It's a bit more complex...
The fucking Romans and the Fucking Greeks had some kind of plate armors ( not full plates.... because... see below )
Quote:Interesting. I think maybe it's the plate armor that throws me off to thinking of later era Knights Templar and Hospitalier and the like. Because I don't believe the use of european full plate was until maybe the 14th century.
It was there since the lw middle ages... but at that time due to the cost of that type of armor only the very rich nobles had one. Everybody else had mail and eventually some plate protections added on top of the mail.
5 Foot Step wrote on Nov 7
th, 2020 at 10:00pm:
The coat of plates seems to be the iconic crusader armor. 8th century knights probably just had chain mail.
Yes and no. they had chainmails with plates added to it when they could afford the steel plates. ( or the lower grade cast iron ones )
The 14th century is just when they were mass produced due to the advances in iron production and the various wars that occured around Europe at that time ( 100 year war between France and England, 30 Years was between lots of countries using Germany as the playground, the Italian wars .... )
The apparition of firearms with a semi decent range, reliability and accuracy made them useless almost overnight.