Hi, I’ve recently been back to England with my wife where we did some impromptu filming.
It was very quickly put together with our son Josh and we didn't have our normal equipment so
please forgive the sound quality, but we thought you would find these films interesting.
Hi, my name is Kevin Hicks, welcome to our YouTube channel the History Squad and here we are today in
the heart of England Warwickshire with my son Joshua, Josh and my friend Steve Arnold. These
are members of the Oxford Household who are members of the Wars of the Roses Federation,
they're re-enactors. And what we're going to do today is we're going to show you how we're going
to arm a man at arms from that period.
So what we're going to do, we've got the armour all laid out in its separate parts, so we're going to
show you how much goes into just one complete harness. That's what it's actually called
It's not called a suit of armour, it's a harness, because of all the leather work.
What we have here is what some people would call a plackart and fauld
or a back and breast plate or a cuirass,
it has lames and tassets to cover the legs then you have a salet,
and we'll show you this because it's actually articulated at the back, it's quite something,
and the bevor, the dribble plate that goes on, on the front on the shoulders here pauldrons,
then we got the complete arms upper and lower and for the elbows you notice that these quese here
are actually pointed and sharp so they can be used as literally as a weapon. Gauntlets,
these are very very important that you can move your hands because you can punch with these,
as did David II, King of Scotland when he was captured at Neville’s Cross.
Here we have the legs,
the top part the chaucer, poleyns and then you have the greaves yeah? You’ll also have a
dagger and a sword but without further ado let's see all this stuff put together. So what we've
done is we've actually weighed my son Josh, he's uh all ready uh what were you when we first did you
16 stone with the mail on so far right so he's got mail here to cover the voyage under his armpits
and he's 16 stone as he stands so let's get on and have a look.
So you can see the effort that's put into this so a man at arms has all of these, what are called points,
they're laces and these are important to note.
The point's, easy to feed through but also if he's wounded, if he needs to escape from the battle
he can slice them and his armour falls off. If this was a common soldier
with a bit of armour he would actually have straps because he hasn't got somebody, a squire,
or a friend to help him get dressed but we're going to start off with the lower part of the
legs there, the greaves. The greaves, Italian riding style. Oh right these are apparently
Italian riding style. I tell you there's so much to this it kind of blows your mind yeah just the
detail in the buckle here it's quite incredible the amount of work that went into these pieces.
I uh when I used to work at Warwick Castle, I was informed and and told us part of my script
that um De Beauchamp there, Richard De Beauchamp sent an effigy of himself or parts of himself
out of wax over to Milan for it to be fitted for his armour together with his second best clothes
apparently and I did some research yesterday and they did indeed used to send their best or
second best clothing to make sure that the armour was fitted correctly and in one case
a pair of legs were made out of wax and sent to the armourer to ensure that it all fitted correctly.
One of the biggest problems if you're going to order armour from across the sea
is if you put on weight, so a man at arms or a knight the man above him has got to be fit.
Okay? That's right that's the greaves now we're going to move on to the legs.
Before they put this on they have to make sure that everything works, all the straps are on the
outside and you know I was reading recently that a squire could arm his knight very very quickly.
One of the problems I found with this is that they’re so heavy and yet it all hangs
off your clothing, there's not a belt it's um it's actually pointed in with these laces
all the way around.
But this has to work perfect. It has to literally emulate the way a person walks.
If you have, um, a squire who is taking too long, we have a saying that we still use today,
get to the point yeah? That apparently comes from the old knights, so I am reliably informed that is.
It's interesting when they fasten these it's a one loop bow because you can get more pressure on the
knot and they're also easier to undo you do a double uh loop bow it's uh it's not as secure
as a single loop. So much detail isn't there yeah? Go on stand as if you’re moving.
Yeah
So we're going to do now is we're going to put on a curtle of mail a skirt of mail
and if we have a close-up look,
the plates, the rings are actually flat and they are riveted in together this is
a real fine example. It's not as heavy as you would think, so let's get it on.
You need this on to cover the vital parts for a gentleman shall we say,
these cover the parts that other parts can't cover.
Now mail or maille, it's, it doesn't stop uh missiles or swords going in what it is it's a
slash proof thing it's, it's literally to stop things slashing across yeah? It's just that extra
piece of the armour that extra layer of armour. You call that a corset? No, no just checking.
Yep yep. Right so what's next then. You might need to assist in this one yeah. Right
so I’m now becoming an assistant.
Back first is it? Yep.
Yeah, we're just strappin g the back in the front of the cuirass together,
we've got to squeeze it all together. Can you do your side first?
And the back has to go under. There there you go. Whoa, squeezing somebody into armour
I can tell you, it's not easy. Right, and there we have it the tassets, the lames,
the back and breast. Plackart and fauld some people call these when they're separate and how do
you feel now? Heavy. Heavy right, let's get it all on then, what's next arms, the arms yeah? Sit down.
He normally wouldn't sit down,
the reason we got him sat down is he's six foot three and we can't reach.
We're putting on the arms and we have to lace them to the top of the body just onto the top
of the shoulders just here and then there's yet another piece will go over the shoulders.
And this has to fit perfectly yeah so that he can actually move his arm because don't forget this is
his right arm so he'll need this because they had in the films didn't they, where you saw I think it
was Laurence Olivier being winched into a horse, onto a horse in the film Henry V, it's nonsense
you know these men were athletes they could uh jump onto a horse if necessary
yeah in their armour they used to do all those feats of gamboling and so on and so forth to show
their prowess of how fit they were and how well the armour worked but what we're going to do now
we're going to get onto the shoulders, is that right? Pauldrons. What about the uh that's last
the dribble plate, the bevor is that on after right this is the bevor plate uh known as a
bevor dribble plate or vomit plate and the thing about this is if you're on a horse for instance
and you're galloping into battle and you've been hit by arrows or you're being knocked about
if you've been eating or drinking the night before you're going to vomit
it was often called the vomit plate right so it's to protect the throat. Let's get him on.
So it's fastened around the neck and it's also fastened at the front
to the actual breastplate.
Once again everything, single bow and it can be cut if we need to get this up this one it's
actually brought up so it covers the lower part of the face. Very simple yeah? I don't like these I’m
glad I’m a common bowman really because this stuff it's beyond me. Now shoulders next yeah
Right these are actually lamed as you can see they move in their own right yeah
articulated I’m going to bring it up just to show you what it's all about yeah so the
whole thing moves that's the thing about the whole harness it has to move the same as your body yeah
Once again being fastened with points and you can start to see now the layers building up of steel
Right how does that feel?
Yeah and you can see under the armpits there protected on the inside protected
now we're going to stand you up at this stage I’m going to put on your belt right
There is an interesting point on the end of the dagger. No it's an interesting point
although there aren't many embellishments on the armour
when it comes to straps for his sword or for his purse
they always add extra detail just to show that they can afford all of this yeah
so you can see a nice buckle yeah a good dagger, I mean look at the decoration on this. It's lovely.
And you can see on the purse, it's got some embellishments.
Now the sword. A hand and a half sword that we're just fitting to him.
which was commonly called a bastard sword yeah
Now if there's room to maneuver these swords were quite fantastic
but when you're enclosed and crushed up in the battle sometimes they're a waste of time,
so you might find a man at arms if he's going into a melee and it's really crushed tight
you might leave that behind use a shorter weapon yeah?
Now we're missing something aren't we, gauntlets
now these have to be really tight around the thumb and the whole thing has to move perfectly
yeah yep perfect.
Right now the crowning glory, the helmet. This is a beautiful example of a salet,
articulated at the back the whole thing lovely so let's put it on.
So we now need to know once he is complete now, look at him everything's covered
he's ready for combat, we need to know how heavy is he?
So we'll give him his polax, now he's ready to go
deadly armed to the teeth now step on the scales
So he has gone from in English from 16 stone to roughly 22.
So that's six of stone that he's put on he's gone from 100 kilos to 140 so that's 40 kilos of weight
and these men had to fight in this ride horses in this until the day was done.
Right so here we are a fully armoured man at arms Wars of the Roses,
Battle of Bosworth kind of thing,
His beaver is up and his visor is down as you can see he is quite formidable
and just the weight alone, if he careered into you well.
But the fact is though he can use that. Can you give us a quick swing?
You can see he can move in the whole lot of the gear. Has to be fit to do it. Now if you're
interested in ever doing any of this re-enactment then if you want to go to the Oxford Household
yeah, the link is in the description. So I hope you've enjoyed it, thanks very much for joining us
and if you can like, share, subscribe yeah? Just a shout out now to my patrons, we've got Maxwell
Gross, we've got Sean Keohane, now if I’ve done that wrong let me know and then the DDR Soldaten,
which is interesting because I was up against the DDR Soldaten when I was a British soldier
in Berlin in the 70s and just out of a point of interest, Steve here he's ex-Staffordshire
Regiment and my son he's ex Royal Logistics. So you have three soldiers, the really old one,
the nearly old one and the young one, we're all veterans. Thank you very much for your time.