Parzival is a high medieval story, featuring king Arthur and the holy grail. It was written in Germany close to the year 1200. At that time knights were fighting in mail armour which they refer to as harness in the epos - not hauberk. Here is what was found:
1. Knights have rust and dust on them after wearing mail armor. It also stains their undergarments.
2. Knights always have assistance for putting on armour. Yet when abandoned and all alone Parzival is able to put on his harness by him self.
3. The harness has laces and they get frequently checked for wear and tear.
4. The harness has a mail hood that can be opened without taking the armour off.
5. People appreciate shiny mail armour.
And the following is the passage in which the protagonist sees mail armour for the first time. He is a little boy and in his nativity he sees some knights and thinks they are gods:
(English adaptation)
Loud they laughed as the boy spake further, 'Good knight, what may these be?
These rings that so close around thee, above and below I see.'
Then he handled, with curious finger, the armour the knight did bear,
His coat of mail close-linkèd as behovèd a knight to wear;
And he spake as he looked on the harness, 'My mother's maidens string
On their chains, and around their fingers, full many a shining ring,
But they cling not so close to each other as these rings that here I see,
I cannot force them asunder, what good are they then to thee?'
Something that I read has been haunting me for a while. It pointed out that swords are effectively useless against an opponent with heavy armour and/or chainmaille, if you want to kill a knight you need something like a spiked hammer or a mace.
And that makes knights who primarily wields swords, peasant killers.
And now when I come across “brave” knights in movies or fiction brandishing swords, that is all I can think off.
It is kind of weird how heavy weapons have the reputation of being brutish and unsophisticated. When it’s actually the other way around.
Broken pieces of the night
Sing like hollow lullabies
You and I, always in disguises
Lover, hunter, friend and enemy
You will always be every one of these
Lover, hunter, friend and enemy
You will always be every one of these
Nothing's fair in love and war
Fleurie - Love and War
Rolling up to the knight's guild in a chainmail brayette and low-cut mail chausses watching my fellow knights visibly fluster under their helmets as their gaze follows up to my maille voider scandalously worn without a breastplate
When mages keep creating homuncului out of dead knights, they’re eventually gonna become their own whole species, & someone’s gotta take care of ‘em. That’s where the Knightrearers come in!