glad to be of assistance for this video, Ill try and answer a few of your questions here. I believe the earliest reference to maille sleeves is a tower armouries receipt from 1325 (i will credit Ian from Knyght Errant as my source for this) Italian men at arms did often wear a full maille shirt under their cuirass, the rest of Europe also did so often too and we have many surviving extant shirts from the 14th-17th centuries. Italians also very often wore sleeves and a skirt instead, for some reason many people seem to believe that Italians only ever wore a full maille shirt which is of course ludicrous. Moving on to your part about ring construction, i think it is important we remember that maille armour was very frequently cut up and repurposed into new garments, I have no doubt that plenty of late 14th century maille was made of rings from the 13th century or even earlier. you mention they are normally flat, actually when we look at surviving examples, flat rings are actually more oval shaped or D shaped, this is not very easy to replicate with modern mass made rings which are made utterly differently to historical ones. Going on to flat rings, there are three main ways these can be made, they can be punched from a sheet like washers, much like your ones, they can also be drifted which remomoves less material making them stronger, or they can be forge welded also. By the late 14th century most of the rings ive seen tend to be the previous two. Now the next part i believe should get far more attention than it invariably does. Modern rings are TOTALLY unequal to historical rings in functionality. one of the key reasons for this is the construction of the rivet hole and overlap. On modern maille examples the rivet join is the weak-point of the ring. This is because the way mass manufactured modern rings are made is very ineffective functionally. Modern rings have an overlap that is generally far too thin, the rivet hole is also normally drilled, this removes a huge amount of material from the join and makes it very weak. Historically the rivet hole is drifted, this means that no material is removed, it is also more difficult to mass manufacture and therefore is rarely done today. into this drifted a conical or wedge rivet is then inserted and then they are riveted closed, this puts alot of material in the join and actually makes it the stongest part of the join. Surviving damaged rings and tests on authentic maille shows that breaks actually occur on the wire, the rivet is the strongest part of the ring. The reason fully riveted shirts became popular may well be along these lines but i dont believe so entirely, it does not appear so frequently before the 14th century. I would theorise the real reason is actually more based on what is ecenomical at the time, sheet metal or wire. Remember that solid rings can actually be more labour intensive depending what type you use. Also to address a later point, you are not likely to pop rivets on authentically reproduced maille, the way the rivets are joined pretty much solidifies them as part of the join unlike a modern rivet which just sits in a hole, held in place at each end. All in all this is a fantastic video though and I'm very glad to be a part of it :)
@@caradocewing4434 haha yeah but it's a great comment! Thanks for all the clarifications and absolutely great point about modern mass made rings not being like historical ones. I definitely should have included that
My aventail has come loose from the leather after a few fights and I have removed it from my helmet. I now protect my throat with a steel plate gorget. Aventails are heavy and the way mail flops around was affecting my balance. Mail aventails offer good protection but I can also see why people gave them up. Mine will be refitted when I get more used to fighting in armor and use heavier weapons.
True, they can be heavy but mine has not come loose whatsoever. I use it because it's appropriate for my chosen time period, but I wear a modern gorget underneath as well just in case something does get under.
I really like your brigandine its inspired after the one from munich right? Where did you get it from? Also did you make those chainmail sleeves yourself? How long did it take you?
Thank you! It's not modeled after the Munich, though it looks a little similar. It's based off of a manuscript image in Guiron Le Courtois, about 1380 Italy. It's custom work from Aleksey Perebeynos. The sleeves are from allbeststuff and I've just made minor alterations.
@@corrugatedcavalier5266 Looking at the example in the pop-up around 17:22 - your mail sleeves are the 'wrong way up'! The reason they make it difficult to raise your arms is that mail hangs much better one way up than the other: The example has the sleeves joined at ninety degrees to the body piece, which allows them to be gradually narrowed from the shoulder, which makes a huge difference to how well they flex.
Кино
glad to be of assistance for this video, Ill try and answer a few of your questions here. I believe the earliest reference to maille sleeves is a tower armouries receipt from 1325 (i will credit Ian from Knyght Errant as my source for this) Italian men at arms did often wear a full maille shirt under their cuirass, the rest of Europe also did so often too and we have many surviving extant shirts from the 14th-17th centuries. Italians also very often wore sleeves and a skirt instead, for some reason many people seem to believe that Italians only ever wore a full maille shirt which is of course ludicrous.
Moving on to your part about ring construction, i think it is important we remember that maille armour was very frequently cut up and repurposed into new garments, I have no doubt that plenty of late 14th century maille was made of rings from the 13th century or even earlier. you mention they are normally flat, actually when we look at surviving examples, flat rings are actually more oval shaped or D shaped, this is not very easy to replicate with modern mass made rings which are made utterly differently to historical ones. Going on to flat rings, there are three main ways these can be made, they can be punched from a sheet like washers, much like your ones, they can also be drifted which remomoves less material making them stronger, or they can be forge welded also. By the late 14th century most of the rings ive seen tend to be the previous two.
Now the next part i believe should get far more attention than it invariably does. Modern rings are TOTALLY unequal to historical rings in functionality. one of the key reasons for this is the construction of the rivet hole and overlap. On modern maille examples the rivet join is the weak-point of the ring. This is because the way mass manufactured modern rings are made is very ineffective functionally. Modern rings have an overlap that is generally far too thin, the rivet hole is also normally drilled, this removes a huge amount of material from the join and makes it very weak. Historically the rivet hole is drifted, this means that no material is removed, it is also more difficult to mass manufacture and therefore is rarely done today. into this drifted a conical or wedge rivet is then inserted and then they are riveted closed, this puts alot of material in the join and actually makes it the stongest part of the join. Surviving damaged rings and tests on authentic maille shows that breaks actually occur on the wire, the rivet is the strongest part of the ring. The reason fully riveted shirts became popular may well be along these lines but i dont believe so entirely, it does not appear so frequently before the 14th century. I would theorise the real reason is actually more based on what is ecenomical at the time, sheet metal or wire. Remember that solid rings can actually be more labour intensive depending what type you use. Also to address a later point, you are not likely to pop rivets on authentically reproduced maille, the way the rivets are joined pretty much solidifies them as part of the join unlike a modern rivet which just sits in a hole, held in place at each end.
All in all this is a fantastic video though and I'm very glad to be a part of it :)
oh damn this comment is huge
@@caradocewing4434 haha yeah but it's a great comment! Thanks for all the clarifications and absolutely great point about modern mass made rings not being like historical ones. I definitely should have included that
My aventail has come loose from the leather after a few fights and I have removed it from my helmet. I now protect my throat with a steel plate gorget. Aventails are heavy and the way mail flops around was affecting my balance. Mail aventails offer good protection but I can also see why people gave them up. Mine will be refitted when I get more used to fighting in armor and use heavier weapons.
True, they can be heavy but mine has not come loose whatsoever. I use it because it's appropriate for my chosen time period, but I wear a modern gorget underneath as well just in case something does get under.
Nice! Always fun to learn more about the armour of the time!
Glad that you enjoyed it!
So I saw the thumbnail and thought "Well, the letter carriers really went hard with their uniforms back then". Cuz I'm apparently an idiot.
Haha that's amazing.
I love the maille server!
Yep, it's pretty great!
i also love the maille server 😏
awesome video! where did you get your maille and your houndskull?
Thank you! The maille is from allbeststuff dot com, the houndskull is from Tabor Armory.
"Nice!"
Haha perfect
I really like your brigandine its inspired after the one from munich right? Where did you get it from? Also did you make those chainmail sleeves yourself? How long did it take you?
Thank you! It's not modeled after the Munich, though it looks a little similar. It's based off of a manuscript image in Guiron Le Courtois, about 1380 Italy. It's custom work from Aleksey Perebeynos. The sleeves are from allbeststuff and I've just made minor alterations.
awesome! Thanks for the reply.@@corrugatedcavalier5266
@@corrugatedcavalier5266 Looking at the example in the pop-up around 17:22 - your mail sleeves are the 'wrong way up'!
The reason they make it difficult to raise your arms is that mail hangs much better one way up than the other: The example has the sleeves joined at ninety degrees to the body piece, which allows them to be gradually narrowed from the shoulder, which makes a huge difference to how well they flex.