Medieval armor and injuries

[seasight]

Setting: medieval fantasty (Game of Thrones

Comments

[chickenfeet2003]

It's going to depend a lot on what period. Armour changed pretty dramatically over the course of the "Middle Ages", whatever dates you assign to that term.

[sollersuk]

I don't recollect any references to duels as such at any point in the Middle Ages, with the possible exception of the situation in the story of the Cid; there was just fighting, often brawling (see Romeo and Juliet and think in terms of West Side Story) and certainly nothing like a legal duel. There might be a set-piece grudge match in a tourney, in that case they would be wearing full armour. This is one way that an insult might be dealt with.

The nearest thing to a duel was when one party's champion fought another. Depending on the situation, they might have personal antipathy to each other, but this was rare (but again, see Rodrigo Diaz having to fight the King's Champion who was the father of the woman he wanted to marry, to defend his own father's honour)

[mutive]

I'm with you on this one. I remembered reading a fair number of "duel like fights" in Medieval histories. But most were more along the lines of "champions of opposing armies fighting each other to reduce bloodshed" than like "you insulted me, my gauntlet is on the table!"

[murstein]

I'd like to make one quibble. The Viking sagas (which are a subset of "European Medieval") have a number of what we would recognize as duels. But I don't think they're likely to be helpful for the original poster's intent, so I'll leave it at that.

[carmarthen]

Judicial duels or trial by combat (which is NOT what you're talking about--historically, yours sounds like a personal duel of honor, not one in which the judicial/legal system would get involved) in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were sometimes fought without armor by law

[arseaboutface]

There is at least one canon duel that I can think of in ASOIAF, between Petyr Baelish and Brandon Stark. Brandon shows up in full armor, but when he discovers that Petyr has very little if any armor to his name, he takes off his armor as well, to even the playing field. It's described in either GoT or CoK, in a Catelyn chapter. It appears to be the norm in Westeros that combatants, whether in a duel or a trial by combat, would fight in whatever armor they owned.

[seasight]

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you! I don't own the books so I was going on memory.

Thank you so much!

[arseaboutface]

You're very welcome! My books are on loan, but I just reread this summer, so it's pretty fresh.

[seasight]

It was bugging the crap out of me. What self-respecting person wouldn't protect their chest if they knew they were going to be in a duel? Especially one as smart as Petyr. But that makes sense.

TY again!

[threnodyjones]

Late to the party, but you might also check out a documentary called "Medieval Fight Book" which goes over Talhoffer's fighting book from 1459. It covers trial by combat, medieval armor of varying types, fighting techniques, war-craft and war machines.