How much did medieval suits of armor weigh?

Factual Questions
81

How many of them get unhorsed while surrounded by enemies? A joust is a completely different situation from a pitched battle.

For my previous reference to Las Navas, I forgot to mention that the armors of choice for that time and location weren’t “full mail” vs “full plate”, more along the lines of “full mail” vs “full mail with extra plated bits.” Las Navas was unusual among Reconquista battles because it was a “set battle” (full Christian army vs full Muslim army, ready, set, smack): most of the fighting in the Reconquista wasn’t set battles or assaults on towns, it was rob’n’raze raids.

82

Nava, I absolutely cede that point to you - if you get knocked to the ground, and there’s a bevy of assorted malcontents ready to skewer and hack you to pieces as soon as you hit, even the most agile of trained knights is likely going to be fairly useless. I completely admit that my instinct to jump to the defense of the armoured knight comes from my attempt to fight the ignorance that wearing plate made one slow, hindered, and barely worth the protection afforded by the plate. This absolutely wasn’t the case - they wore armour because they could fight AND have protection. But, in a situation as you have described, a knight WOULD be mostly helpless - though I feel that would be the case regardless of the amount of armour he was wearing.

83

The thing about modern warriors that wasn’t specified is most of their weight comes from their ruck sack, which includes many of the things necessary for creating a camp and sustaining livable conditions. Usually they would not go to battle with their ruck sack on, but fire fights do happen on road marches. The average weight of a modern warrior without a ruck sack should be lighter or approximately the same as a knight with 60 pounds of armor. The current body armor weighs between 16-20 pounds. An M16 or M4 rifle with all its accessories should be about 10-12 pounds, while a support machine gun should be a bit over 20 pounds. The helmet, water, ammo, and other gear they usually bring into a battle shouldn’t total more than 20 pounds. Specialized soldiers who carry other necessities for the platoon such as a manpack radio would definitely have more weight, but these usually only come in one per 9 man squad.

I’m sure 60 pounds of just armor is easier to manage than 60 pounds of awkwardly weight distributed gear, but it is still a lot of weight for those who are not used to carrying such a burden. But for those who have had extensive training, it probably is not too bad.

Size is also a consideration. The bigger the person, the bigger the size of the suit of armor, thus the heavier the weight.

84

From the Channel 4 series, Weapons that made Britain; falling from a horse while wearing armour.

85

I believe the original comparisions to the “modern warrior” were to a WW1 or WW2 period soldier, who frequently carried into battle a lot of extra ammo and stuff intended to supply them for a day or two of fighting (plus extra for the unit machine guns, ani-tank weapons, mortars, etc.), as it would often take that long for resupply to work forward to the new front line.

86

Other than Twain, that whole needed-a-crane-to-get-on-their-horses misconception got a big boost from Olivier’s film of Henry V, which IIRC showed French knights being winched into the saddle before Agincourt.

87

Warfare and armor aren’t my concentrations, but to once again address the misconception that medieval people were stunted, here’s some measurements taken of medieval people as compared to their modern-day counterparts.

St. Peter’s Church, Barton-upon-Humber, England
950-1149:
Mean height for males: 1.69 (5’5)
Mean height for females: 1.61 (5’2)

1150-1299:
Mean height for males: 1.70 (5’5)
Mean height for females: 1.59 (5’2)

Modern-day British:
Mean height for males: 1.76 (5’7)
Mean height for females: 1.62 (5’3)

From The Cemetery of St Nicholas Shambles (1988), by W.J. White:

Average height for a male (11-12th centuries): 1.72 (5’8)
Average height for a female (11-12th centuries): 1.58 (5’2)

From Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066-1550 (1998) by Christopher Daniel:

Taunton, England
Male: (average height) 1.71cm (5’6)
Female: (average height) 1.56 (5’1)
Male: (shortest) 1.65 (5’4)
Female: (shortest) 1.46 (4’7)
Male: (tallest) 1.80 (5’9)
Female: (tallest) 1.71 (5’6)

From Medieval Towns (2003) by John Schofield and A. G. Vince:

St. Helen, York, England (10-16th centuries)
Male: (average height) 1.69 (5’6)
Female: (average height) 1.57 (5’2)

St. Mary’s Priory, Thetford, England (12-13th centuries)
Male: (average height) 1.77 (5’9)
Female: (average height) no data

St. Leonard’s, Kent, England (14-15th centuries)
Male: (average height) 1.70 (5’7)
Female: (average height) 1.57 (5’2)

As we can see, during the mid-to-late medieval period, people from across England were of comparable height to their modern-day descendants. If I can find analysis of graves from the Roman to early medieval period, I will post them as well.

88

And they were in terrific shape. Try swinging a sword for three hours.

89

Sigh. No, they weren’t. First, that data contradicts itself, and a population who is on average 2-4" shorter (as indicated by the data posted) is a big difference. Look at the difference between the average European and the average Japanese.

And your assertion that they were in terrific shape is just wrong. Yes, they probably got some form of exercise whilst practicing their swordplay. However, there is a lot more to being in terrific shape than doing three hours of practice a day (if they even did that). But these guys weren’t even close to the fitness of a modern athlete. No one is claiming they are stunted weakling dwarves, but apparently fighting ingnorance about knights and samurai and things like that will have to be left to another board, as clearly the writing of people with doctorates in history and scientific examination of the record is less valuable than someone who straps on a suit of replica armor over his beer gut for fun.

90

A single book that you read is not enough evidence to counter the multitude of MODERN scientific inquiry into the middle ages. Your ideas are out of date by about a century, as has been shown now numerous times.

And now you bring in more incredibly ignorant arguments to the table? You really think the warrior class of the period spent less than three hours a day practicing martial arts? Does that sound logical to you at all?

Your picture of the period is based on ignorance. That’ really all there is to it.

91

What in the world? First of all, as the data I posted clearly shows, medieval English people had a mean height comparable to that of modern-day Britons. That does not mean every knight was 5’6; it means some of them were 6’+, and some were 5-nothing, but it averaged out to about 5’6. Notice in the data from Taunton that the shortest man recorded was 5’4, which is short but far from being tiny.

Secondly, as for the ‘writing of people with doctorates in history and scientific examination of the record’ is concerned, I strongly recommend you read the books of modern authorities on the subject, such as C.M. Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson, and Tony Waldron. They know more about medieval European diet, height, and health than probably anyone alive. Knights were some of the greatest warriors of their age – they trained from boyhood in riding, handling weapons, and other martial arts. In fact, here’s a list of books to get you started:

Food in medieval England: diet and nutrition (2006), by Woolgar, Serjeantson, and Waldron.
Counting the dead: the epidemiology of skeletal populations (1994), by Waldron.
*St Peter’s, Barton-upon-humber, Lincolnshire *(2007), by Waldron and Warwick Rodwell.
Household Accounts from Medieval England (1992), by Woolgar.
Living and dying in England, 1100-1540: the monastic experience‎ (1993) by Barbara F. Harvey

92

I’m sorry, but your attitude is simply laughable. You claim to have shown multiple times how wrong I am without even reading the posts. Your “logical” assumptions (but of course, logic does not apply with respect to lack of health care in the period), fantasy novel reading, lack of any citation but your experience with pretending to be a knight are not convincing next to the cited, published, and greatly respected works by real historians.

And Missisippienne, I have read the first of those books, and I believe the second has been cited already in this very thread. They largely support my position. But the only argument going on here is browbeating based on romantic preconceptions about the period, so I am not going to respond any further.

93

Please do not.

94

According to this, Heliodorus (his book here) states that heavy Persian style cavalry couldn’t mount without help. That has some credibility, since they had no stirrups. Could this be behind the myth about immobility of the medieval knights? I have a mental image of me with modern infantry gear trying to mount a pony without stirrups …

(The book looked long, so I didn’t check the original quote.)

95

I’m not talking about three hours of practice, but three hours of battle. Yeah, they probably had to switch out of the center of the melee every few minutes to catch their breath and cool off (a full suit of armor plus padding is a very good insulator), but then it was right back in. These guys were in great shape because it was their job to be in great shape. Maybe not with the muscle definition of weight lifter, but they were strong and with top notch endurance.

Or are you under the impression that the battles and wars of the Middle Ages didn’t really exist?

96

An interesting thread, if acrimonious at times. Though I’ve made a hobby of reading Renaissance sword-fighting manuals, I have occasionally dipped into the scholarship on Medieval fighting. Anyway, someone in this thread alluded to the reasons that the mounted knight disappeared from the battle field. One fairly recent theory is that the knight needed a very large horse–a war horse–to support all that weight. Keeping all the arms, armour, saddles, and especially the horse in good condition became economically ruinous (think of the Clydesdale horses).

Weapons, both crossbow and early firearms, increasingly could pierce or knock a rider off the horse, too (if the armour got any thicker, it was too heavy–thus, lighter armour, with flutes to strenghthen it, became more common for hand-to-hand combat). Still, I think that the economic theory is worth considering.

As far as strenght goes, before the era of full plate armor, there were warriors who, though short by our standards, could wield weapons well while carrying a lot of weight. For example, William the Conquerer, wearing Norman-style mail and carrying a large kite-shaped shield, apparently could wield a battle axe with one hand. Even considering exaggeration over the centuries, he must have been fearsomely strong.

I know more about the swords than about the armour. Counter to the image of the knight who wields a rather clumsy, heavy, chopping sword, fighting manuals clearly show (and reconstructions seem to support) the use of fairly agile blades by knights and other medieval warriors. An immovable warrior is a dead warrior in any era. Tactics, strategy, and technology change, however, which in turn affect the usefulness of armour and armoured fighting.

97

But Clydesdales and Belgians are still, today, handy for stump pulling, plowing, and drayage. Yeah, they eat like elephants, but they are also strong like them. (Okay, little elephants.)

I was watching that show, “Weapons That Built Britain,” and my wife looked over my shoulder and said, “He’s riding a Portuguese Cavalry Horse. They’re fire eaters and went on to being great fire horses, but I think they have a genetic memory of joyfully plowing into men and other horses in battle and see their present state as unsatisfactory. I rode one once, though I never expected to even see one. They have funny faces.”

My daughter summed up the tragedy of how modern horses live lives of peace and indolence. “I think he’s pretty.”

How the mighty have fallen. :frowning:

98

Some nice images there. I was reminded recently of the part that horses have played in many wars, particularly the Civil War. Though the human carnage takes precedence in moral terms, lots of horses rode to their deaths. Their fates have been entwined with ours, often to their detriment.

Since I live in Tampa, Florida, I can attest to the idea that Clydesdales only are known for their ability to pull the Anheuser-Busch wagon–alas, now a thing of the past.

99

A friend of mine who is heavily into RPGs (games, not grenades) and also collecting period weaponry used to enjoy taking a trunkfull of swords, spears and so on down to the local gaming store so that people could actually heft real weapons. Gamers tend to assume that a broadsword is 15 lbs of steel and are quite shocked when they discover how light the real thing is.

100

Man this thread is getting ugly. Won’t be long now until I see someone throwing down the gauntlet and challenging someone to an honorDuEL.