Im just wondering how common where the non 4-in-1 chain mail weaves through history (6-in-1, 8-in-2, etc) I've seen patterns for these when making small chain mail gifts for friends but I've never seen historical example of them can anyone give me any onsite into their historical validity?
The overwhelming majority of weaves are 4-in-1 but there are a handful of 8-in 2 and 6-in-1. Apart from those, there are the Japanese weaves that were usually done with butted links.
| R. Kolick wrote: |
| Im just wondering how common where the non 4-in-1 chain mail weaves through history (6-in-1, 8-in-2, etc) I've seen patterns for these when making small chain mail gifts for friends but I've never seen historical example of them can anyone give me any onsite into their historical validity? |
Since you did not state a specific time period, culture or specify a type of link (butted or riveted etc) the answer is that many different types of patterns other than 4 in 1 were used, the Japanese used many different patterns over a long period of time. If you are talking specifically about European mail or Indo-Persian mail you will not find much evidence of any patterns besides 4 in 1. Many of the Japanese patterns use butted links and or twisted links. If you look at illustration #10 on the chart below you will see an example of riveted and solid links in a non 4 in 1 pattern.
A few types of Japanese mail patterns, from "Zuroku-Nihon No Katchu-Bugu Jiten" ("An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Japanese Arms and Armour ") by Sasama Yoshihiko.
[ Linked Image ]
I'm specifically looking at european mail. I'm planing on making a chain mail shirt but while i want it to be historical i don't particularly want it to be the standard 4-in-1 that you see everywhere (even though it is the most historically common) and since i have read a very small amount on the concept of doubled mail i was wondering if their is any physical evidence of none 4-in-1 weave that existed in Europe.
We have no idea what double mail was. The Mail Unchained article gives several possibilities; a case for all of them can be made from the available evidence. These days I'm leaning more in favour of two separate mail hauberks.
There are all of two known examples of 6:1 mail in a European context. One is the collar on a standard in the British Museum, and the other is a fragment of Celtic Iron Age mail from Tiefenau, Switzerland.
British Museum 1856,0701.2244 standard:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages..._001_l.jpg
http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages..._001_l.jpg
The Felix Müller (Fig. 6, p.119) article on the Tiefenau find:
http://retro.seals.ch/cntmng?pid=ars-001:1986:9::177
I've never seen anything else besides standard 4:1 in Europe. Dan Howard has a long listing of the possible meanings of "double mail", and the historical language is even more open ended -- double mail, double hauberk, where the hauberk is doubled, doubled in three, etc.. There is fairly good evidence that multiple layers of mail were sometimes worn, and we know they distinguished between tournament hauberks and others in inventories and accounts. Unfortunately, we don't have a good understanding of why they made the distinction.
Attachment: 363.28 KB
Tiefenau 6:1
Attachment: 207.64 KB
British Museum 1856,0701.2244 6:1
British Museum 1856,0701.2244 standard:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages..._001_l.jpg
http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages..._001_l.jpg
The Felix Müller (Fig. 6, p.119) article on the Tiefenau find:
http://retro.seals.ch/cntmng?pid=ars-001:1986:9::177
I've never seen anything else besides standard 4:1 in Europe. Dan Howard has a long listing of the possible meanings of "double mail", and the historical language is even more open ended -- double mail, double hauberk, where the hauberk is doubled, doubled in three, etc.. There is fairly good evidence that multiple layers of mail were sometimes worn, and we know they distinguished between tournament hauberks and others in inventories and accounts. Unfortunately, we don't have a good understanding of why they made the distinction.
Attachment: 363.28 KBTiefenau 6:1
Attachment: 207.64 KBBritish Museum 1856,0701.2244 6:1
| R. Kolick wrote: |
| I'm specifically looking at european mail. I'm planing on making a chain mail shirt but while i want it to be historical i don't particularly want it to be the standard 4-in-1 that you see everywhere (even though it is the most historically common) and since i have read a very small amount on the concept of doubled mail i was wondering if their is any physical evidence of none 4-in-1 weave that existed in Europe. |
I would say that if you want to make it historical, it needs to be 4-in-1. Mart has given you two examples of 6-in-1 weave, versus literally hundreds of surviving fragments, hauberks, and other mail items that follow a 4-in-1 pattern. If you do the math, you can see that far, far fewer than 1% of all mail from Europe is 6-in-1. Given that one sample is from the Iron Age, that leaves one later sample, and it's exceedingly rare for the time period it was produced, never mind for the centuries preceding or following.
| Craig Peters wrote: | ||
I would say that if you want to make it historical, it needs to be 4-in-1. Mart has given you two examples of 6-in-1 weave, versus literally hundreds of surviving fragments, hauberks, and other mail items that follow a 4-in-1 pattern. If you do the math, you can see that far, far fewer than 1% of all mail from Europe is 6-in-1. Given that one sample is from the Iron Age, that leaves one later sample, and it's exceedingly rare for the time period it was produced, never mind for the centuries preceding or following. |
It probably means that a cost-benefit analysis was made and the perhaps extra time and cost of making a mail other than 4-in-1 was not really worth it in extra protection.
So a derivation from the standard pattern would probably be an experimentation by individual people that could arise from time to time.
| R. Kolick wrote: |
| I'm specifically looking at european mail. I'm planing on making a chain mail shirt but while i want it to be historical i don't particularly want it to be the standard 4-in-1 that you see everywhere (even though it is the most historically common) and since i have read a very small amount on the concept of doubled mail i was wondering if their is any physical evidence of none 4-in-1 weave that existed in Europe. |
Even when looking outside of Europe there are very few examples of round link 6 in 1 or 8 in 1 mail. I know of one Japanese cuirass that was entirely 6 in 1 and a hauberk that has 8 in 1 mail covering the shoulders, the use of 8 in 1 mail added noticeably to its weight.
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