The specialist who stitched gambesons and arming doublets — densely quilted padded garments worn under mail and plate, on which a knight's comfort and survival partly depended. Important enough that London's 1327 royal charter went jointly to the 'Tailors and Linen Armourers.' Gunpowder and the decline of personal armor dissolved the specialty; by the time the London guild was reincorporated as the Merchant Taylors in 1503, the armourers' half of the name was already history.
Linen armourer no longer exists as a living trade. Here is what erased it, and which profession took on the work.
c. 1100 – 1500
Cut to the body: the guild age
Buttons, buttonholes, lacing and the set-in sleeve turned European clothing into constructed objects, and constructing them into a trade. Tailors' guilds spread through the cities of France, Italy, England and the Empire, controlling apprenticeship, quality and — crucially — who was allowed to cut cloth for money at all. London's tailors, chartered in 1327 alongside the linen armourers who padded fighting men's garments, grew into the Merchant Taylors, among the richest of the City's livery companies, wealthy enough to bury kings and found schools.
What else was happening then
c. 1200
Fitted clothing creates the trade
European dress shifts from draped and woven-to-shape garments toward fitted ones built from shaped, curved pieces. Cutting to fit becomes a distinct urban craft, separate from weaving and cloth dealing, and tailors' guilds begin appearing in city records across France, Italy, England and the German lands, controlling who may practice and how apprentices are trained.
1327
London's tailors win a royal charter
Edward III grants a charter to the Fraternity of St John the Baptist of Tailors and Linen Armourers of London — tailors and the makers of padded garments worn under armor, chartered together. Reincorporated as the Merchant Taylors in 1503, the guild became one of the Great Twelve livery companies of the City of London, wealthy enough to found schools that still exist.
1580
Alcega puts cutting into print
Spanish tailor Juan de Alcega publishes his Libro de Geometría, Práctica y Traça in Madrid — the earliest surviving printed tailor's pattern book, showing how to lay out doublets, cloaks and gowns on cloth of stated widths with minimal waste. Cutting, until then a jealously guarded oral guild secret, becomes geometry a stranger could study.
Where that work lives now
The craftsman who cuts cloth to one particular human body — a trade the sewing machine industrialized, ready-to-wear shrank, and no machine has finished replacing.
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