“What could be more precious to a king than an armor that will safeguard his body in combat?” Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519) As a royal in a “nondemocratic political system,” Maximilian had a ...

Head to the Frist Art Museum’s upper-level galleries, and you’ll come face-to-face with a 500-year-old knight in shining armor. OK, so it’s not an actual knight. The armor, however, is the real deal.

As seniors at Augsburg College hammered away at their theses this spring, Josh W. Davis was probably the only one actually using a hammer. A medieval-studies major, Mr. Davis wrote his final paper on ...