[Chuck Russell]

http://www.myArmoury.com/view.html?features/pic_mail16.jpg


taken from this http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=196703#196703 "What did a mail coif really look and work like?"

look at the 3 gentlemen and the totally different way they are wearing the mail at the time and the way the mail is depicted

[Nathan Gilleland]

Very interesting indeed. I wonder if the difference in how the artist drew the mail suggests that some of it is not mail? The typical s-shaped rows are depicting mail armour, but might the dotted pieces depict something else, such as the stitching on a padded gambeson?

A very interesting picture that is going into my reference folder.

I would love to hear what others think of the difference in the mail depictions.

[Thomas R.]

Hi Chuck,

I also was intrigued by this picture. Dan Howard wrote the feature about maille (click on the word!) and used this Picture there, but we don't have the reference yet. So we don't know from where it was taken and when it was made.

Nevertheless it looks, as if the first person doesn't wear a hauberk but only a maille coif and maille legs. The second one does wear a hauberk, but something looking to me like a maille coif, covered in padding? The third person wears either a gambeson or a hauberk covered in linen or padding - which is, as I recently learned from fellow forumites - called a jazerant. On top of it he wears a separate maille coif.

So perhaps Dan could help us here?

Thomas

[Chad Arnow]

Dan might be able to help, but most articles are illustrated by myArmoury staff (usually Nathan and me). I checked my files and couldn't find that one.

[Nathan Robinson]

Please be sure to read our article about mail armour fully to know what the author, Dan Howard, says about artist depictions of mail and in particular, the term banded mail.

Image reference:

Der Kindermord von Bethlehem. Deutsche Handschrift (um 1350), British Library, London, Shelfmark Add. 17687 B / The massacre of the Innocents. German manuscript (ca. 1350), British Library, London, Shelfmark Add. 17687 B

http://www.myArmoury.com/view.html?features/pic_mail16.jpg

[David Teague]

[Chuck Russell]

i would think that the dotted material maybe a padded garment of some kind.

take a look at the chausis barely seen on Goliath in the Mac Bible http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images...&d.gif looks like the same sorta thing no?

hmmm still thinking

[Sander Marechal]

[Thomas R.]

I have thought about this painting a lot during the day...

And I have come to some conclusions I would like to share with you.

First of all, we know now that it dates from 1350.

Second: We know, what is depicted. It's the slaying of the innocents, so it is an bad act, made by bad guys, right?
As we know, medieval illuminators tended to depict bad asses in an outfashioned manner. It's seen a lot in the Morgan Bible. So we can assume the illuminator did likewise here.

Third: What do we see? We see maille worn in a somewhat unmatching way: one doesn't have a hauberk at all, the middle guy has a hood, similar to the other guys gamebeson (or jazerant) and so on. One of the hauberks ends at the ellbow.

My conclusion is: the illuminator tried to make the slayers of the inncocent look as foolish as he could, and perhaps he had older paintings as a reference for arms and armor and did not know that much about contemporary mid-14th century armor, which should have been a bit more modern. Assume you are one of the noblemen, perhaps a knight, for whom and his friends this piece of art was made. It would have been hilarios for him to see the bad asses depicted in such a manner. He would show it around, and all his noble friends would have a good laught at that ridiculous padded hood (if it was no jazerant at all - we don't know it) and they would assure one another, that these "bad asses" would have been no match for them - for sure!

I think, that we can not derive from this kind of illumination any useful information wether or not there were separate padded maille hoods etc., as long as we have no mentioning in other sources like literature and so on...

My 2 cents,
Thomas

[Elling Polden]

As anyone that has tried to draw scenes with people in mail in them can tell you, drawing rings wil make your wrist hurt before you are finished with the first hauberk.
Second, the picture becomes very monotoneous, as there is little contrast between the different garments or characters. Everyting is plain metal...
One way to counter this problem is to draw different garments with different styles of simplified mail. This is quite common, as described in the Mail:unchained article.

Several points can be made about these characters. One is that they are footmen, not Knights. While the Knight™ is a quite standardized figure in high medevial illustrations, the footment are depicted in a much more diverse way. This is very noticable in Maciowski. In many other manuscripts they don't bother depicting footmen at all...

It is worth noticing that the man in the middle does not appear to be wearing a arming tuncic. Instead he has a regular tunic under his haubergon.
The character on the left could quite well be wearing mail under his tunic, which we have written examples of. A arabic style Jazerant would be less likely.

This is also one of the few places I've seen mid-pari in 13th c depictions. Generally the aestetic of the period is plain and sobre, with such "gaudy" clothes worn by entertainers and the like. There might be a point to the notion that they are beeng depicted as tasteless, though their armour is modern enough; The guy on the right is perfectly up to date, if not cutting edge well into the early 14th c. (where his bi-pari surcote would come back in style, too...)

[Thomas R.]

[Elling Polden]

I've seen it dated 1280 and even 1240. If the manuscript is 1350, there is another plausible explanation, namely that it is a copy of an earlier work. Sometimes, one copied the illustrations along with the text.

However, they could also just be low level soldiers that have not goten on the plate bandwagon yet. I'm more surpised about the sword pommels.

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

Does anyone have any links or the like to sources of the late 12th to early 14th Century that are like a the Mackjowskiblah Bible or Manesse Codex?
I'm especially interested in how the weave of maille seems to change on some coifs for some reason.

[Elling Polden]

Well, Here's The Life of Edward the Confessor , dated ca 1250. It is quite consistent when depicting mail, thugh at times it uses a different style for chauses, for some reason...


The same scene is depicted on the previous page, but with the chause drawn in the regular fashion.

[Thomas R.]

[Mackenzie Cosens]

Is it possible that the artist is attempting to depict two types of maile one type made of larger rings and the second of smaller rings?

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

In that Edward The Confessor picture, what the hell is a giant fork doing amongst the axes and spears!?

[Romulus Stoica]

That giant fork is a battle fork. Here in Transylvania the battle fork and the battle scythe have been used at large extent. Two nasty weapons used by infantry against cavalry.

[Elling Polden]

Military Fork... They show up occationally, especially in this type of "weapon cluster". I belive there are some in Mac as well.
In high medevial illumination, it is common to depict a "multitude" with a few individuals with lots of weapons poking up behind them. Sometimes strange things show up, to give a bit of variation.

We have considered getting a mobile polearm rack...