Tournament armor
The tournament armor and armor for the Gestech or Gestechrüstung the knight is a specially for tournaments developed protective clothing .
description
The purpose of this special armor is a maximum protection of the knight from injuries in fighting games, while accepting the reduction in comfort and mobility as well as severe restriction of the field of vision. Special tournament armor, such as the piercing and racing kit , were mainly developed for the type of jousting . The knight's fear of injury was not necessarily the reason for the development of reinforced armor especially for tournaments, but mainly the concern of the rulers that their best men would get injured or even killed during fighting games and were no longer available for fighting afterwards. In fact, even with tournament armor, there were not only injuries, but also fatalities again and again, which, however, would have occurred much more frequently without tournament armor.
In contrast to war armor, in which it is also very important that the knight remains agile in battle in addition to high protection and does not become exhausted too quickly, tournament armor was only worn during the tournament. The considerably reinforced tournament armor sometimes weighed over 40 kilograms. This gave rise to the legend of the knight who generally had to be lifted onto his horse by a lifting device due to his heavy armor. In truth, tournaments only required one or two helpers to lift the armor bearer onto his horse. And armaments of war were always designed so that a knight could mount and dismount alone during a battle. The armor was specially made for the tournament or special reinforcement parts (plates, sticks, beards, thigh armor) were attached to war armor, which were supposed to reinforce the armor in such a way that injury from the lance stab was ruled out.
See also
Armor
weapons
Tournament forms
Web links
- Tournament helmet, Germany around 1580, part of a set for various tournament forms
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wendelin Boeheim, Handbook of Arms, Nachdr. D. Ed. Leipzig 1890, Fourier Verlag, Wiesbaden 1985, pages 517 to 571, ISBN 978-3-201-00257-8