Why armor was banned in Parliament

A closer look

Political debates often get intensely heated, but 14th-century British lawmakers took it to an entirely literal extreme. The 'Statute Forbidding Bearing of Armour' was strictly passed in 1313 because furious nobles kept showing up to government meetings dressed like they were ready to storm a castle. Remarkably, this hyper-specific law has never actually been repealed, so plate mail remains entirely illegal in the House of Commons.