I recently had found this image that reconstructs an scale armour used by Norman knights, which made me particularly curious. Although scale armor in the Carolingian Age have been far more common than mail, the pictures of Osprey's books and other reconstitution books give little or no attention to them. Nevertheless, they appear to have some kind of advantage over mail armor, probably the price or manufacturing time, I don't know for sure, but I'm curious to know why they give so little attention to them.

I wonder what were the advantages and disadvantages of scale armor over the mail armour. What would be the reason for its decline? Based on Europe and the Near East in the Middle Ages, where it was more common and where it lasted longer?

Viking/Scandinavians actually wore armor of scales? I often see in EMA reconstructions of scandinavian warriors wearing armor of scales and lamellar made of leather or metal plate.

This even existed? It says that it was Norman in origin.


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Scale is commonly *depicted* in Carolingian art, but there is virtually no archeological evidence so it's very hard to tell if scale was *more* common than mail. I suspect it was not. The problem is that ANY metal armor was too expensive for most anyone except the upper class. And the upper class was wealthy enough to afford any armor they liked. Since mail was simply better than scale overall, mail would be what they picked!

Scale is good protection, don't get me wrong, but mail is simply better protection, without any potential weak spots, and it's far more flexible as well. Plus it's vastly more durable--scale tends to come apart because the stitching chafes and the backing rots, just from everyday wear. It's stuffier, too.

I suspect that helmet you show is complete fantasy. I've never seen any Western European armor constructed like that. It may be a loose interpretation of an illustration that is supposed to show mail, or even a scale neckguard. Couldn't tell you about the "Norman" below that--it's a nicely done reconstruction, but again, I'm not sure what it's based on. Clear depictions of scale armor *do* exist, so I don't think we can rule it out by any means. Lamellar is more of a stretch.

For the Vikings, as far as we can tell it's just mail. Modern reenactors can't always be trusted! Too many of them want to "do something different", so they drag in all kinds of speculation and rationalizations...

Matthew

There is more than one mention in the sagas of something called a spangabyrnja. The most likely interpretation of this is scale armour. It seems to have been pretty rare. Mail was far more common.

The word "brunea" is just another variant of brunia, brünne, bronje, broigne, byrnie, byrnja, etc. It refers to mail armour.

As a professional Google page turner/searcher, a historical enthusiastic cultic college student with no flavor of degree, of stubborn opinions, and most starving of 3D artists, I conclude from my observations of reading about Brunea is that it is a vague term for armour required for Carolingian aristocrats to wear for military campaigns. Brunea is also considered awesome loot for Vikings besides Frankish swords. Whether something was considered expensive during the medieval timeperiods is all based upon agreed and shared views of many individual observations that could easily be proven wrong if a text or two of specific descriptions and statistics gets discovered. I would also like to mention that the majority of people didn't follow a set monetary system and if that were the case, prices could rise and drop. I have read a few books (like 2 or 3) of authors, and read through several online places of cults, forums, and research articles that define brunea as either scale, chainmail, both, or armour in general. I would only refer to brunea as a carolingian word for body armour because that is the most acceptable and truthful of answers. I would highly recommend to understand brunea as a very flexible and broad word for body armour created during the Carolingian time period unless you want to argue with people that have biased views. The illustrations (frescoes, bible drawings) that depict the Carolingian helmet and other various forms of armour can be interpreted by anyone in the past viewing those same drawings. There was no standard of industry during the medieval era that created one kind of armour. The popular interpretation of the brunea and the carolingian helmet is not impossible for someone in the past to interpret it similarly. School textbooks in the United States and other similar sources describe the Carolingians and their empire as a revival of Roman civilization (which anyone and everyone could argue for days about).

Short answer is that you can neither claim nor disclaim whether brunea was defined as scale unless a found and trusted archaeological statistical evidence says otherwise. If the scale armour is depicted in drawings, it could have existed.

Yes the word means "armour" but was almost always reserved for mail regardless of which language you are looking at. Whenever scale armour is mentioned the word is usually qualified such as with the above-mentioned spangabyrnja. I don't think we have enough Carolongian texts to reach a conclusion about Carolingian armour.

Hi Kyle. I'm glad you like the book. I hope it comes in so handy that it falls apart from overuse.

Most of the medieval depictions of scale armor show it being worn in addition to mail. I suspect it might have been the earlier iteration of the pair of plates, providing something more rigid over the torso.

Wire is generally drawn cold, but too many silica stringers in wrought iron will casue the wire to break, as well as chew up the drawplates. The armorer Rudolph of Nuremberg is given credit in many technology texts for "inventing" wire drawing in 1306, though it seems likely his invention was using a water mill to mass-produce iron wire. Wire drawing of precious metals had been around for many centuries before that.

Roman wire was drawn. There are at least two surviving draw plates dating to the Roman period and the dimensional consistency of Roman wire can only be achieved with drawing.

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Is the wire heated prior to drawing it through a drawing plate?

It needs to be annealed after each pass through the drawplatebut, as Mart said, it was cold-drawn.

Well that sounds like, excuse the pun, a drawn out process. Makes me wonder if the preparatory work of making mail is significant compared to the assembling of the ready made rings.

@Matthew Amt: The people often consistently depicted wearing lamellar is a body of water across from Scandinavia and were partly originated from the Swedes. There is a well known trade route that spans from Scandinavia straight to Constantinople. The people from Scandinavia alike to Harald Hadrada have been hired as mercenaries in the Byzantine Empire and traveled back to Scandinavia. There is evidence in the Birka ringfort of lamellar plates created for repairs. The mass grave in Visby has a suit of lamellar with the design obviously derived from the neighbors to the South and East. The same reason for the Visby mass grave was because of the Hanseatic League's involvement of whom is recorded to have a warehouse in Novgorod. There are artifacts that show evidence of ideas, concepts, and designs imported from the South and East of Scandinavia. The pieces to this puzzle are missing somewhere underneath the table, but the image to this table-top puzzle is not too difficult to figure out. Lack of evidence doesn't always equate to lack of existence. Vikings are described as anyone living in Northern Europe with access to a boat and weapons and make the choice to go "a viking." The description of Vikings includes the Rus.

About chainmail, would people be more likely to pass down suits of chainmail over time and people just replace broken individual rings? I thought that was one of the many reasons why chainmail was so popular to produce?