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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8302049" data-attributes="member: 87792">But they had very different jobs. And probably social classes.Indeed. It's 1321. The full suit of plate armour I show was 1450 and was just about from the high point of Milanese armour making. And chain armour both came into style and fell out of style because of economics. Chain armour is extremely labour intensive to make because you need to hand rivet the links. It's cheap for individuals to make because the hand riveting is not time consuming and if you've nothing better to do in those long winter nights the labour costs for someone to make their own from essentially iron wrapped round a bar and cut, and some wire for the rivets, is trivial if you're doing it for yourself rather than as part of a large order.However things changed. The Black Death (1346-1353) ballooned labour costs and technological innovation came in making plate armour much easier to make. <a href="http://myarmoury.com/feature_mail.html" target="_blank">To use a web source that's screwed up its https:</a>Other factors that need to be considered include technological innovations in mass production, namely the water-powered trip hammer and the blast furnace. These technologies enabled iron plate to be manufactured in much larger quantities and much more cheaply than previously. In addition, labour costs dramatically increased after the Black Death (14th century), and the technologies previously mentioned meant that mail actually cost more to produce than all but the finest of plate armour. Williams compares the cost of 12 oxen for a 9th century helmet, mail and leggings with the cost of only 2 oxen for horseman's plate armour at the end of the 16th century.<a href="http://myarmoury.com/feature_mail.html#note111" target="_blank">111</a> At Iserlohn in the 15th century, a mail haubergeon cost 4.6 gulden while plate armour only cost 4.3 gulden.<a href="http://myarmoury.com/feature_mail.html#note112" target="_blank">112</a> Kassa's archives (Hungary 1633) record a mail shirt costing six times that of a "double breastplate." These records also indicate the huge difference in labour involved. The mail required 2 months to be completed while the breastplate, only 2 days.With circa fifteenth century plate armour we really are talking things produced using industrial techniques and in industrial quantities. And yes it did get worse quality later.And sheet plate was more than good enough to stop muscle powered weapons - and even handheld gunpowder weapons of 1350. But they got better.</blockquote>

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