Jeff, I guess this question is specificaly directed towards you. Over the past couple of days I have been looking at every Northern French/Flemish piece of art I could lay hands on (kept me out of trouble & in bed where I belonged, thanks to the flu).

I have seen plenty of illuminations showing a full harness that has the upper breastplate covered in some sort of cloth with gilt 'nails'. Do you know of any surviving examples of breastplates like this?

As you said, there are lots of pictures, though.

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Cheers,

What about the velvet covered breastplate on page 76 of AAoMK. I realize that it is stated as being northern Italian and of the late 14ht century, but is that the type your thinking of?

If it is, would you lke me to find out where it is? If I find out some info on it I bet Jeff could whip one together for you quite easily.

Here is a question for you Jeff. Would the velvet on that piece be glued on and the gilt nails/tacks be used as extra reinforcement rather than decoration? They must be, since they are found around the underarm area as well.

Cheers,
EDS.

Someone on the other forum (Hob, I believe) was recently kind enough to post a scan of a tilting armour of Philip the Fair c.1490 - 1500 that is in the Royal Armouries in Madrid that has a breastplate that is completely covered in cloth, attatched with rivits and I would assume hide glue.

Interestingly enough, it seems to be for the French form of joust as it looks more like a field armour than a harness for a German Rennen course. It still is definatly a tilting harness though and made for the purpose. Overall, the harness is tinned, and this is the only example of a full harness I am aware of retaining a tinned surface.

Some one on the Archive also has made me aware of a second velvet covered breastplate extant in an Italian Museum that is nearly the twin to the one pictured in A&AotMK that Eric has mentioned. I believe the one picture is in the Barvarian State Museum (or it is the one in the Italian museum and the other is in the Barvarian State museum). Regardless, there seem to be two. These examples are early enough that the opponents to the theory of a velvet covered breastplate can argue they are a survivial in style of the segmented coat of plates rivited to a foundation cloth, and are a passing phase in Italian armour development.

The same person on the archive was kind enough to point out a late 15th - early 16th c. breastplate in some Italian Museums catalog that seemed to carry the holes for a cloth covering. The way it was described to me is that the holes are on the outside edge of the breastplate, and so they could equally be a cloth lining rather than a cover. All the pictoral evidence showing what I believe to be a covered breastplate also includes patterns of rivets for decorative purposes over the covered surface. In fact, the tilting harness of Philip the Fair has such decorative rivits, as do the two late 14th/early 15th c. surviving Italian examples.

My thoughts for the record: Images of the period from Northern France and Flanders show both brigandines being worn with plackarts - easily discernable as there is only the front plackart present, and these images are in the majority. On a large minority of images of mounted men at arms there are shown very full plackarts with complete faulds and tassets, both front and back, that appear to have covered breastplates. Furthermore, these images show decorative rivits in patterns that would make little to no sense if they were supposed to be securing brigandine plates to a cloth foundation. As Pieter so succinctly (if vehemently) points out, there are no means of attachment to the front of a brigandine of all known surviving 15th c. form for such an arrangement, even though several such brigandines are of high enough quality to support a lance rest on their large lung plate, and bear the triple mark of proof on the inside of same plates. They still open up the front, and there is no attatchment point to carry full plackarts, faulds and tassets.

There is a lot of evidence for brigandines being worn over a light mail shirt (including the ordinance of St. Maxime I beleive - I'll have to look it up later). If such a light shirt weighed in at 12 - 15 lbs, and a quality brigandine weighed 15, that's 30 lbs of weight, half a harness, and you would have supurb protection on your torso with decent protection carrying down to the elbow. Myself, on the march as a man at arms in hostile territory, I'd probably wear such a combination with a kettlehat or light sallet and riding boots. My protection would be reasonable, but my comfort would be as well, and my endurance would be quintupled. I'd wear a full harness if action were imminant. In many of the images in "Das Mittlealteres Hausbuch" you can see men at arms equipped exactly like this on the march (not the mounted crossbows, but the men at arms).

There is also evidence surviving in the form of inventories of "armour houses" of great lords in England for mail sleeves apparently being intended to wear with brigandines, as well as standards. Such a pair of sleeves, a standard, and a skirt worn in conjuction with a brigandine would give the appearance of a mail shirt being worn underneath, and the smaller bits of mail would be cheaper than a full shirt.

If Eric would be so kind, he would probably be the best qualified amongst us to comment on the weight of a light 15th c. shirt of mail, as it is his especial area of study and reconstruction. I don't believe anybody outside of him and Simon Metcalf have studied the subject so intentley and have worked on reconstruction of methods of construction and the objects themselves.

Thank you for the kind words. I only hope I can live up to them.

The question as to the weight of 15th century shirts has many variables to it. People generally tend to assume that mail was the same throughout the mediaeval period, but they don't realize that it was about as varied as plate armour.

You have to take into account the location said piece is from, who made it, who it was made for, what function said garment is supposed to serve, whether it was meant to be used as a primary or secondary defense and so on.

All of these variables will determine the physical characteristics of the finished piece. Obviously we are referring to mail of European origin. Without a doubt most of the highest quality mail was made in Germany, so that is what I will mold this answer around.

Almost all German mail had rings with a peculiar cross section. The side facing out would have a flat appearance, while the side towards the body would be slightly rounded. This is not all though. Under close examination you will find that the inside of the ring is slightly thicker than the outer edge. By slightly I mean roughly several thousandths of an inch. There are several theories as to how this was accomplished, but I won't go into them here as they are not the focus of this question.

The average inside diameter of these rings is around 9/32", while the outside diameter averages roughly 13/32". This measurement is taken parallel to the rivet joint. The wire thickness is usually varied, with a slightly heavier gauge being used in the area covering the chest, abdomen and shoulders as opposed to that used on the extremeties. The brass rings used as decoration would be a tad thinner yet.

By todays standards this wire would be in the range of 19 gauge to 19.5 guage. These are just rough approximations mind you. The average weight of a simple mid thigh shirt with half sleeves would generally weigh around 25 to 30 lbs. and would offer quite good protection against many of the weapons it had to face other than missile and impact weapons.

This information is just on one specific variety of shirt, that being one of all riveted construction and should be used only as a general guideline. I hope it has been of some help. If there are any other questions I would be glad to help try and answer them.

First, only evidence I've seen for this practice is in artwork. In this art, where the breastplates are colored, the colored part is globose like a breastplate rather than a flat like a brigandine. And, as pointed out earlier, what look like rivets aren't in a configuration that looks like what you'd see in a brigandine.

The second argument is the effectiveness. They are usually wearing plate arms, legs, and shoulder defences. Why wear plate everywhere EXCEPT your upper chest - a prime target? (Edit - I just re-read Mac's post & he made the same point)

What bugs me about fabric-covered breasplates is that I wonder about the durability of the fabric. My pauldrons rub against the breastplate and leave burnished arcs. I'm betting they'd mess up paint, bluing or fabric on the breastplate in short order. Though using spaulders takes care of this problem, for the most part.

Did you ever come to a conclusion about this or uncover any new information? After having perused the images currently available fromteh Bibliothique Nationale, it appears to me that many of the soldiers depicted are wearing fabric covered breastplates. I'd be very interested in what you've got.

Thanks!

As with so many other questions regarding the Later Middle Ages - I have no definitive answer, just the theory and evidence above. Between the earlier breastplates at the begining of the 15th c.(and I've seen a picture of one of these inside - it is a solid breastplate of globose form) and Philip the Fairs jousting harness c. 1500, I feel I've "bracketed her with the first salvo". I've yet to score a direct hit though.

Until more evidence is brought forward my theory is inconclusive. Somebody needs to do some digging in some musty household accounts to uncover some written evidence in the form of payments for covering of breastplates or something like. A surviving piece in any condition with a telltale pattern of holes for the decorative rivits - say circa 1450 would also be pretty keen.

But when I finally actually saw such an arrangement, it didn't "flow" as smoothly as it did in any of the paintings. Having partially covered harness certainly fits with the "look" and with the common sense of having a uniform quality of defense for the chest as well as the rest of your body!

The discussion here holds a great deal of promise -- has anyone turned up any further evidence in the last few years?

Is is not possivle that the fabric was glued onto the armor, and that the rivet-heads only were simply fastened to the cloth? This way the cloth could be replaced easily, with or withour rivet-heads, in any pattern they chose.

I admit that this may be hard -- if not impossible -- to prove, because a sample of armor, with some old cloth adhering to it but without holes for the rivets, would have to be produced. i am assuming there is little or none of this available from the 15th Century. Is this so?

Also, is the reason for this cloth covering functional as well as decorative? Would a layer of "rabbit hide" glue serve as a rust inhibitor on the armor, similar in function to the blackening which is also so common in the illustrations already mentioned?

quote:

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Originally posted by Kent:
I am not clear on why the "decorative" rivets in cloth-coverd armor have to go through holes in the plates.

Is is not possivle that the fabric was glued onto the armor, and that the rivet-heads only were simply fastened to the cloth?

-snip-

I admit that this may be hard -- if not impossible -- to prove

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It may not be possible to prove, but when one considers the configuration of medieval rivets, it's pretty easy to conclude. Medieval rivets, even decorative ones, were effectively 'nails'. They were pushed through a hole in the material they bound and were swaged or peined in some way on the shank side, sometimes with a burr (washer). This wouldn't hold in a single layer of fabric, so logically the evidence indicates the rivet would go through the plate as well.

<<http://www.whiteroseapparel.co.uk/gallpage1.htm >>

I wish I could find more of this -- is it that people want their armor to be all shiny nowadays, or is it that this cloth covering idea is not well-enough researched or understood ?

quote:

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Originally posted by Kent:
I wish I could find more of this -- is it that people want their armor to be all shiny nowadays, or is it that this cloth covering idea is not well-enough researched or understood ?[/B]

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It's probably a bit of both. The problem also with recreating cloth covered armour is that one would require both the metal armouring skills and the cloth working skills. It is not only a difficult task to master both, but it can also mean more work on a single piece, which makes it much more expensive.
The problem with researching cloth covered armour is that, apart from birgandines, not much has survived intact, and getting useful information from artworks is made very hard by the fact that the cloth covers all the technical details, so the artists couldn't depict them for us.

As for glue, I don't think the cloth was actually glued to the plates in most cases (certainly not in brigs or coats of plates) and I would say the rivets we see on solid, covered breatsplates, such as the Munich example, were there both for decoration and to help hold the cloth in place.

Erik

quote:

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Originally posted by Kent:
Thanks for your reply. There is a picture on the White Rose Aparel site that shows a modern attempt to create a velvet-covered plate armor piece. The spaulder looks like it is actually brigandine work, but the elbow piece is clearly plate.[/B]

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I know Steve Lunn quite well and have handled the pieces in question (and asked dumb questions about provenence and the build approach)

The spaulder is a normal plate spaulder, the rivet pattern matches that on the brigandine but that is for stylistic reasons (not because there are little plates making up the spaulder).

HTH
N.

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Any more news or research in this? I love the look represented in the artwork and have been wondering about this topic for a while.

~jason

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Wouldn't covered armour keep the armour sleighly cooler in sun and keep the armour warmer in winter by acting like a bit of insulation?

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Andy V.
You're friendly neighborhood Roman Dude

I know that some armor was fabric covered, but I have never heard of any pieces with rivet holes across the middle, in patterns imitating brig nails, or in any other patters (chevrons, crosses, per pale, etc.)
Still think that paint is possible --