Mirror Armor: Primitive or Genius?

Most armor is designed to cover as much of the body as possible. If there are gaps, you try to close them, overlap them, or make them harder to reach. But then you have armor like the mirror armor. Instead of covering every weak point, it leaves huge parts of the body exposed and only protects certain few areas, usually mainly the chest. So why did people use armor like this? Was it just primitive, or was this done on purpose? Let's find out. So the term mirror armor actually covers quite a wide range of different armors that obviously share certain similarities, but that were relatively different from each other, and that were used in a whole bunch of different regions during a whole bunch of different eras. For example, they were used quite a lot in the east, in certain regions like for example India, China, or Russia. In periods like the late middle ages, renaissance, and even certain modern periods, certain mirror armors were used until I think the 20th century. During the 20th century, you have the last traces of actually being used. That is the region and era for which the mirror armor is commonly known as being used, but similar forms of armor also existed way before that. For example, the greeks had an armor that is called the cardiophilox, which basically just means a heart protection, that is a similar sort of armor to that later mirror armor, because as the later ones, it is basically made up of a plate covering the chest. On top of that, the romans also used a similar armor to the mirror armor during the early republic. Obviously, the romans are known for using all sorts of different armors like the loica homata, like the male shirt. They would use other armors and one of those armors would be an armor that is very very similar to a mirror armor, and in a sense is a mirror armor. Now obviously for those two earlier examples, it does depend on what exactly you're calling a mirror armor, because the calvary mirror armor, as I said, is quite vast, both in a geography and era, but also in exactly what kind of armor you're talking about, because it is basically an armor made up of relatively large plates covering parts of the body, but those plates could vary a lot in size, in shape, some of them were rectangular, some others were round, and also in what area of the body they actually covered. The very basic sort of armor will basically only have a plate on the front protecting the chest, then you can also have another plate protecting also the back, that is example what we see on armors like the cardiophilax, they would have one plate in the front, one plate on the back, and also you can go even farther than that by adding a plate to the side, and you can even go even further than that by adding some plates to the shoulders, that was sometimes done, even though that is very very rare, and would be a very very advanced sort of mirror armor. The plates are usually assembled using leather straps, meaning basically just leather straps connecting each and every single metal plate together, but then again you do have certain differences in between different mirror armors, you do have some that are connected with mails, basically just mail, like chain mail, connecting different plates together, in a very similar manner to an other armor that is called the mail and plate armor, but it's not exactly the same as a mail and plate armor, it is considered a mirror armor, even though it is assembled in a similar manner to the mail and plate armor. And finally you have all sorts of different ways to wear the mirror armor, it could be worn as a standalone armor, just on top of normal clothing, using the plates alone as armor, but it could also be worn over some form of other armor, like for example a form of fabric armor, like for example mail, and even it could be worn over some form of lamella, even though then you're probably going to be talking mostly about some organic material lamella armor, like for example leather lamella, because the use of putting a metal plate on top of a metal lamella is very very limited. So basically the term mirror armor is very very vast, can cover a ton of different armors that will protect more or less, that will be worn in different contexts, used by different cultures, during different periods, and so on. And to a certain degree it also depends what you want to call mirror armor, do you really want to call the early cardiophilox and roman armors mirror armors, or are those another kind of armor, and also those mirror armors that assemble in a similar manner to the mail and plate armor, are you going to call that a mirror armor or not. Generally speaking those are called mirror armors, at least they can be called mirror armors, but it does depend whether or not you do want to call them. So yeah, the category is vast and its limits are quite unclear. And if you're wondering why this sort of armor is called a mirror armor, that is probably because the plates were polished up to a so large degree that they would look like mirrors, at least in certain cases. Because across all the different cultures that use this armor, or at least the vast majority of the cultures that use this armor, the armor is called something in relation to mirrors, whether that is a mirror armor straight up, or something like heart protecting mirrors, or something like that. And also there was a certain belief, at least among certain of these cultures, that a mirror used as an armor would repel certain evil spirits or something like that. Now obviously that style of armor, the mirror armor, does look kind of bad in a certain kind of way, because it has a lot of gaps. As I said some of them will only be made up of a chest plate and a back plate, meaning that obviously you can hit on the sides of that plate, you can hit the arms very easily, you can hit on the sides of the body and so on, you can hit on the shoulders. It leaves incredibly large areas of the body unprotected. Obviously some of them are covering more parts of the body, some of them have larger plates, some of them have plates on the side and so on, but generally speaking it will leave very very large gaps. And the truth is that obviously, yes, it is not as protective as another armor that will protect larger areas of the body, like for example like a plate armor or something like that, or a brigandine or something like that. Those armors will protect larger areas of the body and therefore will be more protective. But obviously you have the problem that metal is very heavy, very expensive, and when you have it covering your entire body it can also be very very warm. And this style of armor was primarily used in rather hot regions, obviously not only it was also used in colder regions like for example Russia, but it was primarily used in colder regions. If we look at the early examples, those are Greek and Romans, so rather hot climates and Mediterranean, and also later in time it was also generally being used in rather hot climates compared to certain other regions of the world. So by minimizing the amount of metal you're using on your armor you're making more comfortable armor that is cheaper and that is going to be much less warm to wear when it is very hot. And on top of that it also protects the most important parts of the body to protect, because obviously as I said it primarily has a chest plate, and obviously the chest is the part of your body where you have the most important organs, like for example the lungs, like for example the heart, so it is very important to protect that area of your body. So if you want an armor that's very light or you don't have enough metal or it is going to be too hot to wear a full suit of armor or something like that, only protecting the chest is probably your best option. And finally you also have the fact that as I said it was very very often only worn as a reinforcement over other forms of armor. So you would in a lot of cases, obviously that now I'm talking primarily in later periods of time, this was not the case among Greece and was not the case among the Romans, but in later periods of time it was very often worn over some form of armor, like for example mail. And obviously if you wear that armor over a mail shirt you already have the mail shirt protecting all the gaps or the other parts of the body, so you only need to reinforce the most vital parts of the body and the parts that are most likely to receive a very very strong hit. Because mail alone might not be enough on the body itself because you can get quite a lot of force in the hit on the body, but it might perfectly well be enough on the arms or something like that because you have much more movement in your arms. If I get hit in the arm, a lot of that force is going to be used to actually just push my arm away, which is not going to happen so easily if I get hit from the body. So the mirror armor would come over other forms of armor to reinforce the most vital parts of the body. And this is a big reason why this style of armor keeps reappearing and was used by so many people. We even find similar design on today's bulletproof vests. Today's bulletproof vest will basically have a big front plate, a big back plate, so that does show that that style of armor does work and it is worth it to protect only the most vital parts of the body because, well first of all, they are the most easy to protect and the most important to protect. Because obviously you cannot make a full bulletproof suit, or theoretically you could, but it would be incredibly impractical, so you are better off just having it on the most vital parts of the body. Now of course the use of today's bulletproof vest and the threat it is supposed to face are very different from the ones of the mirror armor, but to a certain degree it does show that that style of armor, that design, does work. So in the end mirror armors definitely had a lot of problems, like for example they don't protect gas very very well, and other armors, like for example obviously plate armor, but also brigandine, and to a certain degree male shirts, were better armors. Because obviously the romans had a similar style of armor to the mirror armor, but then switched to the logohamata, so male armor, which probably is a big indicator that logohamata, male armor, was much better. But all this being said, mirror armor can still make a lot of sense in certain cases, like for example if it's very hot, like for example if you have a limited amount of armor that you can wear, either because you can't afford more armor, or because you have a limit on how much weight you can carry with you, the mirror armor is a way of having a very very light armor that will protect very very well the most vital parts of the body. And it is a proven design, because as I said it was used in a whole bunch of different regions across a wide range of periods, and is even to a certain degree used today, or at least similar armors are used even today. So it definitely is an armor that can make a lot of sense in certain cases. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one.