Quote:
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save for a brief mention of Imrahil's pauldrons
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Er, that would be
vambraces, and plate forearm-guards go back at least as far as the Greeks.
Still, the point is quite well taken. For whatever reason Tolkien chose to freeze military technology at about the time of Hastings. Probably because he was concerned with *decline*- the weapons of the Elder Days were, by authorial fiat,
better than those of the decadent Third Age. Of course, that's pretty much exactly the way his beloved Old English viewed things: Roman ruins were 'eald enta gweorc,' ancient works of giants.