Written Sources for Gambesons/Aketons/Pourpoints 1100-1350

[ergosum]

Quite interesting is the resolution of Maggior Consiglio of Venice in 1295: it imposed for the poorest citizens "unum bonum çuponum ab armare, unam bonam sopraensegnam de libris VIII boni bambacii, (...)".

[Kristoffer]

There is a "thing" across many reenactment communities that the base for maille (and even plate armour) is a gambeson and that a gambeson is a very thick, stuffed jacket that you must wear under your maille armour or you will die when hit by something or the maille will eat your flesh and leave nothing but a pile of bones and a maille shirt. (The concept varies, but this is pretty much the soul meaning of it).

This concept is being reinforced by Buhurt sports where such padding can be useful and I am trying to combat this a bit and compile actual evidence from sources.

There are I believe four places in the compiled list in this thread that mentions garments worn UNDER maille or other armour. This is one example:

ex quibus armati reputabantur, qui cassias ferreas in capitibus habebant, et qui wambasia, id est, tunicam spissam ex lino et stuppa, vel veteribus pannis consutam, et desuper camisiam ferream, id est vestem ex circulis ferreis contextam, per quae nulla sagitta arcus poterat hominem vulnerare. Ex hiis armatis centum inermes mille ledi timuerunt. "Among which (multitude of soldiers lead by Adolph, King of the Romans) those who had iron helmets on their heads and a gambeson (ie. a tunic thickened with linen and tow, or sewn together from old cloths) and above that an iron shirt (ie. a garment woven together from iron rings), through both of which no arrow from a bow can harm a man, were considered armed men. And these armed men hardly feared a hundred unarmed."

Are we sure of the translations of these texts? What sources are there that specifically mentions padded garments worn under maille and/or other armour?

[Sean M]

ergosum, thanks for the suggestions. Could you give citations for those texts (ie. a printed edition we can check?) Its surprising to see a 'coat of arms' stuffed with 8 Venetian pounds of cotton, but 1295 is early, they could use words differently than in later periods

Are we sure of the translations of these texts? What sources are there that specifically mentions padded garments worn under maille and/or other armour?

If its in the first post of this thread, and the original language is Latin or French or High German, I either translated it myself or looked over the original and someone else's translation and decided it was good enough. I translated the Chronicon Colmariense myself, the only difficult phrase is ex hiis armatis centum inermes mille ledi timuerunt. (maybe "a hundred of these armed men hardly feared a thousand unarmed"?)

You might also be interested in How Heavy Were Doublets and Pourpoints? (donations, as always, appreciated).

[ergosum]

Its surprising to see a 'coat of arms' stuffed with 8 Venetian pounds of cotton, but 1295 is early, they could use words differently than in later periods

Why it's too early? We have previous proofs. For example in 1283 the Maggior Consiglio of Venice decided to store 500 "vernachiones de pignolato novo cum octo libris boni bombacii pro quolibet cum ensigna sancti Marci ante et retro" (Cessi, Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di Venezia, III, p. 17). In the Statutes of Bologna of 1288 you can see that milites could choose between "sovrosbergam vel guaiferiam vel lamerias vel coracinas", and they used these protections over mail ("panceriam vel casetum ") (Statuti di bologna del 1288, XI, 17)

Could you give citations for those texts

The previous text is taken from Cessi, Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di Venezia, III, p. 406. The richer citiziens had to use curaça, lameria or panceria instead of sopraensegna. The whole passage is very interesting.

[Sean M]

Its surprising to see a 'coat of arms' stuffed with 8 Venetian pounds of cotton, but 1295 is early, they could use words differently than in later periods

Why it's too early? We have previous proofs. For example in 1283 the Maggior Consiglio of Venice decided to store 500 "vernachiones de pignolato novo cum octo libris boni bombacii pro quolibet cum ensigna sancti Marci ante et retro" (Cessi, Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di Venezia, III, p. 17).

I can't recall seeing any 13th century quilted overgarments (sopra-) with heraldric decorations (-segnum), or any practice of having a whole army wear clothing with a heraldic sign like the "cross of St. George" worn by the English in the Hundred Years' War. The second text you quote is a good example of the kind of thing someone would have to find to show this was common.

Do we have any soprasegna which are unpadded "coats of arms" rather than padded "coat armours"? Vernachio is another word for "quilted garment" which we have not yet seen.

[ergosum]

Probably sovrosbergae, vernachiones and sopraensegnae are very similar things: a padded (always padded?) overgarment which can have heraldic decoration.
You can find sopraensegnae also in an addition of 1294 of the Capitulare de zupariis of Venice (rubrica 43): "ordinamus et volimus quod quilibet de dicta arte debeat
batere et facere bati totum banbacium que mittitur subter çupellos et bonos et legales, sicut verberatur in aliis rebus, nec eciam audeat implire ad feretum çubam nec suprasegnam quod faciunt per vendere". I don't kwnow the difference between "mittere bambacium subter something" and "implire ad feretum". Why implire ad feretum is forbidden? Mah.

Vernachio is another word for "quilted garment" which we have not yet seen.

A guarnaccia "normally" is a civilian long garment you wear over gonnella. Also the term giubba/iuba/zupa/çuba is used for civilian and military garment.

[Sean M]

Humh, I added sopraensegna to the list of padded armour terms in the original post and to How Heavy Were Doublets and Pourpoints? If I have time to look up the statutes of Bologna from 1288 maybe I will add them one day too.

Do you know of any dictionaries which list sopraensegna/suprasigna (which they seem to have seen as a first declension feminine?!?) Or what it was called in the vernacular? Its not in Du Cange, and the only reference on the Internet Archive is a document about things stolen from Venetians in Armenia, from 1307 (published previously as Louis Mas Latrie, Histoire de l'île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison ... 1855 and Victor Langlois, Numismatique de l'Arménie au moyen âge, 1855).

I don't know if I have any more time to spend on this this spring, but I will probably come back to this topic one day

The document from 1307 also has jupes stuffed with borro de seta, a cotton shirt, shirts and breeches (brage), a camissa laborata (worked shirt!), v pançere, and v curaçe de canevaça (5 canvas cuirasses?) ... anyone with a little bit of Latin interested in clothes circa 1307 should have a look.

[ergosum]

Do you know of any dictionaries which list sopraensegna/suprasigna (which they seem to have seen as a first declension feminine?!?)

No, I haven't found this term. Also the dictionary of Accademia della Crusca is not useful.

v curaçe de canevaça (5 canvas cuirasses?)

The external fabric is made of canvas. We can also find, for examples, curaza cum velludo vermeio, churaça de veludo de grana or churaça pignolado. Maybe, in this case, also the textile where the metal plates are riveted on, is made of canvas. See also here https://www.academia.edu/12680504/Die_T ... tel_Tirolo, pp. 30-35.

Another rule from 1288 mentions the sovrosberga

There is an error in the first post. The rule from 1288 is taken from the Statuta of Bologna, not from the Statuta societatum armorum.

See the Latin text of volume 1 and volume 3

There are only 2 volumes of Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna from A. Gaudenzi. I don't know why in internet archive (https://archive.org/search.php?query=bologna%20statuti) it seems there are 4 volumes.

There were certainly some very heavy garments stuffed with cotton. Documents from Venice from the end of the 13th century say that infantry should wear overgarments stuffed with 8 libbre (probably the libbra grossa of 477 g

Libra grossa or libra subtilis? It's always a problem. I haven't found a book about it.

[ergosum]

Quite interesting is the resolution of Maggior Consiglio of Venice in 1295: it imposed for the poorest citizens "unum bonum çuponum ab armare, unam bonam sopraensegnam de libris VIII boni bambacii,

Who have given an imprestitum of 50 pounds have to have unum bonum çuponum ab armare, unam bonam sopraensegnam de libris VIII boni bambacii, et unum bonum bacinellum cum cercletto, unum bonum collare de lama, vantum unum de lama manus dextere, spatam unam vel spontonum aut manerese, unum bonum scutum et unum cultellum a ferire. Who can, have to own a curaça instead of sopraensegna.
Beetween 100 and 350 pounds: unum bonum çupponum ab armare, unam bonam curaçam, unam bonam cervelleriam, unum bonum bacinellum cum cercletto, vel unam bonam capellam, unum bonum collare de lama, unum bonum vantum de lama manus dextere, unum bonum scutum, unam spatam et unum cultellum a ferire.
350-600: unum bonum çupponum ab armare, unam bonam curaçam, unam bonam cervelleriam, unum bonum bacinellum cum cercletto vel unam bonam capellam, unum bonum collare de lama, unum bonum vantum de lama manus dextere, unum bonum scutum, unam spatam , unum cultellum a ferire et unam bonam balistam de ligno vel de cornu bene varnitam cum falsatoriis xxv.
600-1000: unum bonum çupponem ab armare, unam bonam curaçam, unam bonam cervelleriam, unum bonum bacinellum cum cercletto vel unam bonam capellam, unum bonum collare de lama, unum bonum vantum de lama manus dextere, unum bonum scutum, unam spatam , unum cultellum a ferire, unam bonam balistam de ligno vel de cornu bene varnitam cum falsatoriis xxv et unum par de schincheriis cum genogleriis.
1300 -2000: duos bonos çupponos ab armare, duas bonas curaças vel unam bonam curaçam et unam bonam lameriam, duas bonas cervellerias, unum bonum bacinellum cum cercletto, unam bonam capellam, duo bona collaria de lama, duos bonos vantos ambos a manu dextera de lama, duos bonos scutos, duas spatas , duos cultellos a ferire, unum par de schincheriis cum genogleriis.
2500-3000: duos bonos çupponos ab armare, duas bonas curaças vel unam bonam curaçam et unam bonam lameriam, duas bonas cervellerias, unum bonum bacinellum cum cercletto, unam bonam cappellam, duo bona collaria de lama, duos bonos vantos de lama ambos a manu dextera, duos bonos scutos, duas spatas, duos cultellos a ferire, unum par de schincheriis cum genogleriis, unam bonam supraensegnam de libris viii boni bombacii et unam bonam balistam de ligno vel cornu bene varnitam cum falsarolis xxv.
3000-20000: every 1000 pounds the citizen has to have an armaturam unam de ferro a dorso (1/3 pancerie, 1/3 lamerie et reliqua tercia pars curacie or only cuirasses), unum bonum bacinellum cum cercletto vel unam bonam capellam, unum bonum collare de lama vel de maia, unum bonum vantum de lama vel de maia manus dextere, unum bonum scutum, et unum bonum lançonum longum. Every 2000 pounds unam bonam balistam de ligno vel de cornu bene varnitam cum falsarolis xxv. This is taken from my notes. I hope I have copied right.

[Sean M]

In the texts I read, I would usually see v corazze di ferro (coperte) in chanovacco bianco or something similar.

Another rule from 1288 mentions the sovrosberga

There is an error in the first post. The rule from 1288 is taken from the Statuta of Bologna, not from the Statuta societatum armorum.

I included it in the entry for the armed societies with the note that it was from a different source ("another rule ..."), now that I have a fuller text and a citation maybe it will get its own entry one day.

See the Latin text of volume 1 and volume 3

There are only 2 volumes of Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna from A. Gaudenzi. I don't know why in internet archive (https://archive.org/search.php?query=bologna%20statuti) it seems there are 4 volumes.

Humh, and the links were to the OCR of one volume and the photos of the other ... fixed.

The sources from Venice move back the first usage of jupon from 1342 to 1288. We really need more dictionaries of 12th/13th century Latin, but that is the kind of project which requires 5-10 staff for multiple years.

Libra grossa or libra subtilis? It's always a problem. I haven't found a book about it.

I found a couple of French and English articles in an edited collection which seem to say that by the end of the 13th century the light pounds were usually reserved for spices, gold, silver, drugs, and things like that, and the heavy pounds were used for all other goods. I think its the same volume by Jean-Claude Hocquet which is in the footnotes to How Heavy were Doublets and Pourpoints?

There is an interesting bibliography on sizes.com.

If an actual medievalist decides I am wrong, and writes a nice clear evidence-based explanation of how weights and measures really worked, ... that would be terrible wouldn't it?

[ergosum]

The sources from Venice move back the first usage of jupon from 1342 to 1288.

1288? From the statuta of Padova of 1236 (but this rubrica, where the maximum prices of the clothes were defined, was previous): "pro zupa de armare solidos octo, pro zupello sine manicis solidos quinque et si habuerit manicas solidos sex, pro zupa a milite sine manicis solidos". Zupa de armare is by sure a military garment, but zupello with or without sleeves? Maybe the zupa de armare is an aketon and the zupello is a gambeson? Therefore the zupello is similar to sopraensegna/sovrosberga? Probably zupa a milite is only a civilian garment. In the same rubrica we can find other clothes for milites, but also for homines, feminae and dominae. I think this is related to the leges sumptuariae.

We really need more dictionaries of 12th/13th century Latin, but that is the kind of project which requires 5-10 staff for multiple years.

We need more documents transcribed and digitalised. It will be revolutionary for the research. If I take the situation of my town as an example, there is no trascription of the additiones of the 3 statuta written in XIV century. We have also tens of registers of the expenditures of the Comune made in the same century, but only the registers of few years are trascribed. This is totally absurd.

[WoodKern]

Great thread Sean thanks for compiling all of this info into one place.

As for the entry for cotún in the eDIL. If you check out the annotation for the one time that cotún is translated as shield, you will notice that it comes from Alexander Bugge's translation of Caithréim Chellacháin Chaisil. As far as I know Bugge seems to be the only person who thought that a cotún was a shield. Cotún is obviously a cognate with aketon, but perhaps Bugge never made this connection and so didn't know exactly what a cotún was.

If you feel like adding this to the OP here is Bugge's translation along with the original Irish text. Note however that Bugge omitted the accents that would have been on many of the characters in the original text. For example chotun should really be chotún. Also the number 7 is a standin for a symbol that is shorthand for the word "ocus" which means "and".

Page 54. "Ocus mar do bhadar annsin co bhfacadar na .V. catha coraighthi ar lar an muighi fo glere sciath 7 lann 7 luirech fo ghlere shleagh 7 chotun 7 cathbarr"

Page 114. "And as they were there, they saw five battalions drawn up in the middle of the plain with choice shields, and swords, and coats of mail, and with shinning spears, and targets, and helmets."

If you were to replace the word targets with aketons then I think that this translation is fine. I agree with Jonathan about the translation of cotuin on page 47 to targes on page 106. This is also most likely a mistake.

[Sean M]

WoodKern, thanks! Its a beautiful sunny day and I have a sewing project and a guest but I will try to get back to you sometime in the next week.

It looks like Alexander Bugge died in 1929, and sometimes those old philologists were not interested in material culture or just did not have a dictionary which spelled out Irish cotun = English aketon = Arabic al-kotun.

Sorting out all these words across languages is really a lot of work

1288? From the statuta of Padova of 1236 (but this rubrica, where the maximum prices of the clothes were defined, was previous): "pro zupa de armare solidos octo, pro zupello sine manicis solidos quinque et si habuerit manicas solidos sex, pro zupa a milite sine manicis solidos".

It looks to me like jupe, jupon, and zupello/zuparello are three different words with three different histories. Jupe had spread from El-Andalus to Iceland by the beginning of the 1200s, and outside of Italy it generally refers to a garment without stuffing, but jupon seems to have been popular in England and France just for the few years from 1340 to 1400, and in England and France it tends to be a stuffed garment. Zuparello is only used in Italy, like farsetto.

Jupo was the brothers Bonis' favourite word for 'doublet' in Occitan, and in 16th century Spanish jubon means the same as a doublet in English, a pourpoint in northern France, and a Wams in German. But before the 16th century, the words and the meanings keep changing

I am very interested to see clothes "for arming" this early. In the 14th/15th/16th century, usually the doublet you wear under armour is just a doublet, just like the sword you wear over your armour is just a sword. Any medium-sized sword or strong doublet will do, why does it need a special name?

We need more documents transcribed and digitalised. It will be revolutionary for the research. If I take the situation of my town as an example, there is no trascription of the additiones of the 3 statuta written in XIV century. We have also tens of registers of the expenditures of the Comune made in the same century, but only the registers of few years are transcribed. This is totally absurd.

Also, there is not very good communication between countries. The old antiquarians like Victor Gay, Joan Evans, and Claude Blair did not know sources from modern Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain or Portugal like they knew sources from England and France. So thanks for your suggestions!

In Italy the only people I know who are transcribing documents are Luciana Frangioni (possibly retired?), Elisa Tosi Brandi (quattrocento Rimini), and the TRANSKRIBUS project in Bolzano (mostly 18th/19th c. records of city council meetings).

[WoodKern]

If the dating of the Caithréim Chellacháin Chaisil to 1127-1134 is correct then this would make it the earliest known reference to a variation of the word aketon. The problem is the above date might be when the work was originally written down, but the original hasn't survived to this day. All that we have are later copies. So it's hard to say whether the word "cotún" was present in the original text or was a later alteration.

Regardless of whether or not the word cotún was used in irish at this early date, I think there is good evidence that a similar (if not identical) garment was known. The Táin Bó Cúailnge contains this line;

"secht cneslénti fichet cíartha clárda comdlúta bítís ba thétaib & rothaib & refedaib i custul ri gelchnes"

"twenty-seven tunics waxed, board-like, compact, which were bound with strings and ropes and thongs close to his fair skin"

This piece of text dates to no later than 1106. Which we know because the monk who wrote it was killed in that year by Norse raiders.

The fact that the word cotún wasn't used here could indicate that this word had not yet been introduced. Possible evidence of this can be found in a 15th century text about the legendary hero Fionn mac Cumhaill. Here's the line:

"gabuis a cheithri cíarlénti fichet cíartha clártha comdlútha cotúin uime tarsi-sin amuigh anechtair"

"outside over that he put his twenty-four tunics, waxed, board-like, compact, of cotton, about him"

You can see here that the same adjectives are used in both text: waxed, board-like, and compact. The only difference is that the later one adds cotúin (of cotton).

[Jonathan Dean]

The problem with the Táin Bó Cúailnge is that the waxed tunics aren't listed as providing protection - that's the role of his leather battle girdle (similar to John of Salisbury's description of Welsh armour of the mid-12th century and Wace's description of the hardened leather worn over gambesons by archers). The tunics were "fastened with strings and cords and straps against his clear skin, so that his senses or his brain wouldn’t burst their bonds at the onset of his fury." Maybe it was intended as armour and the restriction against the battle-warp was just a side effect, or perhaps actual armour of the late 11th/early 12th century was conflated with an earlier magical armour, but it's enough that I'm not a hundred percent sure we can use it as an example of textile armour.

[Sean M]

Jonathan, I am leaning that way too. And 27 is 3 x 3 x 3, a nice magic number. So I think a good article or book would talk about that passage for completeness, but if I ever have time to edit the original post, I will probably leave it out.

But keep the suggestions coming everyone! There have to be things which the couple of dictionaries I checked do not know, and some of these are hard to date or interpret or the best-known translation is misleading.

[WoodKern]

You could be right Jonathan. It could be that Cú Chulainn's cneslénti were some from of magical device to contain his "warp spasms" or 27 could be a magic number as Sean suggests. To add to this, It should be noted that the Táin has many strange numbers associated with Cú Chulainn. For example Cú Chulainn supposedly had 3 different hair colours, 4 dimples on each cheek, 7 pupils in each eye, 7 fingers on each hand, and 7 toes on each foot. So the idea of exaggerating the number of cneslénti is entirely possible.

OTOH, if Cú Chulainn's 27 tunics were intended to magically contain his "warp spasms" and, as he is the only character in Irish mythology to undergoe these "warp spasms", you would expect him to be the only person to wear such a large number of tunics. However, as I quoted above, Fionn mac Cumhail wears 24 tunics as part of his battle equipment, and his don't seem to have any magically properties. Incidentally I found another quote from elsewhere in the same text that describes Fionn's equipment:

"& is amlaid ro búi Finn & cotún clíabfairsing uimi ina rabatar secht ciarlénti fichet ciartha clártha comdlúta a n-imdítean a chuirp re congala ocus re comthógbáil chatha."

"And Finn was arrayed thus: he had a broad-chested cotún about him, in which were twenty-seven tunics, waxed, board-like, compact, protecting his body against fights and the upraising of battle."

This line makes it clear that Fionn's garment was definitely an armour made from multiple layers of textile and not anything particularly magical. Now this text clearly has elements that were borrowed from earlier works, so I will grant that it's difficult to determine how much of it reflected the reality of the time of composition.

There is one more text that I'm aware of that suggests that the Gaels used multi-layered textile armours, and this time it doesn't involve mythological heroes so perhaps it's a more reliable source. This one concerns the Gaels of the Scottish Highlands rather than Ireland, but I think of the two groups as close enough to be basically the same thing. This comes from John Major writing in 1512:

"In panno lineo multipliciter intersuto et coerato aut picato cum cervinæ pellis coopertura vulgus sylvestrium Scotorum corpus tectum habens in prælium prosilit."

"The common people of the Highland (lit. 'wild') Scots rush into battle having their body clothed with a linen garment manifoldly sewed and painted or daubed with pitch, with a covering of deerskin."

With all of this said, I understand the hesitation you might have about using the Táin as evidence for textile armour in early 12th century Ireland, when you look at Cú Chulainn's battle equipment in its entirety it is hard to make sense of it all. I really only brought the Táin up as possible supporting evidence for the original version of the Caithréim Chellacháin Chaisil containing the word cotún, and I stand by this. I think that it is fairly likely that the Irish were using textile armours at least as far back as the early 12th century. So even if the Táin is not included in the OP, I think that the Caithréim Chellacháin Chaisil deserves a mention with the caveat about it's dating. Anyway sorry if this got a bit off topic, I'll shut up now.

[Sean M]

However, as I quoted above, Fionn mac Cumhail wears 24 tunics as part of his battle equipment, and his don't seem to have any magically properties. Incidentally I found another quote from elsewhere in the same text that describes Fionn's equipment:

"& is amlaid ro búi Finn & cotún clíabfairsing uimi ina rabatar secht ciarlénti fichet ciartha clártha comdlúta a n-imdítean a chuirp re congala ocus re comthógbáil chatha."

"And Finn was arrayed thus: he had a broad-chested, cotún about him, in which were twenty-seven tunics, waxed, board-like, compact, protecting his body against fights and the upraising of battle."

This line makes it clear that Fionn's garment was definitely an armour made from multiple layers of textile and not anything particularly magical. Now this text clearly has elements that were borrowed from earlier works, so I will grant that it's difficult to determine how much of it reflected the reality of the time of composition.

WoodKern, the problem as I see it is that as people told and retold and invented these stories, they would reinterpret them. I think its plausible that just like us, the author of Fionn mac Cumhaill in the 15th century would say to himself 'wearing 24 or 27 tunics? that must be a poetic way to describe a cotún.' An Irish bard was not a historian of material culture!

Another possibility is that it is a memory of something like a Late Roman thoracomachus. My impression is that these Irish poems don't try to show off all the latest fashions like 13th century French poetry, instead they are set in pre-Christian times.

Anyways, I picked the year 1100 because quilted armour might have been used by the Franks a little bit before the sources we know from 1160 onwards (they don't show up in western European art until the first half of the 13th century, even though it sounds like they were common among foot soldiers by the Third Crusade) but going before the 12th century just gets us into all the iffy things that have been gone over and over in threads with titles like "Viking underarmour?"

So I am open to things from the early to mid 12th century, but I would want them to be solid before I included them.

[ergosum]

It looks to me like jupe, jupon, and zupello/zuparello are three different words with three different histories. Jupe had spread from El-Andalus to Iceland by the beginning of the 1200s, and outside of Italy it generally refers to a garment without stuffing, but jupon seems to have been popular in England and France just for the few years from 1340 to 1400, and in England and France it tends to be a stuffed garment

In Italy it seems there isn't a clear difference between giubba and zuppone.

Any medium-sized sword or strong doublet will do, why does it need a special name?

But we can also find farsetto da armare and zuppone da armare and we can often find in statuta that the use of jupe is mandatory only for soldiers who don't have more protecions. It seems that some jupes are more jupes than others...

In Italy the only people I know who are transcribing documents are Luciana Frangioni (possibly retired?)

It seems that she's writing another book, Cremona fine trecento, and probably this is her last one. Unfortunately she trascribed only few documents she had used. For example from her Milano fine trecento we know that the Datini archives are a mine of informations for arms, but she often did only quick allusions with wobbly translations.
Recently I read a book of Antonella Fiorentino, an ex-student of Frangioni: she speaks about braghieri. To her these braghieri are a sort of protection, to me they are a sort of lendenier (braghieri are made of leather and there are buckles). Unfortunately she didn't trascribed the documents where she had found this braghieri, so my interpretation is only a conjucture without clear foundations.

[WoodKern]

WoodKern, the problem as I see it is that as people told and retold and invented these stories, they would reinterpret them. I think its plausible that just like us, the author of Fionn mac Cumhaill in the 15th century would say to himself 'wearing 24 or 27 tunics? that must be a poetic way to describe a cotún.' An Irish bard was not a historian of material culture!

Absolutely, poetic licence is definitely a factor in many of the sources. However John Major was an Englishman and so uninfluenced by the Gaelic bardic tradition. Though Major doesn't explicitly state if this "linen garment manifoldly sewed" was made multiple layers of linen, I think this can be inferred from lack of any mention of a stuffing material. So if we accept Major as evidence that the Gaels were using multi-layered textile armours in the 16th century, and that the sources from the 15th and 12th centuries reflect earlier practices, then this seems like we could be looking at continuous usage over a long period of time.

So I am open to things from the early to mid 12th century, but I would want them to be solid before I included them.

Thats fair enough. I think that the evidence points towards the Irish using multi-layered textile armours at least as far back as the early 12th century, but I will concede that none of the sources are without problems.

[Sean M]

But we can also find farsetto da armare and zuppone da armare and we can often find in statuta that the use of jupe is mandatory only for soldiers who don't have more protecions. It seems that some jupes are more jupes than others...

Yes, I wish more people agreed with me that gambeson, pourpoint, jack, aketon, and jupon are basically synonyms for "quilted garment for the upper body." In some languages in some years people use 2 or 3 words and each has a more specific connotation (there is a period of about 70 years in England when the gambeson is often worn over the aketon which is worn over the shirt) but any difference in meaning is specific to a place and time, not inherent in the words.

The phrase 'arming doublet' certainly exists, but in the medieval and renaissance texts I have read, its not the most common way to describe the doublet worn under harness. Its much more common to be told that it is a damask doublet, or a linen doublet, or a used doublet, or a strongly built doublet, or a soldier's doublet. I think that an 'arming doublet' is like the old hoodie and blue jeans we wear to work in the garden or the garage, not like the spandex suits that bicyclists with too much money wear for cycling and only for cycling. Its defined by what you do when you wear it, not by having unique materials and construction which make it only suitable for a single activity.

It seems that she's writing another book, Cremona fine trecento, and probably this is her last one. Unfortunately she trascribed only few documents she had used. For example from her Milano fine trecento we know that the Datini archives are a mine of informations for arms, but she often did only quick allusions with wobbly translations.

She has already published at least 800 pages of transcribed documents though, and that plus the French antiquarians before WW I are enough to keep me busy until at least 2030. The perfect is the enemy of the good: one article sharing these sources in English now is worth ten that are never finished or are never read outside their home country.

The ADP has some of their documents scanned and online, and I suspect they are happy if you want to go down there and spent a week finding and copying all the things Frangioni cites without transcribing. My Italian is not good enough and I am fully booked with research and writing until at least 2022.

Absolutely, poetic licence is definitely a factor in many of the sources. However John Major was an Englishman and so uninfluenced by the Gaelic bardic tradition.

We have lots of evidence for quilted armour in Scotland from the 14th century to the 16th, including Robert Bruce's rule from 1318 and dozens of effigy slabs, but I am not sure how a statement that the Scottish highlanders used linen armour in 1512 is evidence that 12th century Irish poems about legendary heroes wearing 24 or 27 tunics were really kennings for quilted armour which is not documented anywhere else in Catholic Europe at that time.

One reason why this thread ends in 1350 is that after that there are too many sources to list them all, and someone focused on Scotland or Germany or Italy can probably focus on local sources.

[WoodKern]

I am not sure how a statement that the Scottish highlanders used linen armour in 1512 is evidence that 12th century Irish poems about legendary heroes wearing 24 or 27 tunics were really kennings for quilted armour

Well the culture of the Gaelic speaking people's of Ireland and Scotland was pretty much identical before about 1600, so sources about either group are usually taken as representative of both. This is why I think that Major's description of the textile armours worn by 16th century Highland Scots could easily be applied to textile armours worn by contemporary Irishmen.

As for the description itself. I think that Major's "linen garment manifoldly sewed and painted or daubed with pitch, with a covering of deerskin" was a cotún made from multiple layers of linen with a deerskin facing (the pitch i imagine was used for waterproofing).

Now take another look at this 15th century description of Fionn mac Cumhaill's cotún:

"And Finn was arrayed thus: he had a broad-chested cotún about him, in which were twenty-seven tunics, waxed, board-like, compact, protecting his body against fights and the upraising of battle."

If this translation is accurate (and my admittedly limited skill with Irish leads me to think that is), then Fionn is wearing a cotún made from 27 tunics. Or said another way a cotún made from 27 layers of linen (the wax might serve the same purpose here as the pitch from Major).

As Fionn mac Cumhaill and Cú Chulainn's garments have almost identical descriptions, and Fionn's is referred to as a cotún, you can see why I think that it's possible that Cu Chulainn's garment was also a cotún. Perhaps the word cotún had yet to enter the Irish language by 1106, and that's why it wasn't used by the monk who wrote down the Táin.

Anyway I'm not trying to argue the case to put Cú Chulainn's 27 tunics on the list in the OP. I know that the argument I presented isn't bulletproof and I could easily be very wrong. Also I hope that this tangent hasn't derailled the topic, I just wanted to make sure that I made my points as clearly as possible.

[Sean M]

Hi WoodKern, that is ok! I think in a full article I would talk about that passage, but I want to keep this thread focused on passages that everyone interprets the same way.

Irish arms and armour could be another good topic for a thread, there is probably something on "I want to be" and we have Dan's thread on Scottish jocks jacks.

[Jonathan Dean]

Sean, regarding the date of first evidence for textile armour, I'm come across a reference to Abbot Engilbert issuing felt armour in 926. However, there seem to be two different takes, with Henry Skodell's source translating the relevant passage as the Abbot improvising armour and shields, while David Bachrach interprets the passage as Vegetian style training methods. I don't have the Latin to double check to see if both instances were the same but translated according to bias, or if the improvised equipment came before the training. Someone with some Latin skills might be able to make something out of it, though.

[Sean M]

Jonathan, that sounds great for another thread, but this one is only for sources between 1100 and 1350 for the reasons I have already said.

Edit: And here is the Latin for that other thread Ekkehardi IV Casus S. Galli Cap. 3 = Monumenta Germaniae Historica 2 p. 104 https://www.dmgh.de/de/fs1/object/displ ... xt=piltris "Nam Ungri, auditis tempestatibus regni, Noricos rabidi invadunt et vastant, ..."

[ergosum]

The phrase 'arming doublet' certainly exists, but in the medieval and renaissance texts I have read, its not the most common way to describe the doublet worn under harness. Its much more common to be told that it is a damask doublet, or a linen doublet, or a used doublet, or a strongly built doublet, or a soldier's doublet. I think that an 'arming doublet' is like the old hoodie and blue jeans we wear to work in the garden or the garage, not like the spandex suits that bicyclists with too much money wear for cycling and only for cycling. Its defined by what you do when you wear it, not by having unique materials and construction which make it only suitable for a single activity.

You are right but how many inventiories or testaments are transcribed? And how many of jubes you can find were used only as civilian garment (you can find also çupa da dona -jupe for woman)?So is possibile to do a "statistic" study?
In Italy maybe this zupa de armare https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/d ... 0000000002 is the oldest or one of the oldest reference to a jupe. Maybe jupe at first was only a military garment and then became also a civilian one?

one article sharing these sources in English now is worth ten that are never finished or are never read outside their home country

A big limit of English-speaking historian is that they tend to use only sources and studies in English or translated in English.
If you want to do a good research you have to use "foreigner" sources.

The ADP has some of their documents scanned and online, and I suspect they are happy if you want to go down there and spent a week finding and copying all the things Frangioni cites without transcribing

The "little" problem is that she didn't report the documents she had used. She have worked more than 40 years over Datini's archives. Sincerely I don't think I have so much time and desire

[Sean M]

You are right but how many inventories or testaments are transcribed? And how many of jubes you can find were used only as civilian garment (you can find also çupa da dona -jupe for woman)? So is possibile to do a "statistic" study?

Words in the jupe family are documented in most European languages by around the year 1200, but I have not seen any source outside of Italy which implies a jupe was quilted before the quilted jupons in England and France from 1340 to 1410. The Arabic word sounds like something in the coat or robe family too. I suspect that if you searched texts from Languedoc and Spain you would find quilted jupons a bit earlier than 1340, but I am an Assyriologist doing this for fun, if you want archival research hire a trained medievalist.

I remember that the 'tantalizing' parts of Milano Fine Trecento volume 1 always gave the shelf number for the document she was summarizing. Chiedere e Ottenere was a bit more frustrating, but it still has 200 pages of transcribed documents. Or you could write to her since you are a native speaker.

Edit: Interesting! The DEAF says that Jupe is attested in Italy c. 990 and in 1053 in a Codex Cavensis. It has two examples of early jupes and jupols (< zuparello?) which sound like they are quilted.

Athis et Prophilias ou Roman d’Athènes, histoire de deux amis, 20732 vers octosyll. (West france, c. year 1200) line 18497: (Le vassal) En in jupol cort d'auqueton, Porpoint et forré de coton, Remest sengles, bien fu tailiez.

Partonopeus de Blois, roman à la matière de l’Île de France (BusbyCod 580) (south-west France before the year 1188) line 7489 mentions a jupe porprine

Edit edit: and the DMF suggests that porprine is "of the colour pourpre (purple)" not anything to do with per-punctus, so outside of Italy we are down to the one citation from Athis et Prophilias. It does seem like specialists in French and specialists in Italian should have a chat about the meaning of jupe though!

There are definitely early jupes which are furred with vair though, and that is a pretty good indication that they were not quilted. But now I agree that we should consider the possibility that an early jupe is a quilted garment, even if the source is from outside Italy.

[Sean M]

Maybe jupe at first was only a military garment and then became also a civilian one?

Ergosum, thanks for this conversation, it is helping me flesh out my views.

I am having trouble thinking of any purely military garments in medieval Europe, except for some kinds of iron armour and maybe the lendenier. Remember, inventories and moralists tell us that most people had only 2 or 3 sets of clothing, so every garment had to serve many functions! Women like Isabelle of France were wearing quilted aketons by middle of the 1200s, although in this thread I am definitely focused on the aketons, gambesons, and pourpoints worn by soldiers.

[ergosum]

I am an Assyriologist doing this for fun, if you want archival research hire a trained medievalist.

I have an academic preparation, however I also do this only for fun. My previous questions were only "rethorical" ones. Now in my free time I study statuta of towns, maybe one day I will examine also testaments and inventories.

I remember that the 'tantalizing' parts of Milano Fine Trecento volume 1 always gave the shelf number for the document she was summarizing.

I wish she always gave the shelf number! However Milano fine trecento is a book of fundamental relevance.

Interesting! The DEAF says that Jupe is attested in Italy c. 990

Very interesting, but maybe zippa is a liturgical garment http://alim.dfll.univr.it/Notarili/alim ... endocument.

I am having trouble thinking of any purely military garments in medieval Europe, except for some kinds of iron armour and maybe the lendenier. Remember, inventories and moralists tell us that most people had only 2 or 3 sets of clothing, so every garment had to serve many functions!

I think that existed a military jupe and a civilian one:
1) the not-existence of an univocal terminology is not odd in medieval times.
2) From the cadastre of Chieri from 1253 (M. C. Daviso di Charvensod, I più antichi catasti del comune di Chieri. This is a interesting but, unfortunately, unique document: in this cadastre not only houses, fields, vegetable gardens are recorded, but also animals, utensils and sometimes arms) we know that also poor people had a military equipment (at least a bacinetum or a cervellera or a capellum ferri).
3) The Statuta of Padova from 1236 speak cleraly about zupa da armare. Why the specification of "da armare" if this jupe is not made only for military purpose?
4) Military jupes are drawn in a different way: the signs of quilting are always clearly visible.
5) Why some statuta clarly impose jupes? As we have seen before, Rules of the Armed Societies of Bologna impose çuba or guaiferia (or lameria). But if çuba is a normal civilian garment used also for military purpose, why this precise imposition?
6) As you said before, when we found in inventories or testaments the term "zuppa/zuppone/farsetto da armare",they probably refferd to a jupe made from "simple" fabric (like hemp); however this jupe is different from a civilian one: it should be stronger and sometimes with arming points. We can also find silk jupe but never a "çupa de serico da armare" or a similar term. Why? Because the principal feature of this jupe is the textile and subsequently its worth (and the worth in a inventory or in a testament is the most important thing).

[Sean M]

I think that existed a military jupe and a civilian one

I think there were some heavy jupes which were specially made to resist weapons, but jupes in general were worn by all kinds of people. Just like in the 15th century there were doublets of fence intended to stop a blade, but men of all stations wore doublets, and a soldier's doublet in Elizabethan England was made by the same tailor using the same yardage of the same materials as many other doublets. If you just have the words jupe or aketon or pourpoint or gambeson, all you know for sure is "quilted coat."

Some of the English and Scottish sources say that conscripts must provide an aketon which is good and sufficient (the only one I can find is Robert Bruce's law from 1318). I think that this allows the inspector to reject one which is too light, or not strongly built.

Right now I am not sure whether a 13th century zuppa de armare is more of a 'doublet of defense' or more of a 'soldier's jupon' or an 'arming sword' (again: in medieval language the medium-sized, versatile, simple-hilted sword you wear with your armour, not a one-handed sword or whatever other definitions collectors use). If these were worn by soldiers with just a jupon and an iron cap, maybe they were more like a 'doublet of defence' than an 'arming doublet.'

Isabelle of France's aketon is quilted like normally, and artists often show quilting on doublets and jackets (my favourite name for the doublet-shaped garment worn over the doublet) in art from 1360 to 1410. From the work of Tasha Kelly-Mele and Jessica Finley, we know that a very heavy quilted garment can have a smooth side, and a glance over quilted clothing in Primark or the Musee de Tissus teaches us that a lightweight quilted garment can be bumpy! The 15th century doublet of defence was made to look like any other doublet. So I don't think art shows two different kinds.

And of course some men wore iron or linen armour as a fashion statement or to protect themselves from murder/while committing murder, so calling a jack or a steel skullcap (cervelliera) or a collar of mail specifically military, in the way that only soldiers in Canada carry machine guns with bipods or drive a Light Armoured Vehicle III, does not seem helpful to me.

6) As you said before, when we found in inventories or testaments the term "zuppa/zuppone/farsetto da armare",they probably refferd to a jupe made from "simple" fabric (like hemp); however this jupe is different from a civilian one: it should be stronger and sometimes with arming points. We can also find silk jupe but never a "çupa de serico da armare" or a similar term. Why? Because the principal feature of this jupe is the textile and subsequently its worth (and the worth in a inventory or in a testament is the most important thing).

I actually know of three sources which describe a satin, velvet, or damask doublet as an "arming doublet": the satin doublet for Edward III to wear with his plates in the 1340s, the velvet jupon in Castel Sigismondo in 1468 ('item uno zepone de veluto morello vechio d'armare'), and the damask doublet in the Paston letters (from memory: 'please send me immediately my priest's best white damask vestment, so I can have an arming doublet made from it before I go over the seas, I will give him velvet to replace it when I return'). We can confirm this with sources describing doublets worn under armour without saying 'arming doublet' like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, How a Man Shall be Armed, and Johann Hill: the very rich wore damask, velvet, and satin doublets under their armour as conspicuous consumption. Edward III's arming doublet uses the same yardages of fabric and weights of cotton and silk as other doublets in the 1340s, and his armourer John of Cologne made everything from aketons to costumes for a masque.

I don't think zuppa de armare implies anything about materials, just about function: its either a jupon which provides protection against weapons, or a jupon which is worn under iron armour. A poor or practical man would wear a linen or canvas one, a rich and wasteful man a silk one.

But like I said, those old antiquarians tended to treat sources from England and France as 'the standard' so having this conversation with an expert in sources from Italy is very helpful! And someone could do similar research on sources from the Low Countries, Germany, and Austria. I just can't afford to invest more time in this project this year.

[Sean M]

I tweaked the original post, adding Athis et Prophilias and saying that jupe is an 'early' word for quilted coat like aketon, gambeson, and pourpoint. The statute from Padova from 1236 is good enough evidence for me.

[Sean M]

Over on MyArmoury, Jonathan Dean found one more text which belongs in the thread but not in the main post. An anonymous Byzantine treatise On Generalship wants soldiers to wear their armour not over ordinary clothing, "as some do in order to reduce the weight of the equipment," but over a himation (in classical usage something like "cloak" but I don't know what it means later) a finger thick to stop weapons which penetrate the iron and help the iron armour fit more comfortably. Older books date that treatise to the 6th century, but Philip Rance wrote an article arguing for the 9th.

I have a link to the Greek text and a German translation on Armour in Texts https://bookandsword.com/armour-in-text ... y_medieval but its a little too early for my focus.

[Jonathan Dean]

Len Parker over on myarmoury.com found this reference to textile armour in the 1130s.

[Len Parker]

Thanks Jonathan. Here it is with the translation: https://books.google.com/books?id=DQ1JA ... na&f=false

[Len Parker]

Here's a list for panzari: http://onp.ku.dk/onp/onp.php?o61927