Why HOLES in Knight Armour #historyfacts #medieval #metalworking #armor

Sources: Royalarmouries.org: “Armour must protect every inch of the body. To achieve this, the armour is built up in a series of overlapping plates of steel held together by sliding rivets, to ensure complete coverage and freedom of movement.” ----------- Source: Charles Ffoulkes - the armourer and his craft on how the rivet worked: The sliding rivet is one of the most important of these [devices to join armour plates together]. The lower end of the rivet is burred over the back of the lower plate, and the upper plate has a slot cut of less width than the rivet-head, but sufficiently long to allow the plate to move backwards and forwards, generally from three-quarters to one inch. “false rivets, which are found in late suits, doing no work in the construction of the suit, but giving an appearance of constructional work which is lacking.” ----------- Source: Cleveland Museum of Art on padding between sheets to reduce scratching: Helmet interior, breastplate, and tassets, for example—were fitted with padded linings or velvet pickadils, which made the suit more comfortable to wear and prevented the plates from scratching as they moved. ----------- Nuance: Rivets existed in the ancient age as well but were far less common, as rivets create an obvious weakness when they break/rust. Ancient armies generally needed less armour, due to weaker edged weapons, weaker bows etc. That meant blacksmiths with the required high skill were less necessary and thus less available than in a high-late Medieval army. Also, warriors throughout history would often wear a weaker form of armour underneath these gaps, that helped some, but these gaps were still weaknesses that enemies focussed on exploiting.