A Jack for Francs-Archers by Charles Lin

[Sean M]

https://practiceandart.wordpress.com/20 ... ayer-jack/

Its sleeveless, but still a proof of concept

[Johann ColdIron]

Fascinating. Looks to be a pretty good proof!

[Marshal]

I like it!

Any plans to test it vs projectiles? Comparisons of arrows to firearms vis-a-vis armor is chancy, unexpected things can happen. I have seen video of comparative tests of arrows, bolts and bullets on a common sandbag. The sandbag stopped every handgun round, 5.56mm and .308 rifle rounds and a couple of other rifle rounds; the longbow arrows and crossbow bolts sailed right through and in some cases went deep into the archery target behind it. A sandbag is not armor of course, but I think we can't be sure of what anything will do without testing.

[Jonathan Dean]

Le Jouvencel was translated last year, and I just got my hands on a copy and came across a passage that reminded me of this project:

Anyone who wishes to achieve success should beware of undertaking too much too soon; rather he should proceed by stages and increase his activities slowly – as did the young man who is the subject of this book. His first enterprise, long before anyone had heard of him, was to make a bold excursion, alone except for his page, to see if he could achieve any small success against the enemy. And after a few outings, he managed to capture the goats from the castle of Verset. Not content with this, on another occasion he made off with Verset’s washing from the line, out of which he had his jack made, much to the amazement of the inhabitants of Luc.

I's also worth looking at Pierre Cochon's description of the English archers in 1417, as I would assume that medieval bedding wasn't particularly like canvas, although it is possible they weren't particularly densely woven:

The English king was in his own country with his prisoners. He never slept but continually looked to his interests and made alliances and provision, as he saw fit, of young men from various lands, some Irish, all with bare feet and no shoes, dressed in scruffy doublets made out of old bedding, a poor skullcap of iron on their heads, a bow and a quiver of arrows in their hand and a sword hanging at their side.

However, the layered pads of the Rothwell jack were apparently made out of "medium weight" linen, so it's possible that heavier linen was preferred over some of the lighter and denser shirts belonging to members of the nobility that we still have. Additionally, David Jones' tests suggest that shirt weight linen (admittedly 1.4oz lighter than used in Charles' jack) performed markedly worse than much heavier (11oz) linen. I'd expect the 5oz linen to do better, but whether it has enough improvement over the 3.6oz linen to make it viable and whether the majority of cloth used in textile armour was this light/densely woven I'm not quite as sure.

[Sean M]

Its also hard because lightweight linen today is often loosely woven. I think historically it tended to be dense.

I had to leave Anne Curry's books behind when I fled into exile, but it looks like the chonicle is:

Chronique normande de Pierre Cochon, ed. C. de Robillad de Beaurepaire (Société de l'Histoire de Normandie, 1870) ch. 30 p. 277 archive.org

tous nus piés, sanz cauches, vestus de meschans pourpoins de vieux coustiz de lit, unez poures coyfeites de fer sur leur testez, un arc et une trousse de soyetes en leur main et une espée trenchande en leur costé (et estoit toutes leurs armures)

all barefoot, without hose, dressed in shoddy pourpoints of old coutils of bed, a poor coif of iron on their heads, a bow and a sheaf of arrows in their hand and a cutting sword at their side (and that was all the armour they had)

Coifette is a fun word for "skullcap" / cervelliere.

Is he saying that they were making these from worn-out quilts? French Coutil seems to have something to do with Latin culcitra, and quilts seem to have been a popular top layer for beds in the late middle ages.

I have Charles Lin's email address if anyone has questions for him.

[Jonathan Dean]

I don't think the density of weaving was a problem in Jones' test, as it was 21 threads a cm, which is fairly typical of the high end linen fragments I've seen, which vary from 19 to 30 threads a cm. Most Icelandic and Lithuanian finds that I've seen have mostly been 10-15 threads a cm, which is not dissimilar to the range of thread counts in the linen patches making up the Cowl of St Francis. I tend to think that most common forms of linen were 10-15 threads as well, and probably made with relatively thick threads in order to last as long as possible.

The DMF suggests that "Coutil" was the type of cloth used to cover the bedding, and the example from 1420 seems to support that idea, although the other examples are less clear to me.

[Sean M]

The LEXIS project has an example from a bilingual English-French bible circa 1300-1325. This is a new word to me and my thoughts on it are not so clear.

Rules in the quilting trades often have a clause about how old linen can be used.

Edit: I added my translation of that passage. Isn't there another source on Agincourt about archers without hose? The Tacuinum MSS often show paupers and vagabonds with hose torn at the knees.

Edit the second: one is Jean Le Fèvre and Jean Waurin the tellers of very similar stories about Agincourt "The archers were for the most part without armor, in their pourpoints, with their hose rolled down, with hatchets and axes hanging from their belts, or long swords. Some were completely barefoot, and some wore egg-shaped caps (huvettes) or cappelines of boiled leather, and some of osier reinforced with iron." Will's Commonplace Book

[Jonathan Dean]

From the context, coutil definitely seems to mean "quilted", at least in Anglo-Norman. In modern French, though, it seems to refer to canvas or thick cloth, and there's also the 1420 example from the DMF that also seems to indicate this. Is it possible that what was originally "quilting" came to mean the material used on the outside of the quilt?

[Sean M]

Jonathan, the passage in Comptes de l'argenterie des rois du France does sound like a "fabric" and so does the one from 1420. I guess the bible passage could be more of a "patchwork" than a quilt proper- could it be Joseph's coat of many colours? I'm really not sure what to make of this term at the moment! Thanks for adding more sources to this thread.

[Jonathan Dean]

The rest of the text quoted with it mention semi-precious stones and purple cloth, so maybe priestly vestments from Exodus? It's a shame the book hasn't been digitised yet, although I'm not sure my paleography skills would have been up to it in any case.

And no problem!

[Sean M]

Jonathan, I just found one more source for worn (délié) linen cloth in martial garments.

According to Louis Douët-d'Arcq's Comptes de l'argenterie des rois de France au XIVe siècle pp. 142-144, in 1352, Prince Guillaume of France bought vermillion cendal, satin, and white cendal for making cotes à plates (probably what the English and Scots would call a "plate-coat" or "jack of plates"). Then Guillemete de la Pomme bought 10 ells of linen of Morigay to make the wrong side / lining (envers) and interfacing (contrendroit) for cotes plates. He also bought ten ells of fine linen, worn (déliée), délivrée (?) for making the lining (envers) and interfacing (contreendroit) of doublets (doubles) and cotes à armer for the Dauphin.

A number of tailor's rules from Spain and France say that if a structured garment is covered in silk, you should back that silk with an extra layer of linen or canvas. I think the fragment of a brigandine from Schloss Tirol is built like that.

There are a few more references to worn linen in the book.

[Jonathan Dean]

Very interesting find, thanks!

It would be good to know how "fine" linen was defined. The two linen linings for 14th century brigandine from Tyrol castle - which was faced with samnite - were 18/18 threads/cm and 19/15 threads/cm, which is less fine than the linen from the Sleeve of St. Martin and other high end medieval textiles. Would that linen be considered "fine", or was the Tyrol brigandine made with lower quality linen?

[Sean M]

Very interesting find, thanks!

It would be good to know how "fine" linen was defined. The two linen linings for 14th century brigandine from Tyrol castle - which was faced with samnite - were 18/18 threads/cm and 19/15 threads/cm, which is less fine than the linen from the Sleeve of St. Martin and other high end medieval textiles. Would that linen be considered "fine", or was the Tyrol brigandine made with lower quality linen?

The French argenterie seems to divide linen in to gross and fin, so I have a feeling that fine just means 'appropriate for shirts, breeches, and sheets' rather than sack, mattress, or stiffening linen. The book has a good index, and Stella Mary Newton got a lot of her interpretations of clothing terms from the editor's notes.

Prices can give a hint, but differences in width are a problem. Beatrice Nutz found a German law from Nürnberg which declares that linen cloth shall be two ells wide in the weave, and half cloth one ell wide. A Nürnberg ell was about 65 cm in the 16th or 17th century. Fastolfe owned some linen a yard (36") and or a yard a half quarter (40.5") wide in 1459.

The other word I have trouble understanding is canvas / canab' / canovaccio. It seems to imply fairly thick stuff with about the same number of warp threads per cm as weft threads, especially later when we have more published sources, but does it always? Wm. Booth Draper says that "Russian linen" can be a hemp cloth in the 18th century, its really hard to tell the two apart once they are spun and woven. And my go-to translation of toille is linen, but in the 16th century sometimes a French writer says toille where an English says canvas, so how do I know when they mean heavy stuff?

[Jonathan Dean]

I don't know how much help this will be, but here's a brief note on canvas measurements from a late 16th/early 17th century work:

Nottes upone the ells of canvas and lynen clothe, upon the hundrid ells.

The hundred of canvas and of lynnen clothe is and contenith 120 to the hundrid.

(Select Tracts and Table Books Relating to English Weights and Measures (1100-1742) by Hubert Hall and Frieda J. Nicholas (pp. 27))

This produces a "canvas ell" of just over 37", about the same as the Scottish ell. Whether this can be related to the 14th and 15th centuries, or what the significance might be, I don't know, but it does perhaps suggest that canvas and linen in England tended towards the yard rather than broader widths.

[Sean M]

Jonathan, could you say that again? It looks like 4 ells of canvas or linen is 5 normal ells which matches what most books say (that by the 1390s linen cloth and canvas are measured in ells of 45", but other cloth in yards of 36"). My head is not very clear right now.

Edit: or 5 to 6 ... and what is a hundred?

A number of the English statutes regulating cloth production for the aulnage tax in the 14th, 15th, and 16th century specify that when measuring the length of woolen or worsted cloth, an inch or thumbsbreadth should be added to the yard, so a cloth 24 yards long is really 24 yards and 24" long. Apparently the first of these was issued in 1196! There is a version in Domesday Book but without this detail. Here is one from 1439 (18 Henry VI) and one from 5 and 6 Edw. VII c. 6 (1551/1552) .

[Jonathan Dean]

As the title to the subsection in the original MS. says, the discussion is about ells, i.e. what a hundred ells of linen or canvas equates to. I think you're right that I'm reading it wrong, and it sounds like 120 ells of other cloth is equal to 100 ells of other cloth, which is either 43" or 54", depending whether it's from the 45" ell or the yard. If it was the practice to measure by ells for linen or canvas and by yards for other cloth by the 1390s, then the measurement is probably from the yard and I've just wasted your time, sorry.

[Sean M]

As the title to the subsection in the original MS. says, the discussion is about ells, i.e. what a hundred ells of linen or canvas equates to. I think you're right that I'm reading it wrong, and it sounds like 120 ells of other cloth is equal to 100 ells of other cloth, which is either 43" or 54", depending whether it's from the 45" ell or the yard. If it was the practice to measure by ells for linen or canvas and by yards for other cloth by the 1390s, then the measurement is probably from the yard and I've just wasted your time, sorry.

I would not say I understand as well as I would like, but the English noble account from the 1390s is the first I have seen which has yards (virg' ) for woolen cloth and ells (uln' ) for linen cloth and canvas. Earlier Latin sources from England often call everything an ell (ulna) so there might have been different ells for different fabrics or in different places. One reason why I find this confusing is that modern researchers don't always make it clear where they get their information. R. Zupko seems to be the only person who wrote books in English on medieval measurements.

It does look like someone in the 16th century thought 100 ells of linen was 120 common ells which is 6 : 5. So thanks for adding a source I did not know!

Here are some Lexis Project entries.

ulna http://lexissearch.arts.manchester.ac.u ... px?id=4888
yard http://lexissearch.arts.manchester.ac.u ... px?id=5335
quarter http://lexissearch.arts.manchester.ac.u ... px?id=3929

[Jonathan Dean]

I'll send you the paper the text is in, since it contains a selection of other statutes/merchant writings on weights and measures. Interestingly, there's one statute of Edward I that legally defines the "ulna" as 3 feet, and Zupko dates it to c.1272. I kind of assume that this wasn't universal by the 1330s, or else Edward III was ordering some really long arrows in 1338.