Mackenzie Cosens,

You wrote a great post and I agree with most of what you wrote, but I have to comment on this:

"- The historicity of leather padded armour, in North West Europe from 7th to 11th Century, is contentious. "

This is simply not true. Maybe it is true here (in this forum), but in the scientific community no one talks about viking leather armour (wich is the question at hand).

Why?

Because there are no finds, no pictures, no written material and...well, nothing. There is simply no reason do discuss the matter in a scientific manner. We have nothing. And if you think on it, it is really not that strange.

This is the way science works. If you have no question then there is no point to look for an answer.

Regards,

/Vilhelm

I retract the improvised statment I thought I had corrcted that mistake when I was typing up my post instead I rewrote the rgument around it my apologies Matthew sorry if it caused you any offence But I still believe that it is possible that indeviduals not the vikings as a whole could have made th desion to wear a leather garb like the one the guy wearing the sutton hoo helmet had I just think it's a possibility that cant be ruled out.

I guess the best option we have here is to agree to disagree although I really enjoyed this debate it's not too often that you find a forum were yu can have a mature reasoned argument that deosnt desend into childish remarks and flaming

Hi Zach,

As a 'greenhand' you will not go wrong following Mathew's words of advice. Try to achieve getting the basics as correct as present knowledge allows, then expand your research

Many re-enactment socities over here in the U.K. will attempt to get a number of provenances for any given item, ie contemporary written sources, and illustrations, and from the archaeology records before allowing them to be used, or worn by members. Each re-enactment society may differs greatly however, allowing varying degrees of latitude.

Try to avoid if possible re-enactorisms. For my 'tuppence worth' these may include, 'Russ style' furry hats, leather armguards worn over sleeves, drinking horns attached to belts, copper alloy rings attached to belts for the purpose of carrrying axes, dripping multi-beaded and pendanted necklaces (it's for the ladies!) 'steppe' style riding boots.

Good luck with your project.

Dave

Oh dear, another argument about leather armour. I don't know why people get so vexed.
'Practical' Ville - not sure why women's high heeled shoes designed to give them sexual allure --therefore quite practical as far as their purpose goes -- has to enter into this but everyone to his tastes!
Leather is very practical, both as a working garment and even for battle - soldiers - at least British soldiers were still wearing it in the Second World War. True, it wasn't armour.

Several people have mentioned that a couple of layers of wool could provide good protection under mail -- absolutely true - yet those same people want to point out that there is no evidence for leather being worn. Ok, so where is the evidence for layers of wool?

No evidence for leather armour -- not quite so, actually, and I will expand on that in a moment.

My leather coat which has been helpfully illustrated (thanks Anders) was made as an experiment based on the pictures on helmet pressbleche and on goldgubbe and other artefacts. These coats were worn, and were worn in Anglo-Saxon Englad, too (see Penelope Walton Rogers -Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England AD 450 -700 ISBN 978 1 902771 54 0 ). True, all the surviving remnants are of wool, (in England) so far. I made mine out of leather, because on the Vendel XIV helmet, one of the plates shows two warriors in wrap around coats duelling - they aren't wearing horned helmets, by the way, one of the figures has a spear (angon) piercing his coat. The coat is strong enough to carry the angon, even though it is bent. That is why I used leather and padded it. However, I don't know if some of the original coats were made of leather - and I point this out to anyone who asks me. It is reasonable construction, and it works very well. Despite what has been said here, by some, it also offers considerable protection, especially at the front. Another of my friends has made one out of felt, it will be interesting to see how this holds up. This is experimental archaeology, by the way.

Mail is a pain to wear, being heavy and tiresome to, my coat is lighter and much more comfortable and easier to bear over long periods, even in hot weather.

Now to return to the evidence, not quite as sparse as some have suggested. There were leather remains in the Mound 1 Sutton Hoo burial, and this was considerable. See Martin Carver - A Seventh Century Princely Burial Ground and its Context, pages 153 to 200. Heap 'C' particularly contained a lot of leather. Exactly what this represented is not possible to say. Even slight leather remains do not usually remain in the acidic soils of England but at Sutton Hoo some special considerations were present.

Birgit Arrhenius wrote a whole paper about the pressbleche remains found in one of the large mounds at Uppsala (Arrhenius, Birgit and Freij, Henry (eds); 1992. “Pressbleck” Fragments from the East Mound in Old UppsalaAnalysed with a Laser Scanner. Laborativ Arkeologi 6 Arkeologiska Forskningslaboratoriet, StockholmUniversity) her conclusion was that the plates were fixed to a leather helmet --armour by any other name!

There is also reasonable supposition that leather helmets were being worn in Germany at around the same time--- grave numbers 368, 396, 428, 437 and 781 at Straubing-Bajwarenstraße, contained men who had pairs of boars' tusks affixed to their skulls, the suggetsion is that the tusks were put onto leather helms that have since rotted in acidic soils, all other organic remains having disppeared from these graves. Similar finds were made at Peigen (Niederbayern) and Kirchheim near Munich.

Of course, at our present stage of knowledge we cannot be certain that leather was worn, as armour or just as protection from the elements, however, it would not be sensible to suggest that our ancestors would ignore this valuable and comparatively freely available material. As for whether they wore it under mail - there is just as much evidence that they wore that as there is that they wore wool!

Paul

Hi,

We all seem to have missed one point, armour equals protection. At some point somewhere in time some one decided that naked feet was not good enough, so they made a form of protection, some made braided orgainic grass/hemp shoes, these only afforded short term protection so some one then made hide shoes. No doubt at some point some one also experimented with textile foot wear but these where also impractical so leather became a norm, because it had certain properties superior to the others, it afforded greater protection and durabilty, it was more practical. Pretty ingenious these early peoples eh ;)

Oh and riveted maile without an appropiate backing sure as hell makes a fine mess of woolen tunis worn directly underneath over a pretty short time, direct experiance of experimental archaeolgy and repairs to woolen tunics over many years.

best
Dave

Hello Dan,

You write: ' Those who support the theory reckon that "something" must have been worn since (they falsely claim) mail cannot be worn without this garment. The simple act of wearing a couple of woollen tunics easily disproves this claim. '

I am puzzled what you mean -- I repeat there is no more proof of woollen tunics being worn than leather, or anything else for that matter. You can wear mail over your bare skin if you wish, by itself it won't hurt you. Could be a bit cold when you first put it on though.

You say: "So where is the proof that this was leather? Experiments have shown that layered textiles provide far better protection than a similar weight of leather."
If you actually read what I said -- you will find I never said that this type of garment was leather --mine is an experimental garment -- I am trying out an idea -- those depicted could well be wearing layered textiles -- I haven't got around to trying that out yet. And you are correct, layered linen, for example provides very good protection. (See Knight and the Blast Furnace -- can't remember the author at the moment -- but I have it somewhere - he tries out penetrative tests with different numbers of layers of linen -- very impressive results, by the way).

And -- please don't jump to assumptions about my mail, my mail is not butted - it is riveted -- and it is correctly assembled - I spent a lot of money having it made. The links are very similar in dimensions to the Vimose find. I have worn this several times for over six hours -- it does make you tired, my remarks about my leather coat are just used as a comparison to this experience.

You said, in reference to the Sutton Hoo find: "Absolutely no evidence for leather ARMOUR. Nobody is claiming that Scandinavians did not use leather for other purposes. There have been many many leather finds and not a single item can be demonstrated to have been a piece of armour. "
Well, it might be, and using capitals won't change that. I just wonder why you have such a thing about leather.

Please don't just disregard the sources that I use -- have a good look at them, I will help you find them, if you wish so that you, too, can study them. Birgit Ahrennius is pretty certain that the Uppsala helmet was of leather -- and the boars' tusk hats were not scale armour; each helmet had two tusks mounted on the front of it. It is also possible that these helmets could have been made of an alternative organic material. However, experiments have shown that leather is certainly a viable material.

I am just pointing out that your rather strongly made assertions may not be correct - that there may be evidence which is in opposition to it.

You say (8th October): "Leather doesn't work from a practical standpoint either. Get yourself two garments, one made of leather and one made of linen or wool, and compare the difference when worn under mail." I am again puzzled how you can say this -- I have tried both by the way -- and both are effective. I went so far as to make an experimental under garment of padded split lamb skin (I know, there is no evidence for it) it is certainly practical, and it helps to spread the weight of the mail.

Cheers,

Paul

Paul,

Not that it relly matters, but none of the finds you speak of are viking age. As much as I love vendelperiod these were different times and different culture. As many things are alike in these two cultures, we should be careful to mix up vendel and viking period.

By the way (sorry for being a bit OT), I know of Birgits work, She lives right here in Uppsala :) The new vendel period exibition is up and running and looks very good. Me and the wife had Greg (Thorkil) and his wife and crew over from Poland to have a closer look at the exibition and speak to some of the archeologist. You should come Paul, you would love it :)

I've been following this thread since it started, and would like to ask if cour bouili (spelling errors abound!) still counts as leather armor?

M.

It's armor all right, but we don't seem to have any attested examples in archaeology, art, or literature for the Viking period...