Shirts vs Sleeves, Mail Options in the 14th C
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- Опубликовано: 5 мар 2016
- Both full mail shirts, and sets of discreet mail sleeves and paunces were available for the majority of the 14th century. This doesn't mean everyone should run out and buy a set of sleeves and paunces, there are other things that may effect the decision. What other factors are important when selecting one or the other types of mail defenses? Here's my take on it!
Thom Richardson's PhD Thesis - etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3919/
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Another advantage of a full shirt is that it can be worn independently, which could be useful if you don't have enough time to put on your whole set of plate armour, in a surprise attack for example.
I believe one would still have time to put on the breastplate at least
Or as armor under clothes in a dangerous town.
Another great video Ian. Thanks for the effort you put into these.
Didn't learn anything knew, but you did help confirm my own personal choices on how I wish to configure my next kit. Thank you for linking the thesis looks like it will be an excellent read. Keep making great content!
Great breakdown Ian!
Men the content in this channel is so Damm good
One of the advantages of full mail shirt would be "modularity".
What I mean by that is that it could be worn by itself in a scenario where comfort is the most important (e.g. on the march) and rigid defence element could be added where security is the prime concern (e.g. battle)
People didn't wear mail on the march because mail is basically the heaviest and least comfortable piece of your entire harness, combined with the fact that mail rusts like nobody's business when exposed to almost any moisture. Though it would be faster to put on a haubergeon than a full kit of plate if you were ambushed.
Thank you for your effort!
:)
Well done, as usual.
Good video as always!
Fantastic video, it was good to go into a bit of detail into the options of maille. I only wish it was as easy to find the Manuscript containing the inventory of the tower of london in 1338 as it is to read about it in Thorm Richardsons wonderful thesis.
Another great video!
Well you called it right about those dislikers!
"that one or two random people who have to give me a thumbs down on every video go ahead and do that too", 11 days now since you uploaded it and you're at 592 likes and 2 dislikes.
Good video as usual :)
+Extra stuff It never fails! :)
Fantastic couple of sets of plate you have there. I really liked the second coat of plates style with back protection. I don't know who makes your gear, maybe you do, but it's top shelf stuff.I enjoy your vids great work.
+Sean Brindley Hi Sean, thank you. The black covered pair of plates is not mine, it's on loan from a friend. Both pieces of armor were made by the same armorer though, you can see his work here (www.wassonartistry.com).
You reference manuscripts a lot in your videos. I might suggest that you do a video on how to view manuscripts and some of the pit falls that inexperienced viewers might overlook. For example the most obvious which is that they're using arms and armour from their own period when talking about past events. How enemies are portrayed, contra friends. Some times I see weird shield designs and I'm left wondering, "did they actually have those faces on their shields?"
+Wille k It's a good idea, and something I've intended to do for a while. Maybe I'll bump it toward the top of the list of ideas.
+Knyght Errant
I would also like to see that, there is a good deal of misinterpretation like "ring mail" and "banded mail". It would also be good to adress some weird stuff like strange falchions and curved arming swords.
just what i needed :)
Great video once again Ian.
i was wondering though about the effect of early black powder weapons on these types of armour (plate and mail or full plate), and at what point it was generally decided that there was no point in wearing it? i assume the graph would cross at an increase in the power of the muskets, but in my mind would it not still offer protection over just cloth? would be interesting to know more about it.
Oops, my bad. The back of the brigandine looks pretty badass as well as functional. I think I might be interested in looking for a similar arrangement for the front.
instant suscribtion. Great channel!
+navotas21 Thank you, and welcome to the channel!
Why would anyone consistently dislike your videos? Do they refuse to believe that armor was anything but crude and cumbersome?
weeaboos. one time i had to convince some guy that samurai armout isnt bulletproof... failed :D
Depends on the gun. 16th century matchlocks? probably. Modern high powered rifles? not a chance.
+Noah Weisbrod against muskets they wont. considering that armour has too many gaps and is either lamellar or laminar which does not absorb as much shock as single rigid plate. even europeans had to make armour crazy thick that it only would protect vital argans, arms and shins. you wouldnt be able to fight for long in it because it is super thick and heavy (compared to standart armour). then again o-yaroi is ceremonial, not battle armour. in reality samurai used similar lamellar armour like europeans but with less coverage.
***** Sorry i mean modern o-yaroi. they are compleately unpractical trash. Real o-yaroi had little silly decorations because it is battle armour. Still it was impractical later when firearms were discovered.
very interesting as usual! nice job!
I would like to know more about scale armour,
it was used throughout the middle age as shone in allot of art, but rarely reproduce or used in reenactment
+Martin Merkel Actual scale was rare as it required a lot of maintenance and was very vulnerable to a simple upwards thrust. Brigandine which looks a bit similar was common and there was also lamellar in the earlier periods in various parts of the world.
I am an SCA Chivalric (heavy armored) fighter and my persona, a Third Crusader, would have been wearing mostly mail (of course my fighting kit has rigid plates for the areas the rules require to be protected with rigid plating), but since I also wear a surcoat, the torso is covered up, so to reduce the overall weight I'm wearing, I wear a mail half-shirt (basically a short-sleeved shirt that stops just below the chest), and a mail skirt, leaving the midriff exposed (though that is covered by a rigid coat-of-plates style breastplate), but when worn under the surcoat, it still looks like I'm wearing a full mail shirt but with about 10 pounds less weight.
Great information. I have been watching your channel. Thank you for your hard work. I have a question, how often do you think mail was cleaned when utilized as sleeves and paunces when sewn to a Gambeson ?
+Michael Maranda Thank you sir. As evidenced by a lot of the survivals, mail sleeves would have been entirely separate fro the gambeson, not sewn to it like small gussets or voiders. So they would have been a little easier to maintain. That being said, even voiders would just be whip-stitched to a garment, and can easily be removed to clean. Sewing them back on in an hour or two would be pretty trivial, and most of these guys would have had someone to do that for them :) But to answer your question, it's really hard to quantify how often, other than to say when it needed repair or cleaning.
Hello Ian LaSpina, nice video! I really like your channel!
I have a question from someone who knows very little about armours (me!). Do you know if is there any real difference between a plate armour from de 14th century (like your 'stand alone' plate) and the plates from the 18th/19th centuries (like a cuirass from the French Cuirassiers)? I ask in terms of material, thickness and quality.
thanks in advance!
+Mateus Nz
This is a pretty damn good question!
+Mateus Nz
16th century armor was already made thicker than 15th and 14th century armor in an effort to stop firearms, period writers already lamented the fact that their grandpa's in their 15th century armor could go about jolly all day while they now had to wear armor that became uncomfortable after three hours. As a result of this increasing weight and thickness parts of the armor such as greaves and later leg armor was discarded. Perhaps the fact that the increased thickness only came about when firearms replaced longbows and crossbows is the most compelling argument for amusing medieval people considered their armor good enough against the faster firing longbow.
I believe (But cannot verify) the French cuirassier breastplate was initially meant to stop musket fire at a distance of around 50 yard, perhaps unsurprisingly it did not perform well being capable of only stopping a single shot at most. Of course there were veterans who claimed their breastplate had stopped bullets and saved their lives but this could be at further ranges.
+Mateus Nz A good question. I have read in several places, that cuirassiers breastplates were quite heavy and thick, since they had to stop musket balls at least at some distance.
***** A musket fires a soft round metal projectile, the velocity quickly drops after leaving the barrel and the round shape coupled with lead is not exactly great for penetrating plate.
I agree that is primarily served as protection against swords and sabers but a breastplate of 2mm would be sufficient for that, as far as I am aware the thing actually weighed 7.2 kg
***** Well like I said I cannot verify the 50 yards thing right now since I lack my sources, that said those earlier 16th and 17th cuirassiers armors did occasionally stop point blank pistol shots.
Hey! Have you seen the latest Lindybeige´s video about mail coifs? I found it interesting and would love to hear your take on the subject!
+borna1231 I haven't seen it yet, but I will check it out!
Awesome!
Great channel, so informative. Thumbs up from me every time. I would like to see a videoclip about lamellar armour. Or is that the same thing as an brigandine?
+Radovan Kuburic In most cases I've seen, lamellar armour doesn't have a foundation at all. Similar to mail, the armour holds itself together.
+Finkeren Ok ty for answer.
+Ubeer85 I have asked the same question with you on a previous video!
+Park Hyeong-joon What I meant was, that lamellar armour holds itself together without the need for a backing or foundation garment. Yes, lamellar armour can weigh down on the shoulders, though this can be offset somewhat by a tight fit. Maille on the other hand actually "hugs" your body (if the weave is turned the right way) so that helps in weight distribution even without a belt.
+Park Hyeong-joon brigandine by its very nature is more flexible than lamellar, but since the plates all overlap, it's less flexible than some people think.
Lamellar armour can be fitted tightly, because it's usually divided into seperate sections, similar to plate, that allow movement.
You didn't take one reason into consideration - Cost. Individual bits of mail cost less than a complete mail shirt so the cost was the big factor as well.
+Matityah In general, from the late 14th c onward, the people wearing full harness (i.e., the ones who would benefit from things like sleeves or voiders) aren't the individuals most affected by cost. Because of the class of individual we're talking about, I suspect performance was the dominant factor.
hey ian i was wondering if you could help me out i just recently bought a full mail shirt from the kult of Athena store but i was going to try and alter the mail sleeves to be more tapered and i was wondering if you could give me some helpful tips on how to do it as ive never done anything like this before and i really dont want to mess up the shirt it is the Chainmail Hauberk - Alternating Dome Riveted Flat Rings shirt i look forward to hearing from you
Thanks for the content, always like to learn.
Would either full shirt or discreet sleeves be more difficult to get on?
I'm also intrigued by the picture of the angled elbows, do you have more information on the tailoring of mail shirts?
I also wonder about the difference between a gambeson and an arming jacket/doublet. I have a gambeson but would it be historically correct to use that as an under coat for mail or a coat of plates?
Thanks in advance and have a great day.
+Nearoth Full shirts come in a lot of different varieties, some are buckle down the front some have no closures, so the difficulty of getting them on and off can vary, but none are particularly hard to get on. Sleeves also come in a variety of attachments but again, none are too difficult to get on, especially after you've gotten used to doing it.
Here's a pinterest album of extant mail sleeves. Many contain the elbow tailoring you're referring to. Many mail shirts also have the same tailoring at the elbow and both usually have tailoring under the armpit as well. The only way to make mail close-fitted *and* mobile is to tailor it. That's why modern mass-produced mail shirt-sleeves that are simply tubes bind up when you move your shoulders and elbows (www.pinterest.com/tbiliter/mail-sleeves/).
Medieval terminology is so imprecise that the word 'gambeson' can mean tons of different arming garments. But basically a really heavily padded garment is unnecessary for wear under plate armor because you don't need the robust protection of the textile layer. It would also make you less flexible, so the arming garments worn under plate armor tend to be thinner or at least less-padded in the places where mobility is required and areas directly protected by plate armor.
+Knyght Errant thanks for the detailed response. I'll check out the album and see if I can more information to begin creating my accurate mail armor.
Are there examples of a shirt or sleeve being permanently secured to a garment or is it always a separate piece?
Thanks for the content, I'm interested to find out what the next topic will be :-).
As cost would no doubt be a big contributing factor would you consider doing a video on the costs of these pieces in their appropriate periods? We're told that they were expensive but how expensive? Was there a gradual lowering of prices like there was with swords due to reusing older pieces or did they necessity of fitting cause this not to happen?
Hi Ian, Someone asked in comments and I was surprised you didn't cover HOW THE SEPARATE Sleeves & skirts stayed put or were attached to what?
I could guess from other ways things you have shown being attached but I'm used to you being detailed SPECIFIC down to a Buckle or latch! =D
+klyana130 Well, I was going to cover stuff like that when I do a video dedicated to the details of mail sleeves in the future, but there are 3 historical methods I'm aware of. One, I drew in my sketch at 0:54 where you just have a partial upper chest textile sewn to the sleeves that laces closed down the center of the chest. The second is strips of mail that connect the two sleeves, or strips of leather that fulfill the same function and buckle closed. The third is a 'half-shir' which is basically just the upper 1/3 of a mail shirt that is continuous across the chest.
Knyght Errant
Oh I just thought the drawing represented the gambeson type shirt UNDER the mail. I wasn't listening to hear the description of the lacing was cloth connecting & hold the mail into place. Well I wasn't the only one missing it, I guess. Thanks.
***** No worries, I didn't make it clear in the video. But I will cover these things in detail when I get a set of mail sleeves to show everyone.
Might the choice also have been one of comfort? Harness over sleeves and skirt may ride differently than over a full shirt. Also, given the lack of straps, a full shirt wouldn't "pull" in potentially uncomfortable ways.
Personally, I'd want sleeves and a skirt for the ease of replacing damaged sections quickly.
+PerfectTangent Comfort of course plays a role, but you're only a position to make that choice if the rest of your armor supports the decision in the first place. It's one of the main reasons I want to switch to sleeves and paunces myself, but not until I have a cuirass that won't result in a wide open back otherwise. I wouldn't be as concerned about repair. The sections that get damaged could be just as easily repaired and the people who own extensive harness can easily afford those repairs.
Good point. I meant ease of replacement in a more...tactical sense. Maybe while on campaign and an arm is damaged one could then just swap it out from baggage while a blacksmith repairs the damaged set.
It just occurred to me that another good argument for them would be their utility in fitting out a larger number of soldiers without having to worry too much about sizing issues. Having never worn a hauberk, though, I don't know if this is actually an issue...
Yeah, conditions on campaign can probably get pretty rough, so some field repairs or replacements might be simpler in certain cases, good point!
You have mentioned inventories for the Tower of London's armory a few times now. Do you know who would have owned the possessions listed on these inventories? I have generally assumed that the arms and armor of this period were private possessions. Are the arms listed in these inventories owned by the tower's keeper (or steward, or whatever the correct title may be)?
+Samuel Yeates The answer is, "The Crown". Some of it is the personal armor of the king, some armor was confiscated from rebels, and a large portion was purchased to use as "government issue". The line between the king and the state is very fine in a monarchy.
+Mart Shearer Thanks for the answer.
In the 2nd example with the coat of plates, wouldnt the neck become more vulnerable? An aventail would do depending on helm i know but just wondering
+Kyle Campbell You'd still be wearing a mail pisan (collar) regardless of whether you selected a shirt, or separate set of sleeves and paunces.
+Kyle Campbell It's worth noting that sometimes the neck is covered by both a mail collar and the mail aventail on the bascinet. Many of the Wisby pairs of plates don't have any plates on the upper back, but were worn in conjunction with mail coifs which had square panels hanging down in that area.
thanks for the responses they definitely helped
where can someone purchase a coat of plates like the one in your video?
+billyboy3404 The one in this video was custom made for a friend by armorer Jeff Wasson (http;//www.wassonartistry.com) but lots of armorers out there can make similar pieces. Piotr Feret of www.platener.eu makes some nice Coats of Plates and also Andrey Galevskiy (look him up on facebook) does some nice ones as well.
If they were only wearing a front chest piece in the 14th century then they'd still wear a full shirt of maille in order to cover their back, but if they had in the 14th century a back piece as well (whether a single plate or a coat of plates) then the need for a full maille shirt is eliminated
For the most part, yes, although sometimes people seemed to still opt for the full mail shirt even under a full cuirass.
Why were the plates on coats of plates on the inside of the leather backing instead of outside?
+Człowiek Wiking Aside from making it just look cleaner and nicer, it also helps protect the plates from the elements. It may also provide the function of presenting a much smoother glancing surface to the enemy's weapons. Having a bunch of overlapping riveted plates on the outside could cause weapons to snag more easily. It also prevents it from snagging on other pieces of your own kit.
Thanks.
+Knyght Errant ^This, and on the outside, a enemy knows exactly where to hit stab to bypass the plates and hit your chest, under cloth, it is concealed.
+Philip Dyer Also,couldn't the churburg breastplates could be to be a multilame inside out short coat of plates?
+Philip Dyer For earlier coats of plates, because of no back defense and multi plate upper chest protection.
Great video, as always.
Whenever I see a stand alone breast plate, the first thing I think is "You better not run away from archers, man". I image that you would be more likely to be hit on the back while trying a quick retreat from ranged soldiers than while fighting close quarters combat. Do you think this assumption is reasonable?
+Thiago Monteiro Your supposed to have friends and fast horse to take care of those guys. If you are doing so badly in combat that you are forced into disorder flight, you are probably screwed no matter what you are wearing. I've read that this was so well know that armors even into the early modern era made the back protection for the torso alot thinner than the front.
Were the sleeves attached to the padding or tightened somehow?
+AVJHalonen There are some surviving samples where the mail sleeves are attached to a fabric foundation, and others where the two sleeves are held together with strips of mail or leather straps. See Mac's thread on the Armour Archive: forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=168360
+Mart Shearer That's how I assumed the sleeves stayed in place, strapped across chest back or onto a cloth gambeson type shirt like the leg plates with some armor. Or hooked attached to the inside of the chest plate armor. Otherwise they would easily slide down and off your arm.
As a side question, do you intend to make videos on shields in the future?
+Mephisto - Nothing is off limits! I hadn't made any immediate plans to cover shields but I will add it to the list.
+Knyght Errant Awesome! There are a few shield types which haven't been discussed in the other historical channels (or at least as far as I know). I'm talking about the tower shield for example, the spiked shield and so forth.
Hello! My question doesn't regard mail, but I got curious seeing the black leather straps on the back of your solid breastplate. Any particular reason why you chose black over brown, or red leather?
+Fabio Tidei No particular reason.
+Knyght Errant
I asked because I believed that black leather did not exist yet in those times. Could you enlighten me about that?
Black leather is very common in artwork. Recipes to make black leather dye are not unlike black ink. Iron shavings in solution when mixed with the tannic acid naturally found in vegetable tanned leathers chemically turn the pigment of the leather black. Medieval leathers had a lot more residual tannin left in them as well which aided the process.
+Knyght Errant This is interesting. I'd ever thought that the blackened look of leather in artwork, or in few survived objects was due to the many centuries of age that caused progressive deterioration.
Fabio Tidei I think you might be thinking about silver tarnishing over time on MS miniatures that gives the appearance of black armor or swords.. But things like oil paintings etc clearly depict lots of black shoes, belts and purses and shouldn't be subject to the same tarnishing problem.
Given that the fauld or skirt of plates often cover all the way to the groin, was a mail skirt really necessary?
The nice thing about a mail skirt is it fouls blades that get under the fauld if a fauld was present. Mail was almost always worn as the final protection for the groin well into the era of faulds, skirts of plates and other plate defenses became the norm either as a skirt or a brayette.
Also, a lot of earlier faulds (and some later designs) don't quite reach all the way down to protect the groin entirely, so a blade can still possibly get in from underneath (they tend to protect the abdomen more primarily than the groin). When in motion the lames might expose the groin as well as they collapse upward. The mail could make all the difference.
Interesting. For the upward collapsing fauld, will an upward blow between the legs easily folds it up and hence strikes the groin?
Where can you get a good mail shit like this?
Yeh, but what about the neck protection if you're wearing just sleeves and paunces? would you then not also need discrete mail section just for the lower neck?
+MrRapidPotato You'd be wearing a mail pisan or standard with either a mail shirt or a set of sleeves and paunces.
Knyght Errant Ahh thanks for the swift response :) you learn something new every day.
+MrRapidPotato The Pisan and Aventail are already discrete pieces of mail.
+Knyght Errant So far those few dislikers haven't shown up :)
Thanks for the info guys, I'm here to learn :) nothing wrong with educating yourself about things you find interesting xD
Hey, Ian! Great video! I have my first ever question for you.
I have met people on the internet, in person, and in the HEMA / Reenactment community who perceive certain weapons - specifically Halberds and bladed pollaxes - as 'can-openers'. They claim to have seen vetted footage of these weapons cleaving through helms, breastplates, multiple armor pieces, and tank armor (okay - joking there, kind of). Additionally, I've had one person whose contributions I typically respect that halberds with guisarme hooks could just peel plates off of full harness in full.
Now, most of these I can mentally attribute to bunk; not that these weapons wouldn't have an effect - perhaps even penetrate plate armor in some way - though I find it hard to imagine them clefting through large plates of steel with ease. I wanted to know if you had any thoughts, or any source material you could link me to on this? I know we see in Fiore Dei Liberi and others that pollaxe fighters don't just smash through the plate - indicating that it wasn't always the optimal stratagem (though I believe I've seen manuscripts of some polearms giving light damage in thrusts through plate).
Sorry for rambling, I'm not the best asker-of-questions.
+Dominator046 I don't believe that it was common for any weapon to easily cleave directly through plate armor unless the armor was faulty for some reason or unusually soft. Especially later armors where hardening became increasingly common (which also coincides with the development of later halberds and pollaxes. Things like hammers and hooked weapons might be able to deform armor, injure or kill the person inside without actually penetrating the armor, or snag straps and gaps to pull people down, off horses, or maybe tear pieces of armor out of position or even off the body. Hardened spikes can probably penetrate armor, but even then it's not going to just punch through like modern armor-piecing weaponry. It's going to slow down as it goes in and continue to bleed energy as it tries to open the hole more and more as it goes deeper.
Most of the images in medieval manuscripts that do depict actual bladed weapons cutting through helmets and things of that nature are found in bibles and other books that are deliberately trying to show 'heroic' deeds that the reader would obviously recognize as beyond normal human capability.
Many thanks! Such is what I had thought, but - I can always be wrong, so I wanted to turn my question to someone far more learned than I am at this point in my life. Thank you again!
To what extent did full mail shirts continue into the 15th century?
+Neutral Fellow I can't say exactly how common they were, but there are numerous 15th century mail shirt survivals. They definitely don't go away, and continue to be worn under armor along side sleeves or voiders.
Knyght Errant Thank you, that they continued to be used through the 15th century is exactly what I wanted to hear :)
+Neutral Fellow One pretty convenient thing about mail shirts: You can buy one and have most of your vitals at least somewhat protected, then add pieces of armor as you make more money.
This seems like more than enough reason for mail shirts to continue existing since professional soldiery was booming at the time.
Nuserame That, and you can ditch the back plate to leave your torso more ventilated in the summer, so it is not completely encased in steel. Mail is still very decent protection.
Is your chain maille made out of titanium? It looks so different to the ones I've seen before. So fancy and shiny.
It's just mild steel. A lot of people wear 'blackened' mail, which there's little historical evidence for. Cleaning mail isn't friendly to blackened finishes.
+Knyght Errant how do you prevent the mail for rust? Because I cant see a single ring rusted. For me it's pretty hard so that the rust won't get in to my chainmail.
knyghterrant.com/index.php/2016/04/11/modern-mail-maintenance/ There's also a video at the bottom
Knyght Errant yeah thanks, but I do the same. Just have the problem, after a weekend on the battlefield that there are a lot of tiny rust stains on my chainmail. How often do you re-oil your chainmail? For me it's after everyday of big use. Like an event or so.
If you're re-oiling it each day after use, but before the rust has formed and you're still finding rust forming, then the sweat is not being displaced by whatever oil you're using. Maybe try something like WD-40 immediately after use to displace the sweat and water that's in contact with the mail before oiling it. A lot of oils won't actually displace water, so if you're oiling already sweaty mail then you may just be locking the moisture in place but preventing more water from getting on there.
But no matter how hard you try, rust will form with sweat and use. It will always require a good soak in some sort of product like evapo-rust or a tumble in a mixer to get the rust off and the mail dried before oiling.
What is the diffrens in weight, between the two alternatives.
+Exploatores A quick guess based on the video, where Ian weighs all the individual parts of his armour, would be at most 6 - 8 lbs.
+Exploatores 3 examples of mail sleeves from the Wallace collection weigh between 1.5 and 2.25 kg per arm. So about 3 - 5 kilos for a set of sleeves. Shirts range wildly, some are light at about 5 kilos, some are well over 10 kilos. This is more of a function of ring diameter than total 'coverage' though. Sleeves tend to use smaller ring diameters in the examples I've seen, so they'd be a little heavier than if you simply cut the sleeves off of a similar shirt. Another possible advantage to sleeves is that they free up upper body mobility a little more. The waist of the torso armor can potentially bind on the mail. When you go to raise your arms, a mail shirt might get pinned at the waist affecting range of motion of the arms. A sleeve setup wouldn't be prone to the same thing.
but with the sleev thing you have to have som kind of armor on your back. So do the total weight get lower ?
+Exploatores It depends on the type of breastplate/coat of plates you're wearing. Some provide protection for the entire upper torso. Even some of the early-14th century pieces from Visby include very good protection for the back.
Exploatores In general, the overall weight of wearing sleeves and paunces should be lower than wearing a full mail shirt, but there are other advantages and factors at play that prevent me from giving you a straight answer. It's impossible to say 'sleeves and paunces are always lighter than mail shirts."
Is there ever a point or situation where a person would deliberately opt out of waring mail under their toes armor all together? Maybe in a later century or something along those lines?
+IanTheRed Some later 16th century armors may not include mail, especially a lot of the partial armors that were popular at the time. Some 16th century armors were also so complete in plate protection that they precluded the need for mail completely. Mail gussets and voiders still provide some overlap with the plate, and may not quite be what you're asking about though.
+Knyght Errant that's very interesting. I am familiar with the finely articulated joints in armors like the Henry VIII armor. I was more interested in a potential reason someone in a more common type of full plate harness (gothic, Maximilian, etc.) would choose to forego waring mail under their harness all together. There are some depictions I've come across one line and in books where it almost looks like some individuals are just waring plate protection over an arming jacket and I was curious if there would be a reason why.
IanTheRed There is always of course the simple explanation that not everyone had access to the mail that would go under other pieces of armor. Mail under plate represents what is most typical for the knightly class, and furthermore represents the most 'complete' form of armor at its respective place in history. It's not necessarily representative of what is most common for people of less means.
Hi Ian, I wish share with you the inventory of the Castle of Rodès in 1369: except a wooden helm with a metal nose (what the hell could it looks like?) there is a clear mention of cuirass and sleeves: www.jeantosti.com/histoire/rodes.htm may be it could be a mistake of translation of catalan to french, but I don't think so.
Here, in 1367, a gippon à armer with maille sleeves: www.persee.fr/renderPage/bch_0007-4217_1950_num_74_1_2496/0/710/bch_0007-4217_1950_num_74_1_T1_0111_0000.jpg
+Vince Ore Interesting! Perhaps wooden helmets for a tournament? We know that leather helmets were used.
+Mart Shearer Well, it s not a kind of inventory for tournament but why not :D
+Vince Ore Interesting, could be a example Medieval sparring protection. Gives me the rather hilarious idea of squires training with their knights wearing wooden buckets with eye cut outs! :D :P I wish they was someone on here that is a expert in Medieval French.
+Philip Dyer it is a mix between catalan and languedocian.
Was mail alone still a viable option in the 14th century for the common solider?
+Anatis Definitely viable for someone who can't get into something better. I'd much rather have a mail shirt than nothing at all. It's still very effective defense against cuts and many other attacks. It may not stop a lance, locked down in a lance-rest at full gallop, but if it keeps you alive through a battle, it's a viable option :)
Notice how there are no dislikes on this video yet. : ' )
+Elijah Talmud Ah but 11 days after uploading it was at exactly 2.
I've seen a lot of images and reconstructions of 15th century infantry wearing a mail shirt under a brigandine. Why? Doesn't a brig and jack give a good level of protection? Why add all that extra weight?
+Daniel Billington People still wore full mail shirts under complete plate cuirasses as well. That option doesn't really go away for the remainder of the Middle Ages. I'm not sure why, but some people were still definitely driven to do just that.
Thanks Ian. What's your opinion? Does the additional protection offset the weight?
who thumbs down this shit? shame on you
this has been bothering me throughout your series. I think when you say "discreet" you really mean "distinct". discretion refers to privacy or hiding something. distinction refers to separation or difference.
Check the difference between the words discreet and discrete. It's the latter you're looking for :)
Yay new knowledge!