WotR plate armor question....

[aphillathehun]

How shiny would it have been?  I have painted mine fairly dull but looking at pictures of reenactors, they seem to have pretty shiny armor.  Wondering whether there is Knowledge of what it was really like.

[Captain Blood]

Shiny, definitely

You're right. Nobody knows for sure. Anyone who says they do is lying - unless they happened to be there 550 years ago...

Clearly 500 year old armour in collections is no accurate guide because a/ it's now ancient, and b/ nobody knows what's been done to it in the intervening five centuries... Perhaps it was all painted at the time and some collector in the 1700's wire-brushed it...
Logic would dictate that professional fighting men are very good at keeping their essential protective equipment and weapons in tip top condition. Can't see it would have been different in the 1460's - 1480's. Although whether armour was therefore kept polished, dulled, blackened, blued, oiled, painted - who really knows for sure? Medieval paintings appear to show armour as shiny or sometimes blackened. But then they are stylised representations, not photo realistic...

Shiny looks nice  

[Charlie_]

I think it would make sense for the wealthier men to have shinier armour, and the less well off soldiers to have duller armour.

In fact, take a look at this talk by Dr Tobias Capwell.... It's a long video, but has some very interesting points about armour decoration. He talks about how the poorer soldiers would paint their armour for decoration, and has an example of a really remarkable / bizarre looking helmet with a monster face on it.... True super-shiny 'white' armour would be VERY expensive to achieve and maintain, hence was probably only seen on the wealthy. (Skip to roughly the 39 minute mark if you want)


"...a nice polish could be up to 80% of the cost of the armour..."

[Cubs]

Seems logical that if you've got the money to have a team of lackeys to keep the armour pretty, you'd be more likely to go that route. Whereas, a man with fewer resources may choose to put some sort of protective coating on the metal (paint? blacking? sooting?) to prevent corrosion instead. 

[Arlequín]

One of the things that stood out for me in GoT was seeing Arya Stark rolling a barrel with armour and sand in, one of the recorded methods of keeping 'white' armour rust free. I know, I need to get out more.

Mail was heavily greased after such treatment. As Cubs says, keeping plate shiny would have been hard work and many historic suits have been polished and lacquered in more recent times.

Armour actually came out from the forge 'black' and the time needed to polish it would hike up the cost. The munition quality armour made with iron was probably left in that original state, which was relatively rust-proof. Once polished however, that layer was lost.

Russeting, blacking and bluing were all used in the 16th Century (quite decoratively in some cases), but nobody is really certain when that began, but they are lo-tech and cheap solutions.

Painting is an obvious fix, as is covering the armour in a water-proofed fabric layer, with ordinary fabrics over that; a fashion in France apparently c.1465. 

As has been said, I feel the wealthiest or showiest individuals (usually one and the same) would have shiny armour, sometimes even gilted, while moving down the income scale you finally arrive at the guys with natural blackened and painted items. If your leader was passing out formerly polished hand-me-downs (old bascinets for example), painting them was the low maintenance option.

Finding solid evidence to support all of this will prove difficult however.

[Cubs]

I can attest to sand and grit bringing up a minging old aluminium pan nice and shiny again!

[aphillathehun]

Thanks everyone.  One more question this raises for me.  I was originally asking about white armor.

But now I'm curious about armor that is black (from the forge) or blackened.  Would those blacks be shiny - like a polished black finish, or dull?  I imagine if it's painted black it's dull, but don't really know.

Hmmm, while I'm at it, would there have been shiny "gold" finishes?

[Arlequín]

Forge-blackened iron is actually more a quite a dark or charcoal grey, search 'forge-blackened iron' for an idea of the colour, although some pics will actually be chemically blackened, which is not the same.

Very costly parade armour was often gilted, but you'd have to be very rich to maintain a set for campaign. Charles VI of France had a relatively famous gilted helmet, which was found smashed to bits. Polished gold armour is unlikely though, as the act of polishing would remove the gold layer itself. Charles I had a set of gilded armour, a bit later in time, but it will give an idea of what wear and tear does to s suit like that.

[janner]

In my experience, white armour requires comsierdable attention to keep the rust at bay even when kept oiled and stored in a dry room. Exposure to even mild humidity and you can see the orange spots bloom before your eyes. Hence knights employed experienced specialists to maintain their harness.

As Arlequin posted, polishing armour actually makes it more vulnerable to rust. Left in its original dull, forge blackened state, it's quite resistant.

[Winston]

Not much to add to some very good replies, other than to support the view that there would probably have been a mixture of blackened, shiny and painted, with the richest folk looking the shiniest. Status, power, decoration, show and hierarchy all critical to the elite of the time so it seems sensible to deduce commmanders/leaders in particular would have shown up looking polished.

I’ve spoken to re-enactors at length about how they look after armour and basically it’s a skilled ball ache to keep it rust-free. I’m almost certain the common halberd-wielder would have blackened or painted armour if he had a lot of it.

[nic-e]

it's also worth remembering that a few hours in the mud and push of battle and even the shinniest armour would be dulled down, and even the much unpolished armour with have shiny silver streaks where it had been hit/scratched/caught.

i can imagine at the end of battle when the ground has been churned to bits and your armour is covered in mud,sweat, rain and blood, you wouldn't be able to tell much difference between a king and a man at arms.

[dinohunterpoa]

i can imagine at the end of battle when the ground has been churned to bits and your armour is covered in mud,sweat, rain and blood, you wouldn't be able to tell much difference between a king and a man at arms.

PERFECT!!!

[Patrice]

A difficult question. Clean armour would be covered with grease to avoid quick rusting; it would then stay very clear (metal white) for a while, but grease-covered steel is not much shiny it has a colour quite similar to aluminium from a distance.

Not sure about what blackened armour would have looked like in the 15th century, but those of bad quality from the early 17th century apparently where not shiny at all.

[ErikB]

Some of those minis could be wearing leather booked in wax.  That was very, very common and worked very well.  It was light, much cheaper than metal, did not rust, and was as hard as a block of wood.

I've worn the stuff in real life doing HEMA.