by Brittany Westerfield

Created on: August 06, 2008   Last Updated: July 03, 2011

When someone says "What a knight's clothing was in the Middle Ages",  most people immediately picture a knight in his suit of armor. However a knight's armor was not his clothing, it was well, his armor, only used when training or in battle. Remember that a knight's suit of armor weighed around 50lb. You couldn't go around all day wearing that. The knights had clothing on underneath their armor, so if they were done wearing their armor, they just wore the clothes that were underneath.

When a knight would get dressed in the morning this is what he would put on to go underneath his armor and to walk around in when done training or fighting.

First he would put on the underwear, which consisted of a linen undershirt and underpants, much like today's boxers. Then he would put woolen stalking over his legs. The knight's underwear was very important. Because when he was wearing his armor the underwear kept the armor from rubbing on or cutting the knight's skin during battle.

On top of his underwear he would put his doublet, which was a padded coat, stuffed with cotton, wool, or sometimes even grass. It looked a lot like our puffy winter coats, only not so puffy. It was used as padding for the armor that would be worn over it, just like our football players wear padding over their armor.

Now if a knight was going into battle he would put a chainmail dress over his doublet. Then he would put his surcoat over the chainmail. A surcoat was a robe with a belt. It had the symbol of whoever the knight was on it, so he could be identified in battle. If he wasn't fighting he probably wore his surcoat on top of his doublet without any armor.

As time passed on knight's armor changed a little bit. Instead of chainmail overlain by their surcoats they started wearing plates of armor, then wearing full suits. Suits of armor had to be specially tailored to fit the knight exactly so it wouldn't hinder him in battle. Since each knight had their own set of armor, they had their symbol put onto the shield so they could be identified. After that they no longer used surcoats. They just wore simple robes when not fighting.

So know when you hear someone mention " What a knight's clothing was during the Middle Ages",  hopefully you don't still think they lived everyday in their suit of armor. Now you know that they went about in comfortable clothes too. When not fighting that is.

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