The Armour Archive

I have been rethinking my ongoing Landsknect kit and my current fighting style.

My question is would a Landsknect merc use a plackard instead of a peascod or pigeonet breastplate?

All the wood cuts and Illustrations of the Landsknect have either had them wearing no chest armour or the full breastplate.

Also, if plackards were worn, what kind were they?
would/did they put tassets on them?
were they the full articulated tassets with incorporated knee cops?
Or were they the articulated long tassets or just one piece ones?

Thanks in advance

Hi InsaneIrish,

Maximillian I created the Landsknechts in about 1486, so any plackard styles from then until about 1510 could have been worn. I have only ever seen them worn with either a cloth covered breastplate or with a plain polished breast. There was several conversations about plackards either here or on the FireStriker board that concluded that there was no evidence that the plackard was worn alone, but that it was always worn with a breast plate of some kind. The pigeon and peascod breastplates were popular right towards the end of the Landsknecht time period (1540 - 1580). By far the most common breastplate worn by them is a globos style (maximillian and after 1500 - 1550).

If you are worried about fit and movement in a full breastplate then a well made one should not give you any problems. Even after around 1490 they started building them with arm hole gussets that help give both better protection and movement. Hope this helps,

What Jason said.

You find upper BP by themselves, and placards by themselves, but you don't find conclusive pictorial evidence that they were worn by themselves.

I'll search later, but I think I found one example of a statue that may show one, but it is likely 'Renaissance Fantasy Armor', and I swear I saw a period drawing of a placard that looked to be over mail, but I haven't seen it when I was looking in my books for that specific thing.

I WILL find that one piece in the whole of history that shows it. Cause I'm just like that.

Donatello's St George appears to be wearing an independent placard, but it could be metal, or leather...
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/d/donatel ... eorg_3.jpg


It's from 1417, long before there were landsknechts.

That looks like a stylized roman muscled cuirass to me. You can always tell by the squared-off collar and/or shoulder flaps.

I forgot to add some information about tassets in my previous post. In the late 15th century the Germans didn't seem to wear tassets much. When they did it was in the Italian style of one piece and strapped to the fauld. These probably worked well on a horse, but not so well running and fighting on foot. All of the woodcuts and paintings that I remember show footsoldiers not wearing tassets at all, just a breastplate and a short fauld. Higher ranking knights could afford the leg harnesses that run all the way up to the hip and do the same job as the tassets would do. Right around 1500 they dropped the split breast/plackart and went to the more Italian single piece globose breast. They started wearing short 3 to 5 lame tassets with these that were strapped to the fauld. By 1510 these tassets had evolved to the long 5 or 6 lame tassets that were connected to the fauld by internal straps and sliding rivets, although they did still sometimes attach them with external straps too. These long tassets were held to the leg by a strap and may be the reason they became so popular to the foot soldier. It became a very comfortable, easy to wear, and very flexable defence.

Insane Irish - I have looked through my collection and just can't find a landsknect wearing just a placate. There are some who might be shown wearing two-part breast plates. I am guessing that pikes could worry the upper torso of a fighter not using a shield. Doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to see documentation for a placate/placard since it would help a few more folks do landsknect.

However, I also had problems with a full breast plate in SCA fighting. My scrawny chest needs to move too much to stay competitive. The closest thing to a solid breast plate that I could get used to was my kendo armor (do) so I copied these lines. I did bring it up a bit higher and add a rolled edge then a hinged back at the sides. This has worked very well so far and looks close enough that no one seems to have guessed how I "cheated." I am copying the same shape for a split waist schwarz rieter harness for a local fighter too.