Hi Mr. Cornwell.

Something about the Dark/Middle Ages puzzles me.  A chain mail shirt seems to be the only torso armor anyone wore, but it seems to me that a steel breast-and-back would be easier and less time-consuming to make, and probably cheaper.  They were common (although usually of bronze) during the heyday of Greece and Rome.Yet they didn’t reappear until half-way through the 100 Years War!    Why did almost no one wear breastplates until so late?  Had the art of forging them been lost?

Alan Kempner