Depections or mail gloves tailored to individual fingers are fairly prevalent in sculptures and in artwork. Has anyone tried to make or wear gloves (integral to sleeves or otherwise) of only mail links or of lined mail links? How well does this work? is grasping a weapon something of an issue? I would think that the mail would likely be of finer dimensions per ring for gloves, but the sculptures and effigies (admitedly somewhat stylized) do not seem to bear this out.

Mail finger gauntlets usually consisted of a regular glove with mail stitched to the back. In order for the fingers to flex properly the weave has to run across the fingers, not along them. Here is a pic of one of the duelling gloves in the MET

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The samurai used mail lined gloves (kusari yugake), with the mail exposed and also with the mail hidden by a layer of cloth.


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I've seen the dueling glove above, but I was wondering if there were any attempts to recreate the seemingly (likely lined) full mail cover gloves like these:

Just a few examples

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All 3 types of mail hand coverings [ Download ]

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Kai,
None of those images illustrates the palm of the hand. I'm with Dan on this, mail is stitched onto a fabric glove which can be replaced. It may well be fine enough to extend 3/4 of the circumference of each digit but mail in the palm and fingers would make for poor contact between hand and weapon.

I own a modern butcher mail glove for certain types of leather work where the risk of blade slippage is high. No way I'd handle the knife with a mail glove on the gripping hand. It goes on the hand exposed to blade movement.

Well, as you remember, the bazubands in my Yushman Project were fitted with maille gloves. The construction is maille rings, stitched on a leather glove in one-directional pattern, not alternative as shown by Dan.

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Although I hadn't seen the MET gloves before (Mr. Dan Howard sent me the same picture after they'd been finished), I find mine enough battle-worthy.

Mail gloves are different than mittens, as rings between the fingers would likely interfere with movement. Current butcher's gloves are not a good comparison, as they are smooth welded rather than riveted, or alternating riveted and solids. The rings are also smaller than the historic average, though some historic mail can be found that small.

There is a mail mitten recovered from the Battlefield of Wisby where the palm is covered in leather, though there is some question of whether the thumb is enclosed in mail or had a leather grip, as the thumb is folded over on itself and corroded. The effigies which show the muffler pulled back from the hand often show the mail on the inside of the mitten, so it might not always have been sewn to a lining. There are a number of examples in art showing mittens with slit or open palms, and other examples showing the palm covered in mail. I tend to believe the art isn't always reliable on such details, but there's also more than one way to skin a cat, as the idiom goes.

I am familiar with the images and repos that show an open palm or a slit palm, and I've always suspected that the palm was usually left open (like Dan suggests) to better grip the weapon in hand (skin on grip contact). I'm just curious if the depictions of mail on the inside of the fingers (as can be seen on effigies and in at least a few of the pictures I posted) would have existed. Additionally, while it is likely license, there is also never any depiction that I've found (which isn't saying a whole lot) of the mail links shrinking or changing direction.

It would seem to just be a convention of the depiction then.

Of course, we also have Upton-Ward's translation of the French Rule of the Knights Templar:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cBqgOXfMxAoC...mp;f=false

Quote:

325. No brother should ever swear when angry or calm, nor should he ever say an ugly or vile word, even less do such a thing. Each brother is required to do all noble actions and say all good words. No brother should wear leather gloves, except the chaplain brothers who are permitted to wear them in honour of Our Lord's body, which they often hold in their hands; and the mason brothers may wear them sometimes, and it is permitted them because of the great suffering they endure and so that they do not easily injure their hands; but they should not wear them when they are not working. Each brother should put on arming gauntlets when he has put on his arming jacket in order to arm himself, but otherwise he should not wear them without permission.

I'm not sure of the original language, but it appears a separate arming glove from the aketon, which could be removed independently, is called for.

#Eric

I know several bazubands with maille gauntlets.
The first one is Persian and is now kept at Askeri Museum in Istanbul, Turkey

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And the other is of unknown origin, although I personally think it's Persian again (see the file attached). Please, note that I am NOT the author of this picture. If I understand its title correctly, it's courtesy to well-respected Dr. Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani.

And there are another at least a couple of bazubands on a display in The Stibbert Museum in Florence, Italy (both on the mounted Ottoman warriors), which are quite obviously fitted with maille gloves.
Most of these bazubands are fitted with mittens, but one (in the Stibbert Museum) features fingered gloves.

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Hmmm, that's it, Eric.

I have to agree I was wrong and I make this honestly - these are really clam-shells. Damned - they look exactly as gloves at first sight.

Where did this come from? I'm thinking that I'd like to try and make a copy.

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