tournaments, depicted in contemporary artwork all over Europe throughout the middle ages. Of course, you wouldn't want to wear anything like this in a real battle, because it would be very easy for a soldier to hook the horns with his polearm and drag you off your horse, making you exceedingly vulnerable and likely to be piled on and stabbed to death immediately. Is this the right time to say that if he strapped the shield around his neck and arm like a proper tard should be strapped, then Duncan couldn't so easily remove it and proceed to slam him in the face with his own shield? This is what the majority of melee tournaments would likely come down to. Grappling onto the floor, then pounding each other relentlessly until one of them surrenders. It is important to remember that the whole point of jousts and melee tournaments was not to kill your opponents, it was simply to make them concede. Or in the case of jousts specifically, it was mainly points based. If knights knew they were likely fighting to the death every time they stepped into a tournament, it wouldn't have been such a popular sport that knights would travel from all over the country to take part in. Of course, mistakes happened, and serious injuries could lead to infection and death later on, but it was never the intention during a tournament. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this rather different style of video, and I would love to hear your opinions and feedback in the comments section below. But for now, thanks for watching!