Floating discs
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Besagew are round steel discs of a late medieval and early modern plate armor that have been installed to protect the unprotected underarms "floating" with leather straps hanging down. These discs were mostly round with a slightly convex or concave surface . They were movably (floating) attached in order to divert incoming stitches laterally onto the plate armor, where the blade tip continued to slide ineffectively.
description
Floating discs have been known since the beginning of the 14th century and occasionally persisted until the 16th century .
The danger was that the wearer of plate armor could reveal his most vulnerable point, the unprotected armpit, while he was going to strike. Later these sensitive areas were protected by shoulder armor segments. Floating discs are not to be confused with armpit shields, also called ailettes , which were intended to protect the shoulders and to attach the coat of arms of a knight .
literature
- Auguste Demmin : The historical development of war weapons from the Stone Age to the invention of the needle gun. A handbook of armory. Seemann, Leipzig 1869, p. 254.
- Heinrich Müller, Rolf Wirtgen (ed.): Armored times. 2000 years of body protection for soldiers from ancient muscle armor to bulletproof vest. Federal Office for Defense Technology and Procurement, Koblenz 1995, ISBN 3-927038-60-1 .
gallery
Plate armor with floating discs
Plate armor from the 16th or 17th century with floating discs in the Zwingermuseum in Dresden .
Epitaph of a knight of the swan order in Gothic armor with floating discs in Heilsbronn monastery
Gothic armor of Maximilian I with floating discs from 1475. Drawing by Wendelin Boeheim
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