Hi there!

I was wondering if anyone knows where I can get a mid-13th century hauberk with mittens? I could make them myself of course, but it would be a whole lot easier if I could buy one, the lazy SOB that I am :D

I have searched all over the net, but all I can find are full- and way-too-baggy-sleeved hauberks, with and without integrated coifs... But no mittens at all...

Thanks!

I have looked at a lot of different mail suppliers but I haven't seen any yet.

Bart Zantingh wrote:

I have searched all over the net, but all I can find are full- and way-too-baggy-sleeved hauberks, with and without integrated coifs... But no mittens at all...

I think this is exactly why. Standard hauberks are baggy to fit many people. Mittens on baggy sleeves don't work.

I suggest you buy a normal/baggy hauberk and tailor it to fit you well. Then extend the sleeves and weave mittens yourself, or get a pair of mail mittens and attach them to your hauberk (make sure that the mail of the mittens and hauberk is comparable. Prefeably buy from the same supplier and line). This is still manual work, but a whole lot less than weaving your own hauberk.

I have done this exact thing, adding the mittens and an integrated coif to a hauberk buyed by ebay (50€ knee and wrist lenght!). More you can take you time to reshape it to your exact figure: remember only the holes to extract the hands...

I know it's a lot of work, but the only hauberk you can find in the middle-low prices range are pretty standard (baggy, very large sleeves and without any special addition).
Ask if you need an hand.

It is my insufficiently researched opinion that sleeves with mittens need to have the grain of the mail run perpendicular to the grain on the body of the hauberk. It`s my guess that this adds an extra level of complication to the production of the mail that most producers either don`t know about or don`t want to take on.

I say "don`t know about" in full realization that I may be wrong in my belief that this is what was done historically for full-sleeved mail with mittens.

However, it is my general observation that most commercially made mail sleeves have the grain running in such a way that it can't really hug snugly to the arms, the way it does on the body.

I've checked some pictures and photographs, and there are a few that are interesting...

The effigy of John de Cobham (1354) in Cobham Church, for example. If you look at his arms you can indeed see the maille of the sleeve running perpendicular to the body. The thing is, he doesn't have attached mittens, but wears gauntlets... That doesn't make the sleeves less interesting, though

The effigy of William Fitzralph (1323) in Pebmarsh shows the opposite in sleeve construction, and he does have mittens attached.

It's not nearly enough to be conclusive, but it's a start... :D

So to clarify what I mean by "insufficiently researched":

I've never specifically catalogued any sources, but I've looked at a number of effigies and illustrations. My general sense id that more of them show the grain of the mail running along the arm in such a way that it can compress than show it the other way. I tend to look for this trait every time I see a historical depiction of mail, because it's a pet theory of mine that is often on my mind. In many cases, though, there seems to be artistic license/simplification in the depiction of the mail.

The most common way this happens is that a picture shows the mail in one consistent flat looking grain, so that it looks like the grain is consistent even across a bent arm, much like depictions of plaid on a cartoon character.

Depending on the body position, this has given what I consider false examples both for and against my theory. Those are easy to discount, but in depictions where there is a break in the artwork between the arm and the body, it is sometimes hard to know whether the depiction of the grain is accurate or artistic license. Effigiies are funny for this because the arms are at the side, meaning that if the grain really is perpendicular, in that position it looks parallel, which would also be the easiest way to depict it in a stylized format, and there is pretty much always something covering the area of the shoulder where the change of grain would actually occur.

The other thing is that I don't even know if there are surviving examples of mail that originally had long sleeves and/or mittens. I believe there is not. I have seen other examples of mail with short sleeves that have the grain running the same way modern reproductions do, but that works okay for a shorter sleeve.

I'll take a look at the effigies you found, and thanks for pointing them out.

I looked at the effigies you pointed to, and I see what you mean. However, I have doubts about William Fitzralph, mainly because the mail on his body and legs also seem to be running cross grain to how mail is normally depicted and worn. Also, I've seen that this cross-grained mail depiction seems to be a common feature of brass effigies. John deCobham shows how I believe mail looked, but only a small amount is visible due to the amount of plate he wears. I should also mention, that my belief about the grain of mail sleeves applies to any long sleeves, with or without mittens. And honestly, mail that has plate strapped over top is another reason for that! The straps tighten better and the mail is more comfortable if the links can compress around the arm under the strap, which really only works one way.

Here are some effigy examples of stuff I talked about before

Here's an example of cartoon style mail:

Cartoon Mail

Note how the grain doesn't change even when the elbow bends.

Here is an effigy showing the mail as I see it, wearing mittens. Unfortunately, the surcoat and damage to the shoulder of the sculpture obscure how the grain changes.

Here is a strange one; the sleeves seem to follow the modern construction method, but the mittens have a different grain! That's probably the best evidence against my theory I've seen yet.

I'll try to get back to this later. I'm running out of time this morning

This is the John de Cobham effigy:

http://www.themcs.org/armour/knights/2005%20C...4%2042.jpg


And this the one of William Fitzralph:

http://www.brassrubbings.ca/images/fitzralph.jpg

That 'Cartoon Mail' is really funny :lol: ... I think the maker of the effigy first shaped the mail and after that made the contours of the arm...

The Eastwick statue is very interesting, indeed. Although the surcoat and damage are unfortunate, I think it is a definite clue for this riddle :D

And the third one, the one in Basel, is curious, with the different style in the mittens. But it's also the latest, so maybe that's an explanation...?

Could it be all these styles were used? Sleeves with the same grain as the body, sleeves + mittens perpendicular to the body AND sleeves with the same grain, but only the mittens in 'cross-grain'? That it depended primarily on the individual tastes of the wearer?

I don't know, just throwing it out there... :idea: :D

I wouldn't be surprised if both "grains" for the sleeves were used in-period. Perpendicular to the body "fits" better, but keeping the grain (like in modern commercial reproductions) is mechanically easier, since the entire shirt can be made in one piece.

As the owner of a cheap modern mail hauberk, I'll say from my limited experience, the problem is not so much the grain as it is that the sleeves are not tapered at all. take a look at a modern off-the-shelf hauberk; the wrists are the same diameter as the shoulder. This makes it easier to construct (as the sleeve is then a simple tube). But when you put it on and hold out your arms, the extra-wide wrists coupled with the weight of all those excess rings pulling the grain apart, and it looks almost like you have wings.
But if you tailor the sleeves, much of those problems go away.

Craig Shackleton wrote

Quote:

I've never specifically catalogued any sources, but I've looked at a number of effigies and illustrations. My general sense id that more of them show the grain of the mail running along the arm in such a way that it can compress than show it the other way. I tend to look for this trait every time I see a historical depiction of mail, because it's a pet theory of mine that is often on my mind. In many cases, though, there seems to be artistic license/simplification in the depiction of the mail.

I think that what you implying is that the 'material' of the mail is constructed on the bias. Bias cutting of fabric has the effect of allowing the material to hang more radically than is the case with fabric that is cut conventionally. 1920's flapper dresses were famously cut on the bias so that they created a very figure hugging effect. Imagine you have a square of cloth cut from a roll and it is laid out in front of you. Put your sleeve pattern on the fabric so that the top of the shoulder and the back of the wrist parts of the pattern are along the centreline of the fabric. If you cut the sleeve now it would be just like your shirt sleeve, ie a conventional cut.

If however you turned your pattern 45 degrees either way and then cut your sleeve, it would be cut on the bias. This would create a really odd shirt that clung to your body in a very inelegant way.

I do not wear maille but I have a feeling that a sleeve that is tight and clings to your arm could well cut down on material flapping around and generally making control easier and reducing tiredness, so your observation seems to make sense to me.

As was pointed out earlier I have supplied a couple of maille hauberks with the coif and mittens built in. This was a specific request of English Heritage and I was pretty sure that they were not available off the shelf so I looked a bit to make sure then embarked on making them. I bought GDFB round link rivetted skirts and shirts and coifs and a pair of parrallel action water pump pliers and drilled the jaws to make a pair of rivet sets for the 1/32" rivets and set a friend onto the job. As far as I know these items are only available as custom orders so if you want one get the pliers out. This was part of a larger contract, it is not something I would supply on its own.

As an observation though they are very claustrophobic things. With the coif in place, the enclosed hands and the down to the ankle length the weight is obviously very considerable and with only my wife to help me get it on and off (who has no experience of handling maille) it was all very entangling. Not and easy item to wear as a one piece.

No, I'm familiar with bias-cut fabric, and that definitely would not work with mail. Linen chausses/hosen are often cut on the bias to make them more form-fitting. My wife used to be a seamstress/costume designer and has made a few bias-cut flapper dresses as well.

Mail hangs differently in one direction than the other. In one direction the mail can pull in and gather. On a mail shirt, the grain is pretty much always hung so that it gathers around the body, making it pretty form fitting, even if it is basically rectangular. But if the arms are made in a 'T' shape and the grain is just extended the same direction, the mail can't gather in the same way around the arms.

It is also this difference in direction of hang that makes bias cut mail really weird and impossible. The mail would be asymmetrical and would gather in some places on the diagonal.

So what I am talking about is that when a mail shirt is laid out in a 'T,' the sleeves would be attached with the grain at 90 degrees to the body. Although I suspect that one way to make the join would be a diagonal connection seam between the body and arms that connects to the neck-hole.

After looking more closely at the effigies though, I am now starting to wonder if they might have been built with the sleeve laid out parallel to the body, and then just connected over the top of the shoulder.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time, money, or energy to try and build a bunch of mail shirts using my hypothetical patterns to see if they would work.

I have found the link of the mailer that supplies hauberks with three different kinds of sleeve attachment. It's Knuut from WeldedChainmail.com. Here are the hauberks.

Thanks Sander, that's exactly what I was talking about. Those three variants are exactly the three variants I was talking about.