Medieval Armor

Medieval Armor

The Middle Ages were turbulent times and knights had the duty of protecting the kingdom and maintaining the peace. Medieval European countries were broken into territories and fifes, warring among territories was common, as were wars between countries. Protecting oneself in battle was an absolute must, especially for the knight classes who could be called upon at a moment's notice. Medieval knight armor provided essential body protection from the various weapons which were used in battle. The armor was strong enough to protect the knight, but light enough to allow quick movement on the battlefield. The three most known armors in the Medieval Times are the chainmail, scale, and plate.

The most basic and essential form of body armor was the chain-mail shirt, sometimes called a hauberk. Chain mail was good general protection, but it could not withstand a direct hit from an arrow or lance. Many improvements and refinements of chain mail occurred during the Middle Ages. Despite its drawbacks, chain armor entered the history of medieval armor with a bang. This type of armor involved thousands of interlocking rings woven together to form pieces of a suit such as the headpiece. Chain worked well to dodge things, such as the edge of a sword and thus earned its place in the history of medieval armor. Chain also earned its place in the history of medieval armor for its ability to move with its wearer. Even though it is difficult to make and undo, the heavy links and separate pieces worked well together with leather or cloth armor to provide adequate protection to the knight classes ("Medieval-castle-siege-weapons").

Chainmail armor in the Middle Ages was achieved through a process of creating wire from steel. Once the wire portion of the process was complete, the blacksmith would form the wire into small interlocking rings through the use of a hand-cranked machine. Flat rings were thinner in one direction than the other, which meant that they had less of a tendency to "open" when struck with the piercing tip or slicing side of a sword. The chainmail metal was heated and cooled quickly while being constructed over an open flame. Inserting the actual rings into the mail was a rather time consuming process usually requiring more than one person to complete. On average, some 40,000 individual interlocking rings were required to make one complete "shirt" of chainmail armor. Each single ring was connected to at least four others in the group at any one time, this across the entire garment. Ultimately, chainmail armor had to be supported underneath by padding for maximum comfort in deflecting blows to the body. There were essentially two types of chainmail armor during the Medieval time - flat and round ring mail. Round rings proved adequate against sword strikes but less so against piercing arrowheads whereas flat rings excelled against the latter. Once 15th century came to be along with the new-fangled discovery of gunpowder in warfare and thusly the gun, chainmail became more or less obsolete. Some Turks, Persians and Indians still utilized chainmail armor as recently as 100 years ago (Writer).

Weapon smiths were still trying to find ways to improve armor in battle. The next evolution in chainmail was to flatten the rings which would provide greater coverage without increasing the weight of the armor. Flat riveted chainmail quickly became a great advantage over previous types of chainmail. As it became more widespread, the one-piece shirt gave way to multiple and differing pieces of maille (overlapping layers). Soon there were many pieces of maille armor, each designed to protect specific parts of the body. It was not uncommon after battles to find surviving soldiers stripping the chainmail armor from the dead and keeping it for themselves. As the centuries passed, maille became a greater asset for soliders, peeking in popularity around 700A.D ("Armour").

Another type of armor is the scale armor. Scale armor is very early armor, possibly one of the earliest armors made of metal. Although one of the earliest metal armors it was also made from other materials. Some common materials for scale include; leather, bronze, copper, iron, reptile scales, and lacquered leather. It can be made with a number of arrangements. An olden day craftsman making some scale armor would need several things. First, some type of backing for the base of the armor. Leather and cloth were popular ones in ancient times. Next he would need an iron wheel to fashion hundreds, if not thousands of tiny scales out of leather, metal, or whatever material suited his customer's fancy. If the craftsman survived the task of creating the scales he would need some type of material to fasten the scales to the backing. Rawhide, silk, rivets, and metal staples are some common fasteners for the armor. So if the poor craftsman