Once again we see the problems with relying on translations.

Native Americans gluing sand to leather for armour: https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Native-Americans-wear-leather-armour I would say this adds weight to the Ragnar story.

Interesting stuff Len. Using glue mixed with sand to stick layers of leather together to make armour, reminds me of this quote I found a couple of years ago on the armour archive;

"Take lether that ys half tannyd and drye hym, and schave the flesshe syd; and take glwe wt water, and set yt over the fyere, and melte yt wt water, and then al hote ly yt a pone the leder on the flesshe syde, and strawe ther on the powder of glasce bete yn a brasene morter wt fylyne of yrene y mellyd to geder; and then laye a nother pece of the same lether flesshe seyde to flesshe, and nayle hym to the scylde and lete hyme drye, and ther nother sper nother ege tole enter ther ynne"

This is similar except instead of sand, powdered glass and iron filings are used.

Edited to add; for those interested here's where I found the above quote http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewto...let+recipe

Stephen, I was thinking of that same topic myself. This idea might be a stretch, but remember when Thorer Hund gets struck with a sword and "it was as if dust flew from his reindeer-skin coat."

Hi Guys,

I made this video that may be interesting on the subject. In it I show samples of hardened leather, describe the process and then shoot them.

https://youtu.be/RO_nG6OpCKg

Tod

[quote="Leo Todeschini"]Hi Guys,

I made this video that may be interesting on the subject. In it I show samples of hardened leather, describe the process and then shoot them.

https://youtu.be/RO_nG6OpCKg

Tod[/quote

Your videos put the History Channel to shame.

This may or may not have anything to do with armour, but I thought it was still interesting: https://books.google.com/books?id=lTR_Ui64gssC&pg=PA440#v=onepage&q=leather&f=false Some info on pilches: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pilch and https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Pilch

Dear Mr. Parker,

The only thing the quotation you cite has to do with armor is that in it, Holinshed claims that King Edward told the English army that the Scots didn't have any.

Best,

Mark Millman

Original Latin: https://books.google.com/books?id=FFsVAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q=corio&f=false

Dear Mr. Parker,

Thank you for providing a link to the Latin original. It confirms that the only reference to armor in this passage is to the Scots' lack of any.

Best,

Mark Millman

I keep wondering if there is any other evidence for the Scots wearing deerskin. From the context, King Edward isn´t really a reliable witness, and the comment about deer skin doesn´t apply to the Bruce, who gives his speech his full armour (compared to Edward who gives his speech in royal robes). The Scots as underdogs, but also noble savages is emphazied including in the actual account of the battle, where "Wild Scots" throw off their plaids to fight naked. Because of the date of the book, I am not sure if John Major would have been inspired by Native Amercians wearing buckskin, but he was certainly influnced by the idea of Picts fighting naked. Anyway, I am sure that the battle of Bannockburn is well studied, so there should be information about which they actually wore.

Dear Ryan S.,

The point here is that, whatever one believes about the factual reliability of the statement, it clearly says that the deerskins that some of the Scots wore were not armor. This thread is about evidence for medieval European leather armor. The quoted passage doesn't provide any.

Whether the statements about the Scots' garments are accurate or reflect literary tropes is an interesting question, but one tangential to the topic of this thread.

Best,

Mark Millman

An Update:

As far as I can tell, the jackets worn by Kerns are made of wool, not leather. So that the deerskins that are described are probably refering to gambesons with a layer of deerskin. So, Edward was probably talking about armour. Interestingly, this was already mentioned at the beginning of this forum.

I have also found references to leather quilted jacks, which could be the same thing as these linen and deerskin armour.

Dear Ryan S.,

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. However, I would argue that I have not neglected the context. First, the speech that Major attributes to Edward is itself qualified by the statement that he "is said to have said", which does not put it on a very secure evidentiary footing considering the two-century gap between battle and book and Major's failure to specify a source contemporary with, or closely following, the battle. Second, while Edward may well have underestimated the Scots' armor, the assertion Major reports him to have made is that the deerskins were not armor. Whether (assuming that the attributed speech reflects some actual statement) they may have covered other armor of which Edward was unaware or that he wished to minimize is not material to the topic of this thread. Whether or not his speech in its historical context may suggest that the Scots soldiers had armor, the speech still is not evidence that the deerskins were armor; rather, it denies the possibility. Nor can it be used as negative evidence, because it merely says that the deerskins were clothing and in fact contrasts them to armor, as opposed to saying something like, "You have heard that the Scots harden leather to defend themselves, but these skins are no more than clothing."

Based on the article you cite about Fergus Cannan, I would agree that he argues that the léine croich is a kind of distinctive military garment. I see that he speculates that its thickness and many folds may have given it some protective capacity, but it does not appear that it was designed specifically as armor--for example, it lacks quilting, which was widely used for purpose-made cloth armors, including those of the Gaels, while the léine croich was in use.

Major's book was published in 1521 and he was born in 1467, so it seems likely he refers primarily to contemporary encounters with the Scots Highlanders. Because he doesn't discuss his sources for his description of Scottish clothing it's hard to know whether they extend as far back as accounts of Bannockburn. It's not clear whether Highland soldiers (note that Major's description is of the clothing of sylvestrium Scotorum, "wild Scots", generally understood to mean Highlanders) played much part at Bannockburn.

But all of this may merely mean that I'm inclined to interpret more conservatively than you are, and that I'm disinclined to broaden the thread's stated topic.

Best,

Mark Millman