Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

which had been developing along the same lines as the rest ot the armour, starting ott
with a splinted construction but increasingly consisting of complex shaped plates.
The feet, likewise, were covered in sabatons of metal segments, or lamed, the calves in
fully enclosed, plate greaves, the knee in poleyns and the upper leg in cuisses, originally
padded, quilted or even made of riveted plates as before, but by around 1400 made ot
plate covering the front and outside of the thigh.
Whilst the iconic 'hounskull' bascinet was still very common, a variant had
developed by 1400. The 'grand bascinet' retained many of the same elements of its
smaller cousin but on a more massive scale. The aventail disappeared, replaced by a
solid neck defence. The visor was still of one piece and hinged at the sides, but the
features became blunted, giving it a sort of bulldog appearance.
The mid- to late 15th century saw another dramatic change in the development
of armour. Until this point armour styles had been fairly international, with only
occasional and minor variations in form, often just a case of one region being ahead
of the fashion trend rather than developing anything uniquely different. Now,
however, two distinctive styles developed: the gothic' style of the armourers of
southern Germany and the 'Milanese' style from the workshops of, unsurprisingly,
Milan. Gothic armour was dominated by narrow and wasp-waisted armour, with
relatively small plates, heavily fluted and scalloped, in a manner similar to the high
gothic architecture with which it shares its name. Emphasizing flexibility over
protection, it still relied on mail gussets sewn to the arming doublet, the reinforced
jacket to which the leg and arm assemblies were tied, to protect the armpit and a mail
skirt or mail braied — underpants made of tiny mail links — to protect the groin.
By contrast the Milanese style made use of larger plates, smooth and rounded, giving
the harness a much more massive look. This afforded perhaps greater protection at a
slight cost in flexibility particularly with regard to the shoulders. In both cases the
armour was often asymmetrical, with larger plates or additional layers of protection
(the qardbrace or grange-garde) shielding the left side of the body, the side most likely
to receive a lance blow.
In this period there was a broader range of helmet styles than perhaps ever before.
To a certain extent these can be matched with the two dominant styles of armour:
the dallet, horizontal, skimming the jaw line and with a clear and distinct tail, reflects
the narrow lines and fluted style of the gothic style whilst the Milanese armour is
more often depicted in conjunction with an armet, a bascinet-style helmet that
enclosed the head with large cheek pieces that met in the middle to protect the jaw
and a hinged visor for the face. Some also had a disc of steel at the nape of the neck
- the rondel — the purpose of which is no longer clear. Another popular Italianate
style was the barbate, a deep helmet with an open face reminiscent of the classical
ARMS AND ARMOUR •*}*•
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