A knight in shining armor wouldn't be one without an armorer! - Armorers made the equipment that knights, foot soldiers, and other men, horses and dogs of war wore into battle.

Armorers were an important part of any castle's staff. These first cousins to blacksmiths produced:

Linking rings- Making chainmail, where hundreds of small wire links are woven together is a long, painstaking process. Chainmail might appear in the form of a simple shirt for a footsoldier or bowman More intricate uses might include the joints of a full suit of armor where flexibility and protection were needed.

Notice the wire winding tools in the background. One mail shirt will use hundreds of feet of heavy gauge wire!

This armorer is making a simple mail shirt (foreground) - The tools he is using appear quite modern with their colored rubber grips, but research has indicated that tools have changed very little in several hundred years.

Not all armor making involved pounding. - Chris is carefully filing the rough edges from the edges of a pre-cut piece of armor. Other tools used in armor making might include: rasps, punches, and mandrels.