Product description

A gauntlet is a type of glove that protects the hand and wrist of a combatant. Gauntlets were used particularly in Europe between the early fourteenth century and the early modern period and were often constructed of hardened leather or metal plates.

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Early in Peter Jackson’s first Lord of the Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a scene where the four Hobbits
Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandy buck, and Peregrine Took – are hiding from one of the Nazgul. The four Halflings crawl into a hollow under the roots of a great oak tree while the Nazgul searches for them
coming very close indeed. So close, in fact, that at one point it hovers over them, filling the Hobbits with overwhelming fear
The Nazgul remains shrouded in its black cloak, the only part visible is the iron gauntlet that it grips the twisted oak roots with – and even the slight glimpse of that gauntlet is enough to instill a deep sense of dread

Beginning in the 11th century, European soldiers and knights relied on chain mail for protection of their bodies, and chain armor "shirts" with wide sleeves that hung to the elbow were common
However, it wasn't until the 12th century that chain mail shirts with longer, narrower sleeves began to be worn, and these on occasion had chain mail mittens or "muffs" resembling fingerless gloves and with a pocket for the thumb (though some of these did have complete fingers as well).
These attached at the lower edge of the sleeve, and protected the wearer's hands from cuts and lacerations during combat but offered no protection against crushing blows.
It wasn't until the early 14th century that armorers began to design fully articulated plate armor: along with this development of the use of plates as a means of protecting the body from blows was the development of hand protection in the form of gauntlets made of overlapping plates of steel
These were created both in the fingerless "mitten" style

A variety of gauntlet called a "demi-gauntlet" or "demi-gaunt" also came into use around this time. A demi-gaunt is a type of plate armour gauntlet that only protects the back of the hand and the wrist: demi-gaunts are worn with gloves made from chain mail or padded leather. The advantages of the demi-gaunt are that it allows better dexterity and is lighter than a full gauntlet, but the disadvantage is that the fingers are not as well protected.
Modern protective gloves called "gauntlets" continue to be worn by metal workers and welders when handling hot or molten metals or in contexts where sparks are common. These gauntlets no longer sport the metal plates of the originals, but instead are highly insulating against heat. Similar varieties of gauntlet are worn by automotive technicians to protect their hands when handling car components, and meat and fishery butchers often wear chain mail gauntlets to protect their hands from the sharp edges of knives.

The expression ‘throwing down the gauntlet’ stems from the middle ages and is literally a call to arms. One look at the medieval gauntlet, often featuring knuckledusters design to maximize punishment when resorting to punches, and it’s easy to understand how the gauntlet became a symbolic call to arms.
Early metal plate hand protection began during the late 12th century when the mail sleeves of the hauberk were elongated into a mitten. Worn above a leather glove, mail armor protected the fingers, along with a single armor plate. This pattern of armored hand protection was worn until the end of the 13th century. By the early 14th century, mail gloves with separate fingers started to appear as an extension of the sleeve plates. These extensions covered the backside of the hand, offering greater protection, from the wrist to the end of the metacarpals. Bordered by the thumb joint, embossed around the finger joints and base of the thumb, the design included overlapping plates.

In their earlier forms, these armoured gloves were known as hourglass gauntlets due to the widening plated geometry over the back of the hand, which narrowed at the wrist and flared at the cuff. Generally, only the thumb was articulated with mechanical plates while the fingers were protected by a solid top plate, riveted to mail or leather gloves. This type of armour remained in vogue until the fifteenth century, when the cuff narrowed to protect against the threat of a sword thrust through the flared gap. This change was in response to the changing blade geometry of the medieval sword, which began to appear at the end of the 14th century. As such, the cuff plate of the medieval gauntlets grew smaller, and the wrist and finger protection changed from one piece to multiple interlocking plate construction that facilitated greater wrist and finger motion. Heres an example of a modern-day gauntlet.
During the 14th century advances in the blacksmith trade resulted in the construction .