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Transitional armour describes the armour used in Europe around the 13th and 14th centuries, as body armour moved from simple
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Medieval armour
Western plate armour
Transitional armour describes the armour used in Europe around the 13th and 14th centuries, as body armour moved from simple mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
hauberk
A hauberk or byrnie is a mail shirt. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves. A haubergeon ("little hauberk") refers to a smaller mail shirt, that was sometimes sleeveless, but the terms ar ...
s to full plate armour
Plate armour is a historical type of personal body armour made from bronze, iron, or steel plates, culminating in the iconic suit of armour entirely encasing the wearer. Full plate steel armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, es ...
.
The couter
The couter (also spelled "cowter") is the defense for the elbow in a piece of plate armour. Initially just a curved piece of metal, as plate armor progressed the couter became an articulated joint. Couters were popular by the 1320s.
In fighting ...
was added to the hauberk
A hauberk or byrnie is a mail shirt. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves. A haubergeon ("little hauberk") refers to a smaller mail shirt, that was sometimes sleeveless, but the terms ar ...
to better protect the elbows, and splinted armour and the coat of plates
A coat of plates is a form of segmented torso armour consisting of overlapping metal plates riveted inside a cloth or leather garment. The coat of plates is considered part of the era of transitional armour and was normally worn as part of a full ...
provided increased protection for other areas.
Armourers in general began experimenting with various forms of rigid defense. They worked in a variety of materials, including wrought iron, latten, leather, cloth and even bone to substitute rigid materials for mail as the knight's harness progressed. Toward the end of the century and into the following one, updates to armour took place at an accelerated rate.
The use of multiple materials is the key stylistic element of the period. For instance, a set of transitional style arm defenses could employ steel pauldrons
A pauldron (sometimes spelled pouldron or powldron) is a component of plate armor that evolved from spaulders in the 15th century. As with spaulders, pauldrons cover the shoulder area. Pauldrons tend to be larger than spaulders, covering the a ...
, leather rerebraces, steel elbow cops and leather vambraces. These items would be strapped with leather and might have brass or bronze fittings and buckles. This use of varied materials gave the armour different coloring, textures and more elegant appearance.
Swordfighting re-enactors such as the Society for Creative Anachronism
The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century. A quip often used within the SCA describes ...
wear personalized transitional armour for safety reasons, composed of a combination of thick leather, mail and plate armour.
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