I've been doing research for my LARP costume (Western Europe late 15th century) going through historical manuscripts, photos of reenactors and google images and I noticed a type of infantry solider that stood out between the common foot soldier and the typical man at arms/knights.

This man would be wearing what appears to be a full white harness but decided to abandon the leg harness all together. His head, shoulders, arms, elbows, hands and torso would be completely covered but legs left exposed.

I'm a tad bit confused because I always assumed the common foot soldier would only wear a helmet and breastplate/brigandine over a arming doublet/jack and possibly had jack chains or some upper thigh protection because that's all they could afford or were supplied with. On the other end of the spectrum you had your knights and man at arms who could afford a full white harness so I find it odd they would ditch leg protection when they could afford to stay fully protected.

Would this man be a much wealthier soldier who could afford better upper body armor compared to his poorer brethren ? Or were there knights and man at arms that just preferred to ditch the leg harness for weight, comfort and mobility purposes ? Or this is just an artists interpretation ?

Happy to hear your thoughts.