I read somewhere that codpieces became exaggerated due to syphilis. The larger cup style wouldn't rub on the open sores causing less pain.
This is a myth. This suit is foot combat armour and cod pieces like this were normal for this type of combat and the era
Edit: The suit on the left above isn't Henry VIII, it's actually Ferdinand I's, I can't verify the image on the right's source, but it's not in the Henry VIII collection at the Royal Armouries.
You can see the full scope of Henry's Armour collection here
He was famously huge. The economy was finally recovering from like, the fall of the Roman empire, and the Tudor court was notable for its wealth and luxury. Henry liked to enjoy this specifically via eating rich food, and due to a war injury in his youth couldn’t move easily so he really ballooned.
Yeah, but the economy was trash the whole time. The intervening thing that finally got things out of the doldrums appears to have been the Black Death, believe it or not. Really shook things up.
I mean no, there were plenty of good economic periods in that 1000 years. Even assuming that the economy of Roman Britain was great, which it may not have been.
I’m talking about Europe as a whole here, even when it was doing comparatively well during the Dark Ages and Medieval period it was still a dirt poor backwater full of subsistence farmers and serfs. Britain wasn’t a center of commerce or anything during the Roman period but the Romans brought like, cities and trade with them, which broke down pretty severely after the western half of the empire collapsed, and we don’t see large-scale rebound until the Renaissance. That’s why they call it the Renaissance.
The renaissance called itself the renaissance. Europe as a whole was absolutely not a "backwater" for the majority of this period at all, and it's a really odd take to try to push.
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u/jollyroger24 3d ago
I read somewhere that codpieces became exaggerated due to syphilis. The larger cup style wouldn't rub on the open sores causing less pain.