You must be pretty old to have seen someone in the platemail of the time
period we are talking about doing all that :) (j/k)
> ----------
> From: Elijah Meeker[SMTP:elijah@...]
> Reply To: eqbards@onelist.com
> Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 1999 5:07 PM
> To: eqbards@onelist.com
> Subject: [eqbards] Plate Armour
>
> From: "Elijah Meeker" <elijah@...>
>
> >Early Platemail was cast from Iron,
>
> No, it was not cast, not even the bronze plate of the ancient Greeks was
> cast. It was hammered and
> reasonably light (the leather and scale suit I used to fight in was about
> 60 lbs plate actually can
> be lighter and being distributed evenly over your body is a HECK of a lot
> easier to deal with than a
> 60 lb. backpack.
>
> >Early platemail was
> >so damned thick and heavy, if a knight were to be knocked from his
> warhorse
> >(horses bred specifically to be able to carry a knight) it meant likely
> >death, the knight trapped like a turtle on its back in the hot sun.
>
> No, these are myths based on literature and parody illustrations of the
> day and a modern
> misunderstanding of the differences between battle and jousting armour.
>
> I have seen a fully armoured person do summersaults and vault a 4 foot
> pole, I have seen them lythly
> hop up from a prone position on the ground. This was wearing armour of a
> period thickness hammered
> of regular steel, not stainless.
>
> Armour designed specifically for the de-horsing period in jousting got
> very VERY heavy and very
> specialized but this stuff was never used on the battlefield. Battlefeild
> armour remained a balance
> between weight and flexibility.
>
> The whole thing about a fallen knight being like a turtle is a myth, now,
> that being said, a dozen
> peasents with polearms pulling a knight off his horse and shoving a itty
> bitty knife through his
> visor is a GOOD idea *laughs* and certainly happened. The famous
> illustration of putting a knight on
> his horse with block and tackle was a *parody* illustration, not
> historical documentation.
>
> No one
> >forged stainless steel in those days. (Come to think of it, maybe the EQ
> >plate is made of stainless steel.) Little of this early armor remains,
> only
> >those pieces from especially short individuals, which no one else could
> fit
> >into, when said short individual died within it.
>
>
> Plenty of this armour remains in collections throughout the world. A whole
> lot more is manufactured
> by modern smiths using period techniques based on these existing pieces.
>
> Tszaaz
>
>
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