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Post by K. Vander Linde on Sept 7, 2012 1:32:37 GMT
So for the longest time I've been wondering why full Brigandine armor never realy caught on during the Medeival period. It existed in many countries is cheaper to make and is lower in work to keep it in good shape. So why did it not catch on? Here is an example of one avaliable on ArmStreet.
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Post by Mangrove Yeti on Sept 9, 2012 3:04:25 GMT
I've never seen anything like that before, but it looks awesome!
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Post by Njarf on Sept 9, 2012 4:01:23 GMT
Who said it didn't catch on?
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Post by Svadilfari on Sept 9, 2012 5:56:42 GMT
Maybe it didn't catch on in european countries because it got rusty too fast and the cloth covering soon got to look a lil tatty. Those who wore armour generally were the top of society, and they liked to put on a good display. They used brigandine for a while..but as the armourer's skills progressed..they tended to try and keep up with the fashions. Then the Brigandine styles moved further down the social ladder ?
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jhart06
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 9, 2012 6:25:47 GMT
As far as sheer protection style goes, a brigadine does not really trump, or equal in most cases, plate armor. That, and less fashion, is what drove armor. If you could afford plate, you bought it because it covered better. If not, you usually used.... Brigadine and/or chain.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Sept 9, 2012 7:00:27 GMT
I was thinking that mobility might have been another main concern. Plate armor may be heavy, but it's fairly evenly distributed and so a trained knight would have been able to move fairly nimbly in it; I've seen a few video clips of men who can move pretty freely and with much greater speed than you'd expect. I know little of brigandines (especially like the one pictured), but my first thought upon seeing this was that it looked very bulky and likely to restrict one's movement because of that bulk. I could be very wrong, though.
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Taran
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Post by Taran on Sept 9, 2012 23:06:53 GMT
I wear an asian style brigandine from the same manufacturer and it is very well distributed and moves easily. Only problem I really have with it is the tassets getting caught in the wings on my knees. Chinese wouldn't wear those wings but they are required by the SCA. I wear a variant of this: Speaking of which, they are really stepping up their game in armour designs and quality.
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Post by Beowulf on Sept 10, 2012 22:11:32 GMT
I'm not trying to be an ass here, but...
I don't understand the assertion that brigandine did not catch on during the medieval period in Europe. Brigandine according to Wiki is: "A brigandine is a form of body armour from the Middle Ages. It is a cloth garment, generally canvas or leather, lined with small oblong steel plates riveted to the fabric."
From what I understand, what I am missing in my 1250-1275 A.D. "Crusader harness" is the brigandine torso armour. The typical "crusader" style armament is maille head to toe, a brigandine/coat-of-plates covered torso, great helms and perhaps some knee cops and maybe some plate shin protection.
Of course the OP said "full brigandine" catching on, and not the reinforcement of the torso with the stuff as per the harness I am still building. So, I guess I'm off the mark, but I figured I would throw this out there since no one else mentioned the extra torso protection scholars are sure existed do to it's mention in wills and armourer's records, etc.
Personally, I don't want more armour. Everything I have now already is stifling enough, and I do not plan on having "catch-chains" attached to my weapons and helm, therefore I don't need a stiff base to attach the chains to.
cheers!
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Post by Elheru Aran on Sept 11, 2012 13:36:42 GMT
Brigandine may be related to lamellar, but it's more likely that its development was somewhat parallel to the 'coat of plates', which is what morphed into the full back-and-breast of plate armour. I think it's more likely that the coat of plates/early pieced-together breastplates were just more convenient and easily made. Think about it... beating out one to four plates, versus piecing together 300 by riveting them together through leather or cloth... mind you, brigandine did survive; it just was never universally used. It did have somewhat of a renaissance in the, heh, Renaissance IIRC as a form of 'hidden armour', but there aren't many pieces remaining (I could be wrong on this though) which suggests again that it just wasn't very common. Bear in mind also that if the leather or cloth gets cut up in battle, you basically have to either stitch it back together (less strong) or replace it entirely (very time consuming)... while if something gets through plate, you have more to worry about than whether you can put it back together later
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Taran
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Post by Taran on Sept 11, 2012 18:16:46 GMT
It Was an absolutely common style of armour in the Far East. China and Korea and the Mongols used a great deal of it because those small plates were easier and cheaper to come by than the 4 or 5 larger pieces needed for a coat of plates. Full plate even found its place in China, but on a very limited scale. Brigandine also required less metal than llamellar or scale, which were more common among the higher ranks and less skill to assemble.
But, well, that's China.
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Post by Gaufried on Sept 12, 2012 3:39:10 GMT
I can tell you that I have run across 15th Century German descriptions & depictions indicating that the brigandine actually did prove popular amongst nobility interested in what they considered a lighter and more flexible armour, specifically the cuirass, especially for fighting from horseback. :geek:
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Post by MrAcheson on Sept 13, 2012 2:54:44 GMT
I'm going to disagree with some of this. A CoP is easier to make if you have big plates of metal. Which is common in an industrialized society like ours where materials are mass-produced and cheap, but labor is expensive. But in medieval times, labor was a lot cheaper and materials were much more expensive. A brigandine could essentially be pieced together using scraps from other projects, which is an inherent advantage of the smaller plate size.Even if there aren't many pieces remaining (and I think you are correct), this does not necessarily suggest they were uncommon. Because they are riveted to leather or especially cloth, they're going to be more fragile over the long term and harder to conserve than either chain or plate. Cloth does not last the way steel or even leather does. Not in an archaeological setting, but not even in a well curated collection. Also collections tend to have a bias towards higher end pieces, when the brigandine was a far more humble garment in comparison. How often have you seen a display of medieval knives? They had to be common, but they're tools not art or show pieces like ceremonial equipment. Ditto small caliber revolvers from the old west. We know Colt made far more small .32s than big .45s. So did lots of other manufacturers that specialized in just little revolvers. But when you go to a museum, it's always an intricately engraved Single Action Army in the display case.
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Post by Headquarters on May 10, 2013 21:20:25 GMT
Hope its okay to chime in on this older thread. I have been told that Richard III was wearing a corrazina - a form of CoP when he was killed in battle. So I guess going by this the CoP /brigandine was used by both high and low born in those days.
As for my own musings - medieval armour was made to be hacked,chopped and stabbed etc. Professional soldiery would probably choose something they could afford to use in the field, wereas the rich would wear something so expensive that if beaten down they would be taken for ransom rather than killed off.
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Alan Schiff
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Post by Alan Schiff on May 12, 2013 4:22:05 GMT
I guess since the thread has been resurrected I'll give my opinions on the subject. I believe that brigandine appears to have been less popular than other forms of armor in medieval Europe for a number of reasons.
First, you have to look at when brigandine was being developed. It's development coincides with that, or is perhaps slightly later and based off of, coats of plate. Coats of plate are transitional pieces developed through the 14th century, used sometimes in conjunction with mail and sometimes as a standalone armor. The key here is that it was a period where armorers were developing plate armor, so these armors were research prototypes, to some degree.
Next, Coats of plate, and brigandines alongside them, were not in use for a very long time as standalone armor because plate armor hit the scene at the end of this century and offered better protection. Those with money moved to plate while those with less used mail, CoP/brigandine, and plate in a mishmash of whatever they could afford or get their hands on, the more plate as they could afford it.
The third is durability. Like stated previously, the garment part of a brigandine would have been trashed in battle, requiring extensive repairs or replacement of the fabric/leather. Compared to mail or plate this makes the armor less desirable as other armor required less time consuming repairs.
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Luka
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Post by Luka on May 12, 2013 13:11:43 GMT
For 1250-1275 you don't need anything but the head to toe mail. Coat of plates were used and some other bits of plate on limbs, but most knights still had none of those...
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Post by Beowulf on May 13, 2013 6:29:47 GMT
Thanks Luka. I know the torso protection was around but I've had problems trying to find a starting date for the stuff. I've been relying on funeral statuary since it's tough to find good books on the subject. Of course, I'll never see CoP torso protection in statues from the period. But I still want to see every one from this period I can.
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Luka
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Post by Luka on May 13, 2013 8:02:01 GMT
www.ccs.neu.edu/home/violator/This statue of St. Maurice on Magdeburg cathedral is I believe one of the first if not the first artistic evidence for it. it is dated circa 1250. Konungs skuggsjá (King's mirror), Norwegian text from around 1250 mentions breastplate made of iron and it probably means coat of plates. www.mediumaevum.com/75years/mirr ... tml#XXXVII Richard I supposedly wore some kind of iron plate on his torso in a tournament at the end of the 12th century but we have no idea how that looked like. It surely wouldn't be wrong if you wore one, but it is more difficult to find the reproductions of early versions of coat of plates than later brigandines. And you really don't need it to represent a typical knight of 1250-1275...
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