Does not sound right - every knight's armor I have ever seen is built for smaller men - and they would have been the ones to live a "good" life.
They data could show that average height in 1300 was 5'5" and average height in 1700 was 5'3".
Also doesn't match the size of doorways in very old houses, or the size of bunks on old sailing ships.
A lot of surviving armors were built for nobles as teens who subsequently outgrew them. Most combat tested armors were either salvaged for new suits, distributed among inheritence, or scrapped. The common landed knight in the high and late middle ages would have been indistiguishable in modern Europe in terms of height. What this study suggests is that even peasants and craftsmen would have had a good diet and healthy lifestyle. That's a new thought for sure.
"Does not sound right - every knight's armor I have ever seen is built for smaller men - and they would have been the ones to live a "good" life."
The "good" life even for nobility in 1400 was pretty grim, in regards to diet.
Also practically all the armour one sees in museums (the typical full plate variety) is from the 1400s & 1500s. You're right too, the average hight of a suit of armour then was maybe 5'6"
Armour for 900-1200 was mostly chain mail with leather or metal breast plates and such--very little remains of it as well.
King Arthur (ca. AD 500) would not have recognized the typical armour he's portrayed in, as its actually 1000 years off...
Same here.
Look at the uniforms from the war between the States.
The little bodies had very thin shoulders and were so tiny.
I, being 5'6", could never have worn them. I know some of the soldiers were very young, but some of the uniforms we've seen, were that of officers.
The only way I could measure, was according to our own family.
Full armour was only used in the late middle ages. The armour of the time 9th to 11th centuries was generally chain mail. Think Crusaders.
I thought of that, too. However, the surviving armor is almost all plate from the 15th-17th centuries. Before the 14th century (when the climate changes happened), the armor was mostly chainmail (with bits of plate and helms) of which little has survived. Perhaps an interesting comparison would be sword length -- since a taller person would use a longer sword, ceterus paribus. I don't recall whether early medieval broadswords were longer than later medieval broadswords, but again, far fewer examples from before 1400 survive.
A lot of the armor that is displayed in museums were never meant to be worn in battle, but were specially made for display. They were made in 3/4 size to show off the armorer's skill, since many of the breastplates and helmets contained very elaborate designs.
Actual battle armor was less elaborate and was usually limited to breastplate, helmet, gloves and knee shields to allow greater flexibility and freedom of movement.
Every knight's armor that is displayed in museums is for show, made at 60-75% scale. Battle armor is much larger and not as pretty.
Two things: the typical "knight's armor" of the period in discussion was a chain mail hauberk (thigh length shirt) and chausses (maille leggings). It would have been as unfitted as a sweatshirt, with a 3-4 inch height difference not readily noticeable. I am unsure if there are even any surviving intact Norman/Viking/Saxon hauberks.
Second, armor is often displayed on a rack that does not take into account the extra material and play at the joints. When you add up these, armor has a surprising amount of expandability.
"Does not sound right - every knight's armor I have ever seen is built for smaller men - and they would have been the ones to live a "good" life."
That is because every suit of armor you have seen on display was a piece created specifically for display, as an example of the craftsman's skill (usually 3/4 or 1/2 size, much like miniatures by other artisans). It is very unlikely that any real, working armor from the period is extant. The metalurgy of the time would have produced a very stain-able, rust-hungry product. It would have required regular replacing and would likely have been percieved as disposable, whereas a display piece would have been polished, oiled, waxed, and preserved.
Some armor was even made of leather using a boiling process (cuir bolli - "boiled leather") that made it shapeable, very hard when dried, and inexpensive next to the smith's product.
As to height, the showpiece armor, "berths" on sailing ships (likely storage shelves as most navies slept in hammocks), and small furniture (probably reflecting manufacturing capacity vice size of the customer) a good description of our potentially mispercieved notions of people in the past can be found in Michael Crichton's book "TIMELINE."
Just in case citing a novel is considered gauche, Chrichton's footnotes and bibliography point to learned texts he used as markers for his FICTIONAL story....now if we could only make the same clear about the DaVinci Code!
Cheers,
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