Gauntlet

Tubular forearm armor of the medieval knight

The vambrace is the plate armor that wraps the forearm in a tube, a core part of the arm defense of the European knight and heavy infantryman in the 14th to 16th centuries. Its name comes from the Old French 'avant-bras', meaning fore-arm. Two plates, each wrapping the inner and outer of the forearm, were joined on one side by a hinge and on the other by a catch, so that it commonly opened to put the arm in and closed to fasten. The vambrace was not used alone but functioned as a part of an integrated arm defense, forming a set with the rerebrace covering the upper arm and the couter covering the elbow, joining shoulder to wrist without a gap. The material was usually plate steel, but cheaper forms made of hardened (boiled) leather, cuir bouilli, also existed as means allowed. On the shield-bearing arm, where the shield took the place of defense, there was also an asymmetric practice of omitting that vambrace or replacing it with a lighter material.

Japanese armored gauntlet and forearm guard

The kote is the armor made to guard the arm and hand of the Japanese samurai, a composite structure of mail (kusari) and small iron plates sewn onto a cloth sleeve. Unlike the Western gauntlet, made wholly of plate, the kote combined metal and textile to seek a balance of flexibility and protection, showing the design philosophy of Japanese armor as a whole. The back of the hand was covered separately by an iron plate (the tekko), and the forearm and elbow were wrapped in mail and small plates. In the early age of mounted archery in particular, it was common to wear a single kote only on the left arm (the bow-holding arm), or to guard the left arm more heavily, an asymmetric practice that shows archery was at the heart of samurai combat. Worn as a set with a cuirass such as the o-yoroi or do-maru, it guarded the whole arm, and developed into various forms through the Sengoku period.

Articulated metal glove of the medieval knight

The gauntlet is the metal glove worn by the European knight in the 14th to 16th centuries to guard the hand and wrist, the intricate defense that takes the end of the plate arm harness, the hand. At its heart is the joining of several small plates (lames) at each finger joint, riveted so the fingers and fist can flex freely. The wrist is wrapped in a wide cuff that joins to the vambrace, and the back of the hand is covered with plate, while the inside of the palm is left as a leather glove so the hand can grip a weapon. It divides broadly into the hourglass gauntlet, covering the back of the hand with a single wide plate, and the fingered gauntlet, wrapping each finger separately. Because of the conflicting demands of securing the grip and free movement of the weapon hand while also having a seamless defense, the gauntlet was reckoned the hardest piece of the whole armor to make.

Okinawan metal knuckle guard

The tekko is the small knuckle guard that grew out of the kobudo of Ryukyu in Okinawa, a very simple piece made of a flat metal plate covering the back of the fist and two short bars within it that the fingers grip. It is said that its shape and weight were taken from the straw sandal that a man wore on his foot and the iron shoe of a horse's hoof, and so the tekko is usually borne in a pair, one in each hand. In that it covers the back of the hand, it is like the Western brass knuckle, but unlike the brass knuckle, which wraps only the finger joints, the tekko covers the whole back of the hand with a single face, guarding the fist and giving the single blow of the fist a greater weight by its mass. Being a small piece, it is easy to hide in one hand and hard to see from afar, and so in the age of the Ryukyu kingdom, when the bearing of arms was strictly forbidden, it was learned in secret by the villager and the martial artist as one strand of self-defense.

Mitten-style metal gauntlet with unified finger shell

The mitten gauntlet is one branch of the metal glove that the knight of 14th- and 15th-century Europe set on his hand, and took its name from the form in which only the thumb stood apart while the four fingers were bound together within a single metal shell. While the finger gauntlet that grew up at the same time covered all five fingers each on its own, the mitten gauntlet covered four fingers in a single face with hardly a gap between the knuckles, so that the grain of the protection over that face was a little thicker and unbroken compared to the finger gauntlet. The hand of the maker took less work at one place, so the price of a single pair was lighter, and so in the early 14th century, when the full plate harness was just taking root, almost every knight set the same shape on his hand. Despite the great fault that the fine play of five fingers each on its own was held back, the same shape fit a spear, a poleaxe, or a flail, in which only the grip needed to be sure, and so it held firm in the seat of the tournament until the late 15th century.