A video discussing the origin and purpose of waring a surcoat over armour (harness) in the Middle Ages. It also provides a brief overview of the development of armour from 11th to 14th century.
This makes perfect sense. Most metal armours are resistant to slashing and bludgeoning damage. Surcoats and gambesons are resistant to piercing damage, which is chainmails biggest weakness.
So glad i found your channel. I like your sense of humor :D I dont know if this could be a factor but in medieval hungary around the 13-14th century the royal power weakened enough from the continous distribution of royal domain to their followers so that local feudeal lords and regional magnates could challange the king even though their house was only 2nd or 3rd generation old. Maybe displaying their coat of arms on the surcot was to give legitimacy to their newly found house.
These are really good videos. My favourite one is the one where he dresses up in the late 14th century armour because of the beautiful music that accompanies it.
there are several vids on YT that talk about 'arrow shrapnel' wood splinters from shattered arrows. Surcoat may have been a response to that, anti splinter protection. The timing lines up with more powerful longbows being used. anyone in plate harness don't care about stabs from swords or anything.
Duke of Brabant was prolly like - Ah, I forgot my surcoat at the tent! Well, I'm late, I don't think it will be as important anyway... *gets fvcking decapitated*
Nice! I also have a theory that the crusaders wore surcoats to protect themselves from overheating. And there are occasions in Medieval chronicles where it was recorded that people did actually suffocate in their own armor, or just dropped dead of heat exhaustion on a hot day.
At 1:36 you show the Westminster Psalter, and state that it’s from the late 12th century. However, it’s actually from the mid 13th century (1250) so I just thought I’d point that out.
One thing I would point out is that there is a chance the surcoat was actually picked up by the Crusaders from the Romans, or perhaps during the Italo Norman conflicts with the Romans a little earlier (although the Romans themselves picked up such padded armor from Arabs/Persians so the connection of Europe to there remains the same). Epilorika was one of the main terms for it, and it probably consisted of silk/cotton padding over maille in some manner (or standalone), albeit it looked very odd compared to normal surcoats, incorporating both a hood and sleeves.
as in the royal coat of arms or royal england one because i love the battle of agincourt so i kinda wanna have something that was used at the time but i cannot find one anywhere
