Semantics involving the word 'maille'

Clay · Post by **Clay** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 1:49 pm

Okey Dokey, I've not set myself up for a controversial conversation in a while, so I thought I'd bring this thought to the table and see where it goes. This, by the way, is the first in a series of questions I've had about what we do. I hope to have the time to jot down some notes about those in the near future as well.

As all of us in the medieval/renaissance community know, the term used for mail has many different incantations - "maille," "chainmaille," and "chainmail" just to name a few. The purpose of this post is two-fold.

The first is to find out why there are so many different names for the same thing and where these variations originated from. I would be interested in knowing where some of you who call it 'maille' saw this phrase. Where did this come from? Why do we say it with an extra 'le' at the end? To me, this is the same situation as the "armor v. armour" argument that Brian Price wrote, except that there are many more bastardizations of 'mail' to try to extinguish.

I believe that the word 'mail' is the correct term for armour involving an interwoven mesh of metal links. Not 'chainmail,' but 'mail.' Listening to some of the people at the Royal Armouries (on a videotape) and reading through a couple books have lead me to believe that 'mail' is the proper term. I'd like to see the variations of this word die since they seem improper, like "armor" when referring to plate armour. Now, please keep in mind that I am not absolutely sure that it wasn't called 'chainmaille' in medieval times since I am far from a scholar on the subject. I have never seen evidence of it but do not discount those who have.

I think that we spell it differently because of its tendency to be confused with correspondence; i.e., snail mail, e-mail, etc. Spelling it with 'le' gives some visual written distinction, but the context of the sentence should be good enough. When you read a sentence like "I put the check in the mail" you get a sense that someone is mailing a check using some sort of courier, not that they are writing checks and tucking them away in things made from little metal rings. Conversely, saying "I sell mail on eBay" does not reasonably denote that this person is selling their personal correspondence on an online auction site.

If we are striving to be more and more like the Knights we dreamt of as children, why not use more accurate terms to describe the arms and armour they possessed? Myself, I have tried to refrain from saying "cops" when referring to elbow and knee protection - instead, I'd rather use the proper terms. If we really would rather bastardize the names of armour in the medieval ages, why not call it a headhellmutt instead of helm or metalhandglove for gauntlet?

I realize that there is a good faction of the population who work with mail who do not use it for armour purposes and use it as a medium for their art form, like many folks on the Chainmaille Board do. Perhaps let them call their medium "maille". It would give a better definition of what a person does if he/she makes "maille" as opposed to "mail."

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, I'm just another guy in armour without a lot of influence on other people's lives. I can't reasonably ask for a semantic revolution or anything like that, but I would like to have you question yourself on why you call it "maille" "chainmaille" or whatever. I'm going to be going through and editing every occurence of "maille" on my sites to read "mail".

If anyone has any evidence that "maille" or "chainmail(le)" was used, please share that information so that we may at least call it by the correct name.

Alright, I think I'm done now.

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I'm not being mean, I'm just telling you how it is.
Salinas Swordsman
Darkmoor Armoury

Post by JT » Tue Jul 10, 2001 2:47 pm

I believe that "maille" is the French spelling. The same, I believe, is true of "armour" and "armoury". Decide for yourself whether you want to be associated with snooty Frenchmen.

As for ambiguities, what about when you talk about Slavic personae on the field. Is the Czech in the maille?

-- jt --

Clay · Post by **Clay** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 2:54 pm

Is the Czech in the maille?

No, Czech is in the 'mail' - he's not French, remember?

jgalak · Post by **jgalak** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 3:06 pm

I was always under the impression that "armour" was the british spelling and "armor" the american one (like color and colour or honor and honour).

Maybe not though.

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Yehuda ben Moshe
mka Juliean Galak

[This message has been edited by jgalak (edited 07-10-2001).]

Alcyoneus · Post by **Alcyoneus** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 3:40 pm

You can thank Webster, I believe. He made changes to common spellings when he wrote his dictionary to differentiate "American English" from "The King's English". Armour, honour, colour, etc. had the u's removed for this purpose.

As far as "mail" goes, "Jane, you ignorant slut...". What is right, is obviously, whatever I use.

As long as people understand what you mean, does it really matter? You have people coming from as SF/Fantasy background who start with info from Gygax, and others who come from a more historical background. Add in different languages, cultures, and eras, and you have words and combinations that will vary greatly. How many terms for armor pieces are bastardized transliterations?

I would say that armor is anything used to protect something from potential harm. From cloth to an M-1 Abrams.

Pekka · Post by **Pekka** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 5:39 am

How about calling that butted s**t as chainmail and the real stuff ( you know, the riveted one) as mail or maille ?

Vogeljager · Post by **Vogeljager** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 6:57 am

I believe the issue with "chainmail" is that armour 'purists' claim that it is redundant. A knight may wear Chain or Mail, so chainmail is like chainchain or mailmail or even mailchain.

As for Maille vs Mail, the former is unambiguous and just feels a little more mediaevalish.

www.m-w.com lists 'chain mail' (two words), 'coat of mail', and mail.

Then again they got Honour, colour, and armour wrong too.

Silly americans.

I found this interesting though;
Mail \Mail\, n. [F. maille, OF. also maaille, LL. medalia. See Medal.] 1. A small piece of money; especially, an English silver half-penny of the time of Henry V. [Obs.] [Written also maile, and maille.]

turmschlager · Post by **turmschlager** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 7:37 am

personally i think this is a useless discussion but since i enjoy wasteing time at work
words change over time
people use words incorrectlly and soon their meanings change isnt that what ebonics is all about
i believe most of this discussion is because of D&D they started using mail as a term for armour in general ie chain mail plate mail
scale mail or if you prefer chain armour plate armour...
since so many of use grew up playing D&D (and didnt know any better at the time) the terms became acceptable so now they are here and there is nothing we can do about it but live with it
i prefer the term chainmaille
am i going to change no
do people know what im talking about when i use the term yes
so i must be right
boy it sure is tough being right all the time
have fun
chris

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there is only one blacksmith in hell... and he is there for hammering cold iron

Lochlainn · Post by **Lochlainn** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 9:23 am

I use maille to refer to the link ringed armour. I was led to believe that "chainmail" was a D&D term.

Also, I've seen military history books that use "armor" for modern fighting vehicles (tanks, etc), and "armour" in the historical sense. Since I tend to go off tangentially on both, I like to use that convention.

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Lochlainn
I'm a Liberal and I'm OK!
*Insert gratuitous inflammatory remark here*

Norman · Post by **Norman** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 1:38 pm

Chainmail was already adressed -- it's redundant.

If you're going to be medieval about it, you would use mail, maile, maille and any other variation you can think of -- all in the same sentence !!!

Spelling formalisation is either not period or very late (I remember hearing that Shakespeare spelled his own name at least five different ways).

I don't use "mail" precisely for the reason you gave -- I want to distinguish from non-armour usage.

As for our friend the Czech,
if you're going to specify language apropriate usage, he'd probably not be in the mail either -- he might be in Bronya or Panzir
(but that's only cause I'm guessing that the terms are somewhat similar to the Russian).
...and he'd likely not be a Czech.

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Norman J. Finkelshteyn
Armour of the Silk Road - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505
The Silk Road Designs Armoury - http://www.enteract.com/~silkroad
Jewish Warriors - http://www.geocities.com/jewishwarriors
The Red Kaganate - http://www.geocities.com/kaganate
silkroad@spam.operamail.com (remove "spam" from e-mail to make it work)

Steve S. · Post by **Steve S.** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 1:47 pm

"I'm going to be going through and editing every occurence of "maille" on my sites to read "mail"."

I did just the opposite. I make sure that all of my electronic, web-accessible references to linked ring armour are written as "maille".

If you try doing a web search on "mail" you will get 10 billion hits - most to do with email. Search on "maille", however, and you will only get hits relevant to medieval armour.

Likewise, I always use "armour" to talk about medieval body protection. Searching on "armor" will get you more hits about tanks than body armour.

Steve

Clay · Post by **Clay** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 3:12 pm

I suppose you guys are right. Especially Steve's point about being able to be searched and found easily on the 'net.

jgalak · Post by **jgalak** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 4:25 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Norman:
Bronya or Panzir
(but that's only cause I'm guessing that the terms are somewhat similar to the Russian).
...and he'd likely not be a Czech.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

FYI:
In Russian, "bronya" is armor plate (as in the stuff on the front of a tank, not plate armor). "Pantsir" (I'm using this spelling to make it clear this isn't the German "panzer" tanks) is closer to "shell" or "carapace" like a turtle's shell.

The Russian word for the sort of things we talk about on the archive is "Lati" (the last letter is the cyrillin letter "b|") or "dospehi". That certainly applie to any plate armor. Not sure if it applies to mail though. Or maille. The word that specifically describes those is "kolchuga."

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Yehuda ben Moshe
mka Juliean Galak

Norman · Post by **Norman** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 5:01 pm

Yehudah -
You're speaking modern usage.
From the research I've done, it is my understanding that bronya and panzir are both originally words for maile and are descendants of germanic words (bernye, panzir).
Lati and Dospekhi are the general words for armour.
As things develop, the two words for maile becomes generalised (paralel to the usage of "mail" post-period), you get the word kolchuga for maile (maybe its from Turkish or Mongol?), and then you get "panzir kolchuzhni" vs. "panzir cheshuychatiy" "panzir plastinchatiy"... etc.
The two get aplied to tanks pretty much the same way as the term "armor" gets aplied to tanks in English (though I suppose a bit earlier - with bronenosetz for battleship).

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Norman J. Finkelshteyn
Armour of the Silk Road - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505
The Silk Road Designs Armoury - http://www.enteract.com/~silkroad
Jewish Warriors - http://www.geocities.com/jewishwarriors
The Red Kaganate - http://www.geocities.com/kaganate
silkroad@spam.operamail.com (remove "spam" from e-mail to make it work)

jgalak · Post by **jgalak** » Thu Jul 12, 2001 8:53 am

Norman: I didn't know that. The only non-modern Russian I've read have been various fables and legends, and I seem to remember this usage. Of course they may have been modernized in the editions I read...

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Yehuda ben Moshe
mka Juliean Galak

RalphS · Post by **RalphS** » Thu Jul 12, 2001 9:37 am

This is what the online version of Websters says about mail:

Main Entry: (4) mail
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English maille, from Middle French, from Latin macula spot, mesh
Date: 14th century
1 : armor made of metal links or sometimes plates
2 : a hard enclosing covering of an animal (as a tortoise)


It makes sense to have all these meanings: Imagine, some time around the first milennium, you discover this wonderful body protection in metal which you call maille. The term gets generally accepted for 'metal body protection'. Now some smart-arse comes along and adds a couple of metal plates to the zillions of riveted rings. Still metal body protection, right?

Don't confuse with 'maile' though:

Main Entry: maiÂ·le
Pronunciation: 'mI-lE
Function: noun
Etymology: Hawaiian
Date: 1903
: a Pacific island vine (Alyxia olivaeformis) of the dogbane family with fragrant leaves and bark that are used for decoration and in Hawaii for leis


Probably a good way of confusing your opponent, showing up dressed in a nice necklace of maile. Not quite the same protection as maille though...