Suit of Armour — Handmade Metal Decorative Display Piece

A suit of plate armour in handcrafted metal — helm, breastplate, articulated limbs and gauntlets, built as a display piece.

Details

• Handcrafted metal construction
• Helm, cuirass, articulated arm and leg plates, gauntlets
• Hand-applied finish
• Decorative display piece
• Suits a hallway, study, library, bar, restaurant or shop

About plate armour

The idea that knights had to be craned onto their horses is a myth, and a fairly modern one — it comes largely from a 1944 Laurence Olivier film. A full harness of field plate weighed around 20 to 25 kg, distributed across the whole body rather than hung from the shoulders like a modern soldier's pack.

Men in armour could mount unaided, run, and get up off the ground. Surviving fencing manuals show armoured wrestling and ground fighting as standard techniques. The heavy immobile stuff was tournament armour, worn briefly for a single specialised purpose.

What ended plate was not weight but firearms, and even then it lingered — cuirassiers wore breastplates into the First World War.