The medieval knight is one of the most romantic and embellished figures in human history. Hollywood films, historical novels, and more recently, computer games depict us with a very colorful and charming warrior, in shining armor, galloping into the distance, from time to time fighting with the same noble and honest opponents or without any problems defeating gangs that are certainly vile and unpleasant. robbers (if it's not Robin Hood, of course). Well, a strikingly beautiful and pious girl is waiting for her noble admirer in a high tower or, in extreme cases, languishes in a dungeon, waiting for deliverance.
In fact, the average knight is an extremely pragmatic and not very educated comrade, capable of twisting the jaw of a servant who served cold water without much remorse, or giving his sister / daughter as a wife to an old and terrible neighbor for a piece of fertile land or pairs of thoroughbred stallions.
Cinematic knights and their armor
The vast majority of films (including those claiming to be historical) show a knight in full plate armor, with a deaf helmet like tophelm (full helmet) or arme with a folding visor. Moreover, in this form, they courageously cut themselves in battles for several hours, and then, without taking off, sit down at the banquet table. One can imagine that this is what the everyday clothes of knights looked like. The description of the chroniclers suggests that this type of protective armor was used only for knightly tournaments, and only in the 14th-15th centuries. It was by this time that metalworking technology had reached such a level that the weight of full plate armor (that is, made entirely of metal parts) had dropped to an acceptable 40-50 kilograms. And with such a load, the knight could act effectively for an extremely short period of time. What was the actual armor of a medieval knight?
Early Middle Ages
A knight's dress in battle for this time is usually long leather knee-length armor with metal inserts and stripes and an open-faced metal helmet. The legs were occasionally protected by leather or reinforced greaves. Equally common was quilted armor, or simply quilted armor (in fact, just many layers of fabric quilted together), or stuffed with horsehair. Such "uniforms" were strengthened, again, with metal strips. Sometimes lamellar armor was used -made up of overlapping metal plates. More metal was used to make it, and therefore only the we althiest knights could afford it.
Classic Medieval
Here used chain mail, brigantine, plate armor.
Chain mail consisted of many rings and was the lightest and most comfortable armor. It was used everywhere, but it cost more than other types of protective clothing due to its complexity. Sometimes pieces of chain mail were simply sewn onto leather armor in the most vulnerable places. A haurbek is also used - a chain mail hood.
Brigantine is a type of lamellar armor. In this case, the usual clothes of a knight were reinforced from the inside with overlapping metal plates. Such armor was much heavier than chain mail, but it was cheaper and better protected from heavy weapons.
Full plate armor was used, as already noted, mainly for tournaments. In a real battle, after 10 minutes, even the most powerful knight would collapse from exhaustion, and the militia would beat him with sticks. In battles, elements of plate weapons were used - mittens, greaves or bracers, a breastplate.
Late Middle Ages
Improvement of plate armor. The development of offensive weapons, especially crossbows, made chain mail and leather armor ineffective. At the end of the era, with the advent of firearms, the very concept of a knight as an effective combat unit,capable of single-handedly resisting detachments of ordinary fighters, goes into oblivion. The last attempt to resist gunpowder and bullets was a powerful convex cuirass - such, for example, was worn by Spanish caballeros - conquistadors - during the development of the New World.
Civil wear of the knighthood
In the early Middle Ages, the basic clothing of a knight consisted of two tunics - the upper, cotta, and the lower, kameez. The lower one most often had long sleeves, and the upper one, made of good fabric and richly decorated, was short or did without them at all. Tunics were certainly girded, and a cloak was put on top. Unlike the bare-legged Antiquity, the clothes of the knights of the Middle Ages certainly included pants - either just tight or tight-fitting legs (chausses).
A serious change in the clothes of knights in the Middle Ages occurred at the turn of the 13th century. The emergence of permanent trade routes and interaction with other peoples (especially with the East) and the development of technology has led to the emergence of many new cuts and the use of a variety of fabrics.
To the unchanged cotta, which also underwent changes, was added purpuen - a short jacket, to which narrow sleeves were sewn, and equally narrow stockings - chausses. Blio and katardi - caftans with different cuts. Amice - a cloak with a hole in the middle for the head. On the screens, almost without exception, the knights of Christ are wearing it - the Templars, the Hospitallers and others.
Further evolution of the amice led to the appearance of a surcoat - an amice with sewnsidewalls. Surprisingly, much of what men wear today is inspired by the knight's attire. The name of many types of men's wardrobe also comes from the same knightly outfits.
The emergence of such a phenomenon as "mi-party" belongs to the classical Middle Ages. Its essence was that the costume was divided into color zones in accordance with the coat of arms of the knight - vertically into two halves or, later, into four parts.
Add some medieval Japan
Japan has always been a bit of a "thing in itself", but before meeting the "southern barbarians", the Portuguese, in the 16th century, the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun were almost in complete cultural isolation from the rest of the world.
This allowed them to create their own, completely unique culture, including in the military environment. The analogue of the medieval knight in Japan was the samurai. Japanese "knights" wore sophisticated armor made like a brigantine. Metal plates were quite difficult to combine, covered with varnish, lacing, leather and fabric. Metal helmets were skillfully decorated and, as a rule, completed with "anatomical" masks.
The Japanese knight's civilian clothes consisted of three main parts - kimono, hakama (wide pants of different lengths) and haori capes.
