Coat of plates

A coat of plates is a form of segmented torso armour consisting of overlapping metal plates riveted inside a cloth or leather garment. The coat saw its introduction in Europe among the warring elite in the late 12th or early 13th century and was well established by the middle of the 13th century. The Coate of Plates is considered part of the era of transitional armour, and by the turn of the 14th century it started to be supplanted by plate armour. The coat of plates was normally worn as part of a full knightly harness.

The plates number anywhere from eight or ten to the hundreds depending on their size. The plates overlap, usually enough to guarantee full coverage even when moving around and fighting. The coat of plates is similar to several other armours such as lamellar, scale and brigandine. Unlike scale armour which has plates on the outside or splint armour in which plates can be inside or outside, a coat of plates has the plates on the inside of the foundation garment. It is generally distinguished from a brigandine by having larger plates, though there may be no distinction in some examples.

In his 2013 PhD thesis, Mathias Goll suggests that this kind of armour made from several segments held together via leather or fabric only should be described as “segmented-armour”, in this case in the subtype "torso-front-and-back-segmented".

Goll suggest a later dating of the saint Maurice statue in Magdebourg, possibly moving its production from the second half of the 13th century to the first half of the 14th century. He interprets the backplates of his coat of arms as vertically arranged lames held in place beneath leather or fabric by horisontal rows of rivets, like on some of the Wisby plates.

One of the best resources about coats of plates are the mass graves from the Battle of Visby. The Visby coats of plates display between 8 and some 600 separate plates fastened to their backings. The mass grave from a battle in 1361 has yielded a tremendous number of intact armour finds including 24 distinct patterns of coat of plates style armour. Many of these were older styles similar to the armoured surcoat discussed below.

The early coat of plates is often seen with trailing cloth in front and back, such as seen on the 1250 St. Maurice coat. These has been described as metal plates riveted to the inside of a surcoat. There is debate regarding whether the plates inside the armoured surcoat overlapped; but the armour is otherwise similar.

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