KNIGHTS ON A TREADMILL: Moving and fighting in medieval armor. It’s harder than it sounds, and it sounds hard.

UPDATE: Reader Paul Alan Byers writes:

I hope that the Leeds folks bothered to ask a historian about the experiment. The photos are of jousting armor. It is about twice as heavy and much more restrictive of movement as foot armor. It is even heavier and more rigid that horse armor for combat. Jousting armor is to war armor as a formula one is to my mini-van.

I used to do SCA combat. My rig weights 89lb and is 3/4plate with mail/leather under that. 10 hours a day in armor fighting, 5-10 days a war, at the 3 big wars a year was common. We marched 2-3 miles to the battle and back after that. But we were all wearing footman armor, not horseman’s or jousting armor. They used the heaviest and least flexible armor in the photos. Most of the armor in museums is the dress and jousting armor, not the “everyday” fighting armor.

Good point.