Explanation: Please forgive the grammar, I swear I didn’t make it and also I’m too lazy to fix someone else’s work.
While armor has always privileged haves over have-nots, in the late medieval/Renaissance period, the supremacy of armor became truly ridiculous. Chainmail alone is nearly impossible to penetrate with ordinary weapons; European plate armor turned that up to 11. Effectively, the only ways to kill a man in well-made plate armor were to bludgeon him into a steel can of human slurry, stick a thin-yet-sturdy dagger into a weak point (like the visor), or using specialized weapons for crushing and penetrating plate preferrably against an immobilized target.
Funny enough, it didn’t end up privileging the aristocracy as much as it could have - the advance in armor design coincided with massively improved army organization and metallurgical output, so professional common-born soldiers would be, if not quite as well-armored, at least not on the end of a curb-stomp.
If you were some militia rabble trying to defend your home, though… might want to visit the priest and get last rites ahead of time.
Fun additional fact: it was considered (admittedly by an overwhelmingly noble and noble-friendly literate class) that one noble cavalryman was worth 10 trained and equipped infantry in the 14th century AD, when plate first began to appear in bits and pieces. Baron von Vineland must be just getting warmed up on those peasant militia.
it was considered (admittedly by an overwhelmingly noble and noble-friendly literate class) that one noble cavalryman was worth 10 trained and equipped infantry in the 14th century AD
Big part of that is the cavalry part, though - being more mobile is a big asset on the battlefield, and it also multiplies the force - just the warhorse (which was usually partially armored, too) alone was capable of defeating several people, e.g. by trampling them in a charge, and getting kicked by an extra-large horse is pretty bad, too. Cavalry charges were a huge deal at the time.
getting kicked by an extra-large horse is pretty bad
Important note: that’s extra-large by medieval warhorse standards.
Destriers, also known as the “great-horse”, are what we generally think of as the medieval epitome of horses. The thing a royal knights would ride off the tournament into battle alongside their king, clad in plate and colourful fabrics.
Those were about 14ish hands tall (yes, there an exists a unit dumber than the inch, and we thankfully only use it for horses)
More common than the Destrier were Chargers. Generally more suited for regular cavalry because they were more maneuverable (which is nice since most of the time you’ll be fighting, not running in a straight line). Chargers were also smaller than a Destrier.
For those of you not into riding: in most countries today, anything under 14.2 hands is a pony (for competition purposes, it’s complex). The noble tournament mount, pride of a professional knight, is about the size of a big pony.
A regular warhorse for the regular rider was about 1m35 tall (from where the neck meets the back, which is where you measure a horse).
And if you’re thinking “wait a minute, isn’t an armored knight way too heavy for a horse that small? Isn’t that unhealthy?” Remember that these are warhorses. They do things that are MUCH more unhealthy, like going into battle. They would also have different horses to ride on their way to the battle.
Presumably it’s even more unhealthy to be on the receiving end of a charge from a warhorse and its rider.
This
guygal horses.It might not be entirely surprising, but I’m a (former)horse girl.
I suspected.
1.35m seems really small for a horse, I’m tall and most horses I see come up to my head or shoulders at around 1.8m
Ah, well in addition to using a unique unit, you also measure a horse in a unique way. You measure up to the “withers”, which is sorta kinda the highest point of the shoulders. So you get all of the neck and head on top of that 1.35m. measuring the top of a horses head is really very hard, because they tend not to cooperate if you tell them to stand up, and traditionally it’s not a usefull number for pulling a wagon or riding.
Regardless, that is still small for a horse. An average modern riding horse for an adult is usually something like 1.55 at the withers, or ~15 hands.
An actually big horse, like a Clydesdale, can easily be 1.8m at the withers, and then there’s an absolutely massive neck and head on top of that.
The inventor of this:
Actually made it to deal with knights in armor, it just happened to be useful as a cooking implement.
/s
Now I wanna see a melee battle between a period-correct medieval knight and a Fallout armored one. I’d imagine both would try to target the joints, but the Fallout outfit despite being more advanced metallurgically, isn’t usually equipped with chain mail at the joints.
[grappling begins]
[“It’s All Over But The Crying” starts playing]
