It isn't really his question, but he is curious about it too. He pulled this off a SCA equestrian archive.
.........................
I was having a discussion with a knight in our group about plate armor
for foot soldiers versus plate armor for the cavalry. Does anyone know
what the differences would be? Did the armored knight wear differently
designed plate armour on his legs, than the plate-armoured foot
-soldier? I imagine it would be easier to ride in legs that were not the
wrap-around kind, at least on the cuisses. Is anyone an expert on this?
What do you all think?
Has anyone had any experience (good/bad/interesting) riding in full-plate or almost full-plate?
A question by a member of my barony
Logically if one was mounted it could be assumed that you had money, then it would be assumed that you had better armour than those on foot.
I.E. early 13th century mounted knights would have been wearing full suits of mail and a helm, the foor soldier of the time would have been wearing padded armour(gambesons) and leather perhaps, and maybe have a helm(big maybe)
if you had the cash, you could afford the cool stuff to fight in...
just my $.02
anyone else?
I.E. early 13th century mounted knights would have been wearing full suits of mail and a helm, the foor soldier of the time would have been wearing padded armour(gambesons) and leather perhaps, and maybe have a helm(big maybe)
if you had the cash, you could afford the cool stuff to fight in...
just my $.02
anyone else?
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Sasha
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This answer (in any sort of depth) could form most of my thesis....
Okay.
Yes I have ridden in full plate. The right kind of saddle and riding position is everything. The saddle that weant with full plate armour was an almost standing up type riding position in a very high saddle (Not just the cantles, but the height of the seat above the horse's back). This meant that there was a far bit of give and take in terms of padding, when it came to the armour on the rider's thighs.
I had always had the beleife that the tassets turning into multi-lamed quisses turning into knee cops was a design for better flexibility when riding. I am apparently dead wrong in this assumption and it was almost exclusively a development for foot combat. So that shows what I know.
Yes the armours were (after a while) different. But you would have to fine tune the dates and regions and maybe even specific conflicts you wanted to examine before there could be really meaningful answers.
Sasha
Riiverforge
Okay.
Yes I have ridden in full plate. The right kind of saddle and riding position is everything. The saddle that weant with full plate armour was an almost standing up type riding position in a very high saddle (Not just the cantles, but the height of the seat above the horse's back). This meant that there was a far bit of give and take in terms of padding, when it came to the armour on the rider's thighs.
I had always had the beleife that the tassets turning into multi-lamed quisses turning into knee cops was a design for better flexibility when riding. I am apparently dead wrong in this assumption and it was almost exclusively a development for foot combat. So that shows what I know.
Yes the armours were (after a while) different. But you would have to fine tune the dates and regions and maybe even specific conflicts you wanted to examine before there could be really meaningful answers.
Sasha
Riiverforge
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Gundo
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One dead giveaway of harness intended for a mounted man is spaulder lames that lap upward rather than down. This channels a lance tip off the arm or up over the shoulder, rather than catching it between the lames and therefore into the arm. This is by no means universal, but you don't see it on foot harness at all, as far as I know.
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<B>Gundobad, Wise Ogre Armory
Wise Ogre Pic of the Day</B>
Freedom is the one thing you cannot have if you are not willing to give it to everyone else.
A position worth taking, is worth defending.
------------------
<B>Gundobad, Wise Ogre Armory
Wise Ogre Pic of the Day</B>
Freedom is the one thing you cannot have if you are not willing to give it to everyone else.
A position worth taking, is worth defending.
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Sasha
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I used to thinnk the same thing Gundo...but it become harder with each exception to the rule that I found.
Then I realised that it was about 50/50 and just gave up on rules and desided that sometimes they went upwards and sometimes they went downwards.
A couple of examples...One of the very most famous equestrian suits, the Maximillian armour made by Helmschmied at Augsburb cannot be a foot armour without losing the ski length sabbatons and the greaves that are attached to them. It has downies on the pauldrons...
The foot armor claude Vaudrey 1500 built by Meraviglia and missaglia in Milan has uppies...and cannot sit a horse with the tonglet it has.
The armour of Otto Henriech 1520 by Helmschmeid is a horse armour through and through...with downies
And Finally, the most famouse foot tourney harness of all...Henry VIII's greenwicth plate for the field cloth of gold tourney...has uppies.
And by the way (just lurking on the same page I have opened) is Ferdinand II's foot armour from Innusbruk made by Seusenhofer...again the huge tonglet...again the uppies.
I finally gave up on trying to catagorise "why" they sometimes went up and sometimes down. I just decided that there were fashions.....
I looked at about 400suits before coming to the conclusiion that if there was a pojnt I was missing it.
Maybe it will one day wake me from sleep at 3AM and force me to exclaim "Huzzah....I have juust figured out uppies and downies!" at which point my lady Margaret will likely take it the wrong way....
Sasha
Riverforge
Then I realised that it was about 50/50 and just gave up on rules and desided that sometimes they went upwards and sometimes they went downwards.
A couple of examples...One of the very most famous equestrian suits, the Maximillian armour made by Helmschmied at Augsburb cannot be a foot armour without losing the ski length sabbatons and the greaves that are attached to them. It has downies on the pauldrons...
The foot armor claude Vaudrey 1500 built by Meraviglia and missaglia in Milan has uppies...and cannot sit a horse with the tonglet it has.
The armour of Otto Henriech 1520 by Helmschmeid is a horse armour through and through...with downies
And Finally, the most famouse foot tourney harness of all...Henry VIII's greenwicth plate for the field cloth of gold tourney...has uppies.
And by the way (just lurking on the same page I have opened) is Ferdinand II's foot armour from Innusbruk made by Seusenhofer...again the huge tonglet...again the uppies.
I finally gave up on trying to catagorise "why" they sometimes went up and sometimes down. I just decided that there were fashions.....
I looked at about 400suits before coming to the conclusiion that if there was a pojnt I was missing it.
Maybe it will one day wake me from sleep at 3AM and force me to exclaim "Huzzah....I have juust figured out uppies and downies!" at which point my lady Margaret will likely take it the wrong way....
Sasha
Riverforge
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Gundo
- Archive Member
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- Joined: Thu Aug 10, 2000 1:01 am
- Location: Otter River MA, USA
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Doh!
------------------
<B>Gundobad, Wise Ogre Armory
Wise Ogre Pic of the Day</B>
Freedom is the one thing you cannot have if you are not willing to give it to everyone else.
A position worth taking, is worth defending.
------------------
<B>Gundobad, Wise Ogre Armory
Wise Ogre Pic of the Day</B>
Freedom is the one thing you cannot have if you are not willing to give it to everyone else.
A position worth taking, is worth defending.
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Jim Lawrie
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- Location: Australia, Tasmania
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Sasha
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Actually...a suit that has a knee-length tonglet without an archway shaped door at the front and rear (there is such a suit!) is probably not for horse riding in.
Gundo and I were just bashing our heads against the eternal question of "Why did they sometimes build pauldron articulation that went up and sometimes down? Why did it happen nearly everywhere? Why did armourers turn out one suit rigged one way and the next done the other way? WHat could be its advantage?....." ARRRRGGGGGG Insanity lurks behind unfulfillledd questions like these!!!!!
It is useualy pretty easy to tell the horse armour form the foot armour.
Though I have now seen the BMW version of the arm harness for a multi-function harness.
There is a little plate set as a lame gaurd on the right elbow (lance side). It is rivetted to the vambrace and just provides a slight (and attractive looking) ramp so that a lancetip that glances along the vambrace would skip over the lames in the elbow rather then anchoring in the outward facing lame articulation.
It's the details and the questions like "I wonder how many people they lost to start installing that plate there?" (And the one on the breastplate of the Churberg 13 harness) that fill up my rainy non-work days...
Sasha
Riverforge
Gundo and I were just bashing our heads against the eternal question of "Why did they sometimes build pauldron articulation that went up and sometimes down? Why did it happen nearly everywhere? Why did armourers turn out one suit rigged one way and the next done the other way? WHat could be its advantage?....." ARRRRGGGGGG Insanity lurks behind unfulfillledd questions like these!!!!!
It is useualy pretty easy to tell the horse armour form the foot armour.
Though I have now seen the BMW version of the arm harness for a multi-function harness.
There is a little plate set as a lame gaurd on the right elbow (lance side). It is rivetted to the vambrace and just provides a slight (and attractive looking) ramp so that a lancetip that glances along the vambrace would skip over the lames in the elbow rather then anchoring in the outward facing lame articulation.
It's the details and the questions like "I wonder how many people they lost to start installing that plate there?" (And the one on the breastplate of the Churberg 13 harness) that fill up my rainy non-work days...
Sasha
Riverforge