Leather Armor? (NO HOLDS BARRED!!)

[Felix]

but arrows have been known to puncture plate as well. The French Knights at Avignon had the best plate armor protection available and it was still inadequate to the English long bow.

This is a myth best left to another discussion. You are thinking of Agincourt, not Avignon, and the English longbow could not puncture plate armour.

Good grief! I confused the 'Babylonian captivity' of the papacy with St. Crispin's day! :oops: Much learning hath made me mad!

Thanks for the correction.

As far as it being a 'myth' c'mon, that's a little strong.

This reminds me of the battles over Archimedes devices at the battle of Syracuse. Some say they are utter fantasy, others exaggeration and others gospel truth. The only thing I can say for sure is that the French Knights weren't slain by foot soldiers, and that like Theodosius points out, I have seen examples on television demonstrating that plate could be breached by the force of a long bow. If I have to dismiss all that, I would like to be able to do it on better authority.

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As a matter of fact, at Agincourt the English men-at-arms were dismounted, so the English army was entirely "foot soldiers"; more important, the vast majority (80%?) of the English army were archers fighting dismounted. There is no question these archers did wade in (literally, as it was very muddy) and join the melee, and killed many Frenchmen. The idea that the longbow was some sort of medieval machine-gun equivalent is a myth. Modern testing is meaningful only if done right, see Alan William's work. Television never gives enough detail to know if the tests are done right, and many television tests are clearly done wrong. The historical record is quite telling: in all the literature that I know of, there are exactly two accounts of arrows wounding a man armoured in plate where the arrow actually went through the plate. Lots of knights in plate died, and some died from arrows, but explicit penetration of a piece of plate armour was very rarely reported. Please check the Antique armour forum at Swordforum - the subject has been exhaustively discussed.