Kote (籠手) of the late Heian and late Kamakura period
Kote ( 籠手 ) of the late Heian and late Kamakura period A famous pair of kote of the early 14th century wrongly attributed to Minamoto no Yoshitsune. Despite the late age of the example, this type of kote was the main style of arm armor of the 11th and 13th century. Sadly, this is the oldest type of kote we have. In this article I would start to explore the various types of arms defenses employed by the Japanese warriors from the late Heian to the late Kamakura period. To add a little bit of ramblings before getting to the topic, I was thinking for month before writings about limbs armors on how to tie the variations of different styles and their historical evolution, so I decided to talk about these armor pieces within different time periods. So here we will talk about the armor used to protect arms & hands from the 10th to the late 13th century. This might seems a long period, and indeed different styles of arm armors were used throughout the different wars of t...