Medieval Armour

Medieval armor (armor from the Latin, derived from the verb to arm, "arm") is the protective equipment used to defend the body of a man during a confrontation, whether of war or civil context (for example in case of riot ). It consists of a set of defensive weapons to passive defense in charge of various parts of the body: the helmet to the skull, the armor for the chest and appropriate protections for the arts (shin guard, cuff, armored gloves, etc..). Besides these components, usually called "patches", then it sums up the shield, active defense weapon.



The history of the Medieval armor began concurrently to the history of the practice of war and saw mankind make use of many different elements to achieve the protective netting: simple layers of fur, leather and bone, then, increasingly robust metal (bronze, iron and steel) , eventually coming to synthetic fibers such as Kevlar. The types of armor developed by mankind, mainly only in the Eurasian continent until the seventeenth century, were the most varied type: the panoply of Greek hoplites, the chain mail of the Celts, the "lorica" segmented Imperial Roman legionary, etc.. Today, the equivalent of ancient armor is made from modern body armor and helmets.



The armor was often used to protect war animals, such as the war horse and the war elephant. All the pieces of weapons used to protect the horse was called "Barda". Special reinforcements were then developed for those hounds used in hunting practices considered risky as it is, for example, hunting wild boar.