Barding

[citation needed] Though its historical roots lie in antiquity in the regions of what was once the Persian Empire, barded horses have become a symbol of the late European Middle Ages chivalry and the era of knights.

Cataphracts, with scale armour for both rider and horse, are believed by many historians to have influenced the later European knights, via contact with the Byzantine Empire.

The full bard was developed by Lorenz Helmschmied and Konrad Seusenhofer for Maximilian I, who used them extensively for propagandic and aesthetic purposes, as well as diplomatic gifts.

[4] The chanfron was known as early as ancient Greece, but vanished from use in Europe until the mid eleventh century[5] when metal plates replaced boiled leather as protection for war horses.

The basic design of the chanfron remained stable until it became obsolete in the seventeenth century, although late examples are often notable for engraved decoration.

Complete to the extreme, and of such technical complexity and considerable expense that they were most likely intended solely for ceremonial purposes and as diplomatic gifts.".

Kirchhoff writes that, "In its most luxurious iterations, horse armor did far more than protect an expensive and extensively trained steed.

In the case of the bard now in Vienna, the crupper plates that encase the horse’s flanks form imperial double eagles that are enlivened by etched feathers and emblazoned with an escutcheon bearing the arms of Austria.

The corresponding crupper shown in images of the 1480 entries uses the marshalled heraldry of the Habsburg and Burgundian dynasties,supported by a figure that resembles the duchess herself, to declare the consolidation of Mary and Maximilian’s power [...] No surviving equine armor approaches the technical and visual ambition of the articulated bard, and the Helmschmids are the only armorers known to have created matrixes of steel plates flexible enough to encase a horse’s entire lower body as it moved.

Indeed, this type of armor became associated with Maximilian, who continued to commission bards that covered horses’ legs and bellies to arm his own steeds and also as diplomatic gifts to forge alliances and demonstrate Habsburg power."

The recipients of these bards included Sigismund I the Old, who was presented with "two coursers all covered with steel to the fetlocks and the belly, save in the spurring place".

[14] The Seleucid cataphract used scale armour because of its flexibility and effective protection against archers and also because, unlike regular metal types, it was not too heavy for the horses.