1250-1300: Transitional Leg Armor?

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Rob83

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Hi guys
focusing on second half of 13th Century I was wondering about leg defense

Mac Bible is full of mail clad knight with cuisses and in many effigies or illuminated manuscript from the period we can see various sort of poleyns

as for the hauberk we can easily think about a padded layer under the mail and in the Mac Bible raffiguration of Goliath we can see a couple of greaves over the padded leg (no mail ever)

what do you think about a padded leg with a thigh-only mail covering (a cuisse) plus a poleyn and a greave? my speculation is that basically the full mail leg (chausse) is shortening because the insertion of the plate below the elbow... 

 
From what I have seen poleyn's and greaves are not mixed during this period...mainly because it would probably cause friction.  Haven't seen depictions of your proposed maille usage on the leg either, but that doesn't mean it isn't the case.  You may want to also mention what country you are depicting, since that has an influence on what is or is not acceptable.
 
as far as i know, mail-chausses only. but maybe i am wrong. check out this:
effigiesandbrasses.com/monuments/?name=&year=1250&year_end=1300&gender=M&costume=1&tags=&tag_mode=all&sort=year&per=50&view=list
 
www.burgenseite.com/faschen/reims_ritter_0167.jpg
cathedral of reims, around 1300. transitional leg- & upper-arm armour, but i have no idea who the knight was.
 
Doubt it. The inspiration was probably the fact that mail is really expensive, and it's hard to apply padding to limbs - which makes plate more suited for protecting the vulnerable joints and blood vessels of the limbs.
 
Roach XI the Magnificent said:
Doubt it. The inspiration was probably the fact that mail is really expensive, and it's hard to apply padding to limbs - which makes plate more suited for protecting the vulnerable joints and blood vessels of the limbs.

Steel plate had to have been more expensive to produce than mail due to the fact that in the 15th century we see foot soldiers armored in Brigandine's over mail and Knights in Plate.
 
Fenix_120 said:
Roach XI the Magnificent said:
Doubt it. The inspiration was probably the fact that mail is really expensive, and it's hard to apply padding to limbs - which makes plate more suited for protecting the vulnerable joints and blood vessels of the limbs.

Steel plate had to have been more expensive to produce than mail due to the fact that in the 15th century we see foot soldiers armored in Brigandine's over mail and Knights in Plate.

Not really, we often see footsoldiers with steel plate limb armor and padded torso armor. Mail was more expensive than plate, btw.
 
No, no it wasn't.  Maille was more time consuming to make but plate required higher sophistication and talent to make.  The reason that plate started to appear on limbs first (following the head) was because they were vulnerable and also because it was in the capability of earlier smiths to make smaller pieces of plate (which would work on limbs) but not larger pieces like a cuirass.
 
Yes. Early smiths. But by the time infantry could afford plate it was the mass-produced munitions-grade plate. And mail was indeed more expensive.

" Williams compares the cost of 12 oxen for a 9th century helmet, mail and leggings with the cost of only 2 oxen for horseman's plate armour at the end of the 16th century.111 At Iserlohn in the 15th century, a mail haubergeon cost 4.6 gulden while plate armour only cost 4.3 gulden.112 Kassa's archives (Hungary 1633) record a mail shirt costing six times that of a "double breastplate."
Source
 
That is true...but we are talking the 1250-1300 period...so your original comment is irrelevant to this discussion.

Also, that source you gave is comparing two extremes.  It is taking the cost of a relatively full suite of maille at a time when that wasn't common at all with the cost of plate armor when it was extremely common.  It is skewed.
 
Skot the Sanguine said:
That is true...but we are talking the 1250-1300 period...so your original comment is irrelevant to this discussion.

Also, that source you gave is comparing two extremes.  It is taking the cost of a relatively full suite of maille at a time when that wasn't common at all with the cost of plate armor when it was extremely common.  It is skewed.

Mail was common enough, especially in central Europe (compared to western Europe).

But yeah, my original argument is not accurate in retrospect, I'll give you that. Unlike most of you I at least have the guts to admit defeat.
 
this might help you in a tad later stuff. http://talbotsfineaccessories.com/armour/effigy/English-Effigies.htm

most i see before this is mail, with sometimes knees. a few greaves. even padded chausis
 
:idea:

img492u.jpg
 
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