Sean Manning wrote: |
The Frankish countries (ie. the ones who heard mass in Latin and liked fashions from what had once been Gaul) had words for quilted clothing like aketon, pourpoint, gambeson, and troye from the 12th century onwards. If they had those words much earlier, nobody can find evidence for it. |
True, the word vapntreya is first seen written in the sagas and that was written in the 12th century. It`s not that the norse culture did not write things down. They did, but it was written on bark from trees and other degradable materials, so all we are left with that is written in the viking age is carved runestones.
Sean Manning wrote: |
I don't think those are very good translations. A wappen-troye is an "arming-troye" (one of the words for quilted upper garments like aketon/pourpoint/gambeson). It has nothing to do with a shirt.
A wappen-rokkr is a "coat-armour" ie. a protective coat (or just possibly a coat of arms ie. a coat with heraldric arms on it). |
I don`t think those are good translations either. I was just refering to it being a protective garment for war and not a regular every day clothing. Those are good translations to norwegian though. The norse word treya can a way be to describe a different garment than a regular clothing. The norwegian word trøye means to day an outfit/clothing you put over your head which can be everywher from hips to knees and elbow to wrist length. Something that would be accurate with a tunic that has some padding or extra thickness to it to separate it from a regular clothing.
The vapnrokkr to me is pretty straight forward. Rokkr is an outer garment worn for cold weather in a klappenrokk style opening in the front. easy to put on and off. Basically a long jacket. A very used piece of garment in the colder areas of europe. So a vapnrokkr has to be a rokkr that is more suitable in war or combat than a regular rokkr. What this is exactly we don`t know. But extra padding, sewn thicker or something that suits the situasion with a maille or as a standalone armor seems very likely.
BTW: A treya and trøye does not mean shirt in english. A shirt means skjorte in norwegian and skyrta in norse. That is a garment opend in front with buttons and a collar. Something fancy for fine occasions.
A treya or trøye means jersey in english.
Sean Manning wrote: |
sources described how quilted clothing meant to resist weapons was made, they say again and again that wool is not a good stuffing. |
Do you have examples? This is interesting.