The Armour Archive

Ny Bjorn wrote:Short wiseacre comment - no hard feelings Mord, I am after all a narrow specialist... :

The research for "Gotlands Bildsteine" was made by Gabriel Gustafson and Fredrik Nordin whereas Prof Sune Lindqvist arranged for the final publication - the first two gentlemen had been dead for decades when the books were finaly released in 1941 & '42. Hence you should look for Lindqvist if you plan on getting it via ILL etc.

"Stones, ships and symbols : the picture stones of Gotland from the Viking Age and before" was in terms written by Erik Nylén and Jan Peder Lamm.

As OlafR pointed out above there are several Gotlandic picture stones with the "rider-being-welcomed-by-a-valkyrie-of-sorts" motif. At least two of these "stone riders" have baggy trousers but the wast majority have ordinary, narrow trousers. The motif is so common that it easily can be categorized as a "must" on picture stones of the early Viking Age.

/N B

No problem, Ny Bjorn...too much stuff floatin' in my brain.

Halv...agreed. A 8th Century source does not necessarily have the same information a 10th century source does. Place is an important consideration, too. York isn't Kiev, ya know?

Glen...while it would be fun to discuss terminology, I think that would be a completely different thread. Yes, I have given some thought to all this, but I really haven't had the courage or time to post my thoughts about the jargon of history, etc. Perhaps this week, since work is moving so slow. Btw, I'm still not going to let you know what Vikings wore under their tunics...much less what I wear under my tunics...neener, neener, neerer.

Mord.

Yes, I have given some thought to all this, but I really haven't had the courage or time to post my thoughts about the jargon of history, etc. Perhaps this week, since work is moving so slow.

Believe it or not, I'd absolutely LOVE to hear it. If it's slow enough here for me to read it, it must be slow enough there for you to write it....

As for what Vikings wear under their tunics/trousers... since Vikings were communists, I'd guess their braies were made of natural Lenin.

Halvgrim wrote:A) someone mentioned up thread that because a stone from 700-800 AD Gotland showed the baggy 'Rus' trousers that it would be ok for a 9th century Dane to wear them. I must disagree. The Valsgarde/Vendel helmets are dated to the same time frame (some earlier, some later) and location (more or less) so using that method of thinking it would be ok to wear a Vendel helmet with a 9th C Dane kit. This simply isnt the case, or at least it isnt accepted amoung most of the VA LH/Reenactment groups that I correspond with.

There are a find from Hedeby (Haithabu) that are assume to be baggy pants. So a Dane could have them.

And I agree, it's almost certain an warrior/upperclass item due to the amount of fabric it takes.

Dave Womble wrote:I still find it odd no mention is made of any sort of mail specific under garment in the Sagas.

Ah, but there is! It's not common, but it is mentioned. And it is...are you ready? Another brynja. ( I think there's one mention of THREE being worn at once, and two are mentioned several times. )

This of course begs the question that we can't even be certain that 'brynja' always referred to a mail shirt...

Seriously though, we know that Norsemen wore clothing. That's mentioned in literature, shown in carvings and so on, and there are a few archaeological finds. For specific armor padding there are none of those. I think we can take it for granted that when a Norseman put on his byrnie he didn't strip naked first, so a tunic is more likely than a never-seen and never-mentioned gambeson as underarmour wear. I know that if I were in my hall and enemies appeared I'd just throw on my byrnie over what I had on ( which in cold weather might make for pretty fair padding ).

But yes, it's all speculation until we get that time machine working.

I didn't say there was no mention of a mail shirt in the Sagas, there are several, as I said, all the war gear is mentioned quite often in the sagas...I said there is no mention of a quilted/padded garment UNDER the mail shirt.

Some of you might be thinking well it probably wasn't important enough to be mentioned...that it was such a common item. Well, I feel since we have moentions of other common items, gambeson like garments should have been mentioned, and if they are so rare, that same rarety would also make them good candidates for mention in the sagas along with other expensive and status oriented war gear.

If you were wealthy enough to posess a mail shirt, you were wealthy enough to be someone of note, and the make and decoration of your gambeson would be just as important as the rest of your clothing. It is that fact which makes me wonder why theres no mention in the Sagas.

There's mention of cloaks, pants, shirts etc made of rich fabrics with rich colors (somewhere in Laxdaela Saga, in reference to Bolli Bollasons gear he took home with him from Byzantium), plenty of mentions of mail, helmets, shields, swords and axes....no gambeson though that I've yet to find. I'll keep looking though....I have more Sagas yet to read that are not represented in William Shorts compilation.

Dave

Dave Womble wrote:I didn't say there was no mention of a mail shirt in the Sagas, there are several, as I said, all the war gear is mentioned quite often in the sagas...I said there is no mention of a quilted/padded garment UNDER the mail shirt.

Ah! Ah! Now you narrow your statement to "quilted/padded garment"! I quoted the one you made before, which was only about "any sort of mail specific under garment"! A bryja qualifies as "any", and when worn with another one is certainly "mail specific".

( But of course, I was deliberately taking you out of context, for humor's sake. I thought that would be apparent. Ach, well, I often amuse myself more than others. )

For the record, I am firmly in the "no gambesons that early" camp. I've never worn one myself under mail and did not often wish for one, so I can understand why they were either not invented or not widely adopted. A good thick wool tunic does quite a satisfactory job standing in for them.

just to skip back a little on here, while I have read that the colour red was used as a dye for fabric, threre seems to be very little reconstructions or red garments, red tunics etc. A lot of re-enactor photos I have looked at but hardly anything red (except for edging). Is there a a reason for this? Was red an uncommon colour to be used in such a way?

I think a "stop sign red" would be quite rare, especially for the middle and lower classes. Madder red would probably be more common.

Brick red and mustard yellow were very easy colors to produce, and are historically safe to represent.

'madder' red?

Red made from the dye of the roots of madder plants--often somewhat of an orange-ish red or pink.

got it, thanks.

The brittish redcoats were, IIRC, dyed with madder.

Here's a ransom image from the web showing a madder dyed wool yarn:

<img src="http://www.radix.net/~herveus/aelfwyn-madder-dye.jpg">

-+G

Wyrm wrote:just to skip back a little on here, while I have read that the colour red was used as a dye for fabric, threre seems to be very little reconstructions or red garments, red tunics etc. A lot of re-enactor photos I have looked at but hardly anything red (except for edging). Is there a a reason for this? Was red an uncommon colour to be used in such a way?

Yes there is a reason for it, but no it's nothing to do with the period.

Getting hold of modern fabric of the right shade is difficult. I can get dark reds easily enough ditto scarlets, but these are innapropriate matches to the sorts of reds you get from Madder.

What is shown in re-enactment is rarely representative of what was done.

N.