An Almain rivet is a type of flexible
plate armour
Plate armour is a historical type of personal body armour made from bronze, iron, or steel plates, culminating in the iconic suit of armour entirely encasing the wearer. Full plate steel armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, es ...
created in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
in about 1500. It was designed to be manufactured easily whilst still affording considerable protection to the wearer. It consisted of a
breastplate
A breastplate or chestplate is a device worn over the torso to protect it from injury, as an item of religious significance, or as an item of status.
European
In medieval weaponry, the breastplate is the front portion of plate armour covering th ...
and backplate with laminated thigh-guards called
tassets
Tassets are a piece of plate armour designed to protect the upper thighs. They take the form of separate plates hanging from the breastplate or faulds. They may be made from a single piece or segmented. The segmented style of tassets connected b ...
.
Almain rivets were generally of fairly low quality, but they were cheap: a royal proclamation issued by
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...
in 1542 designated them at 7s 6d, which equated to one sixth of the cost of a suit of
demi-lance
The English term lance is derived, via Middle English '' launce'' and Old French '' lance'', from the Latin '' lancea'', a generic term meaning a wikt:lancea#Noun">lancea'', a generic term meaning a spear">wikt:lancea#Noun">lancea'', a generi ...
armor.
Almain rivets were frequently purchased ''en masse'' as
munitions-grade armour to equip royal armies or personal retinues.
Nomenclature
The term ''rivet'' derives from the "overlapping plates sliding on
rivet
A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylinder (geometry), cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the deformed e ...
s" characteristic of this type of armour. ''Almain'' is an
Early Modern English
Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated EModEFor example, or EMnE) or Early New English (ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transit ...
term for "German" (still used in some poetic and/or archaic senses), from the French ''alemanique'', from the mediaeval Latin ''alemanicus'', from ''
Alemanni
The Alemanni or Alamanni were a confederation of Germanic peoples, Germanic tribes
*
*
*
on the Upper Rhine River during the first millennium. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Roman emperor Caracalla of 213 CE ...
'', an early Germanic tribe.
The term was introduced in about 1530 and remained in use until about 1600. Based on the term ''almain-rivet'', the word
rivet
A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylinder (geometry), cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the deformed e ...
itself acquired a meaning of "armour", attested (rarely) during the mid-16th century.
OED
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
. Ffoulkes (1912:52) suggests that the term was from French ''revêtir'', to clothe in, embellish with, from Latin ''vestire'' (Larousse, op.cit.)
See also
*
Greenwich armour
Greenwich armour is the plate armour in a distinctively English style produced by the Royal Almain rivet, Almain Armoury founded by Henry VIII in 1511 in Greenwich near London, which continued until the English Civil War. The armoury was formed by ...
*
Swiss arms and armour
The Old Swiss Confederacy, Swiss developed a number of characteristic weapons during their period of military activity in the 15th and early 16th centuries, perfected further during the Early Modern Switzerland, Early Modern period (16th and 17t ...
References
* Cornish, Paul. ''Henry VIII's Army''. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1987.
* Ffoulkes, Charles. ''The Armourer and his Craft''. New York: Dover Publications, 1912. {{ISBN, 0-486-25851-3
External links
Jason Grimes, Landsknecht Pikeman Armour
Western plate armour