Cost of Armour: the actual cost of a fifteenth century suit of armour

The one quesion that invariably arises any time someone sees my harness is "How much did you pay for your suit of armour?" While I am not going to divulge the actual price tag that came with it, I would like to provide you with a brief look at the standard price of armour during the later part of the Middle Ages, specifically the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

There are a number of contemporary sources that may be referenced in order to get an accurate idea of the cost of armour during that period. The chief source of income for nobles and gentry was through the collection of rents and taxes. Every landowner worth his salt had at least one clerk on his payroll, and professional clerks are, obviously, very meticulous recordkeepers. There are extant documents that detail the amounts of rent collected from various tennants, inventories of individual estates and manors, and salaries of individual servants and retainers. It is from these inventories that we get a glimpse at the value of a suit of armour.

As all of the values cited below are shown in pounds (£ from liber), shillings (s from solidus) and pence (d from denarius), we should first clarify the break down of English currency at the time. Be sure to note that the pence or penny was worth less (240:1 £) than it is today (100:1 £).

1 pound (£) = 20 shillings (s)
1 shilling (s) = 12 pence (d)
1 pound (£) = 240 pence (d)

The armour owned by an unnamed knight in 1374 was listed as £16 6s 8d. The armour in the house of Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, in 1397 was worth £103. The value in 1441 of a suit of Milanese ready-made (munition) armour was £8 6s 8d, and a set of squire's armour was £5-£6 16s 8d. And, in 1614, a suit of armour "gilt and graven" belonging to the Prince of Wales was valued at the incredible sum of £340.

So exactly how much would that be worth today? Fortunately, antiquarians have spent a great deal of time and energy trying to come up with formulas to ascertain the value of the proverbial dollar throughout history. The most simple method is to take the basic daily wage of a common laborer and compare it to the current minimum wage. That will give you a basic understanding of the present day value of a Medieval price tag. More extensive formulas have been developed that consider multiple factors such as the price of wheat and bread as well as the wages of both skilled and unskilled laborers. The result has shown a much more accurate analysis of the modern day equivalent to Medieval wares.

Using such a formula, I was able to convert Canadian dollars to the American dollar and then convert that into the English pound using historical currency rates for the month I made the initial deposit. I was able to determine that I would have paid £13 6s 11d for my armour if purchased in the year 1450. As you can see, that is very much in line with the historic cost of armour in extant documents.

Now consider the fact that a suit of armour was surprisingly only a relatively small portion of the overall cost of outfitting a knight for battle. The greatest expenditure was to equip him with a highly trained warhorse, which could cost as much as £80. He would also need to be equipped with weapons such as a sword, lance, pollaxe, and dagger for battle. He would need a riding horse, pack horse or draft horse and wagon, tent, attendants, retainers, and all of their supplies. In today's dollars that would be the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars plus regular wages.

Sources: English Weapons & Warfare, 449-1660, A.V.B. Norman and Don Pottinger, 1992 (orig. 1966). The Armourer and His Craft From the XIth to the XVIth Century, Charles Ffoulkes, 1988 (orig. 1912).