Posts: 78 Location: Australia
Sat 21 Aug, 2021 7:22 pm
Carolingian Armor
In the Stuttgart Psalter there are quite a few depictions of scale armor and scale skirts being worn by the fighters.
do we can any evidence of these scales being found and the construction method at all?
only interested in items from the 9th C and of the culture and location
Cheers
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Posts: 3,642 Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Sun 22 Aug, 2021 12:00 am
Mail is the overwhelming majority of the metal armour worn during this time.
Charlemagne even tried to ban its export. The main archaeological evidence for scale/lamellar is during the period that the Avars were in control. After the Avars are driven out, the archaeological evidence for scale/lamellar in this region dries up.
Posts: 78 Location: Australia
Sun 22 Aug, 2021 1:33 am
Gday Dan,
thanks for the reply. so the archeological evidence we have is mail and not much for scale?
so taking that on board, why would there be so many depictions in the Stuttgart Psalter of people wearing scale?
Posts: 420 Location: Podgorje, Kamnik, Slovenia, Europe
Sun 22 Aug, 2021 2:23 am
| Dan Howard wrote: |
| Mail is the overwhelming majority of the metal armour worn during this time. Charlemagne even tried to ban its export. The main archaeological evidence for scale/lamellar is during the period that the Avars were in control. After the Avars are driven out, the archaeological evidence for scale/lamellar in this region dries up. |
I don't think we can attribute lamellar just to the Avars. It's usually more associated with areas under Byzantine control or influence, and some such areas were exchanging hands between Carolingian and Byzantine rule quite often.
In Kranj in Slovenia they found two lamellar armours from 6th century in 2005, together with Frankish angon.
Here's the catalogue from the exhibition of finds, Slovenian / English:
V blesku kovinske oprave / Gleaming in armour
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And that's me with a badly fitting replica of such armour:
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Posts: 1,462 Location: Laurel, MD, USA
Sun 22 Aug, 2021 4:35 am
Seems to have been a few years since this question came up, but I'd swear the whole thread is identical to a couple others!
My usual two cents is that there seems to be a real shortage of ANY archeological evidence from that era, for Carolingian stuff. There is a helmet with a mail neckguard (earlier than 9th century, though?), the usual scattering of weapons, etc. Almost nothing else.
So while I agree with Dan that mail was likely the most common form of armor, I don't want to dismiss all the artwork that clearly shows scales.
Sure wish we knew more!
Matthew
Posts: 486
Thu 16 Sep, 2021 5:42 pm
Remember, the Lombards became
Charlemagne's knights after 774. They were wearing lamellar in the 6th and possibly 7th century, and then we see them in art in the 10th:
https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4994/15555 It's hard to be sure what this is but it does kind of resemble this:
http://warfare.ga/12/Kastoria-Nicholas_tou_Kasnitzi-Nestor.htm So we're still unsure.
Posts: 486
Thu 16 Sep, 2021 6:08 pm
Here
https://books.google.com/books?id=32MhAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA77 you have them capturing the Avar royal camp and bringing the spoils back to Aachen. I suppose it's possible they could have taken some Avar lamellar. At bottom there's a 7th-8th c. plate from Hungary
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/...ellar.html
Posts: 486
Tue 21 Sep, 2021 7:08 am
This is frustrating:
https://www.mittelalterforum.com/index.php/Thread/23154-Karolingischer-Schuppenpanzer-die-Zweite/ He made two scale armours. He says the second is based on a find. He gives the present location for this find as the Museum of the city of Einbeck. I haven't been able to find anything else. Also, the original had three holes.
Posts: 486
Tue 21 Sep, 2021 7:29 am
Scroll down to page 286
http://semai.free.fr/Medieval/Armour%20from%2...ol%20I.pdf This looks like it might be Moses. It's always the same problem. Scale armour seems to be the go-to armour for biblical characters. But that doesn't prove it couldn't be contemporary armour.
Posts: 393 Location: Germany
Mon 07 Mar, 2022 6:24 am
| Len Parker wrote: |
| Scroll down to page 286 http://semai.free.fr/Medieval/Armour%20from%2...ol%20I.pdf This looks like it might be Moses. It's always the same problem. Scale armour seems to be the go-to armour for biblical characters. But that doesn't prove it couldn't be contemporary armour. |
That probably meant that the artists viewed it as old fashioned or eastern. One should look for patterns like that in the art. For example, I read an article that claimed that flails didn't exist in the Middle Ages and pointed out that artistic depictions always gave the weapon to exotic characters.
Posts: 153
Tue 08 Mar, 2022 4:21 am
Flails are a quite common, its one of the stock peasant weapon next to the pitch forks an spiked clubs.
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What's rare to the point of near non existence is the classic military one of a spiked ball on a chain.
The kisten type with non spiked heads is reasonably common as a cavalry weapon.
Posts: 3,642 Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Tue 08 Mar, 2022 1:04 pm
These kinds of flails are grain threshing tools. They are as useful on the battlefield as a pitchfork - better than a rock or club but not much.
Posts: 448 Location: Sioux City, IA
Sat 12 Mar, 2022 12:26 am
| Ryan S. wrote: |
| Len Parker wrote: | | Scroll down to page 286 http://semai.free.fr/Medieval/Armour%20from%2...ol%20I.pdf This looks like it might be Moses. It's always the same problem. Scale armour seems to be the go-to armour for biblical characters. But that doesn't prove it couldn't be contemporary armour. |
That probably meant that the artists viewed it as old fashioned or eastern. One should look for patterns like that in the art. For example, I read an article that claimed that flails didn't exist in the Middle Ages and pointed out that artistic depictions always gave the weapon to exotic characters. |
I should start quoting Heath's references for scale in later periods (1066-1300):
| Quote: |
| "Figure 30, the odd man out in this group, comes from another mid-13th century ms., this time English, very similar figures also appearing in French and Spanish sources (compare him to figure 82, for instance). In most cases the scale corselet, undoubtedly based on a leather foundation, is sleeveless as here, with an upstanding collar similar to that of an aketon, and it is normally worn over a mail haubergeon as if the scale corselet itself was not regarded as sufficient protection. Nevertheless, scale armour seems to have remained an occasional substitute for mail during this era throughout much of Western Europe, though it is encountered only rarely thereafter except in Eastern Europe. The scales were now most commonly of iron but (here is literary and illustrative evidence to indicate that horn was still very much in use in the West, certainly in the 12th century and possibly even in the 13th; far example, Emperor Henry V (1111-25) had a body of knights equipped in horn scale armour in 1115." |
In later knightly effigies, scale was also used as reinforcement armor either as a whole or as a skirt (if we are to understand some evidence in that way, given how the surcoat omits the upper part).
Martin Shearer also showed me this
"1322 Inventory of Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, at Wigmore Castle (Ordered by Edward II)
"ij. paribus de plates"
2 pairs of plates
"j. quirre"
1 cuirass (leather body armor)
"ij. paribus lameriorum"
2 pair of lamers. (Possibly scale armor.)"
The Cantigas in the 13th century also shows scale armor among both Muslims and Christians. I think Aragonese and Castilians have more evidence for late medieval scale armor than any other country in Western Europe.
Heath again:
| Quote: |
"We are fortunate enough to have been left with a record of the equipment of 12th century Islesmen by Giraldus Cambrensis. He describes the Orcadian and Hebridean mercenaries of Haskulf Thorgilsson at Dublin in 1171 as being armoured in 'Danish fashion completely clad in iron', either in long mail hauberks or 'iron laminae skilfully fastened together'". |
We should also notice that Valsgard graves showed at least one set of splint arm armor, something not noted among Scandinavians in artistic and written sources, but it nevertheless was used. Some historians think splint limb defenses were worn by some prominent Franks during Charlemagne's time, but no archaeological evidence survives, and they don't feature in art either, so that's a case were we could point out to the reliability of splint limbs using non-Frankish findings.
There is archaeological evidence for scale armor in Viking written evidence: the spangabyrnia appears in at least one source, and it was more likely scale than lamelar. It's pretty much a Consensus that mail was way more common than scale among Vikings. But If Vikings had them, why shouldn't the Carolingians have had them as well, given they were the most powerful state at that time and one of the main sources for swords and armor by means of smuggling? I should notice my argument here is that, from a methodological point of view, Frankish scale armor has a high probability of existing, and given the lack of positive extant evidence, it's not yet a certainty, scholarly speaking. Though I personally believe they were indeed a thing and the lack of evidence is situated in a context with a lack of everything.
We barely have anything from Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Anglo Saxons, Slavs, Lombards or Slavs. Even great empires like the Muslim ones barely talk about their types of armor, and we also suffer from scarcity of archeological and artístic evidence, so I think we should put into context the fact that only Western Europeans cared that much for armor in their sources and are basically "blessed" with conditions of preserving both extant pieces and reliable art.
Btw, I should say some ante-Islamic Arabian kings were stocking quantities of shirts of mail to put them under service when necessary, and I think one of Mohammed's marriage was arranged due to the gifting of a mail shirt. They seen to treat mail as the best armor possible.
| Quote: |
After Kisra had had al-Nu'man killed, he appointed Iyas b. Qabisah al-Ta'i as governor over al-Hirah and the other former
territories of al-Nu'man. Abu 'Ubaydah related: When Kisra had fled from Bahram [Chubin], he passed by Iyas b. Qabisah, and
the latter gave him a horse and slaughtered a camel for him; in this way, Kisra showed his gratitude.859 Kisra sent a message to Iyas enquiring where al-Nu'man's deposited possessions were. Iyas replied that al-Nu'man had found a safe refuge for them among the Bakr b. Wa'il. So Kisra ordered Iyas to get possession of what al-Nu'man had left behind and to forward that to him. Iyas sent a message to Hani', "Send to me the coats of mail and other items [al-Nu'man entrusted to you" (the lowest estimate of these mailed coats was four hundred, and the highest was eight hundred). But Hani' refused to hand over what he had engaged to protect.860 He related: When Hani' withheld these, Kisra was filled with anger and gave out that he would extirpate the Bakr b. Wa'il. |
Source: The History of al-Tabari Vol. 5: The Sasanids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen, p. 359, available at: https://books.google.com.br/books?redir_esc=y&hl=pt-BR&id=SdrtpZQphYUC&q=coats+of+mail#v=onepage&q=coats%20mail&f=false
Posts: 486
Sat 19 Mar, 2022 2:43 am
The repton stone
https://emidsvikings.ac.uk/items/repton-stone-1989-59-1165/ is possible evidence for carolingian period scale. It certainly looks like it's meant to be scale.
Posts: 486
Sat 19 Mar, 2022 3:04 am
As you can see here
http://www.vikingage.org/wiki/index.php?title...ew_desktop they really didn't know how to portray
maille in the early middle ages. That Carolingian Gellone Sacramentary horseman is probably the most authentic image of the period.
Posts: 486
Sun 20 Mar, 2022 5:00 am
You're welcome. If I remember right, there are some measurements for these plates somewhere. I'll see if I can find it but it's been a while. Make sure you scroll over for the layout of the plates
https://vk.com/photo-15658634_457243254
Edit: I just realized the measurements were in the article.
Posts: 486
Sun 20 Mar, 2022 1:59 pm
Excellent info on 6th-7th century lamellar
http://amm.sanok.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/1...AMM_XV.pdf The authors claim that lamellar was being produced at Crypta Balbi, Rome.
Posts: 3,642 Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Sun 20 Mar, 2022 2:43 pm
D'Amato isn't the best of researchers and has no problem deliberately misinterpreting a source if it can be used to support one of his pet theories. The physical info about the armour is excellent but ignore his commentary and digressions.
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