GO FIND THE BREASTPLATE STRETCHER

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    These armors were made for fighting in tournaments or during jousts or something, right? Are they different from standard practical soldiers' armor then?

    Did Henry VIII ever use these in actual combat?

    • FidelCashflow [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Maybe some for fun in the early suits. Mostly they would have been worn around to be fancy or as cool decoration

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I think he was a tournament fighter when he was young, but I don't have a source for that.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I'm going to be super general, and armor from this period isn't really my thing, but tournament armor was typically much heavier than field armor since you were expected to get hit a lot, and hard. Some jousting armors have an entire extra plate that fastens on over the upper chest and shoulder with a little shield where you're most likely to get hit with the lance in order to provide extra protection. Jousting helmets were generally much more heavily built that field helmets.

      Field armor generally wasn't as fancy as tournament armor, since you were trying to kill people, not show off. Depending on the era it might be lighter and leave some parts like the back of the legs exposed to improve mobility and reduce fatigue. Full, late period plate armor is ridiculously protective, to the point where most techniques for actually killing someone in armor involve wrestling and trying to force a weapon in to gaps in the armor rather than just beating them to death.