What did a medieval knight wear? Armour, surcoats and coats of arms

A medieval knight dressed in layers. Padded cloth went on first. Armour went over it: rings of iron in the early Middle Ages, then plates of iron or steel. A helmet covered the head, and a cloth surcoat often went on top, showing the knight's coat of arms. This guide goes through each layer, what it was for and how much it weighed, using the collections and research of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Royal Armouries, English Heritage and the College of Arms.

What did medieval knights wear?

In the 1100s and early 1200s, knights across Europe looked much alike. Dirk H. Breiding of The Met's Department of Arms and Armor writes that an English knight of that time "would have differed little" from a knight in France, Germany or Italy. His armour was usually a mail shirt with an attached hood and gauntlets (armoured gloves), plus mail leggings called chausses. Over this he could wear a long tunic called a surcoat, often held in with a belt. A helmet covered his head.

Saint Anselm listed what a knight needed at the height of the Middle Ages, and The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline repeats his list: a war horse, a bridle, a saddle, spurs, a hauberk (a long-sleeved mail shirt, sometimes with a hood), a helmet, a shield, a lance and a sword.

Buying armour was costly, The Met says, though prices ranged from cheap second-hand pieces to suits made to measure for kings. The Met gives one example: in 1374, the whole store of arms and armour of an English knight was valued at over £16. That equalled more than three years of wages for a skilled worker. A single helmet was worth the price of a cow.

Many people besides knights wore armour. The Met explains that foot soldiers, hired soldiers and the citizens of medieval towns also protected themselves with it, so a person in armour is more correctly called a man-at-arms.

What was knight armour made of?

In the 1200s, the most common body armour of a knight was mail. English Heritage describes it as interlinked iron rings made up into garments. The mail shirt, called a hauberk, protected the body and arms and could reach the knee. By 1200, The Met says, mounted warriors commonly wore mail on their legs too.

Museum experts call this armour simply "mail". The Met explains that "chain mail" is a modern term that says the same thing twice, because both words describe something made of linked rings. The extra word came from scholars of the 1800s.

Plate armour arrived step by step. In the 1300s, the crossbow improved until it could pierce shields and mail, according to The Met. Knights first added a coat with small rectangular plates riveted to it, then jointed plate pieces for the legs, arms and hands. Solid breastplates appeared in the late 1300s. The Met calls the 1300s the "age of experimentation", with quilted cloth, hardened leather and metal plates all in use.

English Heritage says plate armour of iron or steel was used more and more during the Hundred Years War between England and France (1337 to 1453). By the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, many knights were wearing complete suits of plate. The Met says plate armour was fully developed by 1420 to 1430.

Plate armour still moved with the body. Each limb had its own piece, made of metal strips joined by rivets that could move and by leather straps. The Met writes that modern tests showed even an untrained man in well-fitted armour could mount a horse, lie down, get up again and run. The Met traces the story that knights were lifted into the saddle with a crane to a joke of the late 1800s.

What was worn under the armour?

The first layer was cloth. English Heritage says padded cloth layers were worn beneath 13th-century armour to give added protection and comfort.

In the 1400s, the layer under the armour changed along with the armour. Plate now covered the body, and English Heritage explains that mail was still worn, often sewn onto a cloth jacket called an arming doublet. The mail on this jacket protected places the plate left open, such as the armpits.

Helmets that hid the face

Helmets changed over the same centuries. Toward the end of the 1100s, The Met says, a new flat-topped helmet with side plates became popular, and it hid the knight's face. In the 1200s, the great helm, which closed around the whole head, came into fashion. English Heritage says these helmets often had a single slit to see through, which made knights hard to recognise.

By 1400, most knights wore a basinet: an open-faced, cone-shaped helmet with a removable curtain of mail to protect the neck. English Heritage says its rounded surfaces gave better protection against blows and arrows than the great helm. By the late 1400s, new helmets called sallets and armets had replaced most basinets. The Met gives the weight of a helmet as 2 to 4 kilograms.

Surcoats and coats of arms

A closed helmet left one problem: nobody could see who was inside. English Heritage explains that knights solved it with heraldry, a system of colours, shapes and animals. Each knight's coat of arms could be painted on his shield and banners, to identify him and to show his rank. The Met adds that the triangular shield was painted with identifying symbols so that fighters could tell friend from foe.

The surcoat carried the same design on the body. English Heritage describes it as a cloth garment worn over armour, from above the knee to the ankles in length, with the skirt split to make riding easier. It may have been copied from Muslim dress during the Crusades, where the cloth kept the armour cool in the sun. Encyclopaedia Britannica says the words "coat of arms" come from the surcoat, which repeated the arms from the knight's shield and banner. According to Britannica, heralds used surcoats to identify the dead after a battle. Even a horse could show its rider's arms, on a long cloth cover called a trapper.

Heralds became the experts. The College of Arms, the official heraldic authority for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, says coats of arms have been used as marks of identification since the twelfth century. At tournaments, heralds introduced the knights, who were recognised by the arms on their shields and the crests on their helmets. A crest, the College explains, is the three-dimensional object placed on top of the helmet. Because heralds knew these designs, they began to record them, and later to control who used them.

The Medieval Knight portrait style

Purrealism offers 15 royal portrait styles, and Medieval Knight is one of the six that come from European history. All eight finished portraits in the gallery come from the Indian court styles, so the way to see your own pet as a medieval knight is to choose the Medieval Knight style in the portrait studio and add a photo of your pet of up to 5 MB.

The cover of this guide shows a different kind of warrior: a dog painted as a Rajput warrior in armour, with a fort at sunset behind. That style comes from the royal courts of India, and the guide to Rajput painting tells its history. To compare the warrior styles with the seated rulers, read how to choose a royal portrait style.

How heavy was a knight's armour?

The Met gives exact figures. A full suit of field armour, made for battle, usually weighed 20 to 25 kilograms (45 to 55 pounds). The weight was spread over the whole body, while most modern equipment hangs from the shoulders or the waist. The Met says this is less than the full kit of a firefighter with oxygen gear.

Some armour weighed more. The Royal Armouries in Leeds holds a suit made for Henry VIII to fight on foot at the Field of Cloth of Gold, a tournament where English and French courtiers fought. It closes around his whole body and weighs 42.6 kilograms, twice the weight of a normal battle armour. In 1520, the Royal Armouries says, the King was 29 years old and 188 centimetres tall, and the armour fitted him closely. English Heritage says tournament armour of the late 1400s was heavier than war armour, to protect the wearer from accidents.

In the 1600s, makers made battle armour heavier to stop bullets. The Met explains that firearms and plate armour were used together for more than 300 years. As guns became more effective, full armour became rare, and metal plate stayed only on the head, the body and the hands. The Met dates the decline of armour on the battlefield to the second half of the 1600s.