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Arms & Armor in Medieval & Renaissance Europe

ection. A custom-designed suit of mail fit each part of an individual's body and could take six months to make. Mail was worn over an aketon and under a surcoat, and knights also wore other pieces of mail or plate covering head, arms, and legs.

As the longbow became a common weapon it made mail obsolete. By the fifteenth century suits were constructed entirely of plate steel. Since mobility was essential armorers needed to shape each limb carefully for fit, and attach the various pieces by rivets that slid in slots. Plates were overlapped and joined on the interior by riveted leather straps. Vertical ridges down the center of breastplates and conically shaped helmets warded off crossbow bolts and sword blows. The careful design and modulation of form became an admired aesthetic element, as can be seen in fifteenth-century armor made at Augsburg by Lorenz Helmschmid. Forms were slender and streamlined and featured pointed elements at sabatons, elbows, and shoulders resembling Gothic architecture. This armor was not heavily embellished; its beauty derived from form, mirror-bright surfaces, and bright pennants and plumes.

After 1500 rounded forms and surface ornamentation became popular. The surface of armor was ribbed or fluted (imitating men's clothing) and the corrugated steel was stronger, thinner, and lighter than plain plates. The style, with rounded helmets, globular breastplates and broad sabatons was called Maximilian armor, after the Emperor. It began in southern Germany and soon became a specialty of the armorers of Nuremberg.

The sixteenth century represented the height of armor design and artists such as Da Vinci and Holbein designed armor and its decoration. There were three categories of plate armor. Field armor, for use in combat, was smooth, easily maneuvered, designed to make blows glance off its surface, and weighed from 45 to 65 pounds. The second type, for sporting tournaments, was heavy, oft...

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Arms & Armor in Medieval & Renaissance Europe. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 15:32, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1693107.html