Plate armour

Plate armour is a historical type of personal body armour made from bronze, iron, or steel plates, culminating in the iconic suit of armour entirely encasing the wearer. Full plate steel armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, especially in the context of the Hundred Years' War, from the coat of plates (popular in late 13th and early 14th century) worn over mail suits during the 14th century.

In Europe, plate armour reached its peak in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The full suit of armour, also referred to as a panoply, is thus a feature of the very end of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period. Its popular association with the "medieval knight” is due to the specialised jousting armour which developed in the 16th century.

Full suits of Gothic plate armour and Milanese plate armour were worn on the battlefields of the Burgundian Wars, Wars of the Roses, Eighty Years' War, French Wars of Religion, Italian Wars, Ottoman–Habsburg wars, Polish–Ottoman Wars, a significant part of the Hundred Years' War, and even the Thirty Years' War. The most heavily armoured troops of the period were heavy cavalry, such as the gendarmes and early cuirassiers, but the infantry troops of the Swiss mercenaries and the Landsknechts also took to wearing lighter suits of "three quarters" munition armour, leaving the lower legs unprotected.^[1]

The use of plate armour began to decline in the early 17th century, but it remained common both among the nobility (e.g., the Emperor Ferdinand II, Louis XIII, Philip IV of Spain, Maurice of Orange and Gustavus Adolphus) and the cuirassiers throughout the European wars of religion. After the mid-17th century, plate armour was mostly reduced to the simple breastplate or cuirass) worn by cuirassiers, with the exception of the Polish Hussars that still used considerable amounts of plate. This was due to the development of the musket, which could penetrate armour at a considerable distance. For infantry, the breastplate gained renewed importance with the development of shrapnel in the late Napoleonic Wars. The use of steel plates sewn into flak jackets dates to World War II, and was replaced by more modern materials such as fibre-reinforced plastic, since the mid-20th century.

Mail armour is a layer of protective clothing worn most commonly from the 9th to the 13th century, though it would continue to be worn under plate armour until the 15th century.^[2] Mail was made from hundreds of small interlinking iron or steel rings held together by rivets. It was made this way so that it would be able to follow the contour of the wearer's body, maximizing comfort. Mail armour was designed mainly to defend against thrusting and cutting weapons, rather than bludgeons.^[3] Typical clothing articles made of mail at the time would be hooded cloaks, gloves, trousers, and shoes. From the 10th to the 13th century, mail armour was so popular in Europe, that it was known as the age of mail.