Even basic armor makes a lot of difference in a fight.
“If a gambeson was all you could afford, it was a lot better than nothing. Assuming you kept moving and made yourself a hard target, there was a good chance that this kind of armor would resist a sword cut or an axe-blow, or at least limit the depth of the cut to something less than lethal or debilitating.”
https://acoup.blog/2019/06/21/collections-punching-through-some-armor-myths/