Knights of the Northern Realm has a focus on armour from the Transitional Period of the 14th century. This was the key stage in the evolution of the Crusader style armour which had very limited plate armour to the full plate suits of the 15th century (i.e Gothic, Milanese). To assist those interested in Living History this page provides photos, illustrations and text to detail 14th century harness.

The following photo is an example of the period:

From head to toe the pieces are commonly called:

Houndskull Bascinet with Aventail - steel helmet and visor (pinned and chained) with a mail curtain

Spaulder - steel plate shoulder cup with lames

Breastplate - steel torso armour

Gamebson - padded arming jacket

Rerebrace - steel upper arm defense

Couter - steel elbow plate with side wings

Vambrace - steel lower arm defense

Hourglass gauntlets - steel cuff with finger lames

Cuisses - steel thigh plates

Poleyn with Couter - steel knee with side wings

Greaves - steel shin plates

Sabatons - steel lames covering top of the feet (shown below)

Missing - it would be common to wear under or over the Gambeson a Hauberk- riveted steel mail shirt

Defenses for the torso varied greatly in development during the 14th century. Styles included mail, brigandine, coat of plates, segmented breastplate, breastplate with lance reset and stop rib, breast and back plate.

Bascinet helmets were popular through the period. Barrel or great helms survived through the period moving from the classic flat topped style to a round helm. Bascinets often featured a pointed Houndskull visor or rounded Globose style. Klapvisors were also common during the era.

Shown below from left to right are two kettle helms styles, cervelliere, great helm, great helm and bascinet with aventail set, five visored helms, Pig Face Klappvisor, Klappvisor.

Gauntlets were typically created with an hourglass style cuff and plates on the fingers. Variants shown below were recreated by modern armourers based on historical sources.