The armour thread

Well, Flying Pig - after all your own countryman, Daniel Defoe - wrote the following:

"Qui Latine loquitur, ab una parte Polonia usque ad alteram ire potest et in itinere tam sicut domi se credere potest, tamquam in terra illa natus esset. Quae Fortuna! Quidnam ageret homo nobilis, qui Angliam permigrare deberet nulliua alius linguae peritus quam Latinae!"

In English:

"Who only knows Latin can go across the whole Poland from one side to the other one just like he was at his own home, just like he was born there. So great happiness! I wish a traveler in England could travel without knowing any other language than Latin!"

Reading e.g. letters written by Polish-Lithuanian nobility in the 1600s is strange - some of them often incorporate Latin expressions to Polish language.

For example this letter from 5 July 1610 (written by Hetman S. Żółkiewski to the Polish King after the victory in the battle of Klushino):

http://pl.wikisource.org/wiki/List_...ujący_zwycięstwo_pod_Kłuszynem_(5_lipca_1610)

Użyłem jednak p. Domarackiego podstolego lwowskiego, żeby particularia quoque wypisał do Jego Mości podkomorzego koronnego.

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Zostawiwszy tedy część wojska przy tym hrodku, piechotę wszystką Waszej Królewskiej Mości i kozaków, expedito exercitu, bez wozów tegoż dnia, to jest 3 Julii nad wieczorem ruszyłem się ku Kłuszynu, gdziem się spodziewał zastać wojsko nieprzyjacielskie, od obozu naszego jakby we czterech mil, i szedłem na całą noc. Na rozświcie przednia straż ex fremitu castrorum postrzegła wojsko nieprzyjacielskie

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cudzoziemcy Francuzowie zbrojni dosyć dobrze, jako się godzi ludziom rycerskim, trwała bitwa ancipite Marte najmniej trzy godziny

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Though this is rather not the original text, but Wikipedia's "modernized version" - i.e. this is not Old Polish spelling, but modern one.

But I believe I saw this letter written in its original, Old Polish spelling, in some book.

English of that time was also quite different than modern English.

Check e.g. Henry Brereton's "Newes of the present miseries of Rushia occasioned by the late warre in that countrey" (1614).

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There was even such thing like humorous branch of "macaronic literature" in Poland between the 1500s and the 1700s because Poles of that time were aware of Latin influence on Polish and macaronization of Polish language, thus many of them were writing humorous texts about that phenomenon.

Some examples of that macaronic literature are poems "Carmen macaronicum" by Jan Kochanowski and "Macaronica" by Stanisław Orzelski.

Also many Poles saw Latin influence and macaronization unfavourable, and openly criticized it (examples of such people were K. Opaliński and W. Potocki).

Here is "Carmen macaronicum" (only some excerpts) by Jan Kochanowski - spoiler:

http://lacina.info.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=619


Of course the purpose of that poem was to mock the phenomenon of that "Latinization" of Polish language.

It is a humorous poem and it exaggerates the scale of the phenomenon - nobody spoke like that in reality.

In this poem about half the words are Latin and the rest are Polish or "Latinopolish"...

Domen, please.

Anyway, here's a nice little pic of some of the evolution of European armor between 1100 and 1610. It's mostly knightly stuff until 1610.



Around 1100, mail was still the dominant form of armor in Europe, as it had been for many centuries. Beneath the mail is the aketon, a coat of many layers of linen or wool tightly quilted together to make a sturdy defense. The aketon helps cushion the force of a blow, and can help reduce the penetration depth of any weapon that gets through the mail. The figure uses a kite shield and a spear or shortened lance, and his head is protected by a conical nasal helm, most likely with a padded cap underneath to absorb shock. Such armor would have been worn around the time of the First Crusade.

By the mid-13th century, those knights who could afford it often wore mail cap-a-pie (from head to toe). The mail covered their entire body save the palms and the soles of the feet. Mail mittens, called mufflers, were part of the sleeves, and if you needed to go barehanded in armor, you could slip your hands out through a slit. The shield has evolved into a heater shield, smaller and more agile than the old kite shield. Increasing armor coverage has made large shields redundant. The heater shield, surcoat, and ailettes (the things on the shoulders) also sport heraldric devices, which were beginning to come into fashion. The knight's head is especially well-protected. The great helm was heavy and restricted sight and breathing to a degree, but offered excellent protection. Beneath it, knights usually wore a steel skullcap (called a cervelliere or bascinet), a mail hood (coif), and a padded arming cap. It must have been very hot, but the discomfort must have been less than that of a gaping head wound. Beside the knight is a falchion (the sword-like weapon) and a glaive of some kind (the polearm). Glaives obviously were mainly foot weapons, and a mounted knight would have wielded a lance, which at this time was little more than a long spear.

The early 14th century saw the age of transition armor, so called because it was the transition between mail and plate. The great helm has changed only slightly, but the most noticeable feature of transition armor is the addition of plate reinforcements. The shoulders, knees, elbows, and hands all enjoy plate protection, while the lower legs in this picture have boiled leather greaves worn over the mail leggings. I'm not sure just how often leather was used, since it is heavier than steel for a given amount of protection. Additionally, the knight wears a coat of plates over his mail. The coat consists of a series of overlapping metal plates riveted to a front piece. As it was worn over mail worn over thick padding, the torso must have been basically impenetrable to nearly any weapon of the day. Above the figure is a side view of the bascinet/cervelliere, this time with a nose guard. This helmet gradually increased in protection and made the great helm increasingly redundant. As a side note, the spurs have evolved into the familiar rowel shape. Not that I like spurs, but I haven't ridden in years, didn't ride all that much in the first place, and never used spurs.

By the beginning of the 15th century, plate armor was nearly complete. The Renaissance may have begun in art, but militarily, things still looked pretty medieval. In this example, only the neck, abdomen, and various gaps in the armor are protected by mail. Often knights wore padded arming jackets with patches of mail (voiders) sewn on in strategic places so that they covered the gaps in the armor, rather than throwing on a whole mail coat. The knight's abdomen is guarded by brigandine, a sort of armor similar to a coat of plates, worn over mail. His helmet is an evolved form of bascinet, the visored pig-faced bascinet. His swords are more acutely pointed to help exploit gaps in the armor, while his horseman's pick features a four-point hammerhead, a spike, and a beak to bludgeon or stab armored enemies. Even with such weapons, killing or even seriously wounding a fully armored man was no easy task.

By mid-century, advances in metallurgy and armoring technique had made full suits of plate armor a reality, such as this beautiful suit of Milanese-style plate. Gaps were covered by plates as much as possible, and even the neck was guarded by an articulated gorget attached, in this case, to an Italian-style armet helmet. Because the gorget was too narrow to fit over the head, the armet is actually hinged at the side.



Milan in particular, and northern Italy in general, was a major center of the armorer's craft, as was southern Germany and Austria. The abdomen is guarded by articulated faulds, pauldrons cover the shoulders, couters protect the inside of the elbows, and poleyns defend the knees. The breastplate is really two pieces attached by a sliding rivet, providing both freedom of movement and strong protection. Above the knight are three helmets. The two on the left are sallets, which were popular all over Western, Northern, and Central Europe, but especially in Germany. Some forms of it helped inspire later German helmets like the iconic Stahlhelm. To the right is the ridiculous-looking frog-mouthed bascinet. This derpy piece of kit is seen on lots of later coats of arms. It had one purpose: protection during the elaborate jousts of the period, which by this time were quite divorced from actual combat techniques and equipment. Jousting armor was extremely heavy and all-encompassing, since nobody wanted to die in a sport and they were only expected to sit on horseback for a bit. Next to the frogmouth is a sort of shield popular in jousting, though also used for war. The knight wields a pollaxe, so named for its poll or head. Pollaxes came with a great variety of heads; in this case, it has a spike, hammerhead, and axe head. It was often used on foot against fully armored opponents.

The early and mid-16th century saw the peak of complete suits of armor. Nobody before or since ever enjoyed such comprehensive protection from edged, blunt, and even some early gunpowder weapons, and armor often covered the horse as well. French gendarmes in this period were not policemen, but the heaviest cavalry ever to tread the Earth, and with complete armor for man and horse, they could even charge headlong into pike squares and not all die, like at the Battle of Dreux. It was still an utterly stupid idea, though. This example is a suit of Maximilian-style fluted armor, named for Kaiser Maximilian I, who helped popularize it for a little bit. The plates are so artfully fitted that there are very few gaps to exploit. The ridges are called fluting, and may help increase the strength without increasing weight. However, the armor imitated the clothing that was fashionable at the time, and armor stopped being fluted shortly thereafter, so it was probably fashion more than anything else. The codpiece was also fashionable. The polearms on the side are an early halberd and a bill-guisarme or Italian bill.

By this point, armor and firearms had coexisted for around two centuries, and it was only by the mid-16th century that firearms began to have a noticeable effect on armor design. The increasing power of firearms forced armorers to thicken their armor, which forced them to discard non-essential parts to save weight. After the mid-16th century, full suits had completely died out as lower leg armor was discarded. Still, a full century later there were still some cavalry who saw no contradiction between wielding pistols and swords in an age of pike and shot and being clad in three-quarters plate armor. Unfortunately, this picture doesn't include such armor.

It does include some basic armor used by infantry at the time. This musketeer wears a blackened breastplate and cabasset helmet. The blackening helps prevent rust and looks badass. This was probably munitions armor, low-grade mass-produced armor meant to give basic protection to large amounts of infantry at an affordable cost. It worked well enough against swords, pikes, pistols, and maybe an arquebus at mid- or long-range, but not against muskets. This footman's weapon is braced on a forked rest, which helps steady the user's aim and support the weapon's weight.

A good video demonstrating armored combat. Notice how slashes are useless. If you want to kill a man in full plate, you'll need a thrust through the visor (not easy when he's moving, defending himself, and fighting back), a heavy blow with a heavy weapon, a powerful early firearm, or a dagger through one of the few, protected gaps.


Link to video.

^I suppose that only very few of the troops would wear full-body armor of that sort though. Even in the Byz Army the Cataphraktoi were likely the only fully armored knights (along with their horses) and numbered iirc 30 thousand up to 1204.
They were part of the Tagmata. The other main 'elite' troops (only administered by the Emperor and not part of an actual Theme structure) were the Varangians, and afaik they wore less heavy armor. Their numbers reached a bit over 10 thousand i think. Also dispersed after 1204, and first used by Basil II when trying to secure his throne.

That kind of armor wasn't even invented until well into the 14th and 15th century, so it would make sense that few wore it in prior to 1204...

Hygro said:

That kind of armor wasn't even invented until well into the 14th and 15th century, so it would make sense that few wore it in prior to 1204...

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True, but the Thirty years war came after those aeons as well, and afaik the Swedes wore notably little armor in that conflict (and were one of the main winners of the war). I doubt that the Czech-based armies consisted of countless full-metal-armor wearing knights either.

Whatever, this is the armor thread, not the people who didn't have armor thread.

Hygro said:

Whatever, this is the armor thread, not the people who didn't have armor thread.

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armor thread

armor issue raised

armor issue opinion posted by you

armor issue opinion counterpoint by me

...

Indeed, this is way too OT

Kyriakos said:

^I suppose that only very few of the troops would wear full-body armor of that sort though. Even in the Byz Army the Cataphraktoi were likely the only fully armored knights (along with their horses) and numbered iirc 30 thousand up to 1204.
They were part of the Tagmata. The other main 'elite' troops (only administered by the Emperor and not part of an actual Theme structure) were the Varangians, and afaik they wore less heavy armor. Their numbers reached a bit over 10 thousand i think. Also dispersed after 1204, and first used by Basil II when trying to secure his throne.

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Byzantines didn't wear such plate armor, as far as I know. And while it's true that your average foot soldier wouldn't have had as complete armor in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, armor was pretty widespread, more so than in most other parts of the world, and was of good quality. Helmets and breastplates/mail/brigandine jacks/textile armor were fairly basic equipment.

Kyriakos said:

True, but the Thirty years war came after those aeons as well, and afaik the Swedes wore notably little armor in that conflict (and were one of the main winners of the war). I doubt that the Czech-based armies consisted of countless full-metal-armor wearing knights either.

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I've read that many 17th-century Swedish military innovations, like cavalry charging with swords instead of pistols and most troops wearing little armor, were due mainly to a lack of money. The Swedes simply couldn't afford to equip their troops with armor or their horsemen with pistols.

Armor was on the way out during the TYW, and nobody fought in full plate anymore. The most complete armor of the day was three-quarter plate, which covered most of the body except for the lower legs and the backs of the legs, and which could provide excellent protection from pistols, swords, and lances, but which was heavy, expensive, and vulnerable to muskets at mid- to close-range. Musketeers might have just helmets at best, while pikemen often wore helmets, breastplates, backplates, and thigh guards. As the war went on, it seems less armor was worn, probably because the factions couldn't even pay their men reliably, let alone armor them, and because muskets began taking over from pikes, and it wasn't normally feasible to armor against them.

Interesting video. They look very agile in such heavy armour. Very ergonomic. Smiths in the 15th century were very intelligent indeed.

It is a dangerous game, though, to play with armors, swords and daggers.

Actually the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War were among the last wars which saw revival of heavy armour.

You could find fully-armored Cuirassiers taking part in those and other European wars. And I mean fully (or 3/4 to be precise):

17th century (1600s) cuirassier armours:



























This one was made in Italy around year 1640:



Painting showing units of Reiters in full armour (some Reiters were as heavily armoured as Cuirassiers) in 1634 - 1635:





And a Reiter with just a breastplate + a backplate (among them such a smaller amount of armour was more common):

Phrossack said:

I've read that many 17th-century Swedish military innovations, like cavalry charging with swords instead of pistols and most troops wearing little armor, were due mainly to a lack of money. The Swedes simply couldn't afford to equip their troops with armor or their horsemen with pistols.

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Nope - the Swedish readoption (not innovation because it was not any new, original idea) of the tactics of cavalry charging with cold steel was the result of Swedish battle experience against You Know Who (no, not Lord Voldemort - the other You Know Who, plural - but you don't like this word).

It is also hard to imagine that Sweden had allegedly not enough money for pistols, but instead enough money for (more expensive) muskets and regimental cannons. When it comes to armor - in this case what you've read might indeed be correct. But that was due to large size of Swedish armies as well.

Armor was actually expensive, while pistols were not. Pikemen without armor were much more vulnerable than pikemen with armor.

muskets began taking over from pikes, and it wasn't normally feasible to armor against them.

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It was feasible to armor against muskets. Even during the Napoleonic Wars French cavalry tested their armors by shooting at them with muskets.

Not all muskets were capable of piercing a good thick breastplate, and most muskets were only capable of doing that at close-range.

It wasn't feasible to armor against 19th century rifles with threaded barrels - which is why all armies abandoned armor by World War 1. In 1914 several European armies used Cuirassiers-type cavalry, though some of them already didn't use armor in battle (only in parades), and other soon stopped.

FWIW, I don't know who. Since this is a history forum, maybe actually stating the name in order to educate would be helpful?

He means the Poles.

Yes. Swedish pistol-armed cavalry repeatedly and badly failed when trying to repulse cold steel charges of Polish-Lithuanian cavalry. Typically those attempts ended in Swedish pistol-armed cavalry being massacred. So Swedes decided that cold steel was superior. And indeed - during the Thirty Years War Swedish cavalry in its cold steel charges massacred enemy pistol-based cavalry just like before that they were being massacred by Polish-Lithuanian cavalry.

As for pistols - when cavalry fought against pikemen, they were generally more useful than swords or sabres:

Dutch cavalry against Spanish tercio by Pieter Meulener (born 1602 died 1654):

http://25.media.tumblr.com/bc091f1760882d536442da64fb09d261/tumblr_mudf9bxx2T1rtv2o1o1_1280.jpg



And a modern painting showing a very similar clash (during the battle of Nordlingen):

http://crossfireamersfoort.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/nrdlingenterciotorralto.jpg



That said - swords could also be used, for example to cut enemy pikes into pieces. They are just wood, after all.

Cutting pikes is most certainly what that cavalryman with a sword from Pieter Meulener's painting is doing.

The 2nd painting also shows a cavalryman lifting his arm in which he is holding a sword ready to cut through wood.

Thorgalaeg said:

Interesting video. They look very agile in such heavy armour. Very ergonomic. Smiths in the 15th century were very intelligent indeed.

It is a dangerous game, though, to play with armors, swords and daggers.

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By the 14th or 15th century, Europe (especially in northern Italy and southern Germany) had the best, most advanced body armor the world had yet seen. By the time it peaked in the mid-16th century, plate armor was a perfected masterpiece that could cover virtually everything but the eyes in steel. It was possible to protect even the joints with plates. In previous times, and across the rest of the world, rigid plates might be used to protect inflexible areas like the head, forearms, shins, and torso, but areas that needed to be flexible, like the elbows, armpits, and other joints, were either covered in mail or left unprotected. Japanese armor, for instance, was full of gaps; usually if not always it left a gap between the bottom of the breastplate and the tops of the thigh guards, the undersides of the arms, the insides of the legs, and so on. This was deemed acceptable. After all, it's very unlikely that someone will be able to hit the back of your knees or your feet, and targeting the gaps was difficult when the armor's wearer was moving, defending himself, and trying to kill you.

But through some wizardry and things like floating rivets, sliding rivets, and other things beyond my ken, 16th-century European armorers discovered ways to cover nearly everything.



This finely decorated sabaton, or armor for the foot, from Greenwich, England (long a major armory) is fully articulated. I've even seen a video where someone at a museum showed just how flexible one of Henry VIII's sabatons was; he was able to touch the sabaton's toes to the shin, which means that the armor was actually more flexible than the human body!


Dat ass. This example from one of Henry VIII's suits (he outgrew a lot) shows full plate protection for the hindquarters. Which is amazing, considering how the legs need to have a full range of motion. Few suits of armor seem to have bothered with this; after all, if you're mounted, it might be uncomfortable, and nobody would be able to hit it if you're sitting. On foot, it's very unlikely someone would be able to attack there, so most suits seem to have made do with mail skirts.

A beautiful example of a compression joint at the back of the knee. I really don't know how they did it, because that's incredible. Again, that area was unlikely to be targeted, but it's a testament to the skill of the craftsman that no area seemed too flexible to be encased in plate.

^Very interesting work indeed

I really don't know how they did it, because that's incredible.

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Can the same be reconstructed in modern times or we can't copy this even with today's tech?

The Crown still employs people to do it, actually.