ARMS and ACCOUTREMENT
of the 12th century KNIGHT and SOLDIER

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During the earlier Crusades plate armour was unknown, the warrior depending entirely on his hauberk or sleeved coat of chain-mail which reached from his neck to his knees, with leggings or stockings also of chain-mail.
The head was also protected with a kind of hood of mail which was sometimes attached to, or formed part of the hauberk when the 'pot' helmet or cap was not used. A steel cap with a bar descending over the nose, to protect the face, was also provided with a chainmail covering to the neck and sides of the face.
Towards the end of the century the larger 'pot' helmet, with holes and slits in it for seeing and breathing, was used as a head covering by the knights, but the movable visor did not appear until the introduction of plate armour in the fourteenth century.


German pot helmet, ca. 1200
Amongst the best illustrations of the twelfth century chain-mail armour remaining are the effigies of the two Williams Longsword on their tombs in Salisbury Cathedral, the elder of whom was son of Henry II. and Rosamund Clifford, which represent this type of armour without a helmet, and the great seal of Edward I. who is pourtrayed thereon as wearing chain-mail with a 'pot' helmet of an ornamental kind, surmounted by a royal crown, so late as 1272*. (* Kingsford's "Crusades").

The chain-mail hauberk was always covered by a surcoat of linen or silk, on which were appropriately embroidered the heraldic badges of the knights, after the introduction of such distinguishing marks in the course of the Third Crusade.

'Heater' or 'kite' shaped shields are perhaps the most characteristic features of the armour of the twelfth century knight. They were usually made of elm wood, covered with leather and appropriately painted. The use of the shield was not confined to the purpose implied by its name, but in the art of self defence it was handled in sword play, in the same manner as the dagger was part of the rapier fencing equipment at a later period.

Chain-mail armour work over leather jerkins, and in some cases, supplemented by leather hardened in a particular way: boiling in oil, and hammering on an anvil; was probably not so impervious to lethal weapons as the plate armour of a subsequent age. It was worn by the Crusaders, and also in a very similar manner by their Saracen foes as the only possible kind of iron protection to the human body in battle, endurable in a hot climate. As such it remained in use amongst eastern nations until modern times.

The weapons of the Crusaders were: for the knights on horseback, a somewhat light form of lance, used for charging or hurling at the enemy, and a double edged sword strapped on the left hip by a waist belt. On his right saddle-bow the horseman usually carried a mace or battle-axe.

The infantry, or men-at-arms were provided with heavy lances or pikes, and 'bills' of different forms. They also carried battle-axes, maces, and swords.

'The famous English longbows used at Crécy and Poitiers with so much effect, in the fourteenth century, were of little importance in the time of Richard Coeur de Lion, but the crossbow [ external: chronology of the crossbow ] was perhaps the most important weapon of his period. Richard was himself an adept in its use, and his death by a well aimed quarrel from the walls of the Château de Chaluz possibly shows that chain mail was hardly proof against what Anna Comnena calls 'the diabolical device' of the arbalest.

Crossbowman Crossbowman English longbow | 1 | 2 |

The mode of fighting and the equipment of the Crusaders were to a very great extent influenced by the contemporary customs of their Saracen enemies, and many developments of the medieval art of war are traceable to an eastern source.

Military discipline and drill as we understand such things at the present day could have been but little practised in the medieval armies. Hand to hand combat was the method of fighting at that period, and only on certain occasions were the men-at-arms required to form into square or line, in the simple manouvre of lowering their pikes with a holdfast in the ground, and thus to form a serried rank to receive a cavalry charge - a rare event in Europe where the cavalry consisted of isolated knights on their chargers surrounded by their feudal levies.

Every form of exercise with arms of all kinds to be used in single combat was of course sedulously cultivated, as well as shooting at a target with bow and crossbow. Every man, whether knight on horseback, or man-at-arms on foot had a more independent position in the mélée than would be possible in the course of a modern battle. Those were the days when every man was expected to study the art of self defence - whether in the great battles of an international kind or in the daily strife of more domestic interests, and to be ready with such arms as he was accustomed to.

As the knights of a great medieval army, clad in close fitting chain-mail from head to foot, carrying the characteristic 'flat-iron' shaped shield on their left arms, whilst the right hand grasped sword, or axe, or mace of varied forms, and astride of their war-horses, entered the field of battle, each of them formed the centre of a 'clump of spears', and was surrounded by his men-at-arms with their pikes, javelins, and billhooks. Each knight, to some extent in the position of a modern 'officer', became a tower of strength to his men, directing, controlling, encouraging them as the case might be: when he fell in the mélée his men were dispersed, or joined the standard of some other feudal lord.

The forefront of a battle line in the twelfth century consisted of these 'clumps of spears' with the knight and his squires a central figure of each group. Behind them stood the bowmen launching flights of arrows at the enemy; still more in the rear were the marshals with their attendant trumpeters whose duty was to convey the general instructions from the sovereign prince or king who usually commanded in chief, and whose banner borne before him constituted the rallying point of the whole army. At the moment of the mélée, the air was filled with the battle-cries of the feudal retainers, and the trumpeters sounded the point of war 'corps à corps'.

A medieval camp was a brilliant spectacle: the glare of bright colour, the sparkle of a thousand points in burnished arms and armour exhilarated the soldiers, and interested the spectators. The pomp and circumstance of war rendered the profession of arms attractive in a way which has disappeared along with its gaudy trappings, and its life of display. But certain features of a medieval camp would appear shocking to our modern and refined sensibilities. The gambling, drunkenness, and profligacy, the terrible social degradation and all the evils attendant on the growth of a vast military class, could not be concealed beneath the splendours of medieval pageantry.

High in the air amongst the tent groups were reared gibbets, gaunt frames of wood on which hung a few dead bodies tainting the evening breeze, and causing a shiver to those unaccustomed to the sight, or whose attention had been attracted by the croaking of attendant kites and crows. In those days the gibbet formed perhaps a very necessary accompaniment to the administration of justice in a military camp. <<<

Main source: Cyprus under Richard I, George Jeffery, First published Nicosia 1926. Supplements from Dutch sources.