The Armour Archive

Hello, in my admittedly less than perfect understanding of the evolution of armor, I would have thought that mitten gauntlets (I assume easier to make) would have come before finger gauntlets. Yet, from illustrations, effigies, etc. it seems that the opposite was true. Why? Are there examples from say the 1300's of mitten gauntlets?

Puzzled,
Matthias

It is relatively easy to make fingernail shaped plates and stack them on the fingers of a glove, and not worry about articulation.

But here are some early mittens.

Not meant to hijack the thread, but are the mittens comparable to the "clamshell" gauntlets often used in the SCA?

Mail mittens are far more common than mail fingered gauntlets.

boris_ wrote:Not meant to hijack the thread, but are the mittens comparable to the "clamshell" gauntlets often used in the SCA?

Comparable. Clams are less medievally shaped, as customers think there ought to be foam in there, or full grounding on hilt and haft, plus the use of a domed shape for resisting dents or crushing.

Hello, in my admittedly less than perfect understanding of the evolution of armor, I would have thought that mitten gauntlets (I assume easier to make) would have come before finger gauntlets. Yet, from illustrations, effigies, etc. it seems that the opposite was true. Why? Are there examples from say the 1300's of mitten gauntlets?

Are we talking about plate armour or maille here? I assumed we were talking about plate.

Steve

How early in the 1300s? We've got scale and mail mittens in existence before the fingered gauntlets.

Plate. Mittens/clamshells. The example from Persia is 700+ years before they make an appearance again? I find that hard to believe.

Matthias

that glove image doesn't look right to me. the rivet holes are on the wrong side of the lames. They would not slide or rotate at all.

Now if that is the inside (glove on the inside), again it looks odd, as the plates would separate oddly when closing the hand.

Dougal Forester wrote:Hello, in my admittedly less than perfect understanding of the evolution of armor, I would have thought that mitten gauntlets (I assume easier to make) would have come before finger gauntlets. Yet, from illustrations, effigies, etc. it seems that the opposite was true. Why? Are there examples from say the 1300's of mitten gauntlets?

Puzzled,
Matthias

The sheet of metal had to be large enough to cut out a gauntlet part, uniformly flat, and free of internal deformities that would compromise the armour. All of this had to be done by hand.

If you can simply buy factory produces sheets then, yes mittens would be easier to make.

When you have to have someone platten out large sheets by hand, then making the gauntlets out of smaller pieces would likely be easier and less expensive and less time consuming.

I dont know Vladimir. I must respectfully disagree. If it were 1000 AD, I might, but by 1200-1250, you could get larger pieces of metal. They were making helms from it, and by 1300-1350 all sorts of other pieces, spaulders, cops, coats of plates, etc etc. Was it a socio-economic thing? In other words were the effigies, extant examples, and such only showing the wealthier knights/nobles/etc., and the common soldiers (wearing clamshell munitions gauntlets), are not shown? I dont really believe this, but I am speculating.

Matthias

I would be behind you Dougal except that we can not find a single manuscript pre 1400 that depicts mittens in western Europe, and trust me when I say the BotN/ACL community has looked very hard.

It is clear to me that the knowledge existed and that they absolutely could have been made...it just seems they were not. No idea why.

Athanaric wrote:I would be behind you Dougal except that we can not find a single manuscript pre 1400 that depicts mittens in western Europe, and trust me when I say the BotN/ACL community has looked very hard.

It is clear to me that the knowledge existed and that they absolutely could have been made...it just seems they were not. No idea why.

Shields. That would be my speculation. As two handed weapons became more prevalent, requiring the discarding of the shield to wield effectively, concern for the individual fingers increases. The date coincides with full white harness becoming prevalent, requiring cracking, and increased use of poll weapons, and making the shield less needed.

I wonder what the historical cost differences were between a helm made of "large" plates of metal vs. gauntlets made of smaller pieces?

Steve