[Nick Bourne]

Greetings o wise and wonderful people of the forum,
As far as you know did the maille worn by vikings (Danes, Norse) have a straight bottom or, as has also been suggested to me, a dagged pattern such as the one below.
Thanks in advance,
Nick

[David Huggins]

Hi Nick,

As far as i am aware there are no images to substantiate the opinion that vandyked mail like this was or was not worn by Viking cultures, there is how ever a manuscript image of Anglo Saxon origin that does show an Anglo Saxon warrior dressed in such a vandyked garment.

best
Dave

[Dan Howard]

Armour in general seems to have closely followed the civilian fashion of the time. If you can find illustrations suggesting that vikings wore clothing in the above style then a reasonable argument can be made that at least some armour was made to look the same. The above style of mail could certainly be used in an Anglo-Saxon context, since, as David pointed out, civilian clothing had a similar style.

[David Huggins]

Hi Dan/Nick

Sorry I have should have been more specific, the warrior that I quoted appears in British Library MS Cotton Cleopatra C.V111 and this 'garment' is often referred to as representing mail armour which may be fair comment as he is armed with shield and spear, however he also wears the forward curled crested style head wear which in its self is problematic.

It is often thought that such caps are an artistic convention of using earlier 'Classical' styles as a model, and this may possibly be echoed in the vandyking of his sleeves and hem of this mentioned 'armour' , perhaps also representing thef earlier Roman/Byzantine armour model.

His 'underclothing' follows the traditional Anglo-Saxon manuscript representation of long sleeved tunics of the period.

Having said the latter I can not think of any other vandyked representation of civilian garment, Anglo-Saxon, or Viking, whose iconography of clothing and armour always appears to generate polarization of opinion!

best
Dave

[Douglas S]

Well, since the number of suits of actual mail from Viking graves can be counted on the fingers of one finger (1), then it's hard to make any accurate conclusions. It's also hard to be sure you're looking at maille in period illustrations.

[Nick Bourne]

Thanks for the info chaps ,
It seems that there is not enough definitive data to draw a general conclusion or rule for the shape of the maille. I guess i'll just have to go along with what other people have.
Thanks again,
Nick