[safisher]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The bodies recovered at Towton were killed afterwards, not during the fighting.

The quote I gave upthread is from a new book by Brill, Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare: Wounds, Weapons, and Armor, by Robert C. Woosnam-Savage and Kelly DeVries. They seem to think the wounds may have been caused by those fleeing cavalry. Fact is, we don't know.

Either torso armour was invulnerable to these weapons or nobody ever aimed at the torso.

Or the torso could not be aimed at. Given a shield line, or use of the shield, overhead swing attacks to the head, neck, and arms would be more common than torso wounds. But as I said, only very general conclusions can be taken from archaeological finds since we know so little about their actual death.

But saying "torso armour was invulnerable to these weapons" is really broad and sweeping, and certainly not a consensus view.

"Never in military history have armies been so well (and so effectively) armored. The catalogue of wounds above shows how protective armor was in the Middle Ages; wounds to the limbs and head were most common but could be survived, while those to the head were, of course, the fatal ones. Only those killed in what are clearly recorded as massacres of unarmored individuals, as at Corinth, or possibly massacres, as at Ridgeway Hill show wounds to the torso. Experiments carried out by the Royal Armouries in England and elsewhere have confirmed how difficult it was to penetrate a moving target covered by mail or plate armor" then they go on and say "men were swinging, thrusting, or shooting sharp-edged, blunt-edged or projectile weapons at each other, wounding their opponents while, simultaneously, hoping their own skills and armor might keep them from being wounded themselves."

I'm not claiming armor was not protective. It's very purpose was to stop wounds. I am very dubious of the idea, as should any scholar be, of armor which was described as "invulnerable."