Every piece of armour is different. But the way armour is worn is largely the same. In this blog you'll find some tips and information on how to easily put on your armour.
Which armour parts go together?
When choosing armour, you naturally want the different parts to match as much as possible. Many armour pieces can be easily combined with each other because the basic way you put them on stays the same. Only the degree to which armour pieces 'work well together' varies. A tip is to choose as many armour pieces as possible from the same time period (for example early 15th century) or the same style when it comes to high fantasy. You can also choose to buy different armour pieces from the same brand.
The question is also historical. Historically speaking, 95% of soldiers in armies wore armour where the different parts were not made as a matching set.
Armour pieces can be adjusted so they work better 'together'. This can be done by bending parts, adding laces or straps, etc. You can easily do this yourself. Even with fully custom-made armour, it's often necessary to adjust pieces a bit more to make them work better together.
For more information on this, see our knowledge base.
Pre-assembled armour from CelticWebMerchant
In our blogs we've put together various armour sets from different historical periods and high fantasy armour for you.
How do I put on my armour
The armour set being put on in these photos is a common example of historical armour.
Clothing & Gambeson
Wear lightweight clothing under the armour, such as historical underclothing. Over that, wear a gambeson. Optionally combined with a lendenier around your waist, to which you attach the leg pieces. From the 15th century, arming jackets (doublet) were worn.
Mail Supplements
Various supplements can be worn over the arming jacket or gambeson. For example, you can wear a full mail shirt (haubergeon) that covers all the gaps between the arms and upper legs. Often voiders were worn instead of a haubergeon.
If you're going to fight, a bishop's coat or mail standard is really recommended. This provides extra protection to your neck.
For more information on what you can best wear under your armour, see this blog.
Putting on armour
Once you've chosen the right underclothing. Now let's look at the armour itself.
1. Leg pieces
First, we put on the leg pieces. Most leg pieces consist of upper leg armour and shin protection. Full leg pieces can be separated from each other. So you can choose whether you want to wear shin protection or just upper leg armour (half armour). Often wearing only upper leg armour offers a bit more comfort on the re-enactment field.
2. Arm pieces
When putting on armour yourself, put on the cuirass first and only then the arm pieces. We're doing it the other way around here to get a better photographic view of how arm pieces are attached.
Just like with leg pieces, arm pieces usually consist of different parts. The arm armour (arm harness) and the shoulder pieces (pauldrons). First fasten the arm armour to the arm. Later you attach the pauldrons. Sometimes you connect the arm pieces and pauldrons to each other.
3. Cuirass
Now we fasten the cuirass. Both full cuirasses and breastplates were worn. A full cuirass consists of two parts that are connected to each other. A breastplate is placed on the chest and fastened with leather straps over the back. Like this example. The chest and back pieces of cuirasses never fit 100%. It's a bit of playing with straps and bending the armour to make it fit as nicely as possible. Of course, this also depends on how much you want to wear under your cuirass.
4. Shoulder armour (pauldrons)
The pauldrons can be attached to the gorget, to the mail shirt or to the gambeson. This depends on the type of pauldron and gorget. When the pauldrons are attached to the gorget, the gorget or bevor has leather attachment straps. When the pauldrons are not attached to the gorget, they have attachment points to which leather laces are fastened.
Tip: Once you have your own armour, make attachment points with leather laces on your mail shirt or gambeson to which you can fasten the pauldrons. You can optionally also do this with the arm pieces. Both the arm pieces and pauldrons can in some variants be worn separately. In case you want to be armoured but don't want to wear full armour. Like night patrols.
5. Helmet & bevor
Now you've almost got the whole armour on. This setup gives you optimal safety combined with optimal freedom of movement. This is how most armoured people are depicted in paintings. But we're not done yet!
When you wear 15th-century armour and combine it with a sallet (officially a half-faced sallet), you can choose to wear a bevor for extra neck protection. In later periods, gorgets were also often worn. In some armour sets these were even worn under the cuirass. (But we'll save that for another time).
Now it's time to put on the helmet.
Tip: If you're wearing a helmet with a hinged visor, it's best to bring it to your head in the open position. It's always advisable to wear an extra gambeson hood under your helmet
