"Footmen" based 'Knights' and 'Knighthood'?

And mail is much easier to maintain, because you just have to wear it, while armour plates have to be polished.

Sorry, no. Both require regular maintenance to avoid corrosion. For the record plate mail was often painted to retard corrosion, hence the black armor often seen in period paintings. Unpainted plate, chainmail, and other metal armors were regularly cleaned and polished by the wearer or his servants.
 
Sorry, no. Both require regular maintenance to avoid corrosion. For the record plate mail was often painted to retard corrosion, hence the black armor often seen in period paintings. Unpainted plate, chainmail, and other metal armors were regularly cleaned and polished by the wearer or his servants.
Not if you wear it, because then the movement of the links against each other prevents corrosion. But if you are not wearing your mail then it requires as much maintenance as a plate armour.
 
Not so; mail is the more flexible of the two. Plate was adopted because it offered better protection (no holes, and it's angled to deflect blows away from the wearer, which mail cannot). And tales of men vaulting into the saddle wearing full plate are nonsense; it's much too heavyfor that. They could mount normally, though; tales of them having to be lifted into the saddle are true of only a small minority. A properly made suit of plate does not restrict the wearer's movements; it does restrict his vision and hearing, though.

A italian plate armour wasn't that heavy : 40 kg at maximum.
You'll say that not everyone could afford a complete italian armour, but the most enountered situation was the "kit armour". Generally you came into battlefield with only part of armours, taking what's lacking to other peoples, dead or not.
But a full plate armoured knight wasn't that restricted by the height, as he was trained for that for all his life - according we're talking of knight as a warrior.

Well, german's parade armour were actually very heavy and very restrictive on all factors, but it wasn't very used in real battle. It would be the same as saying "Hey! Look at my shinky, baroque and useless armour! I'm rich and powerful! Strike me, demand a ransom or kill me!"

Since the introduction of the hydraulic hammer in the XIII, plate could be relativly more cheap, more protective and less heavy.
 

Clibanarius

Banned
Not so; mail is the more flexible of the two. Plate was adopted because it offered better protection (no holes, and it's angled to deflect blows away from the wearer, which mail cannot). And tales of men vaulting into the saddle wearing full plate are nonsense; it's much too heavy for that. They could mount normally, though; tales of them having to be lifted into the saddle are true of only a small minority. A properly made suit of plate does not restrict the wearer's movements; it does restrict his vision and hearing, though.


I disagree, plate came about because with the invention of the Hydraulic Hammer, like LCS mentioned it became as cheap and easy to make as Mail and the thickest point of a suit of plate is the cuirass which is about 1-2mm the point is to provide a glancing surface and re-direct the armour. And plate's designed to the wearer's body and it's spread out over the body, I've seen plenty of Gothic harnesses that only weighed about thirty pounds.

Like I said, plenty of re-enactors are able to vault into their saddles and do handstands and cartwheels, one guy that I know of even managed to swim a short distance.

And it is more flexible than mail, because it doesn't bunch up the joints and unlike mail it's fitted to your body instead of weighed down on your frame.

I do agree about the winching thing though, that's an instance that happened only in Mark Twain's King Arthur story.

Plate is more expensive, in that it requires more metal to make, and heavier. On horseback that does not matter so much, because the difference is minimal to the horse, but on foot wearers of plate armor will be slower and tire more rapidly than less well protected troops.

Again, it's much lighter than mail and as a general rule medieval soldiers were always willing to increase their armour, even Longbowmen were heavily armoured and a Man-at-arms will have trained from childhood for this.

Plate is also less labor intensive than mail, but the armorer has to be more skilled to make plate than mail. And if the armor is damaged plate is much more difficult to repair than mail, which only requires the replacement of the rings to fix.

Not really, if you have the tools to do it, making a new plate to repair a hole or repairing a piece would be much less nerve-racking than cutting off a bunch of tiny rings and then riveting them together.


And mail is much easier to maintain, because you just have to wear it, while armour plates have to be polished.

You know what it takes to clean Mail? It involves a barrel full of sand and vinegar and then rolling that sucker around and around till the rust is gone.
 
You know what it takes to clean Mail? It involves a barrel full of sand and vinegar and then rolling that sucker around and around till the rust is gone.
That's only the case if you do not wear your mail but keep it on display. That's something experimental archeologist have found out.

And do not take everything for granted re-enactors tell you. Those plates are made out of modern alloys and modern men are larger (and stronger) than men from the medieval age.
 

Clibanarius

Banned
And do not take everything for granted re-enactors tell you. Those plates are made out of modern alloys and modern men are larger (and stronger) than men from the medieval age.


Ah, no actually, they're made from steel. And according to modern research medieval man was almost as tall as we were and a medieval man-at-arms trained from childhood and the peasants had to do very intensive physical labor.

You might wanna check out the ARMA's website and myarmoury.com, I think you'd like 'em. :)
 
Well, if I go to a museum here in Germany I see uniforms and armour that would not fit me and I am considered small with an height of 1.68m. I doubt that those were made for children.
 
Well, if I go to a museum here in Germany I see uniforms and armour that would not fit me and I am considered small with an height of 1.68m. I doubt that those were made for children.

Can we have a picture?
I can't say anything valuable but, i would think that is an armour made to the mensuration of the noble. If you pay a lot, you'll have a armour perfectly made for your size.

Besides, even in 1960, the average size for Germans was 1,68m. It only changed in the second half of XX.
 
Can we have a picture?
Sorry, but no.
I can't say anything valuable but, i would think that is an armour made to the mensuration of the noble. If you pay a lot, you'll have a armour perfectly made for your size.
And all plate armour are custom made, while mail does not have to be.
Besides, even in 1960, the average size for Germans was 1,68m. It only changed in the second half of XX.
Not only in Germany. Diet and furniture do influence the size.
 
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