“Oh, knights, get up, the hour has come!
You have shields, steel helmets and armor.
Your dedicated sword is ready to fight for the faith.
Give strength to me, oh God, for new glorious slaughter.
A beggar, I will take a rich booty there.
I don’t need gold and I don’t need land, But maybe I will be, singer, mentor, warrior, Heavenly bliss is forever awarded"
(Walter von der Vogelweide. Translation by V. Levik)
A sufficient number of articles have already been published on the VO website on the topic of knightly weapons and, in particular, knightly armor. However, this topic is so interesting that you can go deeper into it for a very long time. The reason for the next appeal to her is banal … weight. Armor and weapon weight. Alas, recently I again asked students how much a knight's sword weighs, and received the following set of numbers: 5, 10 and 15 kilograms. They considered a chain mail of 16 kg to be very light, although not all, and the weight of a plate armor of 20 with a small kilo is simply ridiculous.
Figures of a knight and a horse in full protective gear. Traditionally, the knights were imagined just like that - “chained in armor”. (Cleveland Museum of Art)
At VO, of course, "things with weight" because of regular publications on this topic are much better. However, the opinion about the exorbitant severity of the "knightly costume" of the classical type is still not outdated here. Therefore, it makes sense to return to this topic and consider it with specific examples.
Western European chain mail (hauberk) 1400 - 1460 Weight 10.47 kg. (Cleveland Museum of Art)
Let's start with the fact that British historians of weapons created a very reasonable and clear classification of armor according to their specific characteristics and eventually divided the entire Middle Ages, focusing, naturally, according to available sources, into three eras: "the era of chain mail", "the era of mixed chain-plate protective weapons "and" the era of solid forged armor. " All three eras together make up the period from 1066 to 1700. Accordingly, the first era has a framework of 1066 - 1250, the second - the era of chain mail armor - 1250 - 1330. But then this: an early stage in the development of knightly plate armor (1330 - 1410) stands out, a "great period" in the history of knights in "white armor "(1410 - 1500) and the era of the decline of knightly armor (1500 - 1700).
Chain mail together with a helmet and aventail (aventail) of the 13th - 14th centuries. (Royal Arsenal, Leeds)
During the years of "remarkable Soviet education" we had never heard of such a periodization. But in the school textbook "History of the Middle Ages" for the 5th grade for many years, with some rehash, one could read the following:
“It was not easy for the peasants to defeat even one feudal lord. The equestrian warrior - a knight - was armed with a heavy sword and a long spear. He could cover himself with a large shield from head to toe. The knight's body was protected by chain mail - a shirt woven from iron rings. Later, the chain mail was replaced by armor - armor made of iron plates.
Classic knightly armor, which was most often discussed in textbooks for schools and universities. Before us is an Italian armor of the 15th century, restored in the 19th century. Height 170.2 cm. Weight 26.10 kg. Helmet weight 2850 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Knights fought on strong, hardy horses, which were also protected by armor. The knight's armament was very heavy: it weighed up to 50 kilograms. Therefore, the warrior was clumsy and clumsy. If a rider was thrown from a horse, he could not get up without help and usually was captured. To fight on a horse in heavy armor, a long training was needed, the feudal lords were preparing for military service from childhood. They constantly practiced fencing, horseback riding, wrestling, swimming, javelin throwing.
German armor 1535 Presumably from Brunswick. Weight 27.85 kg. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
A war horse and knightly weapons were very expensive: for all this it was necessary to give a whole herd - 45 cows! The landowner, for whom the peasants worked, could carry out knightly service. Therefore, military affairs became almost exclusively the occupation of feudal lords (Agibalova, EV History of the Middle Ages: Textbook for the 6th grade / EV Agibalova, GM Donskoy, M.: Education, 1969. P.33; Golin, E. M. History of the Middle Ages: Textbook for the 6th grade of the evening (shift) school / E. M. Golin, V. L. Kuzmenko, M. Ya. Loiberg. M.: Education, 1965. 32.)
A knight in armor and a horse in horse armor. The work of the master Kunz Lochner. Nuremberg, Germany 1510 - 1567 Dated to 1548. The total weight of the rider's equipment including horse armor and saddle is 41.73 kg. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Only in the third edition of the textbook "History of the Middle Ages" for the 5th grade of secondary school V. A. Vedyushkin, published in 2002, the description of knightly weapons became somewhat truly thought out and corresponding to the above-mentioned periodization used today by historians around the world: “At first, the knight was protected by a shield, helmet and chain mail. Then the most vulnerable parts of the body began to be hidden behind metal plates, and from the 15th century, chain mail was finally replaced by solid armor. The battle armor weighed up to 30 kg, so for the battle the knights chose hardy horses, also protected by armor."
Armor of Emperor Ferdinand I (1503-1564) Gunsmith Kunz Lochner. Germany, Nuremberg 1510 - 1567 Dated in 1549. Height 170.2 cm. Weight 24 kg.
That is, in the first case, deliberately or out of ignorance, the armor was divided by era in a simplified manner, while the weight of 50 kg was attributed to both the armor of the "chain mail era" and the "era of all-metal armor" without dividing into the actual armor of the knight and the armor of his horse. That is, judging by the text, our children were offered information that "the warrior was clumsy and clumsy." In fact, the first articles that this is actually not the case were the publications of V. P. Gorelik in the magazines "Around the World" in 1975, but this information did not get into the textbooks for the Soviet school at that time. The reason is clear. To show the superiority of military affairs of Russian soldiers over "knight-dogs" on anything, on any examples! Unfortunately, the inertia of thinking and the not-so-great significance of this information make it difficult to disseminate information that corresponds to scientific data.
Armor set of 1549, which belonged to Emperor Maximilian II. (Wallace Collection) As you can see, the variant in the photo is tournament armor, since it has a grand guard on it. However, it could be removed and then the armor became combat. This achieved considerable savings.
Nevertheless, the provisions of V. A. Vedyushkina completely correspond to reality. Moreover, information about the weight of the armor, say, from the Metropolitan Museum in New York (as well as from other museums, including our Hermitage in St. Petersburg, then Leningrad) was available for a very long time, but in the textbooks of Agibalov and Donskoy for some reason, it did not get there in due time. However, why is just clear. After all, we had the best education in the world. However, this is a special case, although quite indicative. It turned out that there were chain mail, then - rr-times and now armor. Meanwhile, the process of their appearance was more than lengthy. For example, only around 1350 was the appearance of the so-called "metal chest" with chains (from one to four), which went to the dagger, sword and shield, and sometimes a helmet was attached to the chain. Helmets at this time were not yet connected to the protective plates on the chest, but under them they wore chain mail hoods, which had a wide mantle. Around 1360, buckles were introduced to armor; in 1370, the knights were already almost completely dressed in iron armor, and chain mail was used as a base. The first brigandines appeared - caftans, and lining from metal plates. They were used as an independent type of protective clothing, and were worn along with chain mail, both in the West and in the East.
Knight's armor with a brigandine over chain mail and a bascinet helmet. Around 1400-1450 Italy. Weight 18.6 kg. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Since 1385, the thighs were covered with armor made of articulated metal strips. In 1410, full-body armor with plates for all body parts spread throughout Europe, but chain mail was still in use; in 1430, the first grooves appeared on the elbow pads and knee pads, and by 1450, armor made of forged steel sheets had reached its perfection. Since 1475, the grooves on them become more and more popular, until the fully grooved or the so-called "Maximilian armor", the authorship of which is attributed to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, do not become a measure of the skill of their manufacturer and the wealth of their owners. In the future, knightly armor again became smooth - their shape was influenced by fashion, but the skills achieved in the skill of their decoration continued to develop. Not only people were now fighting in armor. The horses also received it, as a result the knight with the horse turned into something like a real statue made of polished metal, shining in the sun!
Another "Maximilian" armor from Nuremberg 1525 - 1530. Belonged to Duke Ulrich - the son of Heinrich of Württemberg (1487 - 1550). (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
Although … although there have always been both fashionistas and innovators "running ahead of the locomotive". For example, it is known that in 1410 a certain English knight named John de Fiarles paid the Burgundian gunsmiths 1,727 pounds sterling for the armor, sword and dagger made to him, which he ordered to decorate with pearls and … diamonds (!) - a luxury, not only unheard of for that time, but even for him it is not at all typical.
Field armor of Sir John Scudamore (1541 or 1542-1623). Gunsmith Jacob Jacob Halder (Workshop in Greenwich 1558–1608) Around 1587, restored in 1915. Weight 31.07 kg. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Each piece of plate armor got its own name. For example, thigh plates are called cuisses, knee pads are poleyns, jambers are for shins, and sabatons are for feet. Gorget or bevor (gorgets, or bevors), protected the throat and neck, cutters (couters) - elbows, e (s) paulers, or half drones (espaudlers, or pauldrons), - shoulders, pep (e) braces (rerebraces) - forearm, vambraces - part of the hand down from the elbow, and gauntlets - these are "plate gloves" - protected the hands. The full set of armor also included the helmet and, at least initially, the shield, which subsequently ceased to be used on the battlefield by about the middle of the 15th century.
Armor of Henry Herbert (1534-1601), Second Earl of Pembroke. Made around 1585-1586 in the Greenwich armory (1511 - 1640). Weight 27.24 kg. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
As for the number of parts in the "white armor", then in the armor of the middle of the fifteenth century, their total number could reach 200, and taking into account all the buckles and nails, along with hooks and various screws, even up to 1000. The weight of the armor was 20 - 24 kg, and it was distributed evenly over the knight's body, in contrast to the chain mail, which pressed the person on the shoulders. So “no crane was required to put such a rider in his saddle. And knocked down from his horse to the ground, he did not at all resemble a helpless beetle. " But the knight of those years is not a mountain of meat and muscle, and he by no means relied on only one brute force and bestial ferocity. And if we pay attention to how knights are described in medieval works, we will see that very often they had a fragile (!) And graceful physique, and at the same time had flexibility, developed muscles, and were strong and very agile, even when dressed in armor, with a well-developed muscular reaction.
Tournament armor made by Anton Peffenhauser around 1580 (Germany, Augsburg, 1525–1603) Height 174.6 cm); shoulder width 45.72 cm; weight 36.8 kg. It should be noted that tournament armor was usually always heavier than combat armor. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
In the last years of the fifteenth century, knightly weapons became the subject of special care of European sovereigns, and, in particular, Emperor Maximilian I (1493 - 1519), who is credited with creating knightly armor with grooves all over its surface, eventually called "Maximilian's". It was used without any special changes in the 16th century, when new improvements were required due to the incessant development of small arms.
Now quite a bit about swords, because if you write about them in detail, then they deserve a separate topic. J. Clements, a well-known British specialist in edged weapons of the Middle Ages, believes that it was the appearance of multi-layer combined armor (for example, on the effigy of John de Krecke we see as many as four layers of protective clothing) that led to the appearance of a “sword in one and a half hands”. Well, the blades of such swords ranged from 101 to 121 cm, and the weight from 1, 2 to 1.5 kg. Moreover, blades for chopping and stabbing are known, and already purely for stabbing. He notes that horsemen used such swords until 1500, and they were especially popular in Italy and Germany, where they received the names Reitschwert (equestrian) or knightly sword. In the 16th century, swords appeared with wavy and even serrated sawtooth blades. Moreover, their very length could reach human height with a weight of 1, 4 to 2 kg. Moreover, in England, such swords appeared only around 1480. Average weight of a sword in the 10th and 15th centuries was 1, 3 kg; and in the sixteenth century. - 900 g. Swords-bastards "in one and a half hands" weighed about 1, 5 - 1, 8 kg, and the weight of two-handed hands was rarely more than 3 kg. The latter reached their heyday between 1500 - 1600, but have always been the weapon of the infantry.
Cuirassier armor "in three quarters", approx. 1610-1630 Milan or Brescia, Lombardy. Weight 39.24 kg. Obviously, since they do not have armor below the knee, the excess weight is obtained by thickening the armor.
But the shortened three-quarter armor for cuirassiers and pistoliers, even in their shortened form, often weighed more than those that assumed protection only from edged weapons and they were very heavy to wear. Cuirassier armor has survived, weighing about 42 kg, i.e. even more classic knightly armor, although they covered a much smaller surface of the body of the person to whom they were intended! But this, it should be emphasized, is not knightly armor, that's the point!
Horse armor, possibly made for Count Antonio IV Colallto (1548–1620), circa 1580–1590 Place of manufacture: probably Brescia. Weight with saddle 42.2 kg. (Metropolitan Museum, New York) By the way, a horse in full armor under a rider in armor could even swim. Horse armor weighed 20-40 kg - a few percent of its own weight of a huge and strong knight's horse.
