In the Sir Robard camp near Merhojed I saw knyght, who hadde a pair plates large, a swarde on ceynt and eek he baar a myghty bowe with sheef of arrows, bright and kene.
But seriously: A knight with a bow?! Well, I saw a picture of knyght, who baar a bowe, but I don’t think they used bows.
Different place, but same time… English longbowmen wore mixtures of harness, brigandine and other armour, and were essentially interchangeable with other men at arms apart from their primary weapons.
Men at arms have pole weapons or single handed mace/hammer, with a sword. Archers a bow with hammer or mace and/or falchion/messer/sword. Everyone has knives.
I would expect similar results from most field armies of this period - with maybe some hurriedly raised levy in only gambeson or tunic and helmet, but most with some degree of metallic armour on the torso.
Protection on arms and hands might be reduced to aid working the bow, but there are plenty of illustrations of men at arms in full harness using bows or crossbows.
Also of course note that not all armoured men are knights, and in fact the proportion who were at this time would be fairly small. These aren’t armies from the C12 or C13.
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Maybe, they are not knyghts. (Though “a pair plates large” is rather expensive for a average man-at-arms.) But a soldier in s plate armor looks strange for me.
what if I told you, “there were knights sitting on a horse using a longbow in europe”?
Well no idea how common bows were in bohemia, but in modern day germany they weren’t used at all. The crossbow dominated the field. Still armour and bows fit perfectly together.
Take a quick look at these pictures:
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Munition plate was becoming increasingly common. It wasn’t necessarily
as refined as top quality white harness but it could be produced fairly cheaply for professional soldiers and mercenaries, or for the core of a levy force held at the ordnance.
Remember also that is doesn’t really “wear out”, as long as it is kept clean and oiled, and leather fittings are refreshed as they wear, so older style pieces might be in service alongside the latest fashion in a cascading fashion, along with maille.
Cloth armours are more prone to damage, and harder to keep in service for very long periods, but are also technology that you can assemble on a community level. They are also widely available as alternative to armour (perhaps with maille or brigandine) for travel, or training with weapons. Every one would look to obtain head protection, and if you didn’t have harness a shield of some description would be useful - bucklers are good for close combat, and are easily carried on the belt alongside a knife or sword, but they offer minimal comfort against missile weapons - so in times of war a larger shield would be preferable, if not actively using a two handed weapon.
Nice miniatures, but still don’t think that bow was a common weapon of knyghts. But I see a medieval miniature showing a knight with a shortbow in Turaida castle.
But I thought that plate armor became common only in 16 century.
That 's for sure! Knights are horsemen, they fought on horseback. Still they were also expected to be able to handle lots of different weapons (lance, spear, mace, sword, the long sword, crossbow, bow) they knew how to use them. They had to. There job was fighting and when they didn’t fight, they were training for a fight. Looking at Bohemia the knights living there fought on horseback, except if the ground didn’t allow it. (For example: horses + siege = stupid idea)
Plate armour began to appear in the middle of the 13th century. In the centuries before, the helmets started to change a lot, thanks to the newly invented waterpowered hammers, people now were able to make helmets from a single piece of steel. During the defence against the Muslims and the crusades new helmet types were developed. However the crusades are not the sole reason for this. Most evolution took place in Europe. Due to the new crossbow and the wider use of bows. The knights simply wanted to protect their faces against arrows coming towards them, while galloping towards the enemy. However, over time more and more parts of the body were covered with steel plates. At first the pot helmet showed up, these ones are around 1250. Note that this helmet is a helmet designed for a rider, you can fight with them on foot. But they were only used by knights. If you fought on foot primarily you wore a kettle hat or nasal helmet. This guy, 60 years later, wears a so called kettle hat, additionally he got knee and elbow cops, as well as ailettes, these shields at the shoulder bore the coat of arms of the knight, similar to the Waffenrock (or surcoat), they didn’t last very long.
30 years later we have more plate armour covering the body. Otto is fairly good equipped for his time. The bascinet is now a common helmet, worn beneath the grand helmet. The coat of plates is clearly visible, he got plate gauntlets as well as forearm protection and complete leg protection.
At 1400 the hole body is covered with plate armour. Above the upper body a textil armour, also often referred to as a surcoat is worn, those could bear the coat of arms of the person and serve as additional protection. Probably against arrows. The arrows got “swallowed” by the textile, therefore losing a lot of kinetic energy.
Now it gets interesting:
Two distinctive styles of armour start to appear. The italian and the german. While Italy is already in the renaissance, the italian speak of the quattrocento, therefore the following armour is also called a quattrocento-harness, Germany, or the german speaking lands, are still in the gothic period. Therefore we now see the Kastenbrust armour and later the late gothic armour. (Kastenbrust can be translate as “Kasten” = “box” , “brust” = “chest”).
Quattrocentoarmour lasted from ~1410 - 1510, Kastenbrust 1410-1450, late or high gothic from 1450 - 1510.
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Later on maximilian armour appears, now we are in the german renaissance. This style is about 1510-1540. The italian either copied the german style or left the harness without the ridges. Btw. originally it was believed that Emperor Maximilian I. developed these highly fluted armours, but in reality it was just propaganda. The armour followed the fashion as always. Later on this style disappears and black and white armour shows up (1550-15070(80), this lasts another few decades, until at the end of the 16th century complete black armour starts to dominate the field. The armour now stays black until the end of the 30 years war. Except for the armour of nobility which sometimes still ordered plain armour. During the renaissance extravagant armour, for parade and tournament were created, here are a few nice pieces. 1 2 3 4
Armour in general was always used by all classes. The myth that peasants wore the “inferior” maille and knights wore plate armour is simply bullshit. If you can afford it, and needed it, you had it. In the 14th and 15th century most soldiers would have been equipped with a helmet and breastplate. (If there are no breastplate like at the first half of the 14th century, they would have worn coat of plates, like at the battle of visby). If you are a mercenarie, you had more armour. But most of the time no leg armour. This is really common, when you fight on foot, the last thing you armour are your legs.
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The first is true. The latter only when they did. Continental armies tended to fight from horseback more often, but would fight from the ground too when the situation required.
English armies - fought on foot more often, but did fight mounted when the situation demanded.
In both cases I’d extend the definition of knight to the whole “man at arms” sphere - knights and esquires.
In English armies of the very early C15 in France the whole army was mounted, but only a small portion were to fight (or remain in reserve) as mounted forces.
I’m not sure how that was done in the continental armies though.
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The german knights fought on horseback. So did the italian knights. And the french and the spanish and the polish. English knights also fought on horseback. It is simply due to the reason that at large battles, like at azincourt, they had so many archers, that fighting on horseback would be a fatal idea. Just imagine, you charge towards the enemy with your horses, your are outnumbered and now your archers, which can inflict huge damage to the enemy have to stop shooting because you are riding in front of them. The english did not like to get of their horses, no knight did. Charlemagne of Burgundy had to even threaten his knights that they will be killed for treason if they don’t get down from their horses and fight on foot.
Yes, indeed. In Middle Ages knyghts were given land by the king. For that, when knyght is called to arms he had to arrive in army on horseback, armed, armored nd leading a party of warriors, whom he has to equip according to his wealth. But the militia is something different: poor warriors of militia served as archers, rich ones had to bring armor and fight in melee, and it leads us to conclusion: well-off militia warriors could purchase a plate armor.
English harness was different to that of continental armies, more suited to fighting from the ground.
During War of Roses english warlords often dismounted and fought on foot to encourage their warriors.
Yeah that 's nonsense. Sorry, but it is. All those details can be found on continental armour as well. And they did fight on horseback. Therefore it was not designed for fighting on foot. It was designed by the fashion. Fashion is what dictated how armour looks like. It always did.
The armour has nothing that hinders you from either fighting on foot or mounted. If you have an italian armour, you remove the reinforcing pieces. That 's it. If you have some german stuff, you simply get of the horse, or change the visor at a grand bascinet.
If someone fought on foot it was because he was ordered to or because he feared of losing his horse or the terrain demanded it. It has nothing to do with the armour. Every 15 century armour, worn by a knight, english knights inclueded, had a lance rest. For what? Well as a rider you use a lance. Therefore you had a lance rest. (Small hint, effigies are not 1:1 copies of the armour of the person which is represented, therefore these can’t be taken into account)
We have gone too offtopic.
Yes, we have 
So to make a conclusion of the main topic: Some knyghts had skills of horse archery, but their amount was insignificant.
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I have to agree. Western European knights never used bows in war, as they trained primarily to fight other knights, one on one. A WE knight would use a bow for hunting and foraging but not in war.
Eastern European knights would be a different story, as there was much more regard for bowmanship among the nobility and warriors.
The same for Eastern knights and bows would apply to Chinese, Korean and Japanese nobility.
I know of lot german knights using crossbows, while there are records of english as well as french knights using bows. So where is the problem?
Unstrung bows: A Cuman would be no different than a Mongol and would have multiple bows, which one would be strung at all times, as Mongols expect a fight at any time. A poor Cuman would have two to three horses while a well-to do Cuman would string as many as ten horses along on campaign.
Your average nomadic warrior would carry hundreds of arrows into combat, multiple bows, a lance, a short blade with a chisel point, a heavy sword with a slight bevel to use against armored opponents and a saber with a razor bevel to use against opponents with light or no armor. Yes, these guys were armed to the teeth and had weapons suited for different situations.
During the current setting of chaos, the Cumans would be more than a match for most soldiers on the field.