It's been a couple decades since I made a mail shirt but I figure it's about that time again. I'll be going the welded stainless route, as a martial artist I'm fine with updated materials and processes but I still want the cut and construction to be close to the ancient stuff. Have any surviving original shirts been examined in such a way as to determine exactly what the pattern was and how it was originally put together? I've heard there's some evidence that at least some shirts were formed of pre-made triangular and rectangular pieces. Ideally I'd like an 11th c. pattern but failing that I'd be happy with anything up through the 16th c, pre-15th c. would be great.

https://www.academia.edu/19694568/The_Iron_Tunic_from_Vimose_Funen_Denmark_Further_Research_into_the_Construction_of_Mail_Garments
http://www.erikds.com/pdf/tmrs_pdf_2.pdf
http://www.erikds.com/pdf/tmrs_pdf_3.pdf
http://www.erikds.com/pdf/tmrs_pdf_12.pdf
http://www.erikds.com/pdf/tmrs_pdf_13.pdf
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/trevor.barker/fa....htm#sect3
http://www.allenantiques.com/M-2.html

Among others.

Thanks Mart, that'll get me going!

Mike - also do a search here for 'gore' ...

After quite a bit of digging around it looks like there isn't any known 11th century mail that has survived and the examples I've found that are closest in age don't seem to have much tailoring. The most likely thing is that the back is made a little wider and taller than the chest, half sleeves don't appear to have been tapered. "Barrel and straps" looks to be the most common construction and in many cases the coif was integrated but a separate coif or even an aventail is defensible. Where it gets weird is with the skirt, the Bayeux Tapestry and some other art sources show closed "trunks" instead of a skirt but this would require an opening at the top somewhere and the haubergeon would have taken off from top to bottom, exactly the reverse is shown in the tapestry when the dead are being stripped of their armor. The only way I see that working in real life is if the front of the skirt is somehow laced to the back of the skirt to protect the inside of the thighs. As far as links go I think half solid punched plus half dome riveted round wire links is safe but there is wild variation in wire thickness and link diameter, not just due to oxidation either.

In short 11th century mail is going to be an educated guess, you'll have to go later or earlier if you want a known accurate reproduction and even then not many shirts have been documented well enough. This is an area of research I hope will boom someday soon, it seems like tons of people are interested in the data.

I seem to recall that the St. Wenceslas mail post-dates the 10th century, according to the signs in Prague.