The Armour Archive

Dan Howard

"haubergeon" just means "little hauberk." The term is interchangeable with "mail shirt"

Dan Howard

How is the labour part of the cost any less than a jack of plates?

Dan Howard

You'd have to find examples that have not undergone much oxidation and are known to not have much "restoration" done to them. The initial thicknesses are fairly thin (oxidation can increase the initial thickness of an iron plate by a considerable margin) so it doesn't take much inteference...

Dan Howard

Agreed. If you are going to the trouble of riveting your own links then it is a waste of time buying premade links. You may as well pay the pitance that the Indian mail makers charge and get them to assemble it. When it arrives you can practice riveting by tailoring it to fit properly. If you want i...

Dan Howard

I'm not so sure about "cheaper". A lot of the cost of medieval armour is in the materials, not labour. There is a lot of waste material in this ring armour. You are wasting all the off cuts from the round plates and there is more waste caused by punching out the centre. It would probably c...

Dan Howard

There are two or three possible examples of round scale (not washers) armour dating to the Bronze Age. For arms and helmets, not the body.

Dan Howard

Please correct me if I'm wrong but would it not been more flexible, lighter and possibly cheaper than a Brigandine/Coat-of-plates? As to the practicality of such a piece of armour , do you mean for us modern re-enactors or for the historical warriors? Pretty much all kinds of armour made of multilp...

Dan Howard

The only example I can think of is the one in Stone's gloassary and it is Asian. There is no evidence of this ever being used in Europe. The armour is generally referred to as "ring armour". Round scale would consist of a solid disc without the circle removed from the centre. Baidana is ju...

Dan Howard

Back to the Varangians-- Anna Komnena (from the right time period) emphasizes the strength of Frankish mail, implying it is stronger than Byzantine armor of the time. To me that suggests it is unlikely that Varangians wore scale or lamellar over mail (aside from the absence of any positive reason t...

Dan Howard

Haldan wrote:Lamellar over chain. Looks good and you can portray a Varangian Klibanophori.

There was a thread earlier exploring the likelihood of Byzantine lamellar over mail and there really isn't much evidence for it.

Dan Howard

If you are looking for sources on historical welded mail then there is very little evidence that it existed. Most of the mail that was initially claimed to have been welded has turned out to be punched or riveted after further analysis..

Dan Howard

Datini was an arms merchant in Avignon during the 100 years war and made a fortune selling used armour. He later became a supplier of luxury goods to the Avignon cardinals. His archives are intact and should have a treasure trove of information regarding arms and armour during the time.
http://www.istitutodatini.it/schede/archivio/home_e.htm

Dan Howard

I think we are talking about two different things. Duplex plate is armour consisting of two independent plates laminated together by riveting or welding. They aren't folded together to redistribute the carbon. They are distinct layers - some have a distingiushable air gap between the layers and are ...

Dan Howard

There are plenty of examples of duplex plate turning up now that people know to look for it (and not just high-end stuff). But it seems completely arbitrary as to whether the iron or steel is on the outside. Some examples are duplexed (or triplexed) but the layers have little difference in compositi...

Dan Howard

There is clear evidence of some Middle Eastern warriors wearing lamellar over mail so I don't doubt that was done. I was just trying to find suppiort for the claim that Byzantines did it. Most of the cited evidence turned out to be no evidence at all after tracking it down. That second image makes i...

Dan Howard

I've seen these two. I just can't make out both mail and lamellar being worn on the torso by anyone. I realise that we are handicapped by the fact that lamellar is not transparent. The same problem occurs in the Middle Ages when trying to work out whether a knight wears a hauberk under his plate or ...

Dan Howard

Nothing on Levantia. He makes the claim is his Osprey book but he doesn't have anything to support it. The passages he cites from Comnena don't exist.

Dan Howard

Does anyone have any examples? There are some illiustrations that can be interpreted a dozen different ways but I can find little solid evidence of Byzantines wearing lamellar over mail from Constantine XI or any other period. I'd love to be pointed in a direction that doesn't lead to a dead end.

Dan Howard

TakedaSanjuichiro wrote:Depictions of Constantine XI, typically show the mail/lamalar arrangement

Do you have any examples?

Dan Howard

How much primary evidence is there really for the Byzantine combination of lamellar over mail? I've seen evidence for one or the other in a Byzantine context but little supporting the combination of both types of armour.

Dan Howard

The Somerset armour is scale, not lamellar.

Dan Howard

Pretty much all of the armour worn by the Romans would be classified as scale, not lamellar. The only example of true lamellar that may have been worn by a Roman is the already-mentioned leg guard found at Dura Europos (it is also the only solid evidence for Roman leather armour). Byzantine lamellar...

Dan Howard

Further east you see long sleeves dating back to the 2nd-3rd century. You tend to find long sleeves among any heavy cavalry force during the entire "age of mail". It was just less common in some eras and cultures than others.

Dan Howard

Already mentioned above. He had some kind of girdle made of leather but it is pretty hard to figure out what is covered by what.

Dan Howard

maul = big hammer
mallet = little maul

targe = large shield
target = little targe

Dan Howard

Here it is as I found it: The only people in British history noted to use leather, for instance, were the Welsh by Gerald of Wales in the late 12th Century- ''they eschew armour- instead wearing corslets of leather''. Is this the same passage? This translation is on Gutenburg m "They make use ...

Dan Howard

Thanks for the support guys.

Dan Howard

Agree with Matt. There are almost identical examples dating more than a thousand years earlier. It is a simple and effective design. There is no reason why it could not have been worn during the specified time, however.

Dan Howard

"I've translated every line in the Iliad"... Sorry for the derail but Dan you must have been EPIC in school to get that many lines! Hi Thomas. It was for a book that is coming out later this year. m I had to go through the Iliad and pull out all of the references to armour and shields to ...

Dan Howard

Yeah. His argument stems from the old belief that the Romans actually wore leather cuirasses. A belt clasp would be my guess too.

Dan Howard

This study has recently been making the rounds. http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=136960 The conclusions are dodgy but the data would be useful as part of a more comprehensive analysis. The main problem with that study is that there was no control to determine how much e...

Dan Howard

Comparing it to wages is useful. A lot can be inferred by knowing that it would take 112 days for an archer to buy a decent helmet even if he managed to save every penny.

Dan Howard

p17 says that some were riveted and others were joined by local hammer welding. The order of hard and soft layers seem to be random. Some examples used plates of the same hardness. As Wade said, the selection of plates for this construction seems arbitrary.

Dan Howard

All armour is more resistant to cuts than piercing. It is a complete strawman to try this argument. Any armour that can resist spears and arrows is more than capable of resisting sword cuts.

Dan Howard

This must be why it was only worn in backwaters like Sweden and Northumbria, while Byzantium, the wealthiest area on the Earth, didn't do as much with it. Not the best example. Comnena wrote that Frankish mail rendered them practically invulnerable to Byzantine weapons. Here is one passage to start...

Re: 15th Century Chainmail - is it a Haubergeon or Shirt?

Re: Legitimacy of Armour type

Re: Lamellar thickness

Re: Riveted Mail tools

Re: Legitimacy of Armour type

Re: Round Scale Mail

Re: Legitimacy of Armour type

Re: Round Scale Mail

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: How bad is this as a concept for armour?

Re: welded mail scholarly articals?

Re: How long was armor held onto?

Re: Did you know about "damascus" plate armour in the XIV/XV

Re: Did you know about "damascus" plate armour in the XIV/XV

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: Roman Lamellar?

Re: Roman Lamellar?

Re: Haubergeon....the early years.

Re: Anglo Saxon Leather Armour

Re: Why do helmet type names end in 'et'?

Re: Anglo Saxon Leather Armour

Re: Anglo Saxon Leather Armour

Re: 10thC AD Bronze Helmet

Re: Anglo Saxon Leather Armour

Re: Anglo Saxon Leather Armour

Re: Armor weight and human performance

Re: Armour costs

Re: Triplex construction of breastplate

Re: Thick mail rings

Re: Thick mail rings