Originally Published May 19 2019

In popular myth, the medieval knight evokes thoughts of valiant combat in shining armour and is usually portrayed as a heroic alpha male in many modern artistic productions, be it theatre, film or otherwise. Perhaps many have at some point in their lives fantasised about putting on a suit of armour and playing knight for a day. I was one such person in my childhood through my teenage years and eventually I entered the realm of reenactment. Like many before me, I did the mistake of purchasing armour before anything else and this was a lesson that cost me dearly.

As I became more and more obsessed with historical accuracy, the full suit of armour I had painstakingly put together started to look more and more inaccurate. It was not that the armour was historically anachronistic but rather because the devil is in the detail and it is in the accuracy of the details that my kit was found lacking. With the previous lesson well in mind, I embarked on a project to reconstruct my knightly impression from scratch and this time it took me around a year of preparation before I was ready to place my orders to the various manufacturers in Poland, Czech Republic and Italy.

First task at hand was to identify the precise period that the knight would have lived in. This was a relatively easy task as personal preference lay in the events happening in Malta in the late 14th to the early 15th century. With this time period as a reference, a number of sources from manuscript illustrations to effigies and paintings of that period and geographic areas of influence on Malta, were consulted. The aim was to identify common features throughout the sources since as a rule one has to portray the common and avoid the exceptions.

It was soon evident that shortly after the turn of the century, there was an advancement in armour technology and from 1410 onwards, shoulder armour (pauldrons) became more widely used.

Once the research was complete it was time to start recreating the image, starting from the layers closest to the body and working outwards. Attention to detail was paramount and no compromise could be afforded; after all, if you are portraying a member of the nobility you have to look the part and cannot afford half measures.

The under most layer was a padded layer called a gambeson that acted as a shock absorbing layer. On top of this went a layer of maille over which, by the late 14th century, plate armour covered most of the body. The maille gave extra protection where gaps in the armour existed such as the armpits and groin. Figure 4 shows a comparison with the illustration by Pisanello (circa 1450) showing a wounded knight stripped of plate armour and in maille skirt and paunces (top part of maille). This comparison is somewhat later than the early 15th century I usually represent, however such maille was already in castle inventories from at least the late 14th century.

The selection of this type of maille was based on the fact that the plate armour selected for the torso enclosed also the back; therefore the vital organs were already well protected with the corazzina.

As mentioned earlier, attention to detail was paramount and the interpretation had to include all details that would distinguish a knight from a commoner. One such detail is the plaque belt which is a common feature in every source depicting a knighted person. During the late medieval period, Malta had a significant influence from Catalan troops stationed at Castrum Maris (nowadays Fort St. Angelo). Therefore, the design for this belt materialized after a comparison of effigies from the time period in Catalonia. Whereas knights from other parts of Europe may have heraldic symbols incorporated into the individual plaques of the belt, research showed that the most common element in the plaque belts originating from Catalonia where floral designs. The final reproduction is being shown in figure 6.

As a conclusion, to anyone aspiring to build a character in as historically accurate manner as possible, the take away from this article is to represent the common and not the exception and if recreating a person in military service always get the basic kit first and work from the layers closest to body moving outwards. Going right away for the armour may give you instant gratification but may cost you more than you bargained for at a later stage.