Research: 12th Century Armor

By Jacquie Rogers

When I wrote "Faery Much In Love," a short story in FAERY SPECIAL ROMANCES, I knew very little about 12th Century Europe, let alone about the specifics of armor. To lend authenticity, I had a lot of work to do. Here's what I learned about the nuances regarding armor and defense of this century.

Misconceptions

When most of us think of armor, we think of the full plate armor of the 16th Century, which soon became obsolete with the introduction of firearms. But armor took many hundreds of years before it finally evolved into such finely tuned equipment. One of the first things I learned was that my knight needed a bit more armor than was actually used in 1199 A.D., so my 12th Century knight wears late-13th Century armor. So far, no one has noticed (and now you know my secret). :)

But back to the 12th Century . . .

Before we get into the specifics, we need to know the weapons in use. Swords were the weapon of choice but very expensive. A warrior carried his sword in a sword belt worn around his waist, and sported a diamond-shaped shield held by a shoulder strap on his back. Crossbows came into popularity along about this time, as well as the Welsh longbows. Infantrymen used spears and whatever else they could afford and/or carry; and the cavalry, which became vitally important in this century, carried heavy maces as well as swords, and sometime battleaxes.

Well, then, what did they wear?

So the armor had to defend primarily against swords, arrows, spears, and maces. Let's take a look at some of the individual pieces of equipment.

Mail

Warriors used mail since the 4th or 5th Century, so it was nothing new. Skilled armorers created complicated hauberks, chausses, and even gauntlets out of mail. Under the mail, they wore heavy quilted garments to protect their skin from the rough mail, and also to cushion the blows from their enemies' weapons. Mail protected against slashing, but not piercing, nor did it protect against bone-crushing strikes.

We'll talk a little about most of the parts of armor.

Helm

In the picture to the right, we see he's wearing a steel helm (or bascinet) with mail to protect his throat and neck, with no facial protection other than a bar over his nose.

Hauberk

A hauberk is a mail shirt, usually long-sleeved and knee-length, with a slit up the front and back so the warrior could ride a horse. It's made of iron wire, was very expensive, required a lot of maintenance, and was quite heavy. (Remember, your knight will be wearing a heavy quilted shirt underneath the mail hauberk.)

Gauntlets

Gauntlets were worn over the hands. Gloves, if you will. They were sometimes made of mail but leather gauntlets were more common in the 12th Century.

Chausses

Chausses were leg protection made of mail, and very similar, although more form-fitting, to cowboy's chaps of today.

Sabaton

To protect their feet, warriors wore sabatons. These chain mail foot coverings extended past the toes and ended in a point. This grew longer and longer over the years, and toward the end of the armor era, some classes could wear sabatons with toes two and a half feet long!

Plate armor

Nope, not in the 12th Century. Sometimes plates of heavy leather were sown together and worn over the mail hauberk, and in the 13th Century, they started wearing plates of steel armor attached in much the same way, but the mail hauberk was still the main piece of equipment.

Pros and Cons

The advantage of 12th Century armor over later armor is that these knights were much more agile and mobile. The disadvantage is that they weren't nearly as well protected as the 15th and 16th Century warriors. In any century up until modern times, warriors had to buy their own armor, and a good suit cost more money than most common men would see in a lifetime.

Sources
European Historical Overview by David Kuijt
12th Century Arms and Armour

Jacquie

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Men: The Appeal of Warrior Culture

By Jeannie Lin

I've always been fascinated by warrior culture and the social rules that tie them together. There is something exciting and sexy about an elite group of fighting men. Modern day warriors within the armed forces carry on these traditions and their influence continues to resonate with us.

It makes me wonder, what elements do these groups have in common that pique our interest? And it's not all about big swords and cutting off heads.

The Warrior Code

"Come home with your shield or on it."

Every warrior culture adheres to its own code of conduct which values honor, loyalty and courage. In effect, every group has its own "Man Rules".

The Japanese samurai called it Bushido. Chinese swordsmen called it the code of the xia. The US Marine Corps sums up their code in their motto "Semper Fi". In medieval Europe, knights followed the code of chivalry.

Whatever the code may be called, the principle was the same. Death before dishonor. A warrior would die for this brothers. He understands the meaning of sacrifice and honor. In some unfathomable way, these men are bonded together and belong to something greater than themselves.

Few Against Many

We love cheering for the underdog, especially if the underdog is a magnificent fighting machine. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than how King Leonidas led a force of 300 Spartans (and 700 Thespians) held off a Persian army a million strong at Thermopylae.

What about a small, highly specialized unit, trained to get in, accomplish the mission impossible, and then get out? Modern day Navy SEALs and SWAT teams are well-known for their specialized training. I went to search for a historical equivalent--perhaps the specialized units of the Knights Templar that were dispatched to fight in the Holy Land, surrounding by hostile territory?

On the other side of the world, the Shinobi were Japanese warriors trained in covert tactics. The samurai were all about displays of honor, but the shinobi were all about stealth. They were the Black Ops of medieval Japan. Or perhaps such special tactics groups were so covert that there were plenty throughout time that we've never even heard about. Which leads into my last point.

The Mystery

"The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is, you DO NOT talk about Fight Club."

The brotherhood is a tight society only open to those who have proven themselves. This secrecy lends an air of the mystery around these groups. These are warriors with a hidden past, one that can never truly be revealed.

The poster child for this has to be the Knights Templar, famous for their secret codes, security measures and ancient rituals. What were these secret relics they hid so carefully and where are they now? A secret treasure trove, the bones of saints, the Holy Grail?

For other groups, there may not be an explicit vow of secrecy, but the existence of the group itself creates the mystery. There is a darkness to being a soldier and a warrior. These men are forced to make choices between life and death. They are protectors as well as destroyers.

Only these bands of warriors can truly understand what they've been through. It's a secret handshake, an unspoken bond of fighting men. The rest of us seek to uncover these secrets, even centuries later--forever on the outside, looking in.

Places You've Never Heard Of: Templecombe

By Lindsay Townsend

Templecombe is one of those thousands of English villages with a quiet present and a busy past. It sits in a land of wide green valleys and warm golden stone on the Somerset/Dorset border with the abbey towns of Shaftesbury to the east, Sherborne to the west and Bath to the north. A main road cuts through it, trains belting along the main line between London and Penzance occasionally stop at its tiny station, and that, to the casual eye, appears to be about it.

Go back a thousand years and the place is different. Domesday Book records that Odo of Bayeux was given the land around here by his half-brother William I of England, the Conqueror, and a century later, in 1185, his descendent Serlo fitz-Odo gave part of it to the Knights Templar.

Since the Templars were not only a monastic order but a fighting one, they needed not only a church (St. Mary's, at the top of the village) and a preceptory for spiritual training (where a seventeenth-century building, Manor House, now stands on the High Street), but space for military manoeuvres, sword play, working with warhorses. No sign of this remains, though the archaeologists of the British Channel Four's Time Team programme spent a frenzied few days in 1996 trying to discover more evidence for the Templars' activities.

In spite of the importance of Templecombe to the Order, which used it as a base for Templars throughout the West Country, their habits of frugality, modesty and secrecy have left little behind, except for one thing. In the 1950s a painting came to light hidden in the roof of a local cottage. Dated to around 1280 AD, it shows the face of a man, possibly Christ or John the Baptist.

I visited Templecombe while researching my next Kensington medieval, A KNIGHT'S ENCHANTMENT (originally to be called A Knight's Alchemy), due in 2010. More details on that soon!

Religious Beliefs: Fall of the Knights Templar

By Penny Ash

For some two hundred years, the Knights Templar protected the faithful on their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, fought the Muslims, and gained wealth and power. They were respected and it was a prestigious thing to be accepted into the order. Many of the nobility joined once they had secured their estates and had an heir, leaving family and friends to focus on their souls. They flourished throughout the era of the Crusades. Then in 1307, it all fell apart.

So what happened? The fall was a combination of things, a series of poor military decisions, greed and jealousy from an outside source, and a weak Pope. The Knights suffered several major losses to the Muslims that pushed them out of Jerusalem, but they probably could have made a comeback from that. After all, fighting was what they were about for two centuries. What in my opinion brought them down was plain old garden variety greed and jealousy embodied by Philip the Fair, King of France. And he used the Church to do it.

In one source, I read that part of the problem was Philip had applied to join the order and was turned down. And it made him angry. But nearly everyone else agrees that it was Philip's greed, his lust for money that was behind it. He had already gone after the Jews and the Lombards, confiscating their wealth and land. Most likely he had planned his attack for a long time and he’d been a wee bit upset with the Church for years.

Philip, like most greedy men, spent more than he had. He was heavily in debt, so when Pope Boniface forbade the clergy to pay taxes, it made life unpleasant for Philip. His battle of wills with the Church began, and when Pope Boniface called on him for support against Aragon, Philip refused. Naturally this didn't sit well with the Pope and he retaliated, eventually offering the throne of France to the Austrian Emperor in 1302. Philip then managed to do in Pope Boniface and his successor, and by 1305, he made Bertrand de Got, his boyhood friend, into Pope Clement V. Everything was in place for his attack on the Knights Templar. And apparently they never saw it coming.

Philip IV practiced this sort of attack twice before and succeeded. Remember the Jews and Lombards? He had his own puppet Pope, and his greed knew no bounds. He made a dry run, or maybe a feint before the real attack, by attempting to unite the Templars with the Hospitallers. It didn't succeed and he put his plan into motion.

People of the day were heavily superstitious and Philip used this to his advantage. He ordered the Templars arrested on the charges of heresy--some 87 charges, including everything from denying Christ to the mode of confession they practiced and other heretical depravity. As twisted and greedy as his actions were, Philip deserves some credit for pulling off a perfectly timed arrest throughout France of the Knights Templar, in an era without our instantaneous communication. It took a month for orders to be sent out and received, and he managed to keep it secret until the time came to strike--so secret that Jacques de Molay, the Templar Grand Master, had no clue what was about to happen. He probably thought of Philip as something of a friend, since he was godfather to Philip's son, and de Molay had only the day before acted as pallbearer at the funeral of Philip's sister-in-law.

The arrests took place on October 13, 1307. It was a Friday. Was the day picked on purpose? I like to think so. In any case, the torture began immediately, and many Knights who confessed early were sent to join the Hospitallers or some other order. Unfortunately for Philip, he didn't get quite the treasure he was after. The puppet Pope showed a little initiative and transferred the lands and property of the Templars to the Hospitallers, and although they did arrest a huge number of Knights, many got away and went underground with what they could carry with them.

The Knights Templar were officially dissolved in 1312.

In the end, after suffering seven years of torture, de Molay confessed to some of the heresy charges, although never to the charge of homosexual practices. When he was taken to be burned at the stake in 1314, he recanted his confession and said the only crime he was guilty of was lying about his fellow Knights to get the torture to stop. Both Philip IV and Clement V died within one year of de Molay.

And the real mystery begins. What happened to the Templars who got away? Where did they go? Did they really form the Freemasons?

There are tons of websites covering the history of the Templars. I found these two to be the best for this post: Templar History and Alan D. Peters.