How Medieval KNIGHTS Got DRESSED! Two Different Armors Contrasted 

Check out Zac Evans' channel here: ru-vid.com

I love Zacs comment on the foolhardy psychology of younger soldiers and how it could tie in with levels of protection seen on period art.

Notice simple bows on the arming points, instead of arming knots (slip knots).

Why is the inside of the upper arm exposed? It has no joints and it's just a cylindrical in shape. Was it only for weight efficiency or are there mobility issues?

But I have to call you out on the floating arm harness. It definitely predates the articulated ones by at least 40 years, if not more. By 1310 they are already a thing, while for articulated arms we have to wait at least for 1340. Floating limb protection never goes away, really.

Lol. Matt looks like a particularly militant chef.

Pretty good camera quality for the 15th century I must say..

I'd be interested to hear how the dressing process would change if you were caught by surprise and had to hurry; would you skip, or prioritise, any particular elements?

I'm glad Zac mentioned the italian mail only shoulder defenses, personally I love the look of the 3/4 arm harness with mail shoulders and I wish it was discussed more, Ian from Knyght errant briefly mentions it, but besides that this is the only video I've found that mentions it

Congratulations guys this was absolutely fascinating. You play off each other really well. Matts a born educator and Zac just picks up at opportune moments supplying additional expertise.

This was a great video. I think it's worth mentioning that so much of our idea of German gothic versus Italian Milanese armour comes from survival bias and the historiography of armour scholarship originating with people trying to describe surviving armour rather than reconstruct the historical armour of different periods and regions. I imagine this is coming in future videos from both of you but I am excited to hear about your new armours from both of you since IiRC they are both going to be more English? As someone putting together a c 1470 harness I am definitely interested in seeing how yours comes together!

One greave at a time, just like everybody else...

Me, seeing the title and the length of the video: "It took them an HOUR??" ... all right, I'll shut up now and watch it xD

RIP Myarmory. Maybe one day someone will come back and fix you...

Chess hasn't been updated in almost 200 years and it's obvious the devs have abandoned it. The greedy creators took your money and laughed all the way to the bank. I remember back in 705 AD when chess was fun. Then they started adding stupid features no one wanted like "Castling" and "En Passant" instead of listening to player feedback and fixing game-breaking bugs. I've been complaining for YEARS about the collision-detection glitch with the horsey. The "clipping-thru-pieces" bug has been abused to death and the lazy devs refuse to fix it. Don't support this awful behaviour and boycott this company.

I am an American rodeo cowboy, an experienced rider, but not a jouster. I do have a friend who does joust, and he recently let me try riding with only the two types of cuirasses he owns. One was a solid breast plate and back plate. The other had the breastplate and plackart combination, just like y’all’s. My friend and I are virtually the same size and weight, so even he felt that both of his cuirasses fit me. I’m here to tell y’all that I did not like the solid breast plate at all. I dismounted immediately. I felt that if I got bucked off my horse I had a real good chance of a severe neck or hip injury. The other breastplate and plackart armour was very comfortable with no chance of injuring me. I even roped with it on. Do y’all agree with what I experienced? I’ve always been fascinated with what seems to me to be the similarities of medieval knightly horsemanship and the American western style of riding. Both ride one handed, control our horses by neck reining and legs and spurs. We tend to ride a little more with straight legs and long stirrups, and at times stand in the saddle. We don’t swing a sword, but we sure swing a rope. The saddles look pretty similar in design and function. I sat in a medieval war saddle years ago and thought if it had a saddle horn I could rope cattle with it. Maybe I’m way off, what do y’all think? Joan of Arc stands some explanation. St. Joan is the Patron Saint of soldiers, I honor her because she got me through some tough spots in Iraq.

Zac is such a wonderful guest, would love to see him appear more! Definitely going to sub to his channel, absolutely love his input and observations. Awesome!!!!

I'm not really involved in reenactor circles and all, but I draw fantasy stuff every once in a while, and these types of deep dives into armor are really useful to me just because they point the way armor works out to me in ways i probably could never piece together just from pictures! Like, even with picture references, drawing plate armor (let alone trying to come up with an interesting but at least marginally plausible design for a given character's armor, rather than merely copying the first reference picture you happen to find) is incredibly hard if you can't tell how the different pieces are supposed to interact with each other, so seeing you go through it piece by piece and explain it is so useful as a reference because they help me actually think about and understand the functionality and what a certain piece needs to be able to do when I'm drawing. Thank you!

I'm a sucker for flutes and scallops, so i have to say Zach's armor wins in the looks department, hands down. But i wish we had gotten to see you put on your bevor and helmet, to compare the benefits of the additional articulation that you were talking about.

I really, really, really love how those armours fit slim people. This brings back to the historical imagery of armours we have, and it feel more accurate, but also it is elegant and feels very light and transpires speed and dexterity.

There are so many more useful things I should be doing in my life. I'll never get a set of plate, I'll never encounter one outside of a museum or shop. The knowledge I'm gaining here will be completely useless to me in every sense of the word. Yet here I am, with a coffee settled down to enjoy an hour and 9 mins, 25 seconds of content after work.

You guys are REALLY serious about Halloween.

Speaking from experience in modern armor, and on the subject of what armor you keep on or ditch, it's a constant conversation between what you're doing and how fast you can deploy. I did a lot of scout work, so I'd be deep in the field, but a small 4 man team with rifles isn't going to do much offensively, so I'd be operating radios, optics writing gear etc. But then would transition to gunfighting or running jumping and climbing without warning. I had 2 pairs of gloves over a couple years and the difference was one had a large built in loop on the wrists and the other didn't. The ones with the loops were superior, I could put a clip on my armor and when I needed my finger tips, I'd hang them on my chest. If I needed to move suddenly I could very quickly jam my hands into my gloves and have them on in moments. The other pair when they came off went into a pocket and didn't come out unless I had a moments to put down my rifle and fish them out. As far as pieces of gloves, helmet shoulders etc, I have to believe this same convenience of deployment principle applies.

I would be interested in videos on 16th century armor as the “culmination” in armor design. Also, some reasons on why you guys prefer going for 15th century armor.

Great comparison with the armor side by side! I've found I CAN in fact, put on all my armor (based on this "frankenarmor", MET museum, Accession Number: 29.150.7). It can be awkward armoring solo, so if I'm doing it for the public, I'll use an assistant. Here's the trick:Point your arms to your arming doublet FIRST. Then don that doublet. Point the pauldrons to the leather shoulder straps on the cuirass. Alternatively I know in the 16th c. some people pointed or pinned the pauldrons to the gorget. FWIW, I have a skirt and voiders, but rarely wear them. My skirt needs some adjustments and the voiders are bulky and difficult to point. (A pair of sleeves is much easier.)

Re the idea of "Italian" vs "German" armor. It really reminds me of tanks. Sometimes people think there are "american" or "western" tanks and then there are "russian/soviet" or "eastern" tanks. Yes, those two groups are easily reconginzed, famous and very different from each other. But. The reality is that there are many countries, like France, Germany, the UK... which build their own vehicles, and those vehicles tend to be somewhere in between the spectrum, taking inspirations from each other and making different compromises, depending on what that country at that time prefers. Any design is inherently compromised and brings its own pros and cons, and you can easily find European vehicles which have some inspriration in the western ones, some in the eastern ones, and doing some things in their own, unique way as well. It's easy to believe medieval armor in individual countries was no different, and it should be probably viewed and studied as its own thing, unless it's clearly just an unmodified import from elsewhere.

Zach's gauntlets are made for Vulcans. Live long and prosper!🖖

Nice, more armour videos as promised.

Sometimes I miss my late teens to early 20s, when I was invincible and invulnerable (or at least thought I was), but mostly I just wonder how I managed to survive them. And I never went to war!

I like the two finger glove-mitton. it seems like a nice compromise design between protection and dexterity. even in the fingers are hit, I think having the structure of two fingers in one sleve massively decreases the likelyhood of extreme damage as force from potential hits are distributed over a larger area. though it does seem harder to get off and on.

Italian or German? Well, Matt obviously has an Orc armour because of his huge pauldrons and Zac has a Human armour, because his spaulders are smaller. Edit: Ok, I'm going back to playing World of Warcraft after the video ends, because I clearly can't stop thinking about it...again. xD

Medieval Cinematic Universe strikes again!

"Damn it! canned Food again!?" ~ Hungry Lion during the Crusades, sneaking upon a Knight sleeping under a Tree That's the only Knight joke I know and always comes to my mind when I see Armour😑🙄

Fantastic suits of armour guys , I really enjoyed watching this .

A wise man once said; “the smaller the breasts, the closer you are to their hearts!” A wiser man once said; “bigger breasts are the expansion of the heart!” And the wisest man once said; “you must cherish the entire woman, as she’s the only doorway to her heart!”

30:57 I wonder what both knights would be talking about while armoring each other before going into battle....did they pray? or just boosted the morale of each other before going to war? that scene of a knight helping another knight was probrably very strong to the other soldiers going to battle as one big team.

Great video, on the subject of arming doublets how heavy does the armour get after a while with low padding? I still use a moderatly thick gambeson under my armour for reenactment and since I'm the only one in the group with a full harness I tend to be used to show it all day long. Overheating aside I find that the full harness gets quite heavy and squashes the padding but with my current level I never get sore. Contrast to my 17th century half harness where I use just a buff coat and a shirt after only the battle I'm sore. Keep in mind that the 17th was made on me but following the regular foot soldier standard while the 15th one was tecnically off the shelf and still falls better on the body.

Roleplaying games never seem to take thease things in account. It's armour, you can wear it right of the bat.

Suddenly I'm reminded of playing cricket in PE at school where we were only given a pad for our front leg.

Rather curious about the bike wheel in the bottom right. Italian, German, French or English? Classical period or modern reproduction? Any penetrations? Does it have a specific context?

It must be super cool to go on a halloween party in full plate armor :D

I think the Sallet is the most badass of all the helmets. Would definitely be my choice.

Who makes your arming Coates?

I would actually really like to see a video on where 16th century armor ended up going. It'd also be fun to hear why you don't like it as much as 15th century stuff.

Thanks, that was hugely interesting, both the contrasts and similarities of those two armours. One niggle: lovely music, but I'd have loved to hear what you ere saying to each other while helping to get all those pointes laced up ...

Had a double take when I read the title I thought it said: "How medieval knights cross dressed."

Aah, Matt's trainers and moder watch hurt the eyes a little bit. Otherwise, fantastic video. For that aspect of the usability of gauntlets it would be really great how destriers of that time were actually ridden. As much as there were different technical solutions for armour, there might be equally different riding methods all over Europe...also affecting the setup of armor.

Never realised that was what Point Break was about... :)

I want a hat like that! good video man...nice armor!

Dress up with friends, when you're an adult, involves swords and armor!

i would rather watch knights get undressed 😉

Hmm...i asked knyght errant long time ago if besegewes could be on the back and apparently now the consensus has changed that they could :)

So, how much time you suppose to wear the full armor on campaign? All day till night? Only on action for some hours? Cause, how do you pee or take a dump?

With help from your battle buddy.

I'd like to know where both of you got your armours made and how much these kinds of armours cost. I'm asking as someone who's always been interested in getting my own armour at some point.

What are some of the problems of medieval armor worn by knights and soldiers of the period? Utilizing the latrine while so clad like a Lego tin can. How hard would it have been to take a crap or a whizz in such quaint battle attire?

What is the weight difference and steel thickness difference between your two kits?

So does Darth Vader wear a sallet and a bevor ?

Your caveats are very much appreciated, Matt. Yours, Augusto.

I've always wondered about the idea of some armour being much better suited for either foot or mounted combat. If the armour is geared towards foot combat, does it really mess up your ability to ride, let alone fight on horseback? - If you are say an English man-at-arms in the WOTR, on the march and heading towards a major battle.... You're intending to fight on foot, but are on horseback currently. Does this mean you CANNOT wear your foot-combat armour on horseback, or at least cannot wear certain parts of it whilst mounted? And what about if you need to mount up during the battle for various reasons, including having to flee for your life.... If you are wearing foot-combat armour are you screwed? Do you have to shed parts of the armour before you can mount your horse? - If you're a European knight with the full Italian harness geared towards cavalry combat... Expecting to fight from horseback... But then are in a situation where you're forced to fight on foot.... Do you just make do with your usual armour? Or do you reluctantly lighten it and shed parts of it so you can fight more effectively on foot?

Play in reverse for niche only fans variant

Zac in his armor provides a glimpse of what an actual 15th century knight might look like in a way that few other people could. He has that Auschwitz-type physique that was probably typical for the average male of the period.

You guys are so slim, if I had a maori/polynesian body frame, would they have typical armor to cater for this or are they all custom made

This video as well as others are great. This reminds me a lot of experimental archaeology. Y'all are probably encountering things the knights did back then that worked and didn't work and came up with solutions the same way. I can see how reenacting is a very valuable thing.

Very interesting - I know nothing about armour but it's a riveting subject.

4:35 "helmet is the last thing(...)" uh... I usually put my helmet before the gloves, as the later restrict my hands movement, stopping me from closing the helmet

I think what's really interesting to me is learning how many armoured knights weren't all that armoured, and those that were might have had gaps from a bad fitting. Arrows versus armour part 3! With a series of archers, exactly how exposed is a guy with armour gaps?! :p

Matt, do you have any suggestions about where to purchase armor or good armorers to purchase armor from? Currently there is a counterfeit ring out of India going on where they show pictures of great armor and then send you garbage when you buy from them, regardless of price! Hard to tell who is actually advertising their armor anymore or who is just showing someone else's pics and sending garbage. Any suggestions?

I wonder how many different options various knights would have. Today I am to be part of a Calvary charge on goes the mitten. Tomorrow I defend the castle and will be on foot on goes gauntlet type 2. Next week there is the joust and that gets the practically solid left arm. The sword is after and that gets type 3 gauntlet etc etc etc. Not just a matter of this on or off today but today I need this shoulder not that one.

14:00 We do have Duerers rider from 1495. 21:00 also consider the Tonlet armours in battle use by Polish dismounted men-at-arms at the battle of Orsza.

Just the boys playing dress up with skirts and leggings in the garage, absolute cuteness

Hey guys. Thanks for the interesting video. Well done! But I want to say you underestimate the amount of armour variability that went on in the first half of the 15th century. Floating couters were around in German armours quite early, at least in the 1410-20ies. Close helmet like constructions are featured in some Kastenbrust armours like the Lorcher Kreuztragung. The time between the battle of Tannenberg and the end of the of the hussite wars was a time of intense innovation and cross pollination, especially in Germany.

24:59 "Kastenbrust" means "Box Chest" (because it looks fairly boxy^^)

It is "Italy" and "Germany" indeed! Just not for the purpose of an all-in-one national state. Moreover Germany in the middle ages has been more of an concluded state than nowadays. To understand this you must´nt mix up the term "Germany" with the Federal Republic of Germany (FDR). The middle-ages "Germany" was much more represented by the Reich, covering most of the german nation as an ethnic unity, than the modern Germany is by the FDR nowadays. E. g. Luxemburg, Netherlands, Austria, everything that is not covered by the FDR but by the middle ages Reich, is clearly (still) part of Germany in its national (not political) sense. The idea of a nation as a political entity is an idea, as modern as it is wrong. Therefor absolutely correct to speak from Germany and Italy as entities where the referring language as the main aspect of ethno-cultural identity was / is spoken.

Enjoyed it so much. I am a recent subscriber. Hello from Moscow. And you two are such medieval nerds, coming from a 44 year old guy who spent an hour on your video. You have a great channel, really enjoying it. Thank you very much. Cheers.

Great video hope you see both of you do similar with the new armors once at hand. As for the bevor strap ending up with the closed helmet I believe that to be the case as well, the trouble is sorting the pairing. Particularly when looking through continental sources you see them paired with simple infantry helmet to bascinets etc. I believe the earliest example the comes to mind is a French bascinet/closed helmet from BL Royal 20 B XX Le Livre et le vraye hystoire du bon roy Alixandre. So at latest 1425.

Great video, super interesting.

Very curious where people are finding arming doublets that aren’t padded up like down jackets.

Interestingly, the phrase ‘stretching a point’ comes from the fact that if a point is tied too tightly, the armor chaff it and it might break.

Dumb question: Why not wear a full mail shirt/hauberk/haubergine underneath the breastplate, etc?

I'd be fascinated with your thoughts on Mongolian armor. Were they so successful simply because of their numbers, or was their armor an added benefit? Excellent video.

What is the name of the music track?

Excellent and wonderful, the music that appears when they are putting on the armor, what is it called?

Wondering how voiders would interact with the mail collar. Seems like they might overlap depending on the design.

Different sabatons are constructed differently. For cavalierly the plates hinge on rivets along the edge. And for fighting on foot the articulation comes from the internal leather. (Witch doesn't jam up with a bit of mud) Spolders cover only the top of the arm and pauldrons cover the shoulder and the gap to the cuirass. (Draw a line from the armpit up) The big advantage Mat has in regards to the lance gap under his right arm are the pin's holding the outer plates on the shoulder. You can take the small plate off and put a bigger one on to match the left (same thing in reflection) The besagew are not just to cover the gap. They work very well in helping to redirect a blow. As they hang somewhat lose an incoming attack tilt's the plate and allows the weapon to slide off away from the body (along other bits of armour)

I really enjoy this video and the piece by piece explanation of the armor.

Man, I wish I could borrow the services of someone as knowledgeable as you too design the best possible armor for an archer one day

Novice : No german armour is better that italian cuz muh flutes! Expert : English armour anyone? Armour-weeb : * hugging the burgundian armour pillow *

loved this video

Could you Take the armor off like a jacket ("unzip" the middle and take of arm by arm) And leave it attached to the doublet?

But Zack has got hair, quite conveniently Damn, I'm rolling in my bed beating the shit out of my room's wall🤣🤣🤣

Me, pausing the video: Anatomy of Armour on MyArmour, eh? Sounds like a good tip! Better Bookmark. Me, unpauses the video: Oh

@26:18 well, technically Prussia didn't come into being until after the Treaty of Wurms in the 16th century and the conversion of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order to Lutheranism.

This video ruled so hard i cant even tell you... Can i ask Matt, how come you didnt opt for an English style armor? You being... ever so English and all?

But WHY do you have to make your armour SO complicated? Because.... German.

26:18 oh, prussia had nothing to do with germany basically until 1618/1701...but ppl keep forgetting that italy and germany were geographic terms long before they were political terms

Superb amount of knowledge being shared here. My question is: Is it common for medieval soldiers to only wear gambesons with little to know plate armor on top?

🎩Hi think I would much prefer to be a troubadour especially as I’m very small but can also play flutes. And you big guys need the oomph to go in. Oh one thing you must not forget is the water carriers. Without them we would be blah

Historically, do we see a lot of blueing of plate armor in the 15th century? I really want to get rid of the 'shiny new plate' look, but I wasn't able to find much information about historically patinas on armor (other than rust and buff, rust and buff).

New combat suits of Armour are back again once more , the Russian Ratnik Combat suit to be used in Ukraine by Russian soldiers each suit will cost £16.5 million.