History of Armour

Armour cuirass.

The most wealthy warriors may also have worn a mailshirt or byrnie, which at this time was probably not much larger than a modern T-shirt, and certainly nowhere near as large as the later split hauberks. The mail shirt was probably worn over a leather jerkin or padded undergarment to prevent the mail links being forced into the body (the padded undergarment possibly did not make an appearance until the time of the Viking raids of the ninth century, when weapons seem generally to have got larger and heavier). It is possible that some of the less well off warriors may have worn leather helmets and jerkins for protection, although there is no direct evidence for this. 

Types of armour generally fall into one of three main categories: (1) armour made of leather, fabric, or mixed layers of both, sometimes reinforced by quilting or felt, (2) mail, made of interwoven rings of iron or steel, and (3) rigid armour made of metal, horn, wood, plastic, or some other similar tough and resistant material. The third category includes the plate armour that protected the knights of the European Middle Ages. This armour was composed of large steel or iron plates that were linked by loosely closed rivets and by internal leathers to allow the wearer maximum freedom of movement.

Armour made of rigid plates was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans and reappeared in Europe about the 13th century. Plate armour dominated European armour design until the 17th century, by which time the use of firearms had made body armour in general obsolete.

Ancient Greek infantry soldiers wore plate armour consisting of a cuirass (a piece of armour covering the body from neck to waist), long greaves (armour for the leg below the knee), and a deep helmet--all of bronze. The Roman legionary wore a cylindrical cuirass made up of four to seven horizontal hoops of steel, with openings at the front and back, where they were laced together. The cuirass was buckled to a throat piece that was in turn flanked by several vertical hoops protecting each shoulder. Apart from helmets, armour made of large plates was probably unknown in western Europe during the Middle Ages, and mail was the main defense of the body and limbs during the 12th and 13th centuries. Mail hoods covered the head and neck, and mail leggings covered the legs. Mail, however, did not possess the rigid glancing surface of plate armour, and, as soon as the latter could be made responsive to the movements of the body by ingenious construction, it replaced mail. Thus plate armour of steel superseded mail during the 14th century, at first by local additions to knees, elbows, and shins, until eventually the complete covering of articulated plate was evolved. A complete suit of German armour from about 1510 shows a metal suit with flexible joints covering its wearer literally from head to toe, with only a slit for the eyes and small holes for breathing in a helmet of forged metal. The armour suits of royalty and aristocrats were often elaborately gilded, etched, and embossed with fine decoration.

Presumably the use of armour extends back beyond historical records, when primitive warriors protected themselves with leather hides and helmets. In the 11th century BC, Chinese warriors wore armour made of five to seven layers of rhinoceros skin, and ox hides were similarly used by the Mongols in the 13th century AD. Fabric armour, too, has a long history, with thick, multi-layered linen cuirasses worn by the Greek heavy infantry of the 5th century BC and quilted linen coats worn in northern India until the 19th century.

Cuirass is body armour that protects the torso of the wearer above the waist or hips. Originally it was a thick leather garment covering the body from neck to waist, consisting of a breastplate and a back-piece fastened together with straps and buckles and a gorget, a collar protecting the throat. In Homeric and Hellenistic times, it was made of bronze. Cuirasses of leather as well as iron were worn by officers in the armies of the Roman Empire. Later made of steel, the cuirass was forerunner to the body armour worn to deflect bullets.

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