Tales of Adventure

All weights listed for armor are considered to the weight of a complete suit of the armor, sized for an average sized human.

Some pieces of armor are known by multiple names, those additional names are included behind the common name and enclosed in parenthesis.

Armor Reference:

Complete Suits of Armor

Banded Mail: A layered armor with padding, light chain, and series of overlapping bands of armor in vulnerable areas. The weight of the armor is fairly evenly distributed. Weight is approximately 35 lbs.
Brigandine Armor: This type of armor is made from small metal plates sewn or riveted to a layer of canvas or leather and protected by an outer layer of cloth. It is rather stiff and does not provide adequate protection to the joints where the must be spaced widely or left off. Weight is approximately 35 lbs.
Chain Mail: This armor is padding plus interlocking mesh armor of steel rings covering the upper and lower body. Vulnerable areas have multiple thicknesses. Weight of chain mail armor falls upon the shoulders and waist of the wearer. Weight is approximately 30 lbs.
Hide Armor: This is armor prepared from the extremely thich hide of a creature (such as an elephant) or from multiple layers of regular leather. It is stiff and hard to move in. Weight is approximately 30 lbs.
Leather Armor (Corium): This armor is shaped and formed Cuir Bouli (leather hardened by immersion in boiling oil) cuirass and shoulder pieces and softer shirt and leggings. Weight is approximately 15 lbs.
Padded Armor: This armor is heavily padded, with a quilted coat and an additional soft leather jerkin and leggings. Weight is approximately 10 lbs.
Plate Mail: Plate mail armor is light chain with pieces of plate - cuirass, shoulder pieces, elbow guards, knee guards, and greaves. Weight is well distributed. Weight is approximately 85 lbs.
Ring Mail: Ring mail is relatively soft leather armor over padding. To the long coat of leather are sewn metal rings. This practive makes the coat rather heavy amd bulky. Weight is approximately 25 lbs.
Scale Mail: Scale mail is similar to ring mail, but overlapping scales of metal are sewn to both coat and leggings - or a skirted coat is worn. As with chain mail the weight of the armor falls mostly upon the waist and shoulders of the wearer. Weight is approximately 40 lbs.
Splint Mail: Splint mail consists of light chain, greaves, and a leather coat into which are laminated vertical pieces of of plate with shoulder guards. Weight is approximately 40 lbs.
Studded Leather: Studded leather is leather armor to which have been fastened metal studding as additional protection, usually including an outer coat of fairly close-set studs (small plates). Weight is approximately 20 lbs.

Individual Pieces of Body Armor

Apaume: Hand or gauntlet, open and showing the palm.
Arming Doublet: Worn under the armor.
Arming Hose: Long hose worn under leg armor.
Arming Points: Small thongs of leather for tying the camail to the bascinet or the roundels to the armpit.
Backplate: Armour for the back. See the particular kinds of breastplate, brigandines, cuirasses and coats of plates for a more detailed description.
Bishop's Mantle: A cape of mail.
Botton: A button or buckle for fastening the gorget to the breast piece.
Bouchette: Buckle fastening the lower part of the breastplate to the upper one.
Breastplate: Originally evolving out of the cote of plates as the size on each individual plate increased and the front plate was increasingly globular. This globular design provided an effective glancing surface that deflected both hand and missile weapon. A "stop rib" is often added to the area just below the neck to keep lances and sword points from skipping up into the throat. The edge around the neck and arm openings is rolled outward, sometimes over a wire, to guard against chafing and to help deflect a weapon from these vulnerable areas.
Brichette: Armor for loins and hips.
Broigne: A shirt of mail.
Byrnie: A mail shirt, the precursor of the hauberk. It was often covered with small metal plates.
Cargan: A collar or gorget or mail.
Chausses: Breeches of mail or other pliant armor for the thighs, lower legs and feet.
Codpiece: A protective cup fitted at the crotch of leg armor.
Cote Armour (or jupon): A quilted garment worn over a breastplate or cote of plates or as the sole body defense. Such armours are popular in Charynth since they require little technical skill to manufacture, are light and easy to transport. Popular amongst men-at-arms and archers-they were often worn with the chapel de fer for the defense of the head.
Cote of Arms: A word that seems to have been interchangeable meaning a cote armour blazoned with a device or a surcoat bearing the heraldic charge of a man's affiliation. Because it was the most visible expression of a knight's arms, the word has come to mean the heraldic device itself rather than the cote upon which it was sewn, painted, or embroidered.
Cote of Plates (or Pair of Plates, Plates): A cloth or leather covered armour for the body with several large plates riveted underneath for the defense of the body. The most famous examples were unearthed at the Battle of Wisby site, dating from the mid-14th century. For the first half of the century they were made of flat plates, but gradually the breastplate was dished to conform to the shape of the body and the waist was drawn in for the characteristic "wasp-waisted" element of transitional style.
Coude (Coute, or Coudiere): Elbow pieces of plate.
Couter: The defense for the elbow, these were generally reasonably shallow, starting off rounded and progressing towards a more conical but still rounded shape as time progressed. Later a "wing" was added to the couter to improve the protection for the joint itself, first affixed with laces, then with rivets, and finally, mid-century, was made integral to the couter itself.
Cuirass: The plate defense for the body. Consisting of a breast and backplate, hoops of steel to defend the hips known as faulds, and tassets.
Cuirie: The leather armor (Corium) equivalent of the cuirass.
Cuirboille, courboille: A material used for armour to add rigidity. It was made, by all accounts, by boiling or painting a heavy leather with beeswax, probably enhanced with other ingredients. Quite common for squires and men-at-arms to wear while practicing, then sliding a metal harness over the cuirboille when it comes time for war. Especially popular in the Rogue's Quarter of Ebonloch, and the city of Cape Pieron.
Cuissards: Leg armor, comprising cuisses and knee cops and jambs.
Cuisses: Defenses for the thighs. Cuisses are either leather, splinted leather, cuirboille, quilted cloth, or primative plate. These defenses are often elaborately carved and studded, and often painted as well. Arming points are provided at the top for the cuisse so that the cuisse can be laced to the arming hose or gambeson. It is becoming common practice to include a wrap plate as part of the cuisse to defend the back of the thigh, especially as foot combat for knights became more common.
Epaulieres: Pieces of armor covering shoulders.
Gambeson: A close-fitting, quilted tunic of defence, stuffed with wool, tow, rags, etc. Later called the gipon.
Gadlings: Spikes, or knobs, on the knuckles of gauntlets.
Gauntlet: Gloves of a knight in plate armor, lined with leather.
Genuillieres: Knee-guards. First made of cuirbouilli, afterwards of steel.
Gorget: A steel collar, used in fifteenth-century armor.
Greaves (Jambs, or Demi-jambes): Plate armor to protect the shins.
Gusset: Pieces of chain mail, tied with points to the "haustement" to cover those portions of the body not protected with plate armor; they were usually eight in number, i.e., for armpits, inner sides of elbows, knees and insteps.
Guyders: Straps to fasten the various pieces that went to make up the suit of plate armor.
Habergeon: A short, light hauberk, of which the word is a diminutive; usually therefore of mail, but sometimes merely a plate for the defence of the throat and breast.
Haketon: A variety of gambeson, said to have been of buckskin stuffed with cotton.
Harness: Armor. General term for a suit of armor that completely protected the body, including the limbs.
Hauberk: A tunic of iron rings interlinked.
Jack: A general term for a coat of defence, whether wadded or of mail; but also especially used for the inexpensive body-garment of the ordinary soldier, formed of small pieces of metal secured between two folds of leather, canvas, or some quilted stuff.
Jambes (Jambarts): Shin and calf plates.
Jazerine: Light armor or small plates, or splints, of metal, riveted together or to some strong material.
Mentonieres: Plate armor protecting the throat and chin, attached to the breastplate.
Pallets: Plates that protect the armpits. They superseded the mail gusset.
Pauldrons: Usually shoulder guards.
Paunce: Plate armor for the body.
Placcates or Placcards: Small steel plates used to strengthen the breastplate.
Poleyus: Overlapping foot-plates.
Rerebrace: Armor of plate for the upper arm.
Sabatons: Broad-toed solerets.
Sollerets: The overlapping plates forming the mailed shoe of a knight.
Taces: The skirt of plate from waist to mid-thigh.
Tassets: Plates, usually lozenge-shaped, attached by strap and buckle to the taces to protect the upper or front surface of the thigh.
Vambraces: Armor of plate for the lower arm.