How A 1440s Italian Jouster Shall Be Armed

Just a reminder that I make high quality t-shirts, sweaters and hoodies with the English knight design on them. 20% of profits go to the re-enactor and the artist featured, so make them happy knights by purchasing a lovely piece of clothing from us. Throughout the Middle Ages, jousting was all the rage and it was regarded as a heavily noble and chivalric sport. Not only that, but jousting and tournamenteering was seen as a rite of passage as well as a knightly duty, and fortunes could be made at such sporting events. Today, we will be taking a look at a glorious example of high-end 15th century Italian jousting First, the knight wears the male components of his armour. He already has a small patch of mail around his armpit which is called a voider, and this is under the arm in which he couches his lance. Due to his arm being raised in the couched position, the pauldron can't effectively cover the gap, so an additional level of protection is needed. The knight wears a male skirt with a decorative brass edging, and wears a matching male collar called a standard. He will later wear two more layers of throat protection, as injuries to the neck was one of the most common causes of fatalities at competitive jousting tournaments, so all steps are made to ensure the vulnerable areas are well defended. The squire now equips his knight with a pair of greaves. As discussed in previous episodes, greaves are one of the most finely crafted components of armour, and must be made to mimic the anatomy of the wearer's shin, calf muscle, and curvature from the ankle to the top of the foot. Due to the greaves closely matching the shape of the wearer's leg, modern historians often refer to these as anatomical greaves. They are constructed in two parts, with a hinge or two on the side, and leather straps and buckles on the inside, since the hinge is stronger than the strap, so it's less likely to break if struck with a weapon. This knight would have had an option to wear sabatons in order to armour his feet if he so chooses, but he has opted to forgo his sabatons for today. Next, a pair of beautifully crafted cuisse are worn. These make up the upper half of the leg armour, and are made from a polet, which protects the knee, a demi-greave plate, which folds over the top of the greave, and the cuisse plate, which protects the thigh. By the late 15th century, leg harnesses had evolved to comprise of multiple small strips of metal called lames, which were all riveted over each other to create a high level of articulation, allowing the knight to bend his leg and rotate on his foot freely with minimal restriction. The muscles in your leg bend, stretch, contract, and displace a lot during everyday movements such as walking, running, or leaning, which makes the legs a very difficult limb to cover in plate armour, so multiple lames of steel both above and below the knee allows for the most flexibility while retaining a high level of protection. As well as this, upper leg harnesses of the late 15th century also feature side plates, which wrap around the side and the back of the leg. Sometimes these can be fully enclosed, but usually only cover roughly two thirds of the back of the leg for equestrian armour, since the knight will be sitting on a horse anyway. The squire now prepares the cuirass by opening up the back plate and the breast plate. The knight wears the cuirass, and the squire buckles it in place, tightly around the knight's torso, using two straps over the shoulders. Once this part of the cuirass has been tightened up to the knight's satisfaction, the side is then attached by the use of more buckles. The other side features a metal hinge. During the late 15th century, the typical Italian style of cuirass was made up of five components – the breast plate, back plate, placard, folds, and the tassets. But before the second part of the cuirass is worn, the squire fetches the arm harness. The arm harness you see is of a typical three-piece floating style, featuring a vambrace or lower cannon to protect the forearm, a large couter plate to protect the elbow, and a rear brace or upper cannon to protect the upper arm. There are all sorts of ingenious methods for plate armour for the arms, but it is the floating style which is commonly depicted all over Western European artwork from this time period. It is named the floating style because the three components are not permanently attached to each other by the use of rivets. Instead, they are tied to each other using arming points or laces, so that they can easily be adjusted and allow for a high level of mobility. Of course, this does leave some gaps which could let a sharp blade slip through, but it was evidently considered satisfactory protection on the battlefield and indeed the tournament tilt yard. If the knight chooses to, he could also opt to wear male patches on the inside of his elbows as an extra level of protection against this vulnerable area. The key to late 15th century plate armour is overlapping. As you can see, the shoulders are currently exposed, but the final part of the arm harness will be worn later which will surely cover this gap. Now, you can see that the lower half of the cuirass, the placard, folds and tassets are attached to the breastplate by a strap on the front. This allows for more movement in the torso region so that the knight can effectively twist in his harness, rotate side to side and bend over with moderate freedom. The placard acts as a double layering of plate armour, going over the front of the breastplate and over all the vital organs. It is important to remember that a breastplate should not extend below the mid-waist area on the torso, as any longer than this and you risk limiting your range of movement. Instead, a skirt of folds, as seen here, ensures protection but also an extensive level of mobility. The folds are designed to collapse over each other when the knight sits down in his saddle, and the tassets then cover a part of the thigh which becomes exposed when the knight is sitting down. Tassets are generally considered a component of equestrian armour, but can also be used for dismounted combat as well. And now the shoulder protection will be worn. These rather unusually shaped components of plate armour are known as asymmetrical pauldrons. Asymmetrical pauldrons were often favoured by mounted knights as they could effectively couch a lance under their right shoulder with the help of a smaller pauldron, then wear a much larger pauldron on the left hand side of the torso which overlaps much more of the breastplate. This set in particular features a haught guard which is the upright plate riveted to the left shoulder. This is essentially a small shield to deflect any incoming strikes from going into the neck or the face, with the curve of the plate encouraging an incoming lance or arrow to slide either side of the head away from danger. The pauldrons are attached to the body using lacing points which are tucked underneath the male collar. The key to good shoulder protection is to have them laced up as high over the shoulder as possible. A common mistake in reenactment is that people tie them to points below the cuirass shoulder straps when they should actually be tied above. Pauldrons are generally considered the heavier option when it comes to shoulder armour, with the lighter variant being the spoulder. Pauldrons are certainly more tailored to mounted combat where heavily armoured knights would charge into enemy ranks while couching a lance, ploughing through the enemy using shock cavalry techniques. Since jousting follows a similar style, pauldrons are regarded as the best option for tournaments, as you certainly wouldn't want your armpits to be exposed while jousting. And again, the goal of jousting tournaments was not to kill your opponent, so you wouldn't want to take any chances and opt to wear the safest configuration of armour that you had available. The squire now places the helmet over the knight's head. This beautiful item is called an armette, which is a close fitting helmet of around the late 15th century, having evolved from some styles of the great bassinet. The difference between armettes and close helms is that close helms open up from the sides, and armettes open up from the front, with the cheek plates sitting apart from each other to fit the wearer's head, and then closing back up and locked with a small hook, ensuring a very snug fit. Armettes also have a visor with a mildly pointed snout. Since this is a tournament helmet, it has an iron grill covering the eye slits. You can still see out of the helmet, it simply prevents small splinters of lances from going into your eyes during a tournament. The re-enactor in question is named Alex, and he jousts professionally for Chevalerie Initiatique, a French jousting group who tours all over the country and further afield to represent highly authentic 15th century tournaments. He advised me that the group breaks around an average of 600 lances a year, so safety is of the utmost importance when jousting. The armette has an additional protective plate, called a wrapper. This component goes in front of the left cheek plate, providing a double layer of defence, since this is the side that the knight will most likely receive incoming strikes from. The wrapper is articulated around the throat, and strapped to the cuirass, and also strapped around the back of the neck. Finally, the squire hands the knight his gauntlets. These are typical late 15th century Italian mitten gauntlets, featuring additional small scales to protect the fingers. The cuff plate is somewhat extended from its hourglass ancestor from the early 15th century, and is made to overlap the lower cannon of the arm harness. The Italians favoured the mitten gauntlet, with large articulated plates covering the fingers, as they provided much better protection than fingered gauntlets, but at the cost of a little dexterity in the fingers. But of course, a reduced level of dexterity was a small price to pay when the combat styles of the late 15th century was heavily crush-orientated. So, fingers could easily be broken, rendering a knight incapable of continuing the fight, if, of course, incorrect gauntlets are worn. And so, the knight is now fully armoured, and eager to begin jousting. You may have noticed a rather unique crest on top of his helmet. Throughout the middle ages, highly ornate helmet crests were worn by knights during jousting tournaments, and ranged wildly in design. From large wings, to scary looking fish, there are countless depictions of knights wearing fanciful crests in scenes of tournaments. The helmet crest here is of a greyhound, and is a reconstruction of the tournament helmet crest found at the tomb of Francis II, Duke of Brittany. The majority of these crests would be displaying the knight's household heraldry, and were often carved from wood, then coated in gesso, and painted splendorous colours. The knights are also wearing small shields on their chests which are called targes, which acted as both protection and as a target for the opponents to aim for. Again, they would be painted in stylistic heraldry to show off the knight's proud household, and some contemporary artwork suggests that variants of these were also worn on the field in real combat as well. Generally speaking, professional jousters were also knights who also engaged in real military campaigns. It was the main sport of the day, on par with football in the modern world, and these jousters were revered as celebrities. The goal was not to kill or even injure your opponent, but instead the jousting tournaments went off a points based system, and you would therefore score points depending on the specific rules of the jousting tournaments you entered. The most common type of jousting tournament would award most points for accurately hitting the opponent's shield, or striking so hard that your lance would shatter. We often see depictions of these lances shattering in contemporary artwork, with the lance usually seen breaking into three separate pieces. And so, a special thank you to Alex for featuring in today's episode. He has a truly beautiful harness and expert riding skills to match. Indeed, this style of harness is actually my personal favourite throughout the entirety of the medieval period. Please support his jousting group, Chevalerie Initiatique, by following their social media which I have left a link to in the video description below. All members of the jousting group are exceedingly talented, and they are a true honour to watch.