Wooden- splint limb armor

[Clinker]

I was looking at some old wargame research books on armor, and came upon wooden-splint vambraces and greaves. Apparently used by 9-10th C Byzantines, and trailed back to Anglo-Saxon and other northern european peoples. Has anyone used these in a rattan- combat setting ?
A heavy leather vambrace/greave rather than simple straps holding the splints together would sound correct, and ash,oak or poplarwood 1/4"splints. Lacing the splints on sounds best as I would expect broken pieces to be common. Steaming the splints to fit closely might be too much work on an expendable part.
I remember seeing a photo of Egfroth wearing a pair of these vambraces, but not for rattan combat. Any input would be welcome, I need to make a new set of vambraces anyway, and want a non-steel period "look".

[Egfroth]

Oh dear, "cringe". My sins come back to haunt me. I've really gone off these vambraces. there's hardly any evidence for them in contemporary sources. I think there is ONE mention of them in some Byzantine military manual, but I can't lay my hands on it at the moment. And the idea that they "osmosed" from Byzantium to Scandinavia and England is, I'm afraid, just wishful thinking.

If you want to have an accurate look for the time and place, the only thing I can really advise is rigid armour hidden under clothing.

[Ernst]

If memory serves, Renee d'Anjou also suggests leather armor covered with wood splints and braided cord for his combat with batons.

[Dan Howard]

Doesn't Maurice recommend wooden splint greaves for troops in the front line? I can't think of any references to vambraces though.

[RandallMoffett]

I can only think you mean Emperor Maurice of Byzantium, I just finished reading the Strategikon (he wrote or something like that, dictated?) and do not recall any mention of wooden splints. Now that maybe because I missed it or another text by him. If you know where let me know cause I have never seen much on this and would like to know alittle more,
Randall

[Egfroth]

No, it' not in the Strategikon - I just looked. But I do have a recollection of seeing it somewhere - but only in relation to Byzantium, not anywhere else..

Clinker, what era and race are you planning to represent?

[Galileo]

I just checked the Strategikon also, the only reference is that greaves were recommended for heavy calvary, but the material wasn't defined.

IIRC, the Osprey book "Byzantine Armies 886-1118 (Men-at-Arms, No 89) by Ian Heath" has the reference you're looking for. However, my copy seems to have migrated out of my possession. I'll have to buy a new copy, but that isn't terribly helpful at the moment.


On a side note, I checked the other Byzantine Osprey books I have, to no avail on wood splints. They list glued heavy felt, heavy quilting, or iron greaves.

[Egfroth]

Yes; it's on page 7. But it doesn't give any sources.

[Clinker]

Looking at my references, I was using Ian Heath's "Armies of the Dark Ages 600-1066". He also wrote the Osprey book Syagrius mentioned. Heath claims a Strategicon reference for mail hoods worn by the front rank,and wooden greaves and knee guards by the front 2 ranks of scutatos infantry. Elsewhere, he states heavy cavalry armor of the 10th century included vambraces and greaves of iron,wood or oxhide. Other peoples using the splinted limb protection cited in his work include Lombards,Carolingian Franks, Vendels,Magyars,and Arabs. The last two with iron or wood splints.

After looking at the book more closely, I think the splint armor may be coming from central asia westward, rather than from Byzantium per se. The "osmosis" to Anglo Saxon England comes from the Vendel finds, but Vendel- type armor was found in Anglia, in the grave goods of Sutton hoo I believe, showing how far-traveled armor can be.

I find it interesting that the wooden splint armor is listed coming from peoples requiring large amounts of armor, for professional or near- professional armies. I can well believe wood being a "substitute standard" material when large quantities of armor are needed quickly and cheaply,particularly in a relatively centralized burocracy (sp) like Byzantium, with contractors trying to make margin.

So we have splint armor technology moving west on the backs of horsemen, northward on the rivers of russia, and into England with the ruling houses of the scandinavian conquerors. Would a warrior aristocracy want wooden armor when they can well afford metal? Probably not. Would semiprofessional warriors of a household go with the best they could get in a profoundly metal poor culture? More likely. The written record does at least mention wooden armor. If we go by archeological finds alone, Vikings didn't wear helmets or mail,. Notker, in his paean to the invincible strength of Charlemagne, has his warriors clad head to foot in iron armor, of which we have not a trace.

I think the case of wood or iron splints in pre- conquest England is, like the use of lamellar, not proven. Within the technology of the period, yes. Used by near neighbors in unknown quantities, yes. But not proven in that place and time.

I would still like to know if anyone has used wood splints in steel or rattan combat, and how it held up.

[Egfroth]

Hmm, I still think the migration of wooden (and any other) splint armour is more in the minds of Ian Heath and people who want it to exist than it is in reality. The Vendel splint armour is a single case, and to then extrapolate it to England because of the Sutton Hoo helmet's similarity to Vendel ones is, I think, stretching things rather too far.

The evidence suggests that it was all but unknown in Western Europe, and rare in Eastern Europe. Unless someone finds far more of it, I'd be very unwilling to assume it was widespread, common or usual.

And yes, I've used it in metal weapons combat. It holds up fairly well, but really can't cope with a hard, direct blow. You get a situation of diminishing returns - how thick (and heavy) does the wood have to be to cope with the blows you are likely to receive?

On the other hand, it's usually only a single splint that breaks at a time, so protection is maintained fairly well even with a failure. And as the splints are rivetted to a leather base they're fairly easy to replace afterwards.

The major problem is the danger of the jagged edge of the broken splint. I would normally retire from combat if one broke, but in real combat it might be enough, as sacrificial armour, to protect from a single blow - which might be all you get to that part of the body in a battle. Certainly better than nothing.

But if you want to portray a western warrior in the Vendel or Viking period, I would recommend against using them - there's just so little evidence to support them, and most of it conjectural, based on VERY dodgy assumptions.

[Dan Howard]

So is Heath correct that wooden splint is mentioned in the Strategikon? If so, where?

[Egfroth]

Aha! Found it! It's in Book XII, under Section 4 -"Armament. Weapons of the Heavy Armed Infantryman".

He says "They should also have iron or wooden greaves, at least the first and last soldier in each file."

This is interesting, because in Section 1 of the same part of the work, under "Clothing to be worn by the infantry", he writes "Boots or greaves are not required, for they are unsuitable for marching and, if worn, slow one down."

It is possible that this has something to do with the translation. Maurice would have used two different words for light and heavy infantry - probably peltastoi and stratiotai - it would be interesting to see which word he used in section 1, to describe simply "infantry".

His description of cavalry requirements does not mention greaves, but nstead stipulates ankle length mail-shirts - he also mentions gauntlets, but not vambraces.

My own feeling in relation to "wooden greaves" is that they could not be anything but splinted construction. However, Maurice was weriting at the turn of the 7th century. This is some 200 years before the Vikings etc.

[Wil]

Egfroth, I realize you are not encouraging this form of armour, but just for my own curiosity, could you post the pic of you wearing it? Thanks,

~Wil

[RandallMoffett]

Good find! I wish I could have read more into the book but had to return it to the interlibrary loan office so I only got one quick read. Interesting that should have stuck out to me. Thanks for the reference,
RPM

[Egfroth]

Wil; I wouldn't mind showing you, but hard as I try, I can't think of any pics of me with the thing on.

Randal - I had to go and buy the thing! It really is a bit out of date for my period, but as I understand it, it was still in use in the 11th century because, despite the many changes in the Byzantine army's organisation and structure (and armaments) over the centuries, much of the strategic and tactical advice was as valid then as it had been in the 6th .

[Egfroth]

Coming back to this subject after a long time . . .

Wil, there's a photo of me with the splinted vambrace (missing one splint because it broke just before the event) on the discussion here. The one with me in a green gambeson with steel lamellar over it. Not very pretty, though.

And I just looked again at the picture from the Skylitzes Chronicle showing a guy in splinted greaves (the only example among the hundreds of pics of warriors in the manuscript), and for the first time I read the Greek caption next to the guy. He's not even a Byzantine! He's an Asbagian - from an area which is now part of Georgia. So he's effectively being shown as a foreigner!

IMHO, that's yet another nail in the coffin of "all Byzantines wore splint limb armour".

[Russ Mitchell]

That opens up MORE cans of worms, not less, actually... ugh.

I can actually see wooden splinted greaves having a lot of value, where I wouldn't trust a wooden vambrace much further than I could throw it. A lot of what winds up coming at your legs is stuff that isn't all that horrible... unless it bangs into that shin and makes you hobble. A set of good splints could make a world of difference there, even if it broke. Compare that to the kind of shots that routinely come in on one's forearms...

[michael stuart]

Not an old world tree, but strips of hickory (the same wood used for most hammer handles in the US) can be incredibly durable. The ends of the toli (native American ballgame) sticks I'm thinking of regularly last more than 100 hours of play, and are put through stresses similar to those faced by a rattan sword in SCA combat. I don't have my sticks at hand, but the ends are made of a long strip that is approximately 3/16 x 1 inch and over a foot long, doubled back on itself and twisted open in a compound curve to form a cupped shape. These sticks are split from the tree and formed to shape while still green, and then (traditionally) are boiled briefly in bear fat to season the wood. The sticks are very light weight, yet incredibly durable. This wood gets so hard that it's difficult to cut even with a sharp knife, so I don't doubt that it could be incorporated into a durable armor.

[Russ Mitchell]

It's possible that this is what the Huron and Iroquois folks were using along with their quilts for the slat armors described by some of the early explorers...

boiling in grease. I'll have to try that out.

[Chris Gilman]

You could make a cool splinted armour from old Led Zeppelin drum sticks and leather!

[Eamonn MacCampbell]

I was reading this whole thread with great interest before I even realized it was almost 4 years old....

Fasinating subject....Think Dave Womble needs to read this, he's big on any kind of find dealing with natural types of armour...

[Russ Mitchell]

Oh, Man, Eggie did the thread necromancy and I didn't even notice...

Yeah, you're right.