The Armour Archive

I'm relatively new to armour making and research, but I was wondering about what role the crusades and the mixing pot of the Crusader States had in the evolution of armour in Europe. I've heard nebulous talk of crusaders being exposed to different types of armour in the middle east, but what influences in specific and how did these "new" ideas fuse with old notions of what armor should do?

Also, are there any extant pieces of strange, weird, or protoype armour originating in the Crusader States?

I realize you could write several books to answer this question, so maybe you could point me in the right direction.

AFAIK, the Crusades' influence was less on armor than on fortifications: concentric castles, gatehouses specifically as gatehouses, and round towers less vulnerable to mining and picking were supposed to be ideas picked up from Outre-Mer. If you're fighting an enemy who's good at logistics, you need one heck of a castle. And maybe a way to start germ warfare on your own, before the besiegers start chucking long-dead horses into your bailey with trebuchets.

At the time, nobody at all seemed to be making body armor in anything but various agglomerations of little pieces, which suggests to many that comparatively large sheets of quality iron or steel were expensive enough to confine them to protecting the brain only for some centuries, eighth through early thirteenth. Cultural theories about the chivalry's manner of fighting and its behavioral codes have been bruited about too, but these get inextricably intertwined with economics also. It ends up having scholars and amateurs concentrating on whichever part of the whole sketchily known anfractuosity suits their taste best.

Harvel, you might want to look at Dr. David Nicolle's "Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era: 1050-1350". One half of the book is pen and ink drawings, the other half the descriptions of where the original was found. You may find it as either one or two volumes. Nicolle did a similar work (also printed as either one or two volumes) on the eastern armours of the same period.

It's a good overview of the regional differences over time, and you can "mine" Nicolle's references to find the original sources.