Randall Moffett wrote: |
There are all sorts of makes and styles of aketons. Multilayered linen, padded, multilayered and padded. To be honest those remaining seem to be the latter two. I have never seen a multilayered aketon or jack though we have some textual evidence for them. |
Yes there were multiple ways of making arming garments and textile armours, but for the sake of this thread, I've been using the word aketon to refer only to a padded and quilted arming garment. What I'm proposing is that perhaps the tunics we see in the Maciejowski Bible, and other MS, are multilayered (but un-quilted) arming garments. To distinguish this hypothetical garment from aketons and regular tunics, from now on, I'm going to refer to them as arming doublets.
Randall Moffett wrote: |
I think the over mail padding were likely heavier duty. Not sure as we do not have much to go on but I figure the inside ones would have limits of how far you can pad or layer them before they become less advantageous to movement and overheating. |
I agree.
Randall Moffett wrote: |
As I have said before I am more likely to trust textual evidence that is clear to artwork. There are far too many variables to consider in both cases but art more so to me. Much is left ambiguous. That is not saying they do not ever have value as they for sure do, some have great detail but not all MS are the same. Just like not all text is the same. |
The problem with the literary evidence in this case is that there is no consistency in the use of terms. We have references to aketons, gambesons, panzars etc. and all of these words were apparently used for garments worn under armour, over armour, or for armour in its own right. Some of these references mention padding and quilting, while others don't. So far the earliest reference which undeniably describes a padded and quilted arming garment is from 1298. Does this mean that this type of garment wasn't in use until the late 13th century? I don't know. Maybe it does. Maybe before the late 13th century people used arming doublets.