Jeanne's armor
After the inquest at Poitiers, Charles VII commissioned a suit of armor for Jeanne at the samme time that he set up a military household for her. The registra of the city hall of Albi, who saw her, testified that “Jeanne went armed in white iron, entirely from head to foot.” Moreover, Guy and André de Laval saw her on horseback near Romorantin “armed entirely in white, exept, for the head, a little ax in her hand, seated on a great black courser.”

The accounts of the treasurer Hémon Reguier refer to the purchase of that suit of armor in April 1429: “100 livres tournois were paid and delivered by the afforesaid treasure to the master armorer for a complete harness for the afforesaid Maid.” With this harness, Jeanne was equipped in the samme fashion as the men-of-arms of her era.

Jean Chartier reported that she was “armed as quickly as possible with a comlete harness such as would have suited a knight who was part of the arma and born in the king’s court. “She was equipped, moreover, like knights of a certain rank: 100 livres tournois was a significant sum.

Helmet (Another image)
Jeanne made use also of a capeline, a steel hat equipped with a wide brim, frequently used when scaling fortifications. But her contemporaries remaked that she often went about with her head bare, which was hardly surprising since military commanders of high rank often wore a simple hood or a hat rather than a helmet.

A piece of a close-helmet that may well have belonged to Jeanne is the bassinet shallow helmet [1] now displayed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The visor is missing. Under the bolt where the visor has been attached  to the helm, is a hole hit by an arrowhead. This is a typical fighting helmet of that period. 1370-1430. A helm like this weighs over 5 pounds.

It comes from the Dino-Talleyrand-Périgord collection and was formerly kept as a votive object in the church of Saint-Pierre-du-Martroi at Orléans. Bassinets at that time were considered “defenses”-that is, protections independent of the rest of a suit of armor.

The sallet, another head protection, was the most common item of armament. It was fitted with a small movable visor, a slightly accentuated neck cover, and, on the top, a crest that stood out from the rest of the helmet.

[1] Bassinet: Conical helmet with "hounskul" (or "pig-face") pointed visor.

Harness
The term "harness" designated the diverse garments of war; to be more precise, one spoke about "of the head" or "of the arm." Every piece was independent, as attested in the accont books of the armores, from whom pieces were ordered separately: a leg harness, an arm harness, a gaunlet, and so on.

Jeanne also wore a military garment of Oriental orgin, made of rectangular metal plates (usually of steel)-the jaseran, which was widely used in fourteenth century.

She also wore a brigandine, an armed vest made of a great number of small plates of metal joined by rivets, the heads of which formed a kind og geometric design.

The right armwas protected in a lighter fashion than the left, so that a sword or lance could be wielded more freely. The armor of the left arm, by contrast, was folded back to assist in holding the horse’s reins.

We know that the first suit of mail-the blanc harnoys made for her in Tours-had been left be her in the Abbey church of Saint-Denis after the failure of her attack on Paris, and its subsequent history is unknown. We are ignorant of what happen to her second suit of armour.



It has been estimated that the purchase of a complete set of military equiment corresponded to two years’ wages for a man-at-arms.

It took 8 weeks for the Jeanne's armor to be made and 600 years later it still takes 8 weeks.