Six Things I Have Learnt from Wearing Armour.

The harness laid out for an ‘arming the knight’ demonstration at Goodrich Castle (Photo courtesy Richard Jeynes).

I have had more occasions to don harness this summer than ever before.

Every time I put it on I learn something new, and I thought that it would be good to reflect on and share a few of these insights

A good squire is hard to find…

1: A trained squire is worth your armour’s weight in gold.

Having a squire who knows what they are doing is important for several reasons.*

Firstly, it speeds the process up. An inexperienced squire has to be shown which piece goes next, which straps go where, and how to get the fit right. Secondly, it is important that they know how the armour is supposed to go together, and how it is supposed to fit. A harness is a system, in which all of the pieces work together to provide the maximum of protection for the minimum of encumbrance. For that to work pieces have to be placed carefully and adjusted so that they can work efficiently. If a point is tied slightly too loosely on the cuisse, or the back of the vambrace is closed over the front rather than the other way around, or if the great helm isn’t quite positioned correctly on the bascinet, then things can start to rub, or lock up, or leave you unable to see. Sometimes the difference is minute, imperceptible at the time the armour is put on, but after half an hour, it can become annoyingly, even painfully obvious. Thirdly, your squire needs to be physically robust. While armour should not be heavy to wear, the weight being transferred around the core muscles rather than hanging from your shoulders, it still has weight, and that has to be held and manipulated by your squire as they work to get you strapped in. I wonder at the popular image of the squire as a young boy, maybe only 10 years old, and how they were expected to manage to offer up a ten-kilogram (twenty-pound) pair of plates to the chest of their knight and then pull the straps tight.

* This is not to denigrate the efforts of Liz, Will, Sam, Brandon, Mark, and Nick - all of whom have served admirably as my squires on different occasions.

Brandon helps me on with my cuisse. Tying the pont here is one of the few bits I can truly help with.

2: Resist the urge to help your squire.

I feel terribly guilty standing there issuing instructions to my squire about which bit of armour goes on next, and tend to end up ‘helping’ by trying to do bits myself. I have learnt that this can be terribly counter-productive, as my fidgeting and fiddling can actually get in the way whilst the poor squire is trying to fit a piece or adjust a strap.

It is far better to accept your role as a knight with servants, stand there passively, and let them get on with their job.

To get the greave right, my calves had to be cast in plaster. A change in size and they no longer fit well.

3: Armour has to fit, and it can be very unforgiving.

One of the most frequent jokes about having the armour is that I now have to watch what I eat, otherwise I won’t be able to fit in the armour. There is truth in this, and the arming coat (the jacket that sits under the armour and has the mail sleeves and points for the arms) is of necessity very tight and corsetting, leaving little room for a winter of pies and hearty stews.

Equally, however, too much exercise can also be a problem. The arm and leg harness are both close fitting, and extra muscle on the bicep, tricpe or thigh will all cause fitting problems. When it comes to the greaves - the one bit of my harness that is ‘free floating’ (that is to say it doesn’t attach to anything but hugs my calves) - the problem has been quite the opposite, and having slimmed down they now have a tendency to drop a little, and rest (and rub) on my instep. Hopefully, the new mail chausses that arrived recently will fill the gap.

I’m still not wholly convinced of the practicality of having retention chains and can see why they were an armour evolution dead end.

4: The retention chains work…. after a fashion.

One of the elements of my harness that receives the most interest are the retention chains. Like the piece of string between a pair of child’s mittens, they were added to mid-fourteenth century harness to attach sword, dagger, and great helm to the pair of plates, so that if dropped they could be retrieved.

I have been playing with them, and have realised that whilst the one for the great helm is great, in that it doesn't just hand as dead weight, pull on my neck or unbalance me when it is slung on my back, retrieving it myself is tricky. I am almost certain that one would need a squire to come and place the helm back on your head.

The chains for the dagger and the sword do not make it difficult to use either when attached (providing you use the two furthest to the right), so you needn’t detach the chains before drawing and swinging the sword. However, the chains can get tangled, and they offer an excellent way for an opponent to grab you and pull you off balance.

I am going to do a bit more experimentation with these, and will write something a little more considered as to their use in the future.

You get a lot of requests for photos when you are in harness. Here I pose for the local papers with the Mayor of Newport (photo courtesy Liz Alford)

5: Wearing armour makes you centre of attention.

I have long argued that putting on armour has a psychological impact on both the wearer and those that saw him. This is certainly true today, where strolling through a crowd in full harness causes people to step aside, and turns heads. Of course, part of this is novelty value, but the harness also has a visual impact.

Donning armor definitely changes the way you stand. The corseting effect of the arming coat and the pair of plates encourages you to draw yourself up, whilst the arm harness definitely broadens your chest by drawing your shoulders back. Adding the bascinet again encourages you to lift your head, whilst the strap that locks the great helm to the pair of plates forces your head up. You also feel bigger and more powerful. And, of course, the great helm makes a six-foot chap closer to seven.

The great helm not only limits head movement and vision, but also disconnects you from what is going on around you.

6: Wearing a helmet can make life interesting.

Two more aspects of wearing the helms I have learnt this summer is that whilst you are bare-headed the heat build-up from wearing armour can escape around your neck, but as soon as the padded ventail and bascinet go on then suddenly that heat can’t escape and it starts to get warm. It’s like wrapping your head in a duvet.

Secondly, the visor of the bascinet, or the great helm, makes it much, much more difficult to communicate. Again, this is something that I have been arguing for some time, but this summer I have realised just how much less you can hear, the limitations on your field of vision,. Whilst the latter is less bad than you might think (especially with the bascinet where you can move your head) the impact on your ability to communicate, to hear but also to be heard is quite high. Several times I had to be reminded to raise my voice when wearing the great help m so that my audience could hear what I was saying, and I was finding it very difficult to hear the comments and questions of people a little distant from me, muffled as they were by the padded lining to the bascinet. At one point whilst wearing the bascinet I had a host of parents asking if their child could be photographed with me, but I had absolutely no idea how many there were and couldn’t see a single one!

I can quite see why a commander might raise his visor, or (in later armour) remove the bevor that protected his chin, in order to allow greater airflow or simply to be able to shout a command. or have a better sense of what was going on around him, and how that might lead to getting an arrow in the face (as happened to the future Henry V at Shrewsbury in 1403 or to Clifford at Towton in 1461).

All of these insights are just scratching the surface. At the moment I have done little more than run around in the armour, or move between guard positions with the sword. How the armour (and my body inside it) behaves when trying to hit (and avoid being hit) by a live opponent I have yet to experience.

I also need to add a shield, surcoat (technically a cyclas), and a crest to the great helm, all of which are likely to have an impact on maneuverability and appearance.

There is still so much more to learn.