Historian, curator and ex-champion jouster, Tobias Capwell explains how, during the 14th and 15th centuries, a young man wanted to be seen wearing the latest design of armour – not just for show, but because it could help to save his life in combat.
In his Livre de Chevalerie, circa 1350, the famous French knight and author Sir Geoffroi de Charny (one-time owner of the Shroud of Turin) disdainfully denounced the followers of a new military fashion, which had recently appeared in western Europe:
‘…it is not enough for them to be as God made them; they are not content with themselves as they are, but they gird themselves up and so rein themselves in round the middle of their bodies that they seek to deny the existence of the stomachs which God has given them: they want to pretend that they have not and never have had one, and everyone knows that the opposite is true.
‘And one has seen many of those thus constricted who have to take off their armour in a great hurry, for they could no longer bear to wear their equipment; and there are others who have been quickly seized, for they could not do what they should have done because they were handicapped by being thus constricted; and many have died inside their armour for the same reason, that they could put up little defence... There might be some who would prefer to give the appearance of being a good man-at-arms rather than the reality…’
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