June 23, 2026 • 37 mins
We all know the image of European knights: clad all over in plate armor, they conquer enemy forces and mythological creatures alike. But... how much of this historical stereotype is true? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max ask explore the nuts and bolts of historical armor: how it worked, how many people actually wore it, how much it cost -- and, perhaps most importantly, why it disappeared from warfare.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:27):
fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. Let's hear it for our own Night in
Shining production Armor producer Max.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
It is Max Williams Day, I Love.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I Love James Williams, the.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Third junior Senior Did you get esquire? Sure? And a
doctor in there as well, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Vaughan something also, that's mister Noel Brown, the one and only.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
So Max, You're dubbed diploma mud and uh you've got
your PhD.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And they called me ben Bully tax purposes here, guys,
have you ever been to Medieval Times? Well?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I did once travel back in time.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
I woke up in it from a dream and I
found myself in in a in a in some sort
of dungeon.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
No, that's not true. I made that up.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
But I have not actually been to the restaurant, the
themed restaurant and attraction Medieval Times. The only experience I
have of it, frankly, is from the movie The Cable Guy.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Okay, yeah, my interaction is just knowing Jonathan Strickland renaissantly.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Okay, what wouldn't you agree? Though?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Ben if If we've been to a Renaissance festival, we've
more or less had the Medieval times experience, short of
the crappier food at medieval times, because we can all
argue that ren rent fair food pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, of course, those carneies know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Those carnies and those carnivores. All them turkey legs.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Oh man, I gotta say. I took some of the
friends of ours out for a group field trip to
the Renaissance Festival, and my girlfriend and I completely overestimated
the nostalgia factor. So we each got a turkey leg.
Those turkey legs are so big. Those are two people
turkey legs.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And it's weird some of them.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Maybe it's like on a per turkey leg basis, or
maybe this is a feature of every turkey leg.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
They got this real weird flap of like tend any
stuff in them.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Oh yeah, yeah, it kind of.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Pulls out like like a little like a feather, like.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, like a record. Yeah, there's got to be a
science name for that.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
There is, hopefully, you guys outside, we we do have
We've been thinking about this. We've been thinking about, uh,
the the iconic image of nights in Shining Armor because
as round tables, lances of lots, uh, there's no shortage
of fascinating painting work of works of literature and film
(03:02):
and TV now like Game.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Of Thrones, Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Is how
I know anything about the medieval time at all?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Frankly, yeah, 'tis but a scratch shout out to the
knights and knee. But no. You recall how these things
always depict these absolute warriors who were plated up like
little mech like mechs, dude, and they're they're doing all
sorts of crazy physical stunts and all kinds of punishing
(03:29):
weather and.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yirling around those flaily thingies, the morning Stars, the Evening Star,
morning Stars.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Morning Star, You nailed the line. And then they fight,
despite the fact that they're carrying hundreds of pounds of
armor on them. They fight for hours against anybody and
they You watch this and at some point right during
a battle scene, you have to say, wouldn't most modern
(03:55):
people collapse after just a short period of even running
or walking briskly?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Well, because unlike the mechs ben, these don't have any
exoskeletal robo attachments.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
This is a burden born by humans.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
And yes, you know, because you've got to think there
are different situations where this kind of armor might have
been employed. The medieval times of it all being the
attorneys a little more you know, controlled, and then of
course you got folks literally charging into battle against you know,
an opponent that's out there to murder them.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Right, Yeah, And that's our question today. Did knights really
wear suits of armor? To get into this? We were
talking a little bit about sports off air. One interesting
(04:49):
thing about football is that there's very little protective gear soccer,
I mean football, yeah, with shint guards is the one
that I always remember from being youth.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Do they still wear shin guards? Is that part of
the kit?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I don't know. But there's a great show by our
pal Miles called Ain't It Footy which is examining examining
football when we're talking about armor. What's interesting, guys, is
that for most of early human history, humanity was wrestling
with this huge life threatening dilemma. They were the smartest
(05:27):
creatures they knew, and the humans evolved to specialize in
various things like running long distances persistence hunting, But all
that specialization comes with a price. Humans don't have a
protective shell like a turtle or an armadillo. They can't
regenerate limbs like some lizards or other creatures. Humans are
(05:49):
bestified as squishy.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Yeah, they are perishable creatures.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They are dainty, delicate little flowers. For sure. We don't
do well under.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So if you don't have a shell, if you don't
have a great powerful maw of sharp teeth, if you
can't regenerate limbs, you have to rely on your tool
making abilities to make up for all the stuff you lack.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Yeah, I mean, the human superpower or ultimate adaptive capability
would be the brain, the ability to reason, the ability
to think about thinking and figure this stuff out to
you know, improve their situation.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
One hundred percent, dude. And this is why we find
it no surprise that body armor is an ancient human invention.
The first records of something like body armor as opposed
to you know, regular clothing is found in ancient sue Mare,
in ancient Samaria, in today's Southern Rock. And then if
(06:52):
you fast forward to like fourteen hundred BCE, you see
the emergence of something like heavy plate armor, usually like
a chest plate, just the one kind of like how
you would see a bulletproof vest today.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, you know what, I'm always fascinated by her.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
When I think about like history of armor, I just
think about the kind of stuff that those kids wore
in the movie Hook, you know, like pecis of wood,
you know, various little tracks that they find lying around
leather under carriages, you know, I mean I think that
was sort of really the earliest form of ballistic protection
would be just real sturdy hide and the material.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Way more common than the armor that you see in films.
We know, of course, shout out to the Far East.
We know those folks had a deep history of armor
because again they realized factory setting human skin is pretty vulnerable.
That's why we invent in clothing right in each of
these cases. And I know you love this concept. We
(07:49):
see parallel thinking. It depends the armor they make, depends
on the material resources and the crafting techniques that their
arbors had at the time. So it's interesting, and shout
out to our research associate Jabari. It's interesting to think
that if we took a blacksmith from medieval Europe and
(08:13):
showed him armor from far Japan or from China, he
would be fascinated by the different materials. He'd be fascinated
by the manufacturing, but he would immediately know exactly what
he was looking at because he was making the same
stuff too. Well.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
I mean, this is the kind of parallel thinking that
doesn't isn't doesn't require too much of elite because, as
you said, man, humans are inherently squishy creatures, and it
is a very self serving and pretty intuitive idea to
what if we could protect ourselves from getting squished?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Exactly. Yeah, And our hypothetical Blacksmith here is, you know,
the odds are stacked in his favor because armor is
human shaped.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Oh, I mean, gosh. Another one, yes, percent. Another one
that comes to mind is there is a segment in
the incredibly delightful Cohen Brothers anthology film was It Buster Scruggs. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
where Stephen Root, the delightful character actor who plays like
a banker who's being robbed by I want to say,
(09:16):
James Franco just pre cancelation. He emerges from behind the
cash counter covered in pots and pans, you know, yeah,
And it's just like this stuff could have been improvised
so many ways, just by stuff that was laying around,
and it's just such a like human instinct to be like,
how do I kind of turtle up and protect myself?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And another thing that would astonish our hypothetical blacksmith would
be the sheer cost of this heavy fit. That's that's
where we get to the myth busting. And that's why
I think you're right about people mcguvery more often than
they manufactured. You know, like we all remember those films
(09:57):
where we all know how Hollywood loves to spotlight military
dress and huge battle scenes. You got kitted out nights.
They're charging toward the enemy on horses, They're waving their lances, screaming, treating, yeah, yeah,
hootin and such. That stuff definitely did happen, but it
(10:19):
was nowhere near as glamorous as the films imply for sure.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
And if you do get a chance, I know we
always are shouting out the met in New York City.
There's a wing of that massive place that is all
just like medieval armor, and you're gonna see a range
of stuff, including the much more elaborate, fearsome, looking for
lack of a better word, at the moment, ceremonial kind
of stuff. Oh, it would have maybe been designed to
(10:44):
be worn by a king, or to designate some higher
level figure who maybe wasn't necessarily going to be out
there swinging the sword, but needed to look the part.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, you know, it's weird too, because now you mentioned that.
One thing that always bugged me in the world of
rap and hip hop would be when more conservative folks
would criticize an album cover that shows, maybe shows a
guy with a bunch of chains, gold chains on his neck,
and he's holding a couple of guns and he's got
a pile of cash. That's exactly what those portraits were like.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, oh goshde only it was more like.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
A sword, some sword coal, perhaps maybe a giant roast
beast of some sort, and piled up coins and perhaps
a damsel of some variety.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
And of course, yeah, those suits are part of the
flex because and often.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
A very skinny looking wayfish dog. Yes, weird.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
For some reason, I always like to picture the great
masters of art back in the day saying, uh, well,
we can add one more thing in the corner. And
I'm actually pretty good at drawing this specific type of dog.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Oh yeah, exactly, the wayfish, little spind So this is
why it's such a flex. A full suit of armor
to get in your heads, ridiculous historians, the kind of
armor you're thinking about right now in the fourteen hundred CE,
this would have cost the equivalent of three million dollars
(12:15):
for one suit. What kind of materials are we talking about? Ben?
Is this made of like solid gold?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So much stuff? The problem was manufacturing these things took
so much time. You're essentially telling a team of very
highly skilled laborers this is the rest of your year.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So okay, well no, it's I mean, and I know
I've been nerding out on watches lately, as if you been.
At least we have been together.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
There are some companies that will produce like fifty watches
a year because it is all hand machined, designed in
house like and those are the ones that maybe retail
might be two hundred thousand dollars, but there's so few
of them that they become worth like five times that
on auction or in resale, same deal. It's a matter
of time, commitment, and how many of these things can
(13:08):
you pump out?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
These suits? And who are you working for?
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Like, it's one thing to make stuff for the troops,
for the infantry, but it's another thing to be working
on these much more elaborate, high end pieces that would
be for generals and top folks.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, especially when you think of the ornate filigrees and
all the details, which is the armor version of complications
and a fancy watch.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You got, you got different combinations of metals.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
You've got all these little touches that maybe absolutely are
gold or various precious metals mixed in with the more
durable stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah. I'm excited to get into this, Ben.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh yeah, yeah, well we know, like you were saying, no,
most soldiers in real life, and indeed a lot of
people who are technically knights, they had nothing near this stuff.
They did the best with what they had a lot
of times, like and pants would just like a little
chain mail.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Maybe a chess plate.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
If they knew the Celts. Yeah, maybe a chess plate
if they had a good lord who would supply them well.
During the early Middle Ages, a knight's armor was basically
what you described earlier. It was a padded garment. They
might have a simple metal helmet, they'd have a big
wooden shield, and if they were lucky, it'd be reinforced
(14:25):
with metal. Like you said, they did also use chain
mail because it let you move around still, and it
was way better at stopping cutting weapons. But it wouldn't
It wouldn't protect you against a blunt force object.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Like a mace.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
No, no, gosh, rip that guy in Lord of the
Seven Kingdoms Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Rather, no spoilers,
but boiled boy, a thing happens.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I love the point you made earlier about how we
moved to the High Middle Ages around the eleventh to
thirteenth centuries, and we see, just like the janissaries in
the Ottoman Empire. Stay tuned for that episode, these folks
who were the nightly class, they became more of a
(15:20):
political class, right. That's where we see the more sophisticated designs.
That's also where we see their horses getting kitted out too.
I feel so bad for those guys, But you've met horses.
They're skiddish.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
They do tend to spook, that's true, which will cause
them to kick.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
And do not want to be on the receiving end
of one of.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Those, even on a slow going farm. I'm worried when
I run into horses on friendly terms, just because they
seem very stressed out as very fast prey out.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Me and they bite.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, and they get a little attitude. Man.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
No, And I don't want to sound like I'm scared
of horses.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I think horses are gorgeous, majestic creatures, but they've got
some peculiarities.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, just like the humans. They evolved to specialize in
certain things, and their thing is being hyper aware and running.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Quickly run away.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes, yeah, like the I picture a horse dad talking
to his kid and giving him life advice, and it's like, well,
young horseboy, you're growing up. You're gonna be a horseman,
a stallion soon. So I'll tell you what your grandfather
told me. Always run away.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, And if you're in a horror movie, never run
up the stairs. No. So it's just bad move.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So these we're just exercising empathy here, folks, because these horses,
who are already skittish, are thrust in the heat of
battle while essentially wearing an exoskeleton definitely not their idea
of good day, and horse armor was a whole other expense.
So they're these lords and these well to do nights
(16:59):
are spending the equivalent of millions of dollars on two
separate pieces, two separate suits of armor, one for them,
one for the horse. It's it's weird because the chest
plate was always a thing. But it's not until like
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that we see nights in
(17:19):
full armor the way we would imagine them in the films.
And that's because it took a while for breakthroughs in metallurgy.
Why am I saying that wrong?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Metallurgy.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Metallurgy, Yeah, you got to hurry through it. Let's keep
that part it, let's do it. Yeah, metallurgy.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
It's rare things that need to speak, though I guess
in our profession it does.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Come up from time to time, right right.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Metallurgy is one of these words that if you look
at it, you can't say it right.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Oh, and say it enough times, it loses all semblance
of meaning or reason.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Semantic satiation.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah, nonsense basically like English.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I mean, most of English is nonsense.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Okay, So these this is the.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Time in history where the suits cover nearly every part
of the body. They're custom fitted to you. You have
to be rich to have one, or have a very
wealthy patron. A full suit of armor weighs between thirty
to fifty kilograms that's sixty six to one hundred and
ten pounds in freedom units.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Ben Can we talk stop it? Can we talk about
the codpiece? I think we're bearing the lead here.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah, all right, the codpiece, tell us about it?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Goal.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Well, Bennet's an armored or padded if you weren't lucky
enough covering for the male groin on late medieval Renaissance
armor and clothing.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
It was originally designed as.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Like a practical flap that would join the front part
of the under hose, which I guess is sort of
like a yeah, kind of a not a jerkin I'm
gonna get in trouble, you know, the sort of long
john under parts of the shit. Thank you, thank you,
remove thy shift. It protected, of course, the genitals, and
often it was a bit of a step up from
(18:59):
that and included a steel shaped plate on top of
the padding.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
By the late to mid fifteen hundreds, it became another
thing that would be exaggerated.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
It was fashional status. It was so embellius.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It's out like bustles went crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Witness ye, my cod piece.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
That's why there are so many, so many paintings from
back in the day of a guy that we knew
was taken seriously, but has a ridiculous fake dog basically
a bulge.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah yeah, it's like the spinal tap bit where he
goes through the airport security and it keeps going off,
and then finally he removes the cucumber wrapped in tinfoil
from his trousers.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Oh also shout out to all our European friends who
learned about ranch. I don't like ranch unless it's homemade.
But apparently the TSA has had to warn World Cup
visitors that you can't bring bottles of ranch on the plane.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well you can at they're travel sized.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
If they're travel sized, if you are at the point
of ranch addiction where you have to have a ranch flask,
basically you.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Gotta be got. I think you got to bring your own.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
I don't think they come like that in travel servings,
but they should.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Man, people love that's.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
A great idea.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Uh we we also know just travel sauces in general.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Ben you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Empty out those little Walgreens or Dwayne Reid shampoo bottles.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Because I told you how I learned my lesson the
hard way and had, like, you know, one hundred dollars
worth of nice hot sauces. Confiscated. That's right for being
in my carry on. We'll make that mistake again.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Travel Ranch did jump in here real quick. I am
actually pulling my friend Meredith, who's a weirdo. She brings
her own tortilla chips with her and stuff like that.
So I have asked her, are you a Ranch fan?
And the I'm going to ask her a follow up
of seeing if she brings Ranch on trail.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
You could broad in the question just to travel sauces travel.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Oh, I'm sorry, she brings travel cononment so amazing. We'll
ask you what kind of receptacles are best for these things?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, all right, thank you. As we're waiting for the update,
let's return to knights and shining armor. Uh. This full
plate armor reaches its peak. It's real era of fanciness
in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
The full suit is referred to as a panoply at times,
and it's a feature basically, Yeah, it's all the stuff
together and it's a feature at the very end of
the Middle Ages going into the Renaissance. It's also it's
popular image comes to us because of the ceremonies you
(21:44):
were describing earlier. There jousting. They would make special armor
just for jousting because these were wealthy people with a
lot of disposable income. And you know, like you were saying,
I think it's important that we acknowledge even the fans
see his stuff was made from a series of materials.
(22:04):
You had iron, you had leather, textiles, you had steel,
and the plate armor is made of steel because it's
very hard, but it's also flexible if you know how
to work with it. The only reason they had steel
plate armor is because some of the blacksmith boffins, the
metal aer just figured out how to quench and temper
(22:26):
these steel plates so they wouldn't be brittle, because if
you don't make it the right way, then that mace
that you could have been saved from is just going
to crack your plate.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And isn't tempering where you heat it.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Up and bang it and then cool it down and
then do that again and every time it kind of
makes it stronger.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Or am I making that up?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
No? I think you're right. Yeah, that's the quenching right
when you put it back in the water, and then.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
What a satisfying shit makes.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's how you know the climactic battle is coming up
in the third act of the film, right.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
I always think of it's not really a night movie.
I mean, I guess it's sort of a modern night story.
But the film Mandy starring Nicholas Cage, there's a really
badass scene where he forges his own incredibly sick like
axe sword combo thing. But it also is like absurd
the timeline of it, Like it just shows them like
he just busts it out like in a you know,
(23:22):
an hour or even like in real time, like takes
a half an hour. It would take a long time
to make these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
One hundred percent, and shout out to our pal, Nicholas Cage.
If you like superhero stuff and if you like investigative narratives,
do check out Spider Noir.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You're liking Spider Noir.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I'm liking it. I'm you're taking it man.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, I watched a bit of the first episode and
I liked it too. And I heard some complaints about
the black and white color combo thing not working for
some people, but it worked pretty well for me.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
You could switch back and forth kind of neat.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, yeah, pretty neat. Right, And we know that Knights
also had undergrus basically as you alluded to under the
metal armor. They're not naked, right, They don't just have
tidy whities or whatever the equivalent was. They have something
called a gambison made of quilted fabric. So it's kind
(24:13):
of like those oh what's the Japanese name for those
blanket outfits that we both love.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
You picturing it, but I don't I don't know the name.
Do you mean like you you mean like a kigaroomy?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yes, Yes, they're a roomy.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Yes, often shaped like a like a fun animal or
cartoon care.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah. So these guys had this kind of inner exoskeleton
kigaroomy thing, kind of like.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
The old Prospector's long John with the butt flap that
we often reference, like.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
The red wool logs. Yeah, this this was entirely to
absorb the shock of a blow and also, you know,
treat yourself, babe. This is going to stop you from
getting chafe marks from your metal armor.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Well sure, and it's also going to soak up the
sweat and all of that stuff. And it does play
a role in the codpiece situation we were talking about earlier,
where if you needed to go poopoo or peepee on
the battlefield, you had to have access, so you would
like remove that cod piece and then undo the flap
on your whatever the thing is, and then you would go. Oftentimes, though,
(25:18):
to go number two, you really did need like your
caddy to help you out, your.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Squire squire, you know what I meant.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, No, it's the same thing. It's the caddy. It's
the squire. Like you had to have a squire in
case you fell off your horse, because this would weigh
so much that you would need somebody to give you
a little upsy daisy so you could get back on
the horse.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Well, And understandably, the caddies were not wearing that same
level of mail and armor, so they would have been
like some little sitting ducks, little rodeo clowns out there.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
So you've got your regular underwear, You've got your gambison,
which is going to be stuffed with horse hair or
straw and ridden with your sweat, so, by the way,
you're gonna smell terrible. But you're not quite ready for
the plate yet. You have to wear something else over
your gambis, and it's a tight fitting garment called an
arming doublet or weirdly a poor point like pouring water point.
(26:17):
And this stuff is important because it has little loops
or little islets that let you lace in the armor.
So these guys got the armor sewn on that second
layer of fabric so that it wouldn't fall off in battle.
But sometimes it did.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Sometimes it did.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Sometimes you're like, oh no, my elbow is naked.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
And sometimes you had to poop yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And sometimes you did have to poop yourself.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
This was sometimes you had to poop yourself. I mean,
that's just true. That's just a life thing that just happens.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
And you know, this is way before the dawn of
diaper technology, which was stilling into infancy.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
So to circle back around a friend, Meredith, she is
a fan of but she would not bring a travel
sized ranch.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
With uh ranches available in the world. Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
She insists that she will always have a hot sauce
on her and her always be flying. She hasn't our
work bag at all times.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
All right, Yeah, like Beyonce or Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Like Beyonce or Hillary Clinton exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Especially when they have a new project coming.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Up, right, I'm really looking forward to that Beyonce, Hillary collab.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I am too. Yeah, I am too, especially, I mean
former Secretary of State Clinton is I'm sure to drop
a hot hook or nasty sixteen bars. Okay, So we've
got the armor, and we know that armor is continually
(27:47):
innovating for the people who can afford it these innovations.
This is an arms race. So these innovations also lead
to the decline of the shield for practical use. Like
you know, if we're out watching a jow Max and
Noel and yours, truly, we might see a knight who
has a shield right to bounce the lance off from
(28:07):
their opponent. But if you're in a battlefield in an
actual war, your plate armor is gonna do most of
what a shield would have done. So now a shield
is just an encumbrance. It's an albatross, it's another heavy
thing you have to carry.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Well, that's right, And it is one of those leveling
the playing field kind of arguments where it's like, you know,
if everyone's wearing this heavy crap, you're sort of like
equally hampered and you're all just kind of like working
in the same with the same drawbass.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yes, slowly, slowly clanking over. So I'm coming to get you.
I'm coming I'm damning for minutes. Okay, here I am.
I'm gonna come towards you too. Well, okay, well.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Before we before we get through it. Yeah wait, wait,
gave off. Let's everybody get a little bit of water.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Hold on, gotta poop, gotta gotta poop.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I'll be back. It's like twenty minutes.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
But then, you know, you start to think the real
innovation isn't how much can weed our guys down with
the stuff, is how can we train them to not
need it, you know what I mean, like and be
more nimble. And when we look at like Japanese armor,
that stuff is clever because it's.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Like shoulders, it's just on the critical parts.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
And like, you know, they were just badass fighters who
really knew how to engage in a way that maybe
they didn't necessarily. They weren't just blunt instruments a tank
as you would call it in a video game.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean also with the shields, if
we look at the regular guys, the non rich guys
who are fighting in these battles, we're looking at folks
who have stuff like long bows, right, or have pikes,
and those are both two handed weapons.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
So shields aha, don't work for them wilding. Yeah, no, sorry,
the opposite you need two hands for the big Halbard.
Dual wielding would be two weapons.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
And you know, there is technique for fighting that does
involve sword and shields, but that's its.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Own kind of very separate type of engagement, right yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, And these street level infantry type guys, they can't
rock shields at all unless there's literally a separate dude
standing next to them with a big shield and holding
it up in front of them. So yes, I mean
people did that, right, But plate armor then, in this
(30:21):
great tech race, it outpaces the shield and eventually armor
itself is outpaced. That's how we get to our question
towards the end here, why why don't we see people
in full plate armor today? Like why isn't your average
Johnny Law or Wells Fargo security guard. Why aren't they
(30:43):
clinking around?
Speaker 4 (30:45):
It's just it's about material science, really, you know, and
it's about things like kevlar, things like ballistic gelatine and
various types of low weight comparatively and high resistance you know,
to impact materials like the stuff that's in bulletproofests for example.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
And you know, this stuff continues to improve.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, like the I have a kevlar vest and I
also have a ceramic plating things. You buy the vest
and then you end up buying the plates separately.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That's right. I do hear them talk about that in
like swat type shows.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Yeah, it is still expensive and it ain't exactly light,
but it's not right, you know. But comparatively it is
a dream come true, comparatively to the big old plates
right right plates.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And so it's cool because I love this point we're
getting to, like, at the height of its popularity, that
full plate armor was symbolic on multiple levels. It represents
so many astonishing technological breakthroughs, and if we're being honest,
it represents a cartoonishly brutal and unfair class system. This
is what this I keep thinking of how you would
(32:01):
feel if you are a non noble soldier, right, and
you've got whatever kit you could mcguiver together. You're it's
like you were driving around in a nineties Honda Civic
and all of a sudden you hear a terrible horn,
a great cheer from over the hill, and you're gang
a little civics is getting run down by bloodthirsty hum vs,
(32:21):
or like you said tanks.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Right, like they're outmatched. So you know the question we
pose at the top.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
You know, did nights of your really wear these big,
massive suits of armor like you might see in a
fancy drawing room in a detective movie.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
The answer is yeah, but not the way myths might suggest.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
One hundred percent, because we have to remember that this
was a pretty limited window of time. As defensive measures
like armor improved, offensive technology improved as well, So now
we barely.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Do battlefield fighting at all anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, yeah, napolet warfare is thankfully gone. But despite all
the time, blood, research, and money poured into suits of
plate armor, this tech gets outpaced by a new kid
on the block. That's right, gunpowder. And I didn't know
this originally.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
I guess I should have should have gotten a gunpowder
before I dropped kevlar and bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
No, no, it's fine, man. We know that we know
that kevlar would have been more effective than played armor
for sure, but I didn't know this at the beginning
tool before we started researching this armor at the time
was actually good enough to block early musket balls, which
were themselves a crapshoot with terrible aaming sure, so you
(33:45):
could get you could get a little ping pong shot
to your chest and keep going because it would take
the guy firing at you so long to reload their firearm.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Well.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Yeah, we've also seen examples of, like, you know, as
a twist in the plot of some sort of a
murder mystery type show, a bullet being stopped.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
By a cigarette case, perhaps in the front pockets.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I always love that, you know, like there's that iconic
scene where somebody looks to be dead, but did they
pull out as you're saying that, and.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
It's like a bibyes, oh yes.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Or this case, weirdly enough, a lottery ticket.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Okay, we'll take We'll take all the luck we can get.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
This is super fun, man, And you know, I think
where I'm not like a gun person per se, but
I am fascinated by, uh these YouTube videos of people showing, uh,
what kind of materials can block what caliber of bullets
and stuff like that, And you do get into as
they escalate the materials into like stuff like ballistic gel
and all of these modern you know, gunpowder and bulletproof materials.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, like the spider silk experiments. That's pretty nuts.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I don't know, about that one.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
There's been work into making armor base off spider silk,
which is like we always see it in what you know,
a tiny a web of tiny strands, but it turns
out if you knit it together, which is very time consuming,
then it actually makes a pretty good material.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
For armor, almost like carbon fiber.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, I'd have to look into it because I don't
I don't know if it's cost effective yet, but we
do know, we do know. Plate armor became less cost
effective or even practical as firearms evolved, because look, the
reality is, uh, if you're wearing a bulletproof vest, even
now a modern one, and you get shot, you're still
(35:41):
going to have a screwed up day. It's gonna hurt,
you'll have nasty bruising, but the advantages will be alive.
The problem with plate armor is if these folks got
shot and the armor got mangled, you would injure the
guy even more or by trying to get it off them, like,
(36:02):
how are you gonna get his arm out of there? So,
as we said, that's the reason people aren't wearing plate
armor right now. Outside of coseplay and historical celebrations, body
armor is still around today. It's more expensive than we'd like,
but this is a great setup for a future episode
(36:22):
we have about another mythical fighter, the Bersoker.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Oh yes, yeah, remember that song from Clerks.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, that's a pretty pretty blue language. And so I'm
just gonna go with.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
I had big big thanks.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Were they hopped up on goofballs? Maybe?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Maybe big big. We're gonna find out big big thanks
to our super producer, mister Max Williams. I've been our
research associate for this big thanks to Jonathan Strickland aka
the Quister, who I miss a little bit, though I'm
never gonna tell him that.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Doesn't he doesn't he owe us an appearance oppressed to
digitation a summoning.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yes he does. He's also a fan of stage magic.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
That's true. Who isn't I love stage I'm not a
fan of it. Well I am.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
I love this stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know what to each to each their own indeed,
and jolly good time today. Ben enjoyed this one. Thanks
for the for the research, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:27):
fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. Let's hear it for our own Night in
Shining production Armor producer Max.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
It is Max Williams Day, I Love.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I Love James Williams, the.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Third junior Senior Did you get esquire? Sure? And a
doctor in there as well, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Vaughan something also, that's mister Noel Brown, the one and only.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
So Max, You're dubbed diploma mud and uh you've got
your PhD.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And they called me ben Bully tax purposes here, guys,
have you ever been to Medieval Times? Well?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I did once travel back in time.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
I woke up in it from a dream and I
found myself in in a in a in some sort
of dungeon.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
No, that's not true. I made that up.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
But I have not actually been to the restaurant, the
themed restaurant and attraction Medieval Times. The only experience I
have of it, frankly, is from the movie The Cable Guy.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Okay, yeah, my interaction is just knowing Jonathan Strickland renaissantly.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Okay, what wouldn't you agree? Though?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Ben if If we've been to a Renaissance festival, we've
more or less had the Medieval times experience, short of
the crappier food at medieval times, because we can all
argue that ren rent fair food pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, of course, those carneies know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Those carnies and those carnivores. All them turkey legs.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Oh man, I gotta say. I took some of the
friends of ours out for a group field trip to
the Renaissance Festival, and my girlfriend and I completely overestimated
the nostalgia factor. So we each got a turkey leg.
Those turkey legs are so big. Those are two people
turkey legs.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And it's weird some of them.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Maybe it's like on a per turkey leg basis, or
maybe this is a feature of every turkey leg.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
They got this real weird flap of like tend any
stuff in them.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Oh yeah, yeah, it kind of.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Pulls out like like a little like a feather, like.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, like a record. Yeah, there's got to be a
science name for that.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
There is, hopefully, you guys outside, we we do have
We've been thinking about this. We've been thinking about, uh,
the the iconic image of nights in Shining Armor because
as round tables, lances of lots, uh, there's no shortage
of fascinating painting work of works of literature and film
(03:02):
and TV now like Game.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Of Thrones, Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Is how
I know anything about the medieval time at all?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Frankly, yeah, 'tis but a scratch shout out to the
knights and knee. But no. You recall how these things
always depict these absolute warriors who were plated up like
little mech like mechs, dude, and they're they're doing all
sorts of crazy physical stunts and all kinds of punishing
(03:29):
weather and.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yirling around those flaily thingies, the morning Stars, the Evening Star,
morning Stars.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Morning Star, You nailed the line. And then they fight,
despite the fact that they're carrying hundreds of pounds of
armor on them. They fight for hours against anybody and
they You watch this and at some point right during
a battle scene, you have to say, wouldn't most modern
(03:55):
people collapse after just a short period of even running
or walking briskly?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Well, because unlike the mechs ben, these don't have any
exoskeletal robo attachments.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
This is a burden born by humans.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
And yes, you know, because you've got to think there
are different situations where this kind of armor might have
been employed. The medieval times of it all being the
attorneys a little more you know, controlled, and then of
course you got folks literally charging into battle against you know,
an opponent that's out there to murder them.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Right, Yeah, And that's our question today. Did knights really
wear suits of armor? To get into this? We were
talking a little bit about sports off air. One interesting
(04:49):
thing about football is that there's very little protective gear soccer,
I mean football, yeah, with shint guards is the one
that I always remember from being youth.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Do they still wear shin guards? Is that part of
the kit?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I don't know. But there's a great show by our
pal Miles called Ain't It Footy which is examining examining
football when we're talking about armor. What's interesting, guys, is
that for most of early human history, humanity was wrestling
with this huge life threatening dilemma. They were the smartest
(05:27):
creatures they knew, and the humans evolved to specialize in
various things like running long distances persistence hunting, But all
that specialization comes with a price. Humans don't have a
protective shell like a turtle or an armadillo. They can't
regenerate limbs like some lizards or other creatures. Humans are
(05:49):
bestified as squishy.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Yeah, they are perishable creatures.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They are dainty, delicate little flowers. For sure. We don't
do well under.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So if you don't have a shell, if you don't
have a great powerful maw of sharp teeth, if you
can't regenerate limbs, you have to rely on your tool
making abilities to make up for all the stuff you lack.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Yeah, I mean, the human superpower or ultimate adaptive capability
would be the brain, the ability to reason, the ability
to think about thinking and figure this stuff out to
you know, improve their situation.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
One hundred percent, dude. And this is why we find
it no surprise that body armor is an ancient human invention.
The first records of something like body armor as opposed
to you know, regular clothing is found in ancient sue Mare,
in ancient Samaria, in today's Southern Rock. And then if
(06:52):
you fast forward to like fourteen hundred BCE, you see
the emergence of something like heavy plate armor, usually like
a chest plate, just the one kind of like how
you would see a bulletproof vest today.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, you know what, I'm always fascinated by her.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
When I think about like history of armor, I just
think about the kind of stuff that those kids wore
in the movie Hook, you know, like pecis of wood,
you know, various little tracks that they find lying around
leather under carriages, you know, I mean I think that
was sort of really the earliest form of ballistic protection
would be just real sturdy hide and the material.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Way more common than the armor that you see in films.
We know, of course, shout out to the Far East.
We know those folks had a deep history of armor
because again they realized factory setting human skin is pretty vulnerable.
That's why we invent in clothing right in each of
these cases. And I know you love this concept. We
(07:49):
see parallel thinking. It depends the armor they make, depends
on the material resources and the crafting techniques that their
arbors had at the time. So it's interesting, and shout
out to our research associate Jabari. It's interesting to think
that if we took a blacksmith from medieval Europe and
(08:13):
showed him armor from far Japan or from China, he
would be fascinated by the different materials. He'd be fascinated
by the manufacturing, but he would immediately know exactly what
he was looking at because he was making the same
stuff too. Well.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
I mean, this is the kind of parallel thinking that
doesn't isn't doesn't require too much of elite because, as
you said, man, humans are inherently squishy creatures, and it
is a very self serving and pretty intuitive idea to
what if we could protect ourselves from getting squished?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Exactly. Yeah, And our hypothetical Blacksmith here is, you know,
the odds are stacked in his favor because armor is
human shaped.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Oh, I mean, gosh. Another one, yes, percent. Another one
that comes to mind is there is a segment in
the incredibly delightful Cohen Brothers anthology film was It Buster Scruggs. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
where Stephen Root, the delightful character actor who plays like
a banker who's being robbed by I want to say,
(09:16):
James Franco just pre cancelation. He emerges from behind the
cash counter covered in pots and pans, you know, yeah,
And it's just like this stuff could have been improvised
so many ways, just by stuff that was laying around,
and it's just such a like human instinct to be like,
how do I kind of turtle up and protect myself?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And another thing that would astonish our hypothetical blacksmith would
be the sheer cost of this heavy fit. That's that's
where we get to the myth busting. And that's why
I think you're right about people mcguvery more often than
they manufactured. You know, like we all remember those films
(09:57):
where we all know how Hollywood loves to spotlight military
dress and huge battle scenes. You got kitted out nights.
They're charging toward the enemy on horses, They're waving their lances, screaming, treating, yeah, yeah,
hootin and such. That stuff definitely did happen, but it
(10:19):
was nowhere near as glamorous as the films imply for sure.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
And if you do get a chance, I know we
always are shouting out the met in New York City.
There's a wing of that massive place that is all
just like medieval armor, and you're gonna see a range
of stuff, including the much more elaborate, fearsome, looking for
lack of a better word, at the moment, ceremonial kind
of stuff. Oh, it would have maybe been designed to
(10:44):
be worn by a king, or to designate some higher
level figure who maybe wasn't necessarily going to be out
there swinging the sword, but needed to look the part.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, you know, it's weird too, because now you mentioned that.
One thing that always bugged me in the world of
rap and hip hop would be when more conservative folks
would criticize an album cover that shows, maybe shows a
guy with a bunch of chains, gold chains on his neck,
and he's holding a couple of guns and he's got
a pile of cash. That's exactly what those portraits were like.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, oh goshde only it was more like.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
A sword, some sword coal, perhaps maybe a giant roast
beast of some sort, and piled up coins and perhaps
a damsel of some variety.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
And of course, yeah, those suits are part of the
flex because and often.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
A very skinny looking wayfish dog. Yes, weird.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
For some reason, I always like to picture the great
masters of art back in the day saying, uh, well,
we can add one more thing in the corner. And
I'm actually pretty good at drawing this specific type of dog.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Oh yeah, exactly, the wayfish, little spind So this is
why it's such a flex. A full suit of armor
to get in your heads, ridiculous historians, the kind of
armor you're thinking about right now in the fourteen hundred CE,
this would have cost the equivalent of three million dollars
(12:15):
for one suit. What kind of materials are we talking about? Ben?
Is this made of like solid gold?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So much stuff? The problem was manufacturing these things took
so much time. You're essentially telling a team of very
highly skilled laborers this is the rest of your year.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So okay, well no, it's I mean, and I know
I've been nerding out on watches lately, as if you been.
At least we have been together.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
There are some companies that will produce like fifty watches
a year because it is all hand machined, designed in
house like and those are the ones that maybe retail
might be two hundred thousand dollars, but there's so few
of them that they become worth like five times that
on auction or in resale, same deal. It's a matter
of time, commitment, and how many of these things can
(13:08):
you pump out?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
These suits? And who are you working for?
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Like, it's one thing to make stuff for the troops,
for the infantry, but it's another thing to be working
on these much more elaborate, high end pieces that would
be for generals and top folks.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, especially when you think of the ornate filigrees and
all the details, which is the armor version of complications
and a fancy watch.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You got, you got different combinations of metals.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
You've got all these little touches that maybe absolutely are
gold or various precious metals mixed in with the more
durable stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah. I'm excited to get into this, Ben.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh yeah, yeah, well we know, like you were saying, no,
most soldiers in real life, and indeed a lot of
people who are technically knights, they had nothing near this stuff.
They did the best with what they had a lot
of times, like and pants would just like a little
chain mail.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Maybe a chess plate.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
If they knew the Celts. Yeah, maybe a chess plate
if they had a good lord who would supply them well.
During the early Middle Ages, a knight's armor was basically
what you described earlier. It was a padded garment. They
might have a simple metal helmet, they'd have a big
wooden shield, and if they were lucky, it'd be reinforced
(14:25):
with metal. Like you said, they did also use chain
mail because it let you move around still, and it
was way better at stopping cutting weapons. But it wouldn't
It wouldn't protect you against a blunt force object.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Like a mace.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
No, no, gosh, rip that guy in Lord of the
Seven Kingdoms Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Rather, no spoilers,
but boiled boy, a thing happens.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I love the point you made earlier about how we
moved to the High Middle Ages around the eleventh to
thirteenth centuries, and we see, just like the janissaries in
the Ottoman Empire. Stay tuned for that episode, these folks
who were the nightly class, they became more of a
(15:20):
political class, right. That's where we see the more sophisticated designs.
That's also where we see their horses getting kitted out too.
I feel so bad for those guys, But you've met horses.
They're skiddish.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
They do tend to spook, that's true, which will cause
them to kick.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
And do not want to be on the receiving end
of one of.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Those, even on a slow going farm. I'm worried when
I run into horses on friendly terms, just because they
seem very stressed out as very fast prey out.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Me and they bite.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, and they get a little attitude. Man.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
No, And I don't want to sound like I'm scared
of horses.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I think horses are gorgeous, majestic creatures, but they've got
some peculiarities.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, just like the humans. They evolved to specialize in
certain things, and their thing is being hyper aware and running.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Quickly run away.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes, yeah, like the I picture a horse dad talking
to his kid and giving him life advice, and it's like, well,
young horseboy, you're growing up. You're gonna be a horseman,
a stallion soon. So I'll tell you what your grandfather
told me. Always run away.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, And if you're in a horror movie, never run
up the stairs. No. So it's just bad move.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So these we're just exercising empathy here, folks, because these horses,
who are already skittish, are thrust in the heat of
battle while essentially wearing an exoskeleton definitely not their idea
of good day, and horse armor was a whole other expense.
So they're these lords and these well to do nights
(16:59):
are spending the equivalent of millions of dollars on two
separate pieces, two separate suits of armor, one for them,
one for the horse. It's it's weird because the chest
plate was always a thing. But it's not until like
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that we see nights in
(17:19):
full armor the way we would imagine them in the films.
And that's because it took a while for breakthroughs in metallurgy.
Why am I saying that wrong?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Metallurgy.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Metallurgy, Yeah, you got to hurry through it. Let's keep
that part it, let's do it. Yeah, metallurgy.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
It's rare things that need to speak, though I guess
in our profession it does.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Come up from time to time, right right.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Metallurgy is one of these words that if you look
at it, you can't say it right.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Oh, and say it enough times, it loses all semblance
of meaning or reason.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Semantic satiation.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah, nonsense basically like English.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I mean, most of English is nonsense.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Okay, So these this is the.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Time in history where the suits cover nearly every part
of the body. They're custom fitted to you. You have
to be rich to have one, or have a very
wealthy patron. A full suit of armor weighs between thirty
to fifty kilograms that's sixty six to one hundred and
ten pounds in freedom units.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Ben Can we talk stop it? Can we talk about
the codpiece? I think we're bearing the lead here.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah, all right, the codpiece, tell us about it?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Goal.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Well, Bennet's an armored or padded if you weren't lucky
enough covering for the male groin on late medieval Renaissance
armor and clothing.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
It was originally designed as.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Like a practical flap that would join the front part
of the under hose, which I guess is sort of
like a yeah, kind of a not a jerkin I'm
gonna get in trouble, you know, the sort of long
john under parts of the shit. Thank you, thank you,
remove thy shift. It protected, of course, the genitals, and
often it was a bit of a step up from
(18:59):
that and included a steel shaped plate on top of
the padding.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
By the late to mid fifteen hundreds, it became another
thing that would be exaggerated.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
It was fashional status. It was so embellius.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It's out like bustles went crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Witness ye, my cod piece.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
That's why there are so many, so many paintings from
back in the day of a guy that we knew
was taken seriously, but has a ridiculous fake dog basically
a bulge.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah yeah, it's like the spinal tap bit where he
goes through the airport security and it keeps going off,
and then finally he removes the cucumber wrapped in tinfoil
from his trousers.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Oh also shout out to all our European friends who
learned about ranch. I don't like ranch unless it's homemade.
But apparently the TSA has had to warn World Cup
visitors that you can't bring bottles of ranch on the plane.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well you can at they're travel sized.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
If they're travel sized, if you are at the point
of ranch addiction where you have to have a ranch flask,
basically you.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Gotta be got. I think you got to bring your own.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
I don't think they come like that in travel servings,
but they should.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Man, people love that's.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
A great idea.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Uh we we also know just travel sauces in general.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Ben you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Empty out those little Walgreens or Dwayne Reid shampoo bottles.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Because I told you how I learned my lesson the
hard way and had, like, you know, one hundred dollars
worth of nice hot sauces. Confiscated. That's right for being
in my carry on. We'll make that mistake again.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Travel Ranch did jump in here real quick. I am
actually pulling my friend Meredith, who's a weirdo. She brings
her own tortilla chips with her and stuff like that.
So I have asked her, are you a Ranch fan?
And the I'm going to ask her a follow up
of seeing if she brings Ranch on trail.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
You could broad in the question just to travel sauces travel.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Oh, I'm sorry, she brings travel cononment so amazing. We'll
ask you what kind of receptacles are best for these things?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, all right, thank you. As we're waiting for the update,
let's return to knights and shining armor. Uh. This full
plate armor reaches its peak. It's real era of fanciness
in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
The full suit is referred to as a panoply at times,
and it's a feature basically, Yeah, it's all the stuff
together and it's a feature at the very end of
the Middle Ages going into the Renaissance. It's also it's
popular image comes to us because of the ceremonies you
(21:44):
were describing earlier. There jousting. They would make special armor
just for jousting because these were wealthy people with a
lot of disposable income. And you know, like you were saying,
I think it's important that we acknowledge even the fans
see his stuff was made from a series of materials.
(22:04):
You had iron, you had leather, textiles, you had steel,
and the plate armor is made of steel because it's
very hard, but it's also flexible if you know how
to work with it. The only reason they had steel
plate armor is because some of the blacksmith boffins, the
metal aer just figured out how to quench and temper
(22:26):
these steel plates so they wouldn't be brittle, because if
you don't make it the right way, then that mace
that you could have been saved from is just going
to crack your plate.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And isn't tempering where you heat it.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Up and bang it and then cool it down and
then do that again and every time it kind of
makes it stronger.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Or am I making that up?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
No? I think you're right. Yeah, that's the quenching right
when you put it back in the water, and then.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
What a satisfying shit makes.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's how you know the climactic battle is coming up
in the third act of the film, right.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
I always think of it's not really a night movie.
I mean, I guess it's sort of a modern night story.
But the film Mandy starring Nicholas Cage, there's a really
badass scene where he forges his own incredibly sick like
axe sword combo thing. But it also is like absurd
the timeline of it, Like it just shows them like
he just busts it out like in a you know,
(23:22):
an hour or even like in real time, like takes
a half an hour. It would take a long time
to make these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
One hundred percent, and shout out to our pal, Nicholas Cage.
If you like superhero stuff and if you like investigative narratives,
do check out Spider Noir.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You're liking Spider Noir.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I'm liking it. I'm you're taking it man.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, I watched a bit of the first episode and
I liked it too. And I heard some complaints about
the black and white color combo thing not working for
some people, but it worked pretty well for me.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
You could switch back and forth kind of neat.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, yeah, pretty neat. Right, And we know that Knights
also had undergrus basically as you alluded to under the
metal armor. They're not naked, right, They don't just have
tidy whities or whatever the equivalent was. They have something
called a gambison made of quilted fabric. So it's kind
(24:13):
of like those oh what's the Japanese name for those
blanket outfits that we both love.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
You picturing it, but I don't I don't know the name.
Do you mean like you you mean like a kigaroomy?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yes, Yes, they're a roomy.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Yes, often shaped like a like a fun animal or
cartoon care.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah. So these guys had this kind of inner exoskeleton
kigaroomy thing, kind of like.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
The old Prospector's long John with the butt flap that
we often reference, like.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
The red wool logs. Yeah, this this was entirely to
absorb the shock of a blow and also, you know,
treat yourself, babe. This is going to stop you from
getting chafe marks from your metal armor.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Well sure, and it's also going to soak up the
sweat and all of that stuff. And it does play
a role in the codpiece situation we were talking about earlier,
where if you needed to go poopoo or peepee on
the battlefield, you had to have access, so you would
like remove that cod piece and then undo the flap
on your whatever the thing is, and then you would go. Oftentimes, though,
(25:18):
to go number two, you really did need like your
caddy to help you out, your.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Squire squire, you know what I meant.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, No, it's the same thing. It's the caddy. It's
the squire. Like you had to have a squire in
case you fell off your horse, because this would weigh
so much that you would need somebody to give you
a little upsy daisy so you could get back on
the horse.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Well, And understandably, the caddies were not wearing that same
level of mail and armor, so they would have been
like some little sitting ducks, little rodeo clowns out there.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
So you've got your regular underwear, You've got your gambison,
which is going to be stuffed with horse hair or
straw and ridden with your sweat, so, by the way,
you're gonna smell terrible. But you're not quite ready for
the plate yet. You have to wear something else over
your gambis, and it's a tight fitting garment called an
arming doublet or weirdly a poor point like pouring water point.
(26:17):
And this stuff is important because it has little loops
or little islets that let you lace in the armor.
So these guys got the armor sewn on that second
layer of fabric so that it wouldn't fall off in battle.
But sometimes it did.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Sometimes it did.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Sometimes you're like, oh no, my elbow is naked.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
And sometimes you had to poop yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And sometimes you did have to poop yourself.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
This was sometimes you had to poop yourself. I mean,
that's just true. That's just a life thing that just happens.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
And you know, this is way before the dawn of
diaper technology, which was stilling into infancy.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
So to circle back around a friend, Meredith, she is
a fan of but she would not bring a travel
sized ranch.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
With uh ranches available in the world. Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
She insists that she will always have a hot sauce
on her and her always be flying. She hasn't our
work bag at all times.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
All right, Yeah, like Beyonce or Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Like Beyonce or Hillary Clinton exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Especially when they have a new project coming.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Up, right, I'm really looking forward to that Beyonce, Hillary collab.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I am too. Yeah, I am too, especially, I mean
former Secretary of State Clinton is I'm sure to drop
a hot hook or nasty sixteen bars. Okay, So we've
got the armor, and we know that armor is continually
(27:47):
innovating for the people who can afford it these innovations.
This is an arms race. So these innovations also lead
to the decline of the shield for practical use. Like
you know, if we're out watching a jow Max and
Noel and yours, truly, we might see a knight who
has a shield right to bounce the lance off from
(28:07):
their opponent. But if you're in a battlefield in an
actual war, your plate armor is gonna do most of
what a shield would have done. So now a shield
is just an encumbrance. It's an albatross, it's another heavy
thing you have to carry.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Well, that's right, And it is one of those leveling
the playing field kind of arguments where it's like, you know,
if everyone's wearing this heavy crap, you're sort of like
equally hampered and you're all just kind of like working
in the same with the same drawbass.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yes, slowly, slowly clanking over. So I'm coming to get you.
I'm coming I'm damning for minutes. Okay, here I am.
I'm gonna come towards you too. Well, okay, well.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Before we before we get through it. Yeah wait, wait,
gave off. Let's everybody get a little bit of water.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Hold on, gotta poop, gotta gotta poop.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I'll be back. It's like twenty minutes.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
But then, you know, you start to think the real
innovation isn't how much can weed our guys down with
the stuff, is how can we train them to not
need it, you know what I mean, like and be
more nimble. And when we look at like Japanese armor,
that stuff is clever because it's.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Like shoulders, it's just on the critical parts.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
And like, you know, they were just badass fighters who
really knew how to engage in a way that maybe
they didn't necessarily. They weren't just blunt instruments a tank
as you would call it in a video game.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean also with the shields, if
we look at the regular guys, the non rich guys
who are fighting in these battles, we're looking at folks
who have stuff like long bows, right, or have pikes,
and those are both two handed weapons.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
So shields aha, don't work for them wilding. Yeah, no, sorry,
the opposite you need two hands for the big Halbard.
Dual wielding would be two weapons.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
And you know, there is technique for fighting that does
involve sword and shields, but that's its.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Own kind of very separate type of engagement, right yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, And these street level infantry type guys, they can't
rock shields at all unless there's literally a separate dude
standing next to them with a big shield and holding
it up in front of them. So yes, I mean
people did that, right, But plate armor then, in this
(30:21):
great tech race, it outpaces the shield and eventually armor
itself is outpaced. That's how we get to our question
towards the end here, why why don't we see people
in full plate armor today? Like why isn't your average
Johnny Law or Wells Fargo security guard. Why aren't they
(30:43):
clinking around?
Speaker 4 (30:45):
It's just it's about material science, really, you know, and
it's about things like kevlar, things like ballistic gelatine and
various types of low weight comparatively and high resistance you know,
to impact materials like the stuff that's in bulletproofests for example.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
And you know, this stuff continues to improve.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, like the I have a kevlar vest and I
also have a ceramic plating things. You buy the vest
and then you end up buying the plates separately.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That's right. I do hear them talk about that in
like swat type shows.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Yeah, it is still expensive and it ain't exactly light,
but it's not right, you know. But comparatively it is
a dream come true, comparatively to the big old plates
right right plates.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And so it's cool because I love this point we're
getting to, like, at the height of its popularity, that
full plate armor was symbolic on multiple levels. It represents
so many astonishing technological breakthroughs, and if we're being honest,
it represents a cartoonishly brutal and unfair class system. This
is what this I keep thinking of how you would
(32:01):
feel if you are a non noble soldier, right, and
you've got whatever kit you could mcguiver together. You're it's
like you were driving around in a nineties Honda Civic
and all of a sudden you hear a terrible horn,
a great cheer from over the hill, and you're gang
a little civics is getting run down by bloodthirsty hum vs,
(32:21):
or like you said tanks.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Right, like they're outmatched. So you know the question we
pose at the top.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
You know, did nights of your really wear these big,
massive suits of armor like you might see in a
fancy drawing room in a detective movie.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
The answer is yeah, but not the way myths might suggest.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
One hundred percent, because we have to remember that this
was a pretty limited window of time. As defensive measures
like armor improved, offensive technology improved as well, So now
we barely.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Do battlefield fighting at all anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, yeah, napolet warfare is thankfully gone. But despite all
the time, blood, research, and money poured into suits of
plate armor, this tech gets outpaced by a new kid
on the block. That's right, gunpowder. And I didn't know
this originally.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
I guess I should have should have gotten a gunpowder
before I dropped kevlar and bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
No, no, it's fine, man. We know that we know
that kevlar would have been more effective than played armor
for sure, but I didn't know this at the beginning
tool before we started researching this armor at the time
was actually good enough to block early musket balls, which
were themselves a crapshoot with terrible aaming sure, so you
(33:45):
could get you could get a little ping pong shot
to your chest and keep going because it would take
the guy firing at you so long to reload their firearm.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Well.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Yeah, we've also seen examples of, like, you know, as
a twist in the plot of some sort of a
murder mystery type show, a bullet being stopped.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
By a cigarette case, perhaps in the front pockets.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I always love that, you know, like there's that iconic
scene where somebody looks to be dead, but did they
pull out as you're saying that, and.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
It's like a bibyes, oh yes.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Or this case, weirdly enough, a lottery ticket.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Okay, we'll take We'll take all the luck we can get.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
This is super fun, man, And you know, I think
where I'm not like a gun person per se, but
I am fascinated by, uh these YouTube videos of people showing, uh,
what kind of materials can block what caliber of bullets
and stuff like that, And you do get into as
they escalate the materials into like stuff like ballistic gel
and all of these modern you know, gunpowder and bulletproof materials.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, like the spider silk experiments. That's pretty nuts.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I don't know, about that one.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
There's been work into making armor base off spider silk,
which is like we always see it in what you know,
a tiny a web of tiny strands, but it turns
out if you knit it together, which is very time consuming,
then it actually makes a pretty good material.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
For armor, almost like carbon fiber.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, I'd have to look into it because I don't
I don't know if it's cost effective yet, but we
do know, we do know. Plate armor became less cost
effective or even practical as firearms evolved, because look, the
reality is, uh, if you're wearing a bulletproof vest, even
now a modern one, and you get shot, you're still
(35:41):
going to have a screwed up day. It's gonna hurt,
you'll have nasty bruising, but the advantages will be alive.
The problem with plate armor is if these folks got
shot and the armor got mangled, you would injure the
guy even more or by trying to get it off them, like,
(36:02):
how are you gonna get his arm out of there? So,
as we said, that's the reason people aren't wearing plate
armor right now. Outside of coseplay and historical celebrations, body
armor is still around today. It's more expensive than we'd like,
but this is a great setup for a future episode
(36:22):
we have about another mythical fighter, the Bersoker.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Oh yes, yeah, remember that song from Clerks.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, that's a pretty pretty blue language. And so I'm
just gonna go with.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
I had big big thanks.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Were they hopped up on goofballs? Maybe?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Maybe big big. We're gonna find out big big thanks
to our super producer, mister Max Williams. I've been our
research associate for this big thanks to Jonathan Strickland aka
the Quister, who I miss a little bit, though I'm
never gonna tell him that.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Doesn't he doesn't he owe us an appearance oppressed to
digitation a summoning.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yes he does. He's also a fan of stage magic.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
That's true. Who isn't I love stage I'm not a
fan of it. Well I am.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
I love this stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know what to each to each their own indeed,
and jolly good time today. Ben enjoyed this one. Thanks
for the for the research, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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