Lafayette;

Rather interesting website, though I have some questions about their scholarship... Still a worthy study, though, and well worth digging through.

A few years ago when I first got my present half-draft (1/2 Quarterhorse, 1/4 Belgian, 1/4 Percheron), I had him in a pasture with some other horses and a new horse was put out there too. I went out to get my horse, and couldn't tell the difference at any distance between mine and the new one. Finally, the difference in main and tail length and fullness told, since my boy wasn't quite as much of a "dandy". Gradually it became obvious who was who, as mine had a much finer face, but shorter tail and mane. I actually thought about trying to get this new fellow, since he was such a nice match for mine, until I discovered that this new horse was a Spanish-Norman, which the owners were asking $60,000 for. :eek: I paid a small fraction of that for mine, and he was, as far as anyone could tell, better trained and far more manageable. Quite a difference in price for two otherwise almost identical geldings. :confused:

Anyway, just an anecdote on how "breed" can be sort of arbitrary. In the Midaeval and Renaissance periods, they bred for charactaristics, and there weren't "breeds" per se, so it's hard to actually track down what the bloodlines may have been, and/or remain to this day.

Cheers!

Gordon

Hello all!

Gordon Frye wrote:

I have seen other claims that the barding was often heavier than the man's harness, but I can't find those references at the moment.

Gordon,
I hope you don't mind if I jump in with a few numbers I dug out of my library. Here are some weights for horse armour:

-Landshut, c. 1480 66 lb. 5 1/2 oz.
-Probably Flemish, c. 1514-19 69 lb. 3 oz.

(From the "Appendix" in Claude Blair's European Armour Circa 1066 to Circa 1700)

There is a thread about armour weights where I posted the list (minus the horse armour) from Blair. Here's the link:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...ht=weights

Note that the body armour for the man ranges from a German field armour of 41 lb 13 1/2 oz, to an armour for the joust weighing 90 lb. 1 1/2 oz. There has been some discussion that Blair's numbers might be off, but they probably give you a rough idea.

According to Brassey's Book of Body Armor by Robert Woosman-Savage and Anthony Hall, 15th century plate horse armour was around 60-70lbs (26-32 kg), roughly the same as the weight of the man's armour.

I hope these numbers were useful!

Stay safe!

Hello again!

As I was perusing certain books in my library, I happened across an interesting viewpoint regarding the size of medieval and Renaissance warhorses from Christopher Gravett. In two of his Osprey books, he points out that surviving horse armour from the period would not fit a large draft horse.

Here's what he said in English Medieval Knight 1400-1500:

Christopher Gravett wrote:

Destriers were extremely valuable; some, indeed, were used only in tournaments. Their cost indicates that they were specially bred for stamina, with deep bodies for good lungs, and thick, powerful necks. However, they were not slow, and could turn nimbly enough; nor were they the size of carthorses, as is popularly imagined. Surviving 15th-century armour would never fit a carthorse, and shows that such animals were about the size of a heavy hunter. They were always stallions, and there is some evidence that their natural aggression was utilised by training them to bite and kick opponents. In battle many rode a courser, an expensive warhorse but of slightly poorer quality than a destrier. In addition a good palfrey with a comfortable gait was required as a travelling mount. A knight might afford several riding and warhorses. As well as these there were servicible horses for the varlets, probably rouncys or "ronsons". The hackney, or "hack", was a cheaper mount for other servants or soldiers. The knight also had to provide pack animals, either sumpters, mules or draught animals for supply wagons.

And again, this time from Tudor Knight. This is from the caption of the photo of the armour for man and horse of Henry VIII in the Royal Armouries:

Christopher Gravett wrote:

The horse's bard was probably made in Flanders and was fringed in crimson and gold. Note the size of horse this would have fitted: not a shire but little more than a hunter.

I think it's logical to assume that the horse armour can give us a good idea of the size of the horse used by the 15th and 16th century knight. If it wouldn't fit a carthorse, then a carthorse did not wear that armour.

I hope this helped!

Stay safe!

Hello again!

Here's a link showing Henry VIII's armour for man and horse, as seen in the Opsrey book Tudor Knight (among other works):

http://tudorhistory.org/henry8/h8armour.jpg

Note the size of Henry's armour compared to the size of the horse armour. Henry was a big man, but the horse was no carthorse!

Richard;

Thanks for posting those numbers. They mesh pretty well with what ffoulkes had.

Cheers!

Gordon

Hello all!

Check out this armour for man and horse posted on this thread (thanks again, Manouchehr!):

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...p;start=22

This seems to further support Christopher Gravett's argument for warhorses of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance being the size of a heavy hunter.
You must have had a horse that fit in the armour; common sense says that you would not have armour smaller than the horse it was designed to fit!

Hello all!

The Metropolitan Museum of Art had some information about armour for man and horse on its site about its exhibition "The Armoured Horse in Europe, 1480-1620". Here's the information, incuding weight:

Metropolitan Museum of Art wrote:

Armor for Man and Horse, dated 1548 Kunz Lochner (German, ca. 1510–1567) German (Nuremberg) Etched steel, leather; Wt. of man's armor 56 lb. (25.4 kg); Wt. of horse's armor 92 lb. (41.7 kg) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Man's armor: Bashford Dean Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. Bashford Dean, 1929 (29.151.2); horse armor: Rogers Fund, 1932 (32.69)

Here's a link to the page, which includes a nice photo of the armour described:

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Armored_Horse_in_Europe/1.L.htm

This is one case where the armour for the horse was indeed heavier than that for the man.

Stay safe!

Thanks Richard.

I had looked for armour weights and rough calculated in the neighborhood of 75 lbs (less than that in light gage steel, but some additional weight for the leather underneath.) Given mean weight and height of male warriors (archeologists state a fairly constant figure of about 5' 8", 175 pounds, actually better bone density and thicker legs in some periods for warriors than for modern men), something like 60 lbs for average armour, 40 lbs for tack, etc. I would say the Destrier would be carrying a little less than 400 lbs. This would be a pretty good match for a 1300 to 1400 lb horse which is heavier than most thoroughbreds or quarterhorses, but about right for a draft cross breed.