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Alexis Bataille




Location: montpellier
Joined: 31 Aug 2014

Posts: 95

PostPosted: Sat 20 Feb, 2016 2:02 am    Post subject: Visby armour         Reply with quote

We all know that we find lot of coat of plate in Visby, but do we find lot of mail too ?
I mean, do they wear coat of plate without mail most of the time ? Because mail was much more expensive than plates ?
Thanks for reading
Alexis
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Mart Shearer




Location: Jackson, MS, USA
Joined: 18 Aug 2012

Posts: 1,302

PostPosted: Sat 20 Feb, 2016 3:12 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

There were remains of 200-300 mail coifs, making them the most common armor found at Wisby. There are a couple of mail forearm guards (musekins?), and only a few complete shirts. You must remember this was a rural militia, many of whom may have had no armor at all. While the knightly class might have worn plates over mail and aketon, the lower classes might have only had plates and an aketon at best.

Randall Storey has several price comparisons. The major cost factor on the pairs of plates is the covering and material for nails and buckles. The variance in costs of mail includes material (iron vs. steel), size of rings, and area covered. The prices of the two could be comparable, though higher quality of either will be more than the lowest quality of the other.

Also keep in mind that mail corrodes more readily due to the larger exposed surface, so when it's is found, it often appears as nothing more than red gravel.

ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui


Last edited by Mart Shearer on Sat 20 Feb, 2016 6:46 am; edited 1 time in total
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Harry Marinakis




PostPosted: Sat 20 Feb, 2016 4:42 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

If you want info on Wisby armor, get this book. It's basically an archeological reference on the armor.

http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&s...C%25201361



 Attachment: 21.65 KB
wisby.jpg



Last edited by Harry Marinakis on Sun 21 Feb, 2016 4:12 am; edited 1 time in total
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Mart Shearer




Location: Jackson, MS, USA
Joined: 18 Aug 2012

Posts: 1,302

PostPosted: Sat 20 Feb, 2016 6:19 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Online copy of the first edition:
Volume 1: http://michael-engel.io.ua/album329328_0
Volume 2: http://michael-engel.io.ua/album331513

One of the mail shirts:
http://io.ua/13608173p

ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui
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Ralph Grinly





Joined: 19 Jan 2011

Posts: 330

PostPosted: Sun 21 Feb, 2016 5:08 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

If they found a couple of hundred mail coifs at Visby, I'd have expected a least a couple of dozen mail hauberks to have survived - after all, preservation conditions would have been pretty similar, So, to my reasoning, the lack of much mail body armour indicated that they weren't wearing it. Does that sound a reasonable assumption on my part ?
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Ralph Grinly





Joined: 19 Jan 2011

Posts: 330

PostPosted: Sun 21 Feb, 2016 5:09 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

If they found a couple of hundred mail coifs at Visby, I'd have expected a least a couple of dozen mail hauberks to have survived - after all, preservation conditions would have been pretty similar, So, to my reasoning, the lack of much mail body armour indicated that they weren't wearing it. Does that sound a reasonable assumption on my part ?
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Pieter B.





Joined: 16 Feb 2014
Reading list: 10 books

Posts: 645

PostPosted: Mon 22 Feb, 2016 3:10 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Ralph Grinly wrote:
If they found a couple of hundred mail coifs at Visby, I'd have expected a least a couple of dozen mail hauberks to have survived - after all, preservation conditions would have been pretty similar, So, to my reasoning, the lack of much mail body armour indicated that they weren't wearing it. Does that sound a reasonable assumption on my part ?


Or it was worth looting after the battle unlike coifs.
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Mart Shearer




Location: Jackson, MS, USA
Joined: 18 Aug 2012

Posts: 1,302

PostPosted: Mon 22 Feb, 2016 4:31 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Ralph Grinly wrote:
If they found a couple of hundred mail coifs at Visby, I'd have expected a least a couple of dozen mail hauberks to have survived - after all, preservation conditions would have been pretty similar, So, to my reasoning, the lack of much mail body armour indicated that they weren't wearing it. Does that sound a reasonable assumption on my part ?


Consider that many of the coifs were unrecoverable, having been reduced to a layer of rust-colored "gravel" on a skull.

Thordeman mentions 2 or 3 mail "shirts" in common grave 1, and another 9 mail "shirts" in common grave 2, so there's a dozen. The problem is that the mail fragments discovered were too large to be coifs, but too corroded to positively identify them as shirts. Some might have been paunces or sleeves, for example. Interestingly, most of the mail shirts in grave 2 are buried near the edge of the pit, so weight might have been a consideration in disposal of the corpses.

ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui
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Ralph Grinly





Joined: 19 Jan 2011

Posts: 330

PostPosted: Tue 23 Feb, 2016 4:06 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

As I understand it..after the battle, the victors continued to chase the surviving losers. By the time anyone returned to the battlefield, the bodies were too badly decomposed to strip them of the armour, The remains were simply shovelled into pits and left, hence the survival of the coats of plates and coifs. Yes, there were some probable mail armours there when excavated..but no-where near the numbers compared to the coifs.
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Harry Marinakis




PostPosted: Tue 23 Feb, 2016 11:29 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

That a lot of maille was found at Wisby indicates that in the hot sun the bodies were too bloated to strip them of their armor before covering them with dirt, the sight and smell of which I care not to imagine.
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