Who invented armor in the middle ages

In an era of assassinations, many royal families were especially interested in garments that could stop bullets! In fact, it is thought that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, owned a silk vest that would have stopped a bullet. If only he had been wearing this vest when assassinated in Sarajevo, the First World War might never have happened.

The soldiers in World War I were, by modern standards, dangerously unprotected from enemy gunfire. Though there were several attempts to develop body armor for soldiers of all the nations involved, two obstacles prevented these designs from being adopted. The second problem was cost — with millions of soldiers deployed by most armies, making and issuing body armor to infantry soldiers would have made the war even more ruinously expensive. That said, some soldiers did wear armor during WWI.

The US also tried to develop body armor for its soldiers, but with the lightest models still weighing 40 pounds, they were not widely adopted. This lack of protection was one of the major reasons why the First World War was so costly in terms of lives lost. Body armor was not really regarded as an essential military item until several years into WW2, and as a result the development of effective protection for soldiers did not advance much between the wars.

However, soldiers were not the only people who needed protection. During the s and s, the era of Al Capone, criminal gangs in the US started to experiment with i mprovised armor made from compressed layers of cotton padding and cloth. These items were light enough to still move around in. These vests would stop.

This is the reason why the FBI and other law enforcement swapped to a larger cartridge — the. These rounds are still the choice for law enforcement officers today, and it may be surprising to learn that they were originally adopted to overcome body armor.

During the early years of World War 2, military planners were still stuck thinking about the last war. As the war progressed, however, it became increasingly apparent that body armor was a necessity for certain types of troops. From , the first recognizably modern form of body armor started to emerge. The British led the way, issuing armor made of manganese plates to anti-aircraft and naval gunners. These vests were enormously popular, because for the first time they provided protection against low-velocity projectiles while still allowing the wearer to move around.

What really spurred on the development of modern body armor, however, was the bombing campaign in Europe. By , it was recognized that the majority of injuries to bomber crews was caused by relatively low-velocity shrapnel, rather than by bullets.

The first signs of truly modern body armor, however, would have to wait until the closing year of the war. The US, having finally recognized the importance of issuing effective armor to its soldiers, had developed bullet-proof vests made of Doron Plate, a type of fiberglass laminate.

Vests that incorporated these plates were first used by tank crews in the Battle Of Okinawa. It was clear by that laminate plates were the way forward when it came to body armor.

During the Korean war, a number of new vests were produced for US infantry soldiers. Furthermore, the combined weight and speed of horse and rider are transferred onto the point of the lance, making it a most formidable weapon. It is noteworthy that on most field armors, the lance rest can usually be folded upward so that it would not impede the mobility of the sword arm, after the lance had been discarded. The history of the armored codpiece is closely related to its counterpart in civilian male costume.

From the mid-fourteenth century onward, male garments for the upper body had occasionally become so short as to almost reveal the crotch. In these times prior to the development of trousers, men wore leggings tied to their undergarment or a belt, and the crotch was hidden with a flap secured to the upper inside edge of each legging.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, this flap began to be padded and thus visually emphasized. As such, the codpiece remained commonplace in European male costume until the end of the sixteenth century. On armor, the codpiece as a separate piece of plate defense for the genitals appeared during the second decade of the sixteenth century and remained in use and fashion until about Thickly padded on the inside, it is attached to the armor at the center of the lower edge of the skirt.

While its early form was rather cuplike, it remained under direct influence of civilian costume, and later examples are somewhat more pointed upward.

It was, however, not typically worn with armor for use on horseback; first, because it would get in the way, and second, because the armored front bow of the war saddle usually offered enough protection for the groin area.

Thus the codpiece is usually found on armor used for fighting on foot, both in war and tournament, and, although of some protective value, it has always been as much an element of fashion as one of defense. One of the most enduring and popular images of a medieval warrior is that of a Viking , made immediately recognizable by his helmet adorned with a pair of horns.

There is, however, little evidence to suggest that Vikings ever used horns as decoration for their helmets. The earliest use of a pair of stylized horns as a crest appears to be the small group of helmets surviving from the Celtic Bronze Age, particularly in Scandinavia and the area of modern-day France, Germany, and Austria.

These crests were embossed out of bronze, and could take the shape of two horns or of a flattened triangular profile, sometimes both. These helmets probably date to the twelfth or eleventh century B.

Two thousand years later, from about onward, pairs of horns again became popular throughout Europe and remained one of the most widely used heraldic crests on helmets for battle and tournament alike during the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

It is easy to see that neither of these periods coincides with the period usually associated with the Scandinavian raids of the late eighth to the late eleventh century. Helmets used by Viking warriors were usually of conical or hemispherical shape, sometimes made from a single piece of metal, sometimes constructed of segments held together by connecting metal lames Spangenhelme.

A number of them appear to have been fitted with a face defense. The latter could be in the form of a simple metal bar extending over the nose nasal , or a faceplate comprising a nasal with additional protection for the eyes and upper cheekbones made of plate, or finally, a full protection of the entire face and neck made of mail.

Generally speaking, the above statement is correct as long as it is stressed that it was the ever-increasing efficiency of firearms, not firearms as such, that led to an eventual decline of plate armor on the battlefield.

Since the first firearms appear to have been in use in Europe as early as the third decade of the fourteenth century , and the gradual decline of armor is not noticed before the second half of the seventeenth century, firearms and plate armor coexisted for more than years.

During the sixteenth century, attempts had been made to render armor bulletproof, either by hardening the steel or, more commonly, by thickening the armor or adding separate reinforcing pieces on top of the normal field armor. Finally, it should be noted that armor as such has never become entirely obsolete. Moreover, even body defenses have lived on in the shape of the experimental breastplates of the American Civil War, the breastplates of airplane gunners during World War II, and the bulletproof vests worn today.

Medical and anthropological research demonstrates that the average height of men and women has gradually increased over the centuries, a process that, for reasons of progressively better diet and public health, has accelerated during the past years or so.

The majority of surviving armors from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries appear to confirm these findings. However, when trying to affirm such generalizations from armor, a number of factors need to be carefully considered.

First, is the armor complete and homogeneous i. Moreover, then as now, other general factors have to be taken into account, such as differences in average body height between northern and southern Europeans for example, or the simple fact that there have always been people who were exceptionally tall or short when compared to their average contemporary.

Among the famous exceptions are royal examples such as Francis I, king of France r. Neither armor is complete, and the sizes of the former owners are necessarily broad estimates, yet the differences in size and stature are remarkable: while the owner of the first armor was probably around 6 feet 4 inches ca.

As most people were expected to be right-handed, most strikes or thrusts were anticipated to come from the left, thus hopefully glancing off the armor, across the overlap, toward the right. Although this theory is persuasive, not enough continuous evidence exists to support the notion that modern-day male clothing was directly influenced by such armor. In fact, although the defensive theory may in general be true for medieval and Renaissance armor, a number of genuine helmets and body armor overlap the other way round right over left.

As with the wearing of armor, not everyone who carried a sword was a knight. The custom, or even the right, to wear a sword varied according to time, place, and changing regulations.

Throughout medieval Europe, swords were the chief weapon of knights and mounted men-at-arms. In times of peace, however, generally speaking only noblemen were allowed to carry a sword in public. An exception to this rule was granted to travelers citizens, merchants, even pilgrims due to the inherent dangers of travel by land and sea. Within the walls of most medieval cities, however, the carrying of swords was generally prohibited for everyone—sometimes even nobility—at least during times of peace.

Standardized measures for the trade, usually attached prominently to medieval churches or city halls, often also included examples of the permissible length of daggers or swords that could be carried inside city walls without fear of penalty.

It is undoubtedly due to such regulations that the sword was transformed into an exclusive symbol of both the warrior class and knightly status. Yet, due to social changes and newly evolved fighting techniques during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it became gradually acceptable for civilians and noblemen alike to carry the lighter and thinner successor of the sword, the rapier, as an everyday weapon for self-defense in public. Indeed, until the early nineteenth century, rapiers and smallswords became an indispensable dress accessory for the European gentleman.

The reasons for these allegations are easily explained. Due to the rarity of genuine specimens, few people have ever handled a medieval or Renaissance sword. Furthermore, practically all of these swords—with rare exceptions—are in excavated condition. Their corroded appearance today, which can easily give the impression of crudity, can be compared to that of a burnt-out car, having lost all signs of its former glory and sophistication. The majority of genuine medieval and Renaissance swords tell a different story.

Whereas a single-handed sword on average weighed 2—4 lbs. With the length of the blade skillfully counterbalanced by the weight of the pommel, these swords were light, sophisticated, and sometimes beautifully decorated. As illustrated by documents and works of art, such a sword, in the hands of a skilled warrior, could be used with terrible efficiency, capable of severing limbs and even cutting through armor. Swords as well as some daggers, whether European, Islamic , or Asian , often have one or more grooves extending down one or both sides or faces of the blade.

Consequently, such grooves should correctly be referred to as either a groove or a fuller, or by another appropriate technical term. Armour was also commonly used to protect war animals, such as war horses and war elephants, from intentionally inflicted harm. History All through history, the development of weapons and armour have literally been an arms race, leading to different developments in different civilizations.

In European history, common armour types were the lorica segmentata, the chainmail hauberk, the gambeson and later the full steel plate armour used by late medieval knights. In feudal Japan, laquered odoshi armour, a form of lamellar, was popular. Plate Armor Plate armour is personal armour made from large metal plates, worn on the chest and sometimes the entire body.

Plate armour protecting the chest and the lower limbs was worn by the ancient Greeks and Romans, but it fell into disuse after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It came into fashion again from the late 13th century on, at first as single plates protecting joints and shins, worn over the full chainmail armour current in the 13th century.

By the end of the 14th century, full plate armour had been developed, first in the so called gothic style. The slotted head screw and correspondingly the screwdriver were invented at the same time in Germany to make production and maintenance of these armour suits practical.

Full plate armour was very expensive to produce and remained therefore restricted to the upper strata of society, and lavishly decorated suits of armour remained the fashion with 17th century nobles and generals, long after they had ceased to be militarily useful due to the introduction of firearms in the battlefield. Reduced plate armour, typically consisting of a breastplate, a burgonet, morion or cabasset and gauntlets, however, became also popular among 16th century mercenaries.