Medieval armour

metal fabric consisting of iron or steel rings, riveted or pressed together, typically used in armor

thumb|right|225px|Greek greaves of “Denda”, c. 500 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen (Inv. 4330)

thumb|Young Woman with a White Coif by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1541 A coif () is a close fitting cap worn by both men and women that covers the top, back, and sides of the head.

thumb|250px|upright|The gorget in this 1772 portrait of Colonel George Washington by [[Charles Willson Peale, was worn in the French and Indian War to show his rank as an officer in the Virginia Regiment.]] thumb|Elaborately decorated gilt-brass gorget of , probably Dutch

early form of personal armor made of idividual scales mounted on a backing material

thumb|Brigandine from Handbuch der Waffenkunde (Handbook of Weaponry), Wendelin Boeheim, 1890

thumb|Depiction of a 13th-century gambeson (Morgan Bible, fol. 10r)

thumb|A museum display of a sixteenth-century knight with an armoured horse thumb|Chinese Song dynasty lamellar horse barding as illustrated on [[Wujing Zongyao]]

armour made of overlapping scales, without a solid backing

thumb|upright|right|Italian hauberk from the late 15th century A hauberk or byrnie is a mail shirt. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves. A haubergeon ("little hauberk") refers to a smaller mail shirt, that was sometimes sleeveless, but the terms are occasionally used interchangeably. Mail armor, likely invented by the Celts, became widely adopted for its flexibility and spread throughout Europe and Asia, becoming a staple in Roman legions and medieval warfare. By the 11th century, the hauberk evolved into a knee-length, sleeved mail

thumb|upright|A duckbill shoe|duckbill-style German sabaton for the right foot, thumb|upright|English-made Greenwich armour sabaton, 1587–1589

thumb|Armour of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor|Maximilian I with bevor ()

thumb|250px|A knight in the first quarter of the 14th century. Over his shoulders, he wears ailettes. The ailette (French language for little wing) was a component of late thirteenth and early to mid fourteenth century knightly armour. Usually made of cuir bouilli (sometimes of plate or parchment), ailettes were thick, quadrangular pieces of leather or wood that attached to the shoulders by means of silk or leather cord. Ailettes were usually flat and nearly rectangular in shape, and usually decorated with heraldic designs.

chainmail covering for the head and neck

Type of armour consisting of mail with small plates consisting of metal, leather, or other materials

thumb|A left-arm vambrace; the bend would be placed at the knight's elbow thumb|An ornate German (16th century) vambrace made for Costume Armor Vambraces (French: avant-bras, sometimes known as lower cannons in the Middle Ages) or forearm guards are tubular or gutter defences for the forearm worn as part of a suit of plate armour that were often connected to gauntlets. Vambraces may be worn with or without separate couters in a full suit of medieval armour. The term originates in the early 14th century. They were made from either boiled leather or steel. Leather vambraces were sometimes reinf

type of armour

history of military technology from the Viking Age (793 AD – 1066 AD)

thumb|A Dutch Republic|Dutch bracer from the late 16th century, made of ivory and intricately decorated A bracer (or arm-guard) is a strap or sheath, commonly made of leather, stone or plastic, that covers the ventral (inside) surface of an archer's bow-holding arm. It protects the archer's forearm against injury by accidental whipping from the bowstring or the fletching of the arrow while shooting, and also prevents the loose sleeve from catching the bowstring. They normally only cover part of the forearm, but full-length bracers extending to the upper arm are also available, and other areas

form of segmented torso armour, consisting of overlapping metal plates riveted inside a cloth or leather garment

thumb|Poleyn, 1555–60 The poleyn or genouillere was a component of Medieval and Renaissance armor that protected the knee. During the transition from mail armor to plate armor, this was among the earliest plate components to develop. They first appeared around 1230 and remained in use until 1650, when firearms made them obsolete.

conjectured medieval armour type

device attached to a breastplate to support a lance

leather treated to be tough and rigid, moulded or stamped into various shapes

Spaulders are pieces of armour in a harness of plate armour. Typically, they are a single plate of steel or iron covering the shoulder with bands (lames) joined by straps of leather or rivets. By the 1450s, however, they were often attached to the upper cannon or rerebrace, a feature that continued into the 16th century.

German form of plate armour from the first half of 15th century