The armour of a knight (or man-at-arms) looked different throughout the Middle Ages. In this blog, we provide a glimpse into the equipment of an English man-at-arms in the late fifteenth century to help you choose your own composition.

The ‘Wars of the Roses’ was a series of civil wars that took place in England between 1455 and 1487. These wars arose as a direct consequence of the Hundred Years' War between England and France, as England had become heavily indebted and a large part of the royal family had perished. This led to a succession crisis, where two major branches of the Plantagenet dynasty came into conflict: the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The end of the wars after the Battle of Bosworth brought about the fall of the French Plantagenet dynasty in the English royal family and the rise of the Tudor dynasty . This transition is seen as the end of the Middle Ages in England.

In the fifteenth century, clear regional differences emerged in the forms of aristocratic full plate armor, but the equipment of common soldiers remained very similar.

The Brigandine consisted of small steel plates that overlapped and were nailed to an outer layer of fabric (usually wool) or leather. It could be donned by a soldier himself and was cheaper than a breastplate or cuirass. This form of protection was developed from the coat of plates in the fourteenth century but became increasingly affordable for common soldiers in the fifteenth century.

The bascinet was adopted in France, Italy, and England by the sallet and armet. The armet remained exclusively available to the aristocracy, but the sallet was worn by both common soldiers and knights. In the Holy Roman Empire, the sallet was almost exclusively used as part of the Gothic style. The sallet had integrated neck protection at the back and was worn with a bevor to protect the front of the neck. This combination was easily adaptable to the situation the wearer found themselves in, especially if the sallet had an adjustable visor. It could be worn low or high on the head, to either provide protection or a better field of vision. The bevor was usually set halfway down when the sallet was worn low on the head.

The year is 1485. Elric is a poor man-at-arms in the War of the Roses, loyal to the Yorkists. He is on guard in York but has heard news of a large advancing Franco-Scottish and English force under Henry Tudor in Wales. Elric suspects that his king, Richard III, will soon send an army against it. The period of Yorkist rule in England that he has known all his life would soon come to an end at the Battle of Bosworth, a battle in which Elric himself will fight.

When Elric is not wearing his armor, he wears a trousers with a shirt or doublet and ankle boots. On his head, he wears a red hood or a bycocket with the symbol of his king. At his belt, he carries a dagger for self-defense.

The Bycocket (also known as the type of hat worn by Robin Hood) was a popular headgear in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was worn both with or without a hood by the serfs, bourgeoisie, and nobility. Elric wears a small badge of a boar on his hat, a symbol of King Richard III. This shows his allegiance to the House of York. After the fall of this house, almost all badges of this type would be destroyed by the Tudor dynasty.

Another option is a red cap that was also widely worn in Southern Europe.

In the late fifteenth century, trousers were worn by men and chausses (chausses) had become quite unfashionable. Elric wears a mi-parti trousers with flap. Underneath, he wears his braies, a medieval undergarment.

In the Middle Ages, people preferred to wear bright colors, contrary to how this period is often portrayed. If they could afford it, their clothing was richly decorated, but even without decoration, clothing in the Middle Ages was very expensive. By wearing a shirt or undershirt, it became less dirty from the body, and the outer layer needed to be washed less often, which also meant it discolored less quickly. The shirt was often worn loose, especially by men of lower status.

In the fifteenth century, fashion transitioned from long, flowing robes to short, form-fitting clothing. Men began to wear doublets that ended around the hips and emphasized the chest and waist. As a result, full trousers also became increasingly fashionable.

A gambeson provides a layer of padded protection under chainmail and plate armor, but was worn on its own by poor soldiers. Due to developments in armour, thick gambesons became redundant for knights, and they began to wear a thinner, lighter padded variant that also aligned with the fashion of the day, the so-called arming doublet. To this form-fitting variant of the gambeson, armour components could be attached that fit well to the body.

In Italy, the arming doublet was even worn as a regular garment by civilians and non-military nobility to give a warrior-like appearance, similar to wearing combat boots or clothing with camouflage print in our present day. 

Elric wears a belt with a dagger. People from all walks of life attached pouches and other utility items to their belt.  When assembling your outfit, consider what you would find important to carry in your daily life as a knight or man-at-arms, such as your cutlery but also your sword.

In the fifteenth century, men wore pointed shoes. Over time, the fashion trend was to make these increasingly longer and pointier. On the battlefield, form followed function, and the pointedness of the shoes was much more modest, so one could not trip over them during a fight.

The armour of Elric consists of a helmet with bevor, a brigandine over a chainmail shirt, pauldrons or jackchains, mittens and thigh armor.

The hauberk, the chainmail shirt with short sleeves, became increasingly popular in the fifteenth century due to developments in arm armor. Italian knights would continue to use full mail shirts until the end of the fifteenth century, while in the Holy Roman Empire the chainmail shirt was divided into voiders and mail skirts to save weight. Elric wears a full chainmail shirt under his brigandine. Whether you choose to wear a hauberk or attach pieces of mail to your arming doublet depends on personal preference and the region on which you base your composition.

In this period, open helmets were often worn to provide the wearer with a better field of vision and to assist in giving commands. This was mainly done when the threat from the enemy was not very urgent. It was often also a matter of personal preference whether a knight wore an open helmet with bevor or a closed helmet with a visor. Poor men-at-arms and soldiers could often only afford an open helmet with bevor. Elric is not wealthy enough for a closed helmet, so he opts for this combination.

There are various options for Elric's head protection. To protect his head, he can wear a sallet or a kettle hat with bevor. This composition can be adjusted to the situation he finds himself in. His helmet can be slid back to give him a better field of vision, or forward to provide more protection. The bevor can be lifted to offer better protection or lowered to allow him to breathe better and make his commands more understandable. You can choose what kind of helmet and bevor combination you use in your composition. Here are examples of open helmets and bevors from this time period:

The bevor protects the neck and chin when not included with the helmet. This component of a armour was popular among both soldiers and men-at-arms, as it was easy to combine with various open helmets, but also half-closed helmets like the sallet. 

The sallet was a helmet that was worn both with or without a visor. This helmet had integrated neck protection at the back, but was open at the front. This allowed the helmet to be worn both on its own and with a bevor / gorget. In the fifteenth-century Gothic style of the Holy Roman Empire, a sallet was almost exclusively worn by common soldiers, knights, and even the emperor.

The kettle hat is an open helmet in the shape of a hat with a wide brim, designed to protect the wearer against projectiles while also providing a good field of vision. The construction of a kettle hat was often simple and therefore frequently worn by common soldiers. However, they were also used by men-at-arms in the late Middle Ages.

To protect his torso, Elric wears a brigandine, a later development of the coat of plates. It consists of overlapping steel plates held together with black leather. Elric does not need a squire to put on the brigandine himself, allowing him to prepare for combat faster and more easily than with a breastplate or cuirass.

Elric is not wealthy enough to afford size made arm harness, but to protect his arms and shoulders, he still has several options. He can choose to protect his shoulders with pauldrons or ‘jackchains’.

The pauldrons are large and have ‘besagews’ to protect the armpits. The upper arms are well-covered, but the elbows lack hard protection.

He can also choose to wear jackchains. This simple type of plate armor, connected together in the form of a chain, was intended to provide hard arm protection over a chainmail shirt. Unlike a more complete arm harness, it did not need to be made on size. As a result, it was mainly used by common soldiers and poor men-at-arms.

Elric uses mittens to protect his hands. Underneath, he wears separate leather gloves. Other knights and men-at-arms in this period continued to prefer gauntlets with individual finger protection. It is up to you to choose which form of gauntlet you use in your composition.

Elric's thighs are protected with plate armor, but he has left his lower legs unprotected. This is because he is often on foot and prefers more mobility when wearing a armour. It is up to you to make similar decisions between protection and mobility, which we will discuss further under the heading 'the perfect armour'

Often an arming doublet or other gambeson was equipped with points to attach armor for the lower body, but this was not always the case. To fasten leg armor and chainmail to the body, a armor belt was often worn.

Elric mainly uses a poleaxe on the battlefield. As a secondary weapons, he has a messer and buckler.

As a primary weapon, Elric uses a poleaxe. The poleaxe was a form of pole weapon used by heavily armored knights and men-at-arms. It resembled the halberd, but was often shorter and had a war hammer on the head of the weapon, while the halberd often had a hook to pull people from their horse or their legs. With this hammer, the poleaxe was better suited for use in combat against other armored opponents.

As a secondary weapon, he has a sword and buckler. The sword he uses is a ‘long messer'  (literally: long knife), a cheap type of sword with one edge that was especially popular in the Holy Roman Empire. The sword is named as such because it had the same construction as a knife and could thus be made by knife makers to undermine the monopoly of swordsmith guilds. It was a self-defense weapon for peasants and citizens, but was also popular on the battlefield and was sometimes worn by nobles as a hunting sword.

As shield, Elric uses a buckler based on that from the combat manuscript of the German fencing master Hans Talhoffer. The buckler was a small shield that was mainly used by peasants and citizens during the high and late Middle Ages to defend themselves. Detailed combat systems existed in England, the Holy Roman Empire, and the rest of Europe for fighting with these small shields. They were often used on the battlefield as well, especially by archers. Because they offered little protection against arrows and other projectiles, the infantry preferred larger shields.

At his belt, Elric carries a dagger designed to pierce the gaps in plate armor, should he find himself in combat with another heavily armored opponent. In daily life, this type of dagger was also used by all social classes as a self-defense weapon.

Contrary to what many people think, armor was not intended to make the wearer completely invulnerable. Armor was always a compromise between mobility and protection. This compromise can be well seen in the difference between war armor and tournament armor (all our armor is war armor). During tournaments, much stronger but less mobile armor was worn to protect the wearer as fully as possible from the impact of a lance. This was possible because tournaments were not intended as a spectacle and not as a fight for life or death. On the battlefield, mobility was much more important, which made war armor offer less protection, but it was less heavy and allowed the wearer to move much more freely.

Armors were historically worn by individuals who were fully trained and specialized in waging war during the period in which they lived. It can be seen that these individuals made many choices between protection and mobility, often coming down to function and personal preference. For example, many foot soldiers wore less protection on their lower legs because it was more comfortable to march in, while the cavalry was often more fully armored. Knights sometimes chose to protect their hands with mittens in which the fingers could not move, but sometimes with gauntlets with individual fingers. Consider what is important to you and adjust your armour parts and composition to your own preference.

On medieval battlefields, only the aristocracy wore fully size made armors. The rest of the armies wore armors that were collected or taken over from previous wearers. These soldiers adapted these collected pieces of armor to their size and decorated it by painting religious symbols and the heraldry of their ruler on it. The armour parts we sell are not size made, but they are adjustable. As the owner of a armour, you are regularly engaged in adjusting the armour to your measurements so that it fits as comfortably as possible. You can do this by extending straps, adding straps, stretching arm and leg pieces, and adding laces.