But the issue there is the joints, right? As far as I know, they were either exposed completely, like at the shoulder, or not flexible enough for fast-paced combat.

Yes, I believe the joints were usually weak points. Swords-people used a technique known as half-handing, where they'd keep one hand on the hilt, and use the other hand to grip near the tip of the blade. That allowed them to use the sword more like a dagger, which gave better accuracy for maneuvering into the joint, while also giving them greater leverage with the hilt-hand.

I was surprised that you can grip a blade with your bare hand, but apparently it's safe with a firm enough grip.

*half-swording

You are not gripping the blade bear-handed: you would usually be wearing some kind of glove.

Half-swording can and was performed bare-handed as well.

If I'm not mistaken plate armour wasn't all that great against blunt weapons though, since it probably does not distribute the impact very well. Whereas I'd suspect this kevlar armour to basically swallow those punches over a larger area, no?

No personal armor (so far) is good against blunt trauma. The reason for that is conservation of momentum. Blunt weapons often rely on large amount of momentum. Only thing you can do is to make the armor bouncy. So you can try to turn it into elastic collision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_collision

But then again they often added small spikes and rough surfaces to the tips of such weapons, to turn it into inelastic collision. http://www.medievalcollectibles.com/images/Product/large/AH-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inelastic_collision

The bad shit for the weapon is that it's very difficult to change the direction of war-hammer mid course. So it's easier to block.

Kevlar makes armor of similar effectiveness lighter. But there is nothing fundamentally better than old plate armors. It's still just distributing force to larger area. With penetrating weapons this is potentially very effective, as there is relatively little momentum and energy. The idea is to have very high local pressure at the tip of the weapon and this normally cuts deep into flesh.

So morning star would be the weapon of choice there I suppose. Sword may win "by points" but with morning star you'd have a solid chance of actually neutralizing opponent.

Historically, the weapon of choice for defeating plate armour was the pollaxe.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollaxe - Fiore's azza: http://scholasaintgeorge.org/training_docs/Basic%20Poleaxe%2...

Flanged mace should be pretty decent too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_(weapon)#European_Middle_...

historic plate, chain and other armors (including helmets) had significant padding, layers of it, underneath. This both stops arrows, spikes from reaching the skin and cushions spreads impact out.

Impact weapons were rare when hvy armors were in use. OTOH, heavy chopping polearms/swords (to get through joints in armor), and anything to knock plate wearer on ground (to then poke them in between armored bits) were developed and become more popular as heavier armors came about.

> Impact weapons were rare when hvy armors were in use

No they weren't. Cheap and cheerful mauls and war hammers were very popular on mediaeval battlefields - the archers at Agincourt used them as secondary weapons against knights for instance.

And of course it is easy to turn a two-handed sword into an impact weapon as well - turn it around and use a pommel strike.

Really nice article here, btw: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm