How many knights were line soldiers in battles? as only noble man could affort fullplate. I dont think 40lb is very heavy armor to fear in war as modern combat gear weights more than that. ofcourse there was heavy plates for cavalry, so heavy they couldnt mount their horses, they had to be lifted on their horse with craine. If they fell of the horse they couldnt stand up..
errr...in the feudalism, the kings gave lands to the nobles to buy their loyalty, and to make them equip an army. There were laws given out about how many men they had to equip.
Like say: For each village, the noble had to equip out 10 footmen or one knight, or 5 archers or whatever. Same goes to the free towns, they had to equip a certain amount of soldiers too, or make other services.
So the nobles sometimes equipped others.
And there were a lot of different types of full plates, in some you could even fight on foot, in some you were needing a crane
to be put on your horse, like there were different types of steels. What really made a difference in the full plates was, how big the reduction of the limb movement was.
The greater the restriction the better the protection, and the possibility for the crane usage, the lesser the restriction the worse the protection, but you were not like a turtle when you fell of your horse.