17th C. Pikeman Armor
During the 17th century, muskets were
becoming more common on the battlefield.
Soldiers needed to be more mobile, causing the change from full suits
of armor to the use of simply a breastplate and helmet.
Musketeers did not wear any body
armor and thus were very vulnerable to cavalry charge, especially during
reloading. Trained pike men
were deployed to protect the musketeers, originally outnumbering them two to
one. Over the course of the
1600s their use declined to one pike man for every five or six musketeers
and becoming the only infantry to still use armor.
Due to the decrease in use, armor construction began to shift from
functional to ornamental. Only officers and the elite could afford to wear
decorated armor, and the richer you were, the more elaborate the designs.
The combination of musketeers and pikemen was known as the 'pike and shot,'
a formation that was heavily used during the
Thirty Years War (1618-1648).
The Thirty Years War ravaged through what is now Germany and the
Czech Republic, the populations of these areas dropping dramatically over
the course of the war. After
the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the duchy of Prussia amalgamated destitute
Germanic states and eventually became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.
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