what kind of armor and equiptment did a knight use?

Answer 1

The pinnacle of knight's armor was the full steel plate armor introduced in the 15th century. Basically their entire body was under slabs of steel plates. The head was covered with sallet helmet with protective visor. Breastplate covered the large part of torso and was linked to backplate by waist straps. The vambrase was a tubular defense plates for the forearms. Besagew was a small round shield that covered and defended the armpit. Around the upper leg and knee was the Cuisse and the greave protected the lower leg. Gauntlet protected the hand. Underneath all the plate was chainmail for extra protection. In terms of weaponry, the signature weapon of the knights was the lance, which can be lethal when charged directly into battle. In addition, they would carry a medium length sword. Others would carry mace or just plain spears.

Answer 2

It varied over the centuries, as technological developments made more useful things available and made other useful things less useful.
Chain mail had been in use since ancient times. It was often draped over armor of boiled leather, and helmets of padded bronze (later iron) are also very old. Shields were also used extensively. The ancient Romans made shields out of plywood, but this knowledge was lost after the Empire collapsed. Subsequent shields were made of leather with a wooden frame and maybe a meal rim. The shield usually had a pointed metal 'boss' in the center that was used for thrusting. Shields were highly decorated with personal and religious emblems, which lead into the art of heraldry.
The horse was absolutely essential to the knight. This raised him above infantry and made him very mobile. When the stirrup was introduced from the East about 800 a.d., it made the knight much more secure in the saddle, and allowed for the development of a heavy lance, which in a charge could spear several people at once.
The sword became longer and heavier, to allow the knight to bisect men on the ground.
Finally plate armor was introduced. A complete suit of plate armor (one had to armor the horse as well) was extremely expensive (in modern terms a complete suit would cost about $60,000). But the crossbow bolt could penetrate even the best plate armor, and it was useless at close range against guns. By the 1600's most knights wore only a helmet and armor for the torso, which at least protected against grazing blows from swords or arrows or bullets.

Answer 3

It depends on the time period. Knights developed from Roman calvalry, which had little armour. Later they wore more chain mail which developed into composit (plates weaved into the chain mail), and then into scale mail (plates laying on top of one another like fish scales), then to full plate mail (suits of armour). All of this was to avoid sword and lance attacks.
Soon after the development of plate mail, the longbow (and to a lesser extent the crossbow) was developed that could punch through even plate mail. Gunpowder soon followed an the knight was dead.
Swords also developed frm the small Roman gladius (a short sword of about a foot used for slashing) to the boadsword (larger and thiker for slashing) to the longsword (longer and narrower for piercing and getting in between opponent's armour).

Answer 4

In the early Middle Ages, they wore a sort of chained fabric, little metal chains woven into clothing. They then developed plate armor which was more effective.