THE ELEMENTS OF ARMOR

The word for knight in most European languages—French chevalier, Spanish caballero, Italian cavaliere, or German Ritter—refers to horses and horsemanship, reflecting the fact that a knight was a warrior on horseback. As a warrior, he had to be trained and equipped with the best military gear. Properly speaking, his suit of armor was called simply "an armor" or "harness." The expression "to die in harness" refers not to a horse but a knight who has died in battle.

The changing forms of armor directly reflect the changes made in military armament and tactics. So long as the knights fought hand to hand, they relied chiefly on shields and mail. The introduction of the longbow, the crossbow, and the earliest firearms led to the fully armored knight. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the increasing use and improved accuracy of firearms required a thicker armor. Because the added weight made a full harness too heavy to manage, the knights began to discard their armor piece by piece.