Stature, Strength and Weight of armour

Story & Setting
#1

Continuing the discussion from Women warriors of the 13 century:

I was interested in how harness might differentially impact a large and small fighter (I have some experience in Blossfechten that suggests that strength is only marginally useful in sword fighting - though with unbalanced weapons, bows etc there is a benefit to having more size and strength - with a well balanced sword, technique and the appropriate ‘path’ down the decision making process for each attack, step and displacement all but eliminates strength as a factor once the user can handle a weapon (single handed swords are more difficult here, two handed swords offer the smaller fighter a much more level playing field).

Starting with the premise that a 77kg 1.75m person is average in size, and would wear a 27kg set of harness, I have tried to estimate the weight of armour of similar protection and the impact of this harness on my own size - 51kg, 1.65m.

First I used a BSA estimation to get a rough estimate of the surface area - 1.53m^2 for me, 1.93m^2 for the other. This is going at a first approximation going to result in a 21kg set of harness of equal coverage and protectiveness.

I then estimated the strength of the two assuming that strength is roughly mass^2/3 for the comparison between two ‘similar’ people.

This suggests that the effective burden of the harness would be around 4% more for me than for the average person used for the comparison, with a 50% greater body mass.

A larger person (1.85m, 91kg) would have harness weighing ~30kg, and would find the burden to ‘feel’ around 1% less than the average person.

I see some places where this approximation could be improved, but it is (IMO) entirely expected that for custom sized equipment (such as harness and most other (historical) personal armours) there is no real penalty associated with size with broadly similar body types.

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#2

well most armour actually was not custom made but rather a mass product. If I had to guss, I’d say that around 90% of the armour in the late 15 century was not made to fit one person, but rather a broad group. As the nutrition in medieval times were quite similar, depending on what time of the year it is and where you live, many people actually had quite similar statures. There were by far not as many overweight persons as there are now. Also the size of the people was limited since the access to meat was limited, except for nobility, this can even be seen, if you compare munitions grade armour and pieces for knights and lords.

#3

Strength is only marginally useful in sword sparring, it is much more useful in actual sword fighting. But i agree that technique is much more important and that srenght is lesser factor in sword fighting compared to fighting with other weapons and unarmed.

And i agree that diference in impact of harness is quite insignificant.

#4

It is very important that armor is at least adjusted to fit your body perfetly, because of weight distribution. Non fitting armor is very ineffective.

#5

When I recently purchased a hand made pair of gloves I paid a premium of 6% to have them custom sized to my hand. It was no particular issue to use a smaller blank to assemble the gauntlet into a better sized but ‘generic’ glove to the standard design.

I see no reason why mass produced but hand made and hand finished armours would not have been customised at need, even if much of the material was to be formed to similar form.

#6

yes that 's true. But a normal town dweller did not buy a suit of armour made for him. He bought what fitted him. The merchants which sold armour had dozens of pieces in stock. You simply looked which fits you best, some small adjustments could still be made (sometimes) but the major shape was given. That 's why I pointed out the similar stature of people of the late middle ages. If you take the measurements of extant armour you will notice that most of them have a really similar shape and size.

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#7

A normal town dweller wouldn’t buy a suit of armor…

Governments bought generic “munitions” armor to outfit seasonal levies. The armory would have an armorer who would tailor the munitions armor to fit the wearer but it would be nowhere as close fitting or expensive as the harness that a noble would purchase. A lord or knight, expected to furnish his own arms and armor, would invest a huge sum in custom fitting his armor and balancing his weapons. A knight’s harness, arms and horses would often cost more than the land he lived on due to the professional artisans needed to customize his gear.

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