#000599
Arms & Armor of the Medieval Knight: An Illustrated History of Weaponry in the Middle Ages
David Edge & John Miles Paddock
A richly illustrated survey of how European knights actually fought and how their arms and armor evolved across the medieval centuries. David Edge and John Miles Paddock trace the long arc from early chain mail and crude helmets to the vastly expensive, beautifully articulated suits of full plate that reached their peak in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, setting the hardware against the often far-from-chivalrous wars in which it was used. Alongside the sweep of the narrative sit close technical detail — a glossary of terms and an appendix on how armor was constructed — that makes it useful to reenactors and museum-goers as well as general readers. Handsome and authoritative, it remains a standard one-volume introduction to a subject easily buried in romance, keeping the emphasis on real weaponry and real war.
more…less ▴
The authors
David Edge is an armorer and long-serving keeper of arms and armor at the Wallace Collection in London, one of the world's great holdings of historical weaponry; John Miles Paddock collaborated with him on this survey. Their hands-on, curatorial expertise shows in the book's attention to how objects were actually made and used.
The book
First issued in 1988, Arms & Armor of the Medieval Knight traces the development of European military equipment from mail and simple helmets to elaborate full plate, illustrated throughout and rounded out with a glossary and a technical appendix on armor construction.
How it has aged
Well. The scholarship is solid and the illustrations remain a strength, and while specialist research has advanced since the late 1980s, the book endures as a reliable, accessible overview. Its virtue is refusing to romanticize: it keeps the focus on the practical realities of weapons and warfare rather than the mythology of knighthood.
For more context
The collections of the Wallace Collection and the Royal Armouries extend the subject with surviving objects.
Sources - Arms & Armor of the Medieval Knight — Google Books - Edge & Paddock, Medieval Knight — Medieval Bookshop
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- David Edge & John Miles Paddock
- Publisher
- Bison Books
- Year
- 1988
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- History
- Location
- Colorado