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For Your Edification:
Just how heavy and cumbersome was a suit of armour?
You've probably seen movies in which a knight in armour was
lifted by a winch onto his horse, so heavy was his protective
covering. Or maybe you've seen the scene where Sir Somebody
is knocked from his horse and can't get up without assistance.
"Poppycock," as we used to say in medieval England. Those
suits of armour weighed no more than about 50 pounds and were
flexible enough to permit Sir Laughalot to walk around. You
wouldn't want to play squash in one, but they were not much
more constricting than a business suit, the armour worn by
today's corporate warriors.
Which reminds me: A couple of years ago, in a museum, I saw a
knight in armour from the medieval kingdom of Bohemia, later
part of the Czech Republic. Could this have been the origin
of the phrase, "The Czech is in the mail?" Just a thought.
(Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam)
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