Is medieval BLACK ARMOUR better? 

If Monty Python is to be believed, it may confer increased resistance to pain.

Never underestimate the power of looking cool.

Showing wealth was Life insurance. In a pinch being worth a ransom could save your life

He neglected to mention the chief true advantage of blackened armor..."The Black Knight always triumphs!"

Yes because black armor with brass highlights simply looks amazing

Wearing such beautiful armour is a reminder that none shall pass.

I'm not a chemist, but I know a bit of the science behind it. Iron has a couple common ions +2 and +3, I believe). Magnetite and rust are the two most common oxides of iron. Rust expands when it forms, which weakens the metal and causes it to flake off. Magnetite does not. When you blue steel, you're converting the outside into magnetite, which is mostly done for aesthetics, but does offer added rust/scratch resistance. It's worth noting that cold bluing (the paste you mentioned) doesn't create a very deep or protective finish, so it's best used for touching up a damaged finish. As I understand it, historically it was done by burning pitch onto armor, and largely by less-affluent knights to reduce the necessary maintenance for their armor.

Another advantage of blackened armour is its slimming effect. After all, it is very important to remain stylish on the battlefield.

Till ten years ago I did a lot of Napoleonic and medieval reenactment. A friend of mine was an archer and was a very, very proud owner of a shiny, blued armour. You was even not allowed to point at it... So on the evening before he got married his house burned down. All he could save was his bride. Only his armour survived intact...however the chlorine fumes of the burning carpets in his house totally rusted the exposed surfaces in a very, very corroded and pitted way. Parts of the armour that were covered by other stuff were still shiny blue. We ended up painting the whole thing black...

Regarding heat and black armour: The people who did do the research were the gentlemen involved in making air-cooled cylinders, originally on aero-engines but adopted by British motorcycle manufacturers. They found that blackened metal loses heat faster than unfinished metal, both with steel and aluminium and even when that blackening agent is a film of paint. So, going by that, black armour should heat up in the sun quicker, but at the same time any good absorber of radiation is also a good radiator, so it'll cool down quicker too. That's all based on reading in old books, though, and experience has taught me that old books sometimes contain old bollocks, so bear that in mind.

Matt's really trying to sell his armor, eh? Made an entire video to hype it up 🤣

Bro what I would do to have a shed full of swords and multiple armour pieces he’s living the dream well earned too

I’m reading Ian Mortimers book “1415 - Henry V’s Year of Glory” at the moment, and it covers the preparations of the French forces in Paris as the Burgundian Duke John the Fearless approached with his men. He says: “ … the provost of the merchants had prepared four thousand black padded jackets and four thousand axes with blackened blades …”. This was so they could kill the Burgundians without being seen if they tried to enter the city at night …

My house fire illustrated the protective value of blackening. There was a dagger setting on a counter in my bedroom right under a skylight. The firefighters broke that to let smoke out, which drew a lot of the nasty chemical smoke from burning plastics and foams and fiberglass through there. I had made this dagger to have a polished blade and guard. Not highly polished, to 2000 or 3000, but I had blackened the guard. The method I had used was to get it to below glowing heat, not even a dull red, and 'paint' it with soybean oil, repeating this quite a few times. Yes, the same way you'd blacken a new cooking pan. Well the smoke, steam, and firefighting chemicals turned the blade a most vivid orange while the blackened guard was perfectly fine besides the layer of soot on one side. Truly remarkable. However, I had a sword near it that also had a blackened guard but faired much, much worse. I had blackened that one simply by bringing it to a dull red several times. It was not a polished surface first. The blade faired better because it was in a wooden (and linseed oiled) scabbard but the guard has some deep dark red rust now. (Most of the surfaces also were coated in linseed oil as my go to protectant.) So there is one more anecdote around black oxides protecting from other oxidation.

The blackened armor will absorb heat faster than the bright armor; BUT it will shed heat faster. That's why the SR-71 was painted black. The engineers who worked on it discovered that, while light colors reflected heat they also retained that heat, whereas black absorbed heat quickly, it also shed it just as quickly.

I live on a boat. My swords and knives are constantly trying to rust, but my blackened great helm never does...

I'm curious as to how common painting armor was in Europe. It's reminiscent of lacquering samurai armor, because Japanese summers are dreadfully humid. A similar method of purposeful oxidization they used is called "sabitsuke", which was, and still is, often used to darken tsuba.

I don't have experience with blued armor, but with carbon steel knives, the patina is a real bear to work with because if it gets rusty (and it often does), then you have to polish it off with steel wool, and that leaves a silvery spot with neither rust nor patina. Then you got to re-patina it with some vinegar or lemon juice soaked onto a towel. I imagine that if you have a squire to polish your armor constantly, then a burnished silver look would be the easiest to work with. I doubt they had people to re-apply the patina constantly back then.

You looked ferocious in that harness and it's a damn shame you're wanting to sell it.

As a physicist, I would expect blackened armor to be worse than polished steel, heat-wise, but that it wouldn't really matter. Radiative cooling is pretty poor, which is why we make thermoses with a vacuum cavity between the inside wall with your beverage and the outer wall connected to the environment -- no material in the cavity forces heat to happen only as radiation, not conduction or convection. The bigger effect for armor is the creation of air pockets. This is why multiple pane windows exist, igloos and snow caves can stay warm (the ice/snow has air in it, you would not want it to be completely compacted as purely solid H2O), and jackets/sweaters/gambesons keep us so warm. The harness plus whatever you have on underneath that is able to trap air and keep it from convecting away from the body is going to be the bigger contributor to deciding the equilibrium temperature; which matches with Matt's experience. I wouldn't be surprised if a person can tell the difference in temperature if they wear exactly the same armor and padding with the only difference being blackening. After all, you certainly can feel the difference when you swap a white shirt for a black shirt. However, I doubt it would be a substantial change given how much else you are wearing. It would be more like swapping a white parka for a black parka -- sure, you'll be warmer in the black parka and might even notice it on a hot, sunny day, but is that the difference between hypothermia and survival? Probably not. One caveat is this is all discussing visible light, and I don't know how much the emissivity and albedo of steel may be changing in the infrared with polished to blackened steel. I'd guess it's not that much since steel isn't transparent in either frequency range (unlike glass that is transparent in visible but opaque in infrared), so the small change in albedo from the color change is probably as small as you'd expect it be from visible light alone.

sounds like an interesting test. Blackened and polished vs Polished, vs White painted helmet Testing for: - temperature in sunlight - rusting - scratch damage

I do SCA fighting, and I can confirm that rust on mild steel is SUCH a pain! My legs are the only part I have to worry about and I'm already looking to replace them haha

Darkened armor would stand out a lot in a pack of silvery armor men. As your said, it might be a status thing, but the first idea that sprung into my mind was identification. It might make it easier to "locate the boss, keep close to him, protect him", or "follow your commander in battle". Bonus effect if there is another color on top of it (fancy plumes, golden stuff). On the flipside, it might attract the attention of plenty of enemy crossbowmen...

A lot of historical pieces of armor were often painted to help curtail rust and corrosion from forming on its surface. I think that over time this paint would wear off and museums would remove the paint to restore and preserve the armor.

I really can't wait to hear about these new armor sets you're working on. So cool.

I chemically blue/blacken most of the blades i make.

I like your videos a lot, Matt. You know a lot of stuff, you understand how complex things are, and you bring stuff at a correct pace to your audience. You don't rush things, nor embellish them and your show or whatever. It's simply just straightforward talking based on humble reflections of objective things and aspects of historical elements in your concerns. It gets light and relaxing on this very politicized and competitive environment we have today. Keep up like this. Regards!

youre fun to listen to. i also like the lack of jump cuts in your video, unlike a lot of youtubers who have a jump cut at the end of every sentence

"+Stealth at Night Armour"??? Take my Money Sir, this will go splendidly with my Bagpipes of Invisibility. Can't see anything possibly going wrong with that.

I'm weirdly hyped over your new armour. Like I actually thought about at lunch today after seeing the community post yesterday(?). lmao

I do firearms finish work and has many parallels with the finished talked about in the video. One thing I'd like to note is a method used called "rust blue". Most bluing/blackening these days are done by chemicals, but long before nitre salt a common practice was applying lemon juice/salt/water mixture over the steel to allow it to rust then boiling it in rain water. The deionized water converts the FE2O3 into FE3O4 and causes a dark blue to form. The loose material is brushed off with a fine steel bristle brush and then the process is repeated over and over until the color desired is achieved. Boiling rusted parts in rain water will have a similar effect of neutralizing the rust and help protect the parts. I've done a few Colt pistols this way with excellent results.

The AD&D2E Arms and Equipment Guide said that dwarven leaders preferred to use black forged iron platemail. I'm curious about the look of blackened plate over silvery mail.

0:30 Shoutout to my dude, Zack. Rockin' that banner.

i had heard of some of those same drawbacks and still would have chosen black armor just because black knights are turbo awesome

the most rudimentary form of "blackening steel"/ "bluing" is repeated boiling oil dipping till a satin black color is present on the steel/iron etc. not sure if true but I've heard stories of those in "black armor" most likely being the oil dipped satin armor back then most likely being expensive or shown to represent difference/ not regular, some used this as a tactic in battle/ war to convey that they stood out among others for better or worse or to tell who's who on the field of battle

I remember seeing a piece about desert nomads wearing black robes in the desert. It turns out that it does not make them hotter. I don't remember the reason why, but wearing a black robe in the full sun has advantages. I think the same probably applies to black armor as well. This was an interesting video. I'm impressed at the durability of the finish on your armor! My experience with firearms made me think it would be more like some bluing on guns; where even touching it can cause corrosion.

Didn't need 20 minutes for this, looks cool, done

man you live the life keep up the awesome work!

Thanks for the information in this video ⚔️ the black armor does look nice. I know you're a new set will be good as well 👍🏻

The main thing I like about black armour is how it makes guilding pop. I prefer silvery steel for plain metal, but if you're going to put silver or gold details on plate, the black provides such a great contrast. I've loved the look since I saw a beautiful suit on display at the Royal Ontario Museum as a kid.

Speaking of patina on steel, have any of you fellow antique sword enthusiasts noticed that different makers' swords tend to patina in distinct/recognizable ways? It's possible I'm imagining it, but it would make sense that 18th/early 19th century steel and methods would vary from maker to maker in consistent ways....Prosser blades and early Wilkinson blades look very different from each other but similar to other examples from the same maker! Once you introduce homogenous (modern) steel, the chrome and nickel-plating types used also seem to patina distinctly as well.....

The first thing that comes to mind for me is potentially being more difficult to see at a glance where the creases are in the armour and where the armour ends vs. highly polished silver finish, the black armour looking more like a single silhouette against whatever is worn underneath. I would imagine it would make it more difficult on a battlefield where everyone is tired (and possibly drunk) for an attacker to thrust around the armour or at its creases where it's the weakest.

Very interesting, I've used the gun blacking chemical on vintage blades and axes when renovating them, it looks pretty good - but I'll mirror what you said, it looks different on a variety of steels, even on the same axe it would shade differently on various areas (obviously axes can contain different steels as a norm)

My favorite armor is the 3/4 suits of the German "Black Riders," so named for their black or mostly black armor.

Blued steel is my favorite look on armor and swords. The wear and tear on it looks awesome.

What you say about dampness in Medieval houses and castles is very true. A common home would of course have a hearth but that heat would not necessarily reach all corners of the house, and a castle would have many rooms, with the armour probably stored in an unheated room. To prevent armour from rusting they might have oiled it very well and then wrapped in oily linen - and the chests in which they were stored also oiled or painted to prevent wood rot and mold. Surely people knew how to treat their stuff. Some cities even have ordinances for their citizens to have a minimum of armour, and they had occassional check-ups from a committee to see if the armour was kept in a good state and not be pawned off, on punishment of hefty fines.

I wonder if it might be more difficult to track movements of someone in black armor compared to light colors. Some black things often appear as just as black blobs especially on quick glance.

Cat urine gives steel the most incredible neon blue patina-would be hilarious to see an armor done with the technique (see nekonoshoben knife patina)

5 minutes of practical experience is worth more than 5 years of commentary by experts without any first hand experience.

Congrats Mat, that Landsknechte costume armor is going to look great on you

I've enjoyed watching you at Tewkesbury the past few years, picking you out in your blackened armour ⚔️ A York, a York!

There is also worth mentioning that iron has two common oxides, iron(III) oxide and iron(II,III) oxide. The former is rust, red and very detrimental, and the latter is black. At room temperature and in the presence of humidity, most iron wilk just become rust, but HOW the oxidation occurs can be changed, and as explained, both heat and chemical reagents can force the formation of other non-rust oxides that function like a glaze or ceramic coating and that are actually protective to the metal.

Black Armour was a common among nercenary cavalry in the early modern era in Central Europe. This "Schwarze Reiter" ( translation Black Riders) even got their name from their armour. The other advantage of Black Armour is the psychic Impact if used collectively. Everyone is wearing bright armour (nobility) or flashing colours (Landsknecht) but this one group is all black (Schwarze Reiter) The example is from the 16th century.

black absorbs heat faster, but it also dissipates it faster. white absorbs it slower, but it also dissipates it slower, same thing for highly polished steel. maybe it helped especially if there was wind in those hot summer days you were fighting in. I remember someone made a video about this sort of thing a while ago.

I have an English civil war cuirass and morion which I used for re-enactments. I bought them 2nd-hand and were rusty when I bought them, so I painted them with satin black hammerite and then painted all the rivets in a bronze colour. It no longer rusts and looks freakin' awesome! Heat on a hot summer day is not really an issue. I was the company Ensign (so my character would have had a better salary than the common soldiery) so standing out from the crowd wasn't an issue either since I was up front and centre waving a big flag anyway and my job was to be noticed (as well as fighting).

The Milanese armors, possibly worn at Patay, were said to have breastplates of blue color, a result of a case hardening process on the iron or low carbon steel plate used. They were famously arrow proof, although it appears that the real reason that the British were so badly beaten is because of the shock tactics employed by the French vanguard which caught the English archers before they could complete preparation of their fighting position with stakes. The armored cavalry rode them down and killed as many as 2500 of them; archers were never intended to stand against heavy cavalry, they were supposed to be used in a combined arms system where they disrupted an enemy charge and supported the infantry with flank fires.

17:17 black was not only a fairly expensive pigment for cloth coloring, the coloring process needed to be longer for saturation and was therefore more straining on the cloth. Black clothing needed to be repaired and replaced much more often than any other color, adding to the cost

What you gotta remember is that not all armour was high-end full plate tailor-made to the wearer, a lot of it, or rather the majority of it was sold in bulk and therefore most likely didn't have a polish of any kind, because polishing back then increased the price significantly, despite the fact that water-powered wheels automated the process somewhat. So it's safe to assume that most armour wasn't polished, but rather black straight from the forge or painted/coated.

The rust protection alone would be huge, especially when campaigning in damp climates. Even in summer, when marching through Britain or continental Europe, you're going to get rained on quite a bit. The less maintenance intensive your armour is, the better. And lets face it, it does look pretty bad ass!

11:15 That certainly sound plausible, although didn't Edward the Black Prince wear black armour? That doesn't disprove the idea in general but it means black armour can't have been a complete faux pas.

For what i learned, medieval blackened armor or even dark blue armor had its colour by mixing carbon from coal that gave more flexibility making harder having fiber texture would move during impact, but not breaking and well tempered steel specially from a renowned armorsmith like well known Millanese and Nurembergians, would have best qualities, as darkened colour in armor made cheaper, kings would ask for carving royal house tapestry parts to be well recognized even in battlefield by nobles and kings.

The blackened armour might actually be more comfortable in hot sun. What people forget is that black objects both absorb and radiate heat more efficiently, meaning that they also cool down faster. Thus, if we have a situation where heat transfer is more efficient on the inside, say by having a bunch of moisture doing the transferring, it might radiate more heat out than it absorbs from the sun. It's also the case that the armour radiates heat in all directions, but it mainly absorbs heat from the direction of the sun. So if you increase the rate at which the armour absorbs/radiates, it's entirely possible that the net effect will be that it cools you down better. I can't be certain that's how it shakes out, but it's certainly a possibility.

what I've been wondering about is case-hardening the steel plates in brigantine. Tod from Tod's Workshop did a video showing brigantine was not very effective at stopping arrows and bolts, but his armor targets weren't hardened and that technology was widely available. Bluing and the like would be great for warding off rust, but it wouldn't really add effectiveness as a protective layer.

I really hope its Matt Easton the next time, quite fond of the guy if I may say so.

Black Armor looks cool. Discussion done.

I think I have seen the Yorks, especially Edward the 4th be depicted in black armour while the lancasters are shwon in more steel/silve armour. But this might be a things based on Shakespears plays about the War of the Roses as propaganda for the queen at the time using the colour black as a pointer the unjust and vicious, coining perhaps the idea of the "Black Knight". But I have no proof what so ever for this. But it seems believable to me. Would be interested to see how shakespear describes them. And personally the white york rose on black armour looks cool.

Yes a high end barrel black is polished then blued then polished again and blued again, this can be done over and over many times to produce the most exquisite finish. Gold inlay the perfect addition to this.

I don't have a copy of it to hand, but in Tacitus's Germania he describes a lot of the German tribes having wildly individual artwork on their shields, except for one bunch whose shields were all painted black. Imagine the fear they must've inspired in their neighbours. You could extend this to a medieval army. A mercenary outfit who solely wore blackened armour without ornamentation would be most unusual and remarked on, expanding thier reputation.

Looking cool gives a big confidence buff, and a confident fighter is a strong fighter

I'd love a video about russeting armor!

I looove me a good ole patina! * fondles Boker Atlas Brass with brass bead on the lanyard *

have you done a video talking about all the details of your current armour? might be an idea before you sell it?

I have a cool officer 1796 LC sabre that's totally blackened with chemical gun bluing (a very shiny, glossy dark grey). It just looks very unique.

That armor looks amazing 🥹

Can you do a video on how you store your armor? Just curious....

With black armor you could get this famous name like Zawisza Czarny (Zawisza the Black)

Oil blackening of steel has been about since steel was invented. It is easy to do and offers a degree of corrosion protection similar to painting. Any oil can work but vegetable oil is generally better. A badly scuffed helmet after a dent is beaten out can be reblackened in a campfire without ruining the temper. Any century old engineering handbook will give details on the various methods.

You cant deny the drip level with black armor and black weapons

I have seen a video about the german black rider's. There they said that black armor was a much cheaper solution than high quality stainless steel.

First thing I can think of for black armor is that it might not get or show dye or tanning agents from cloth or leather that the armor was in contact with on it where a shiny silver armor might, and maybe less reflected glare into your own eyes from your armor.

@scholagladiatoria If I remember correctly, you talked a bit here and there about the videgame Kingdom Come Deliverance. Part two has been announced for release later this year. Will you have a look at it, and give us your two Cents about it?

If I remember right in Hema black armour particularly a black helmet signifies a Maester someone who has devoted years to training and is deemed fit to train others

No mention of browning iron and steel. [I pretty sure it's called browning in English, but I can't find any mention of the process in English, with a Google search, but plenty of in mentions in other languages.] Browning was for centuries the standard treatment in Sweden to avoid rust on cannons and firearms. You can hardly find a Swedish made cannon that hasn't been (originally) browned, not browning cannons only happened when the production was rushed (then the much faster, but less good, methods of blackenig or bluening could be used instead). It was also done to most ax heads, and some other kinds of tools and blades, in non military use. I know browned cannons and other equipment, was sometimes confused with equipment made of copper, by people from some countries, so the process might not have been as common outside Scandinavia and the northern Slavic regions of Europe. I've read of occasions when plate armour (intended to go into long time storage) was also browned at production. Can't remember the sources (30-40 years has passed since I was interested in that kind of stuff). What it is, is a thick, highly pollished, non poruos, brown/redish, rust layer. It will protect perfectly for centuries, and is very durable during use (the surface inside the cannon continuously get polished by the explosions and cannonballs, so it will only get better with use). There are three main methods. First you roughen the surface. Then you can either treat it with chemicals ("brunering" in Swedish); or treat it with steam ("brungöring" in Swedish); or you can burry the part in the right kind of soil. Then you polish the surfaces to a shine, sometimes with fat. All the processes takes months or years to achieve. The processes with chemicals and steam, was very labour intensive and costly, and was done professionally, burrying in the ground was done by the end users themselves, after they had bought a new axhead or tool (it didn't require a lot of labour, just waiting for a couple of years).

At 0:32 i'm pretty sure that's Lindybeige in the middle, tall guy with the maroon sash thing right?

I realize that this would likely be SO FAR from what you want, but I really like the idea of a kit that looks like it WAS complete but needed parts to be replaced while on campaign for whatever reason, and you basically said "f&$# it" and took whatever fitting parts you could get your hands on. I'm sure it is unlikely, because most knights would probably have commission duplicates for certain parts (correct me if I'm wrong), but I'm just so attracted to you the idea of a kit that is part of an ongoing story.

12:33 - "Ballistol" - C&Rsenal approves this product !

1) Stand out on the battlefield if you have the command for your men, to know where you are, whom to follow in all the chaos. 2) Intimidating for your enemy in fight since it gives an impressive effect.

a rust protectant spray paint then I took some green and blue and it came out with this vein pattern that is really awesome I didn't even mean to do it

Being Flemish, I agree. It looks good.

Some of that "purple-blued" armor would be wonderful to see . . . but it's RUSSETED armor that I always was curious about: rust-resistant, pleasingly earht-toned, aesthetically distinctive, and they say you can buff the scratches right out!

This was probably not done but a very cool thing would be a couple of Cavalry platoons (70 - 80) as shock troops - a highly trained unit to take the point, for instance or for anything that could use a hard tactic. Think about it - a line or wedge of Black Knights, their fearsome reputation well known charging hard at you; just the sight of them causes hardened Infantry to flee. Anyway, that is what came to my mind. I would buy your armour if it fit and I had the money. And thank you on the lesson on armour; you covered a lot of practical issues. Cheers!

oh i think i came up with an advantage but with no experience with it in person its hard to say it might be harder to discern details in the armor or even your movements when everything is a lower contrast as opposed to the higher contrast bright silver armor this could make it harder to spot the gaps but also hide finer movements

It's too late Matt, the photos from Tewskbury are out. You are the hardened veteran man at arms in the black armour and a terrifying scowl on his face.

I get the feeling that blued and especially, painted armor is something that became more prevalent as the armor itself became more available to people like Men At Arms and Mercenaries who did not have squires to polish their armor for them like a Knight or Lord would. Saves time on maintenance and would be cheaper to maintain in the long run.

Tangentially related question: are sword maintenance products like ballistol and renaissance wax safe to use on blue and gilt swords and other forms of bluing? I've read conflicting things.

Bluing a helmet might really fix aesthetics from different heating on different parts( ie. the visor and helm being slightly different colors out of the forge).

I've heard Fiore mentions one should polish their armour until it could reflect the rays of the sun into the eyes of one's opponents. Blackened armour, at least if only covering the rear or otherwise partially upon armour, would then reflect more sunlight into whomever you face instead of your allies.

ive been quite interested in class and class stratification within arms and armour thruought time and culture

Great video Matt. Thanks for the advice: That it's dangerous to stick my fingers in electrical sockets when wearing armour. I'll only do that now when I'm not!

Did earlier armor before plate, be it chain, lamellar, segmented or what-have-you get blackened as well? Since it's chemically blackened, would even blackened chainmail work, or would the rubbing of the links just remove the color over time? Would heat blackening work better/worse?