[Håvard Kongsrud]

In the Norwegian Hirdskrå (Royal Household law replacing older laws) from ca 1275, saved in an early 14th century manuscript, the word spaldener is used synonymous to vapntræiu as a padded garment beneath mail or another layer of textile armour (gambeson, pannzare) or standalone as styrka vapntræyu. The word is also found in a 1331 diploma when a groom was given "eina logbok, eina plato, æit spaldenære ok eina sæng" (a lawbook, a coat of plates, a spaldener and a bed)

In Fritzner's Old Norse Dictionary from 1896 the word is linked to the Middle High German word spaldenier which in Lexer's 1876 dictionary together with Spalier is given the same definition. From the 15th century (if I don't read too much into the entry, my German is a bit rusty) Lexer connects the word to the french espalde, (ME spaudeler) shoulder (plate) armour as discussed here.

I'm not well traversed in the later martial litterature and the question is wether this word for a padding garment has been further discussed or if the two separate middle high german meanings are considered uncontroversial?

[Mart Shearer]

[Pieter B.]

I am not a linguist but the term vapntræiu sounds rather familiar. I read it as

vapn - weapon-wapen-waffe-wǣpen-våben-vapen

træiu sounds an awful lot like the dutch word trui (trœy) which means sweater, though it has only been known as a sweater since the 19th century. In turn the word trui is derived from the Middle Low Dutch/German word troie or tro(i)ge, I reckon this could mean either a simple piece of clothing or a padded piece of armor like a gambeson or wambuis.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/treyja

And maybe there is a french or Latin connection too: troie or troga

So quite literal I would say it's a weapon-coat. Whether this is a heraldic arming coat or a wambuis/gambeson I do not know but I hope this helped someone.



EDIT: I did a quick an dirty google search for the Middle low German word Troie and this is what I found:

http://www.koeblergerhard.de/Mittelniederdeut...eutsch.htm

[Mikko Kuusirati]

[Mart Shearer]

Thanks, gentlemen.

Back to the original query, Nicolle gives the 13th century Rule of the Templars calling for an espalier, which he suggests as a padded shoulder defense.
LINK

[Håvard Kongsrud]

Yep. vapntræyu is well established as the common old norse word for gambeson. Træju is by Fritzener considered to mean the same as kjortel (kirtle/tunic), but from the 13th-14th century sources it seem to be used synonymous with a padded garment by itself. In a mid 13th century kompilation of the Didrik's saga you even find the term treyjuhosa for arming hose - "ok höggr á hans fótlegg svá hart, at í sundr tók treyjuhosuna ok svá brynhosuna ok svá fótinn". ("and he cut his lower leg so hard that he broke both the arming hose and mail hose and his leg too".)

The text reads ”spalndener eða vapntræiu”, chapter 35, in other versions spaldenæra -; spalldener. eda -; spaldenera -; spandiner eða -; spanderar edr -; spanderat edr -; skialldmær edr -.

The word 'eða' is commonly translated with 'or' and apparently the Norwegian and German lingivsts mentioned considered the items to be identical or at least interchangeable. However 'eða' could also be translated with 'and', opening up for your suggestion, Mart, that the old lingvists were wrong and the word already in the 13th century referring to a padded collar like the espalier linked to.

We would expect something like this from 13th century Strassbourg then.

[Mart Shearer]

Identical vs. interchangeable is an interesting consideration. Many of the armor regulations are quite specific, for example requiring an aketon and plates in England, yet we see musters accepting other combinations as functionally equivalent, such as aketon and mail, or aketon with a second gambeson.

[Håvard Kongsrud]

Thank you. I take it the corset is some kind of armour covering the torso only?
A further question is that if the french word espalier is found in Middle English only from the 15th century after it found new use as a word for the shoulder plates (later pauldrons), and that the English too in the 13th century was familiar with the older item associated with the term, what were their name for it?

[Mart Shearer]

[Len Parker]

There's something in Njal's Saga called a silkitreyju.
Sá var í silkitreyju og hafði gylltan hjálm en hárið bæði mikið og fagurt. Sjá maður hafði spjót gullrekið í hendi.

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Mart Shearer]

And to add to the confusion, the term used for textile armors in the Norwegian Konungs-skuggsjá from c.1250 is panzara, which is used both beneath and above mail, and as an independent armor on board ship.

Sometimes I think we need a Venn diagram to show the relationships among all of the textile armor references over time.

Most English dictionaries show the etymology of gambeson/wams to be from wamba/womb, meaning the belly.

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Håvard Kongsrud]

Thanks for the reference to Njal's saga, Len, translating something like "He was wearing his silk shirt (or gambeson?) and had a gilded, very hard and lovely helm." It is written down in the late 13th century and describes events said to take place in the late 10th century, but there are no reason to believe that descriptions of armour are accurate for the period described.

Thanks for the reference to the 1224 inventory of Fawkes de Breaute (Falkes de Breauté), Mart.

And thank you, Niels, for giving the oportunity to dwell deeper into this other term. First a little backtracking is in order. The centence should read "Vapntræyu is well established as a common old norse word for gambeson." - not 'the'. As Mart notes, panzara, is another established word in the period at hand. I will not dwell into the distinctions between panzara and vapntræju now. The Norse terminology is covered in Endre Fodstad's 2005 article, Våpentrøye og panser i høymiddelalder. I'm afraid that a source which is as definitive as the Ordonnances des Métiers de Paris from 1296 still eludes us, but the Konungs skuggsjá and especially the Hirðskrá gives valuable insights into the nature of the garment. In the 13th century and later the word 'vapn' ment both 'weapon' and 'armour'. At some point in time it also came to denote 'arms' as in 'coat of arms'. This primary and secondary meaning has led to some mixup of the word 'vapntræju' with an outer garment with no other function than identification, in modern Norwegian called våpenkjole. Do not think of shapes like a padded jack. A jack is a far shorter (and later) garment. Think more in line of thinner versions of what you see in the Macieowski bible and this MacDuffie-dude.


It is wrong of us to consider questions of the past to be a single pussle to be solved. At best the past can be seen as a number of different pussles, set apart chronologically, geographically and socially. For each pussle most pieces are distorted or missing, and our first job is to exclude those that belong to the wrong ones. The late 19th- and early 20th century pioners in our field often underplayed this problem. Furthermore, etymology often clouds thing up more thant it solves, as etymological meaning often cannot be pinpointed in time. As you said, Niels, words change their meaning with time and invention, so for the meaning of word to be accurately identified one must rely on descriptions in original from the time and place in question. Using translations put us at the mercy of the outdated or ignorant. Ad fontes!

By the piracy- I recon you're reffering to Danmarks Riges Breve 3. række, 1. bind, referred in modern danish here. (It says brystharnisk, not brynjeharnisk b.t.v.) They have not digitalised their diplomas older than 1400 yet, and I'm guessing it's translated from Middle Low German. Can you obtain the original text?

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Håvard Kongsrud]

I'm drifting a bit now, but here goes. I had a look into a word used for tabard/arming surcoat in Old Norse, vápnrokkr. As opposed to Vápntreyja, it seem to be connected with the secondary meaning of vápn as coat of arms. Johan Fritzner's Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog from 1883 on is still the Standardwerk on the Old Norse language. It defines the word as 'Trøie som bæres udenpaa Brynjen' (a shirt carried over mail). In more recent translations the words 'våpenkjole', 'våpenfrakk' or simply 'overplagg' ('outer garment') are used. Fritzner showed one reference: An Old Norse version of the Legends about Dietrich von Bern, Didrikssagaen.

- ok nú er högginn af honum hans hjálmhöttr ok hans vápnrokkr ok söðulklæði, eer af silki var gert, en heill er hans hjálmr ok brynja, hestr er ekki sárr.

Fritzner found no version of the word rokkr on its own, which he translated 'kjortel' (kirtle) based on definitions from Old- and Middle High German, but found it in the combinations brynjurokkr and skinnrokkr. The first of the two is found in the Karlmagnus saga and the second in the Pamphilus saga. By some searching I was able to obtain a few other uses of the word vápnrokkr, five more in the Didrikssaga and one in the Volsungesaga (Völsunga saga). These are as far as I know the only known uses of combinations of the word rokkr in Old Norse.

- sundr sneið brynjurokkin með brynju ok þar með halsinn
- hann hét mér fornt skinn ok skinnrokk from latin “Promisit ueteres cum pellicia michi pelles”
- He had his coat of arms on merki sínu ok söðli ok vápnrokk
- His coat of arms was on öllum sínum vápnum ok hann hefir merki ok vápnrokk
- Whitepainted skjöld, söðul, vápnrokk, merki, hjálmhött
- Painted a snake with red gold on hjálmhetti, söðli, vápnrokk, merki og skildi
- hans hjálmhöttr ok hans merki ok hans söðull ok vápnrokkr
- Hans skjöldr carried the descirbed symbol, as was markaðr hans hjálmr ok söðull ok vápnrokkr (vopnrokkur).

And now to the interesting part. All sources can be traced to compilations made around the middle of the 13th century. Furthermore, all relevant sources place the garment as used over mail and in most cases carrying a coat of arms. Except the poetic Pamphilus saga all are written in prose, and the word skinnrokkr has been theorized to be a direct translation from medieval latin. In Old Norse, therefore, the words vápnrokkr and brynjurokkr kan be shown to have only a rather exact meaning as (arming) surcoat in the mid 13th century.

[Mart Shearer]

In Diu Crône from c.1220-1230, Heinrich von dem Türlin uses wâfenroc for the heraldic surcoat over mail. Arming for the tournament, the contestants don mail chausses, knee plates, gambeson, collar, hauberk, mail coif, arrange their armor, and top it off with another gambeson or silk surcoat.

[Len Parker]

From The King's Mirror:
"When fighting on foot he is to wear a byrnie or a panzar,"
So here a panzar is not mail. According to Oakeshott a panzar is a gambeson.

Here is a pansara In Njal's Saga:
Skarphéðinn snaraði svo fast skjöldinn að Sigmundur lét laust sverðið. Skarphéðinn hjó þá enn til Sigmundar með öxinni Rimmugýgi. Sigmundur var í pansara. (Sigmund wore a pansara).

I was always under the impression that there were no mentions of vikings wearing gambesons in the sagas.

[Håvard Kongsrud]

Thank you for the great reference, Mart!

[Niels Just Rasmussen]