Armors were a real pain for the medieval knights, as it made them consume a lot of energy when wearing them

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Armors were a real pain for the medieval knights, as it made them consume a lot of energy when wearing them

If flying arrows did not provide enough headaches for the medieval knights, their armor surely did.
According to a new study, medieval knights were seriously impoverished by their too-heavy armors. The researchers decided to see how much energy a medieval knight had to consume while in his armor and thus, they decided to make a study. So, the researchers gathered a group of volunteers and made them wear armors. Plus, the volunteers were also put on a treadmill. What the researchers discovered was that people who wore a 110-pound armor had to consume twice the energy needed when walking unencumbered.
According to Graham Askew of the University of Leeds, the lead researcher of the study, it seems that the armors may have even played a very important role in changing the entire life of a battle. He recounts how back in 1415 French knights had to cross a muddy field wearing those heavy armors. Once they got to the other side to fight the English force in the Battle of Agincourt, they were already exhausted. From his point of view, this might have been the reason for which the French lost that battle, even though they greatly outnumbered the English.
What Askew and his colleagues did was to recruit a couple of volunteers and they asked them to put on armors and walk on treadmills. They also had to wear a breathing mask to measure how much oxygen they took in and also to see how much carbon dioxide they got out. These measurements allowed the researchers to calculate how much energy the volunteers used when performing the task. The results of the study show that the armor made volunteers use up to 2.1 to 2.3 more energy than normal when walking and about 1.9 more energy when they were running. According to Askew, this only shows that walking around in armor is way more difficult and energy consuming than walking around without armor. Although this study does not serve its purpose during our times, it may help historians understand better why battles were lost and other such things. Moreover, according to Askew, the study also provides information regarding how fit medieval knights were. If they were able to carry such heavy armor around and still get into a fight, they must have been in a really good shape. “It requires a great deal of physical exertion to even perform a medium-speed walk in a suit of armor,” Askew said. He concluded by saying that not anyone would be able to put on an armor and simply walk around, because that would require a lot of suffering if people were not used to it.

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