GO FIND THE BREASTPLATE STRETCHER
I've always been partial to plate armor with a skirt/dress below the waist. Just looks badass imo.
Having a very narrow waist and a v-shaped torso was very fashionable at the time, and both armor and civilian dress used long straight lines on the torso to accentuate that shape.
the last one is so fucking cool i have dozens of photos of it. demi-lancer kit is peak and i really like how falling buffes look
1540 really enunciates his physique though, he was a bit rotund but powerful and huge. i wouldn't ever have wanted to fight him
That's the kings cock. It has to fertilize the whole nation so it's got to be huge.
Normal people should start getting suits of armor. Like with modern technology it shouldn't be too expensive to make an unornamented suit, especially if there is enough demand to start mass production. People can wear them to formal events like weddings or you can be a dapper little fancy lad and go to the grocery store in your suit of armor. And once you get home you can hang it up in the hallway as a cool decoration.
Oooh I know a fun movie fact relating to this. During the switchblade fight in 'Rebel Without a Cause" James Dean and the other actor were wearing chainmail under their leather jackets to protect themselves.
Either its true or my film lit teacher was lying but she was pretty cool so I want to believe.
Like with modern technology it shouldn’t be too expensive to make an unornamented suit
Depends heavily on what you want. Shitty, poorly fitted munitions armor that will rub everywhere and never feel quite right? Very cheap. Anything fitted that offers good protection and mobility? Ridiculously expense because it has to be hand made by craftsman to spec.
if was sent back in time to the 1500s my ideal job would be the blacksmith who specializes in molding and shaping Renaissance armor codpieces
1544 looks like he'd be found wielding a flail in one hand and a freshly severed head in the other
Dude got THICC. If you look at the last armor in the sequence in person it doesn't look like anything else in the Tower of London bc generally speaking no one else was that heavy, and people who were that heavy certainly did not fight, but he was the King and had to project a certain image so they built him large adult king armor.
The metal skirt is apparently called a tonlet. Here's a video about the third set of armor in the image .
And here's a short description of a metal skirt similar to the one in the first set. The cutout is to be able to ride a horse. Makes sense.
These armors were made for fighting in tournaments or during jousts or something, right? Are they different from standard practical soldiers' armor then?
Did Henry VIII ever use these in actual combat?
Maybe some for fun in the early suits. Mostly they would have been worn around to be fancy or as cool decoration
I think he was a tournament fighter when he was young, but I don't have a source for that.
I'm going to be super general, and armor from this period isn't really my thing, but tournament armor was typically much heavier than field armor since you were expected to get hit a lot, and hard. Some jousting armors have an entire extra plate that fastens on over the upper chest and shoulder with a little shield where you're most likely to get hit with the lance in order to provide extra protection. Jousting helmets were generally much more heavily built that field helmets.
Field armor generally wasn't as fancy as tournament armor, since you were trying to kill people, not show off. Depending on the era it might be lighter and leave some parts like the back of the legs exposed to improve mobility and reduce fatigue. Full, late period plate armor is ridiculously protective, to the point where most techniques for actually killing someone in armor involve wrestling and trying to force a weapon in to gaps in the armor rather than just beating them to death.
