The Evolution Of Knightly Armour - 1066 - 1485

A video full of details which took over 30 hours in the making. I hope you like it and you find the info in it useful :D

An armour (spelled armor in the US) is a protective covering that is used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an object, individual, or vehicle by weapons or projectiles, usually during combat, or from damage caused by a potentially dangerous environment or action.
The word "armour" began to appear in the Middle Ages as a derivative of Old French. It is dated from 1297 as a "mail, defensive covering worn in combat". The word originates from the Old French armure, itself derived from the Latin armatura meaning "arms and/or equipment", with the root armare meaning "arms or gear".
Armour has been used throughout recorded history. It has been made from a variety of materials, beginning with rudimentary leather protection and evolving through mail and metal plate into today's modern composites.
Significant factors in the development of armour include the economic and technological necessities of its production. For instance, plate armour first appeared in Medieval Europe when water-powered trip hammers made the formation of plates faster and cheaper.
Well-known armour types in European history include the lorica hamata, lorica squamata, and the lorica segmentata of the Roman legions, the mail hauberk of the early medieval age, and the full steel plate harness worn by later medieval and renaissance knights, and breast and back plates worn by heavy cavalry in several European countries until the first year of World War I (1914–15). The samurai warriors of feudal Japan utilised many types of armour for hundreds of years up to the 19th century.
Plate armour became cheaper than mail by the 15th century as it required less labour, labour that had become more expensive after the Black Death, though it did require larger furnaces to produce larger blooms. Mail continued to be used to protect those joints which could not be adequately protected by plate.
The small skull cap evolved into a bigger helmet, the bascinet. Several new forms of fully enclosed helmets were introduced in the late 14th century.
By about 1400 the full plate armour had been developed in armouries of Lombardy. Heavy cavalry dominated the battlefield for centuries in part because of their armour.
Probably the most recognised style of armour in the World became the plate armour associated with the knights of the European Late Middle Ages.

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[razorbackxr]

Funny thing is, your video left off roughly where my knowledge picks up. After the advent of the arquebus, armor began largely retracing it's steps, reverting from full plate to cuirass/shoulders/greaves in the 1500s, then just a cuirass in the 1600s. By the late 1700s, armor had reduced to leather pieces integrated into uniforms, with reinforced boots and gloves. It then all but disappeared aside from helms until the early-mid 1900s with the adoption of heavy leather jackets by aircraft pilots, then flak vests in the 1960s. In the late 1900s, we regressed all the way back to padded cloth, except the fabric being used was Kevlar. This brings us to the 1990s, when we discovered the joys of ceramic, and turned our modern doublets into cuirass again, and then the early 2000s, when the peak of mass-produced armor tech was ablative ceramic scale mail over padded kevlar cloth.

If you read this far, like or respond, and I'll do sufficient research to turn it into an actual response video.

[Sam-dxvo]

6:20 when you're fighting to the death but your horses were friends back in high school

[theflutefreak]

0:55 11th century
2:27 12th century
4:57 13th century
9:40 14th century
15:37 15th century

[WarhorseStudios]

Wonderful video Metatron. Nicely done.

[TheOneGuy]

It's interesting how we tend to think of Knights as having full plate armor, but throughout most of the middle ages that simply wasn't the case.

[andrewstrongman]

I love the teachers attitude: "You will learn which armour set belongs to which century." Great work here.

[NetereDotea]

Perhaps the flat top helm design was a result of frontal strikes being more common than overhead strikes, so the protection of the forehead and the brow was seen as more paramount than the risk of getting hit with a downward swing.
Also, considering that the majority of flat top depictions show men on horseback, perhaps them being usually mounted meant that overhead strikes on them were a lot more difficult to achieve, so they choose a stronger frontal structure instead.

[Bamboozlenoodle]

You forgot to mention that the great helmet was preceded by the 'mediocre helmet' and the 'so-and-so helmet' before that. It was succeeded by the 'amazing helmet' and later the 'fabulous helmet'. The ultimate head protection was the helmet'.

[carlosalbin]

Metatron, Warhorse Studios, the guys that are making Kingdom Come: Deliverance, have just tweeted this video. They most have loved it to have done that

[tornagh]

but the real question: could you wear a 14th century greathelm over a 12th century greathelm? And would you call that a Greater helm?

[Nerobyrne]

GB: Armour
USA: Armor
GB: Honour
USA: Honor

GB: "Hey what's the deal America?"
USA: "I'm getting rid of U"

[erroltan]

Those Deus Ex themes though.
Dark souls themes too
"Soon the Fire shall fade and only dark will remain" - Adam Jensen

[tfd]

Two points, .
1) The flat topped helmet seems more of a fashion choice to me than practical. When facing indirect arrow fire (IE arrows fired into the air rather than directly at soldiers and therefore meant to deliver a volley of arrows that are falling down on them from above) a conical helmet is much superior when it comes to deflecting arrows, something a flat topped helmet cannot do. I'm not surprised that the flat topped helmet was fairly short lived as a result and that most helmets were conical going forward.
2) I always found it interesting that gunpowder had made it's way to Europe by the late 14th century, just as full plate was being developed. Meaning the reign of the iconic full plated knight lasted less than a century (late 14th through the mid 15th) before being made obsolete by increasingly effective firearms.

[harrowdrut]

Sucks that right when armor started looking really cool guns were invented.

[theanonymousmrgrape]

Hey it's 4:00 AM.
Time to learn about the history of knights!

[adamkg]

this is possibly my favorite Metatron video. It is so informative and just well-delivered

[No-igkc]

metatron the kind of guy to upload a video and instantly have 1080p

[In_The_s]

It was such a battle between the growth of Weaponry vs armor. With every new upgrade in weaponry there has to be an upgrade in armor to counter it. It was an arms race between blacksmiths on who made the better invention. The science behind the two is amazing and full of knowledge with some being lost through the strongest weapon of all, time. Great video subject and once again full of amazing details.

[MsPysoul]

its interesting how the romans made their first 'plate' armors centuries before the first experiments with them in the medieval ages

[pabloraulpereyra]

I notice that a lot of time the 500-1000 years are "outside of medieval times. Most of the events and stuff arent cover in games or deal in any sense