Armour of the English knight: continental armour in England 1435-1500

Abstract

In this final part of Tobias Capwell's Armour of the English Knight trilogy, we debunk the persistent notion that only kings and very wealthy nobles could afford complete armour. Most of the visual and textual evidence suggests that foreign importers of armour focused primarily on the provision of cheap and mid-range equipment. As seen in the previous two books of the series, England?s own craftsmen were capable of fulfilling the requirements of the aristocracy, but they were probably never numerous enough to achieve the high-volume, low-cost output necessary to supply the ?off-the-rack? market. Therefore, the foreign (and primarily Italian) harness discussed in the pages of this third volume must have greatly outnumbered the distinctive armours of the domestic English style, thus playing a vital role in the story of armour in England. Vol. 1 - 1400-1450, ISBN 9780993324604 (2015); Vol. 2 - 1450-1500, ISBN 9780993324635 (2021)