The Effect of a Fully Armored Noble

Full Armor

The final two weekends were certainly the most fascinating and exciting! Wearing full armor was an experience far beyond my wildest dreams – both in awesomeness and in toil! Especially, the toil, given the heat we had in St. Louis. I wore my armor through a 93 degree day, with 80 percent or so humidity!

Much of what I experienced in relation to the ¾ armor persisted, though taken more extreme with the full armor. The full harness saw the addition of arm, elbow, and vambrace protection, along with full greaves and a gorget (throat protection). Furthermore, and in my opinion, most impressively, pauldrons with haute guards finished the cavalryman’s attire. As a result, I struck, what I believe, to be a rather imposing figure. I found that in full harness, barely anyone would talk to me unless I addressed them first. I had a huge number of small children hide behind their mother’s legs, and peek out, eventually working up the courage to approach. Many just stayed at the road and looked. While walking, I found that more adults cleared out of the way then before, though many still blocked my path. I behaved politely – I couldn’t very well go crashing into them, though I confess I dearly wanted to. The power I felt while wearing the armor cannot be put into words. I hesitate to attempt to imagine what it must be like to ride in full harness atop a fully barded warhorse (though I would very much like to find out first hand). It is easy for me to imagine how terrifying such a figure would have looked from the ground though, if my impression on foot on those around me is to be taken as any indication.

I found out a great deal more of the exertion and time it takes to get into armor in this weekend. With three experienced helpers, it still took about fifteen minutes to get the entire harness on. I do believe that the dexterity of my soldiers and Kampfrauen did increase as the faire went on, but nevertheless, arming up was an arduous and taxing process. A similarly taxing process, was marching in the daily parade. Armor like that is definitely not designed to be worn on foot – the total weight of all of it works out to between 90 and 110 pounds. My butted chainmail proved a real bother, as it kept catching on the plates and opening up. My kingdom for some riveted rings!

Plagued by rain and sweat, these weekends required me to spend as much time cleaning the armor as I spent wearing it. Still, the time spent cleaning was not wasted by any means. My most frequent question remained “Is it heavy?” followed by “Is it hot? (to wear).” To attempt to answer these in a more hands on manner, I began allowing patrons to try on one of my gauntlets. For many of the children, the gauntlet covered nearly their entire arm, but gave them some idea of what the armor was like. One little boy said, “It’s light!” I explained that it is the shape of the plates that gives the protection, and the real weight comes from the chainmail. I then began allowing patrons to lift up part of the chainmail shirt (which alone weighs about thirty pounds) to get some idea of the weight of everything! This also helped me answer one of my questions from the first weekend – how to communicate the importance of the extra chainmail. The sheer weight of the chainmail seemed to convince people of its protective value!

I was still, of course, often called a knight, and many people wanted just a photo and then to move on, but I managed to garner some really precious time with people who were genuinely interested in everything. Watching some people walk right up and without a word pick up a freshly polished piece was, however, maddening. If only I had had squires to do this wretched cleaning for me!

Overall, I think the project was a great success, and I have a lot to think about. I have been made painfully aware of some of the limitations of first person re-enacting, such as not being able to tell people where to seek more information. I also have gained an appreciation for the amount of work it took to maintain one man’s armor, not to mention that of his horse. The huge train and staff of medieval and renaissance armies, and the tactical limitations imposed by them, now make a great deal more sense to me. Engaging patrons even when actively standing in an inherently intimidating position is perhaps my greatest challenge! I look forward to continuing to wear the armor, and explore reactions to it in the coming years!

¾ Armor

A weekend plagued by a rainy memorial day, the second weekend saw the addition of gauntlets, caulds, and poleyns to the armor. My number one question remained “Is that heavy,” though I was almost universally called a knight. I continued to explain that I was higher ranking man, and a mercenary officer. In one particularly cool instance, I overheard a boy walking past with his mother. The mother asked (pointing at me), “Who’s he?” The child replied, “A knight.” The mother inquired again, “And what do knight’s fight?” To which the boy emphatically answered, “Dragons!” The obvious cuteness of the encounter aside, it made me ponder on exactly what the knight has become to modern culture. Historically of course, knights fought people – peasants, Saracens, and other knights, to name a few – but today they fight dragons, symbols often of evil and even in some cases, the devil. Now my character, the Count of Luxembourg, is certainly no saint, and the type he represents were certainly not rare.

I found that once again, children and mothers cleared out of my way as I walked, though many adults seemed to expect modern common courtesy from me (personally, I think that if I saw an armored man walking down the road, I would get out of the way, but go figure). I also found that some people were genuinely terrified of me. One teenage girl exclaimed to her friends “I don’t like knights!” and refused to even enter the German encampment. Others seemed to find my clanking about rather comical – their laughter prompting my character to get rather indignant, which soon put most back to solemn form. Nevertheless, I found that when dressed in all of my ¾ armor most people would point, maybe take a photo, and then move along, and never actually address me.

Rainy weather combined with camping and steel armor necessitated a lot of cleaning. Spreading my armor out on table and taking to it with rags and metal polish became a morning ritual during this weekend. I found that as I sat in gambeson and arming cap, scrubbing away at armor, many more people came up and actually talked to me, and asked me questions. I realized that while seeing someone in armor was rare, seeing the better part of a full harness of armor spread out into all its component parts, laid out rather haphazardly on a table is even rarer. I found much of my greatest success in talking about how the armor works and explaining its variation and purposes while I sat cleaning it, and resolved to continue my morning ritual for the next two weekends.

Half-Armor

The first weekend of the project was a long one – three days, the first devoted entirely to high-school students and their chaperones. I witnessed the immediate effect of my half-armor, when I was sent down to the front gate to hold back a tide of ill-mannered teenagers from entering the faire until more preparations could be made. The Half-armor I wore consisted of a chainmail shirt, breastplate, backplate, burgonet (helmet), and falling buffe (visor). Underneath the actual metal I wore a gambeson and an arming cap. I met the horde of students with my helmet on, visor down, and managed to hold them dead where they stood, despite the length of time I was to keep them. The cries of “Come look at the knight,” resounded, though many of them asked me where the rest of my armor was. I diligently explained that I was not a knight, but rather a much higher noble, a count, and that this was all the armor I chose to wear, as I was dressed for combat on foot. Sadly, many faces immediately went blank or were diverted to cell phones, but several were genuinely interested in the wearing of specific parts of armor for different functions. spent the remainder of the first day teaching pike drills, with mixed results. Many took to it, and many seemed bored. Still, I commanded a certain amount of respect – when I walked somewhere people got out of the way.

Saturday and Sunday proved to be far more fruitful. Once again, I was asked frequently where the rest of the armor was. I found that if I wore only the chainmail, or only the plate, it was generally accepted as complete, but the two worn together prompted people to want more. Sadly, my most frequently asked question for the weekend was, “Is that heavy?” I suppose I thought that it would be obvious, but nevertheless, I answered calmly that yes, it was heavy. I was also asked about the length of my chainmail shirt (it was thought too long). I was not called a knight too frequently, but the armor was pointed at quite a bit.

This weekend raised some questions for me:

Why is half-armor seen as almost comical by a modern audience?

What can I do to communicate the importance of the extra chainmail?

The armor inspires people to keep their distance, what can I do to engage them?

Overall, a successful and satisfying weekend.