[William P]

..put blankly, what's going on, its showing a TON of scale armour in the 820's seperate skirts, one illumination even shows some sort of armour conforming to the llegs... it also seems in stark contrast to many others that ae all maille, all the time... with the exception of byzantine sources but i tend to treat them as seprated from the rest of europe

what gives? i mean its shown pretty clear as being SCALE including the ridge along the middle..

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

I suspect this is a mixture of preference of today's illustrators mixed with perhaps the relative lack scale armor's popularity elsewhere in Europe other than Spain and Italy from the rest of the Middle Ages. I do not know why armor of metal scales were less popular in medieval art, but I think it was like that since the time of Charlemagne.

In medieval Spain these armor scales were popular in the thirteenth century between the Christian infantry (among andalusians it was even more common). Look at these ilustrations of Cantigas:
http://www.warfare.altervista.org/Cantiga/Can...-408-1.htm

http://www.warfare.altervista.org/Cantiga/Can...ia-028.htm

Italians:
http://armourinart.com/5050/15752/



By the way, you should read this:
http://deremilitari.org/2014/02/carolingian-a...h-century/

[Mart Shearer]

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/search/?manuscript=4868

1. It's scale armor.
2. It's a stylized depiction based on Romano-Byzantine iconography.

Personally, I lean towards explanation 1.

The skirts separated from the thorax is seen in Byzantine art also. I suspect the texture over the belly is meant to depict mail. The scale cuisses are unique to this one miniature within the manuscript, but appear centuries later in other miniatures, so seem a reasonable attempt to armor the upper leg.

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4868/13167/

[William P]

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4941/14883/ interesting that we also see leg armour in this north italian one from the same period and it seems to cover the whole leg too

interestingly there ARNT any manuscripts of byzantine provenence in the period of 600-900 AD according to that site (though i think there might know of one or two elsewhere

that image is the only result in manuscript minitures for italian, grrek or turkish manuscripts from that time.... very strange the paucity of sources...

[Mart Shearer]

There are a number of Greek language manuscripts from that time. How many of them contain miniatures, and specifically miniatures of armored men? Often, Byzantine sources are limited to icons of armored saints or paintings of emperors, or the rare image of Goliath.

There's always the 10th century "Joshua Roll"
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Pal.gr.431.pt....rrent_page

[Dan Howard]

The illustrations are depicting scale armour. We don't know whether scale was really that common or whether it was just the style at the time.

[Mario M.]

Just to add a bit to the imagery, from the Reims Cathedral;

http://i.imgur.com/01cbiby.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/aMdEpfv.jpg

http://www.burgenseite.com/faschen/reims_ritter_0167.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/HZkj5sL.jpg


Dated 1250-1300 I believe.

[Len Parker]

I think Mart is right about the mail on the stomach. For years I thought this was some kind of metal plate strapped across the stomach. But comparing it to the curtain on the back of this helmet http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4868/13164/ you can see the same gray color with a few circles just like on the stomach. So now I'm thinking this is a very early impressionistic portrayal mail. Maybe this is why you see so much scale armour in the early manuscripts. They just didn't know how to draw mail to their satisfaction.
The open stomach design on the scale does suggest this scale armour was real. I don't think the artists would invent this independently.
The written sources of the period use both lorica and brunia. Notker mentions plates on thighs, and Gregory of Tours writes "circulis luricae" which sounds like mail. From http://deremilitari.org/2014/02/carolingian-a...h-century/

[William P]

[Mart Shearer]

The Reims figures are Abraham (in mail) and the King of Sodom (in scale) before Melchizedek. (Genesis 14:17-24). The dating is difficult, because although begun in the early 13th century and continued into the early 14th, the early 14th century construction seems to stick closely to the original 13th plans. 1250-1260 is sometimes given.

There is always a question of whether the artists are copying Byzantine art, or actual Byzantine armor which they might have become familiar with during the 4th Crusade. It is generally believed that such features are an attempt to portray the ancient or other, but the Byzantines might have clung to such features as part of their heritage and culture as "East Romans".

[Márk György Kis]

Actually I'm 90% convinced that is crudely drawn mail.

The coverage and popularity of scale is totally overestimated IMO, and it does not really give us a logical explanation for the illustrated frequency or the functionality.

If we assume those are scale armors, then what we see is the following: lots and lots of scale, in increasing number, since Late Roman times (Merovingian pictures are rare but let's go with that), a massive popularity during Carolingian times, and then after the Ottonian era, early Romanesque, BOOM, scale just magically transports into mail with the same popularity. Mail comes from nowhere, and the poof, takes everything from scale.


My idea is the following: Carolingian art simultaneously features realistic and traditional elements. The well-known stylized V-peaked helmets originate in Late Roman times, while at the same time we see actually practical shields and spangenhelms with actual parallels in other areas. Scale-depiction is a part of this tradition, but when we consider, it as crudely drawn mail, suddenly the previously mentioned popularity problem is solved (meaning scale never really was there, and mail enjoyed the same overwhelming popularity throughout, originating from Late Roman times). Functionality is also explained, since the previously unseen standalone scale skirts and scale chausses become mail skirts and mail chausses - perfectly viable pieces.

But no one believes me.

Where did I go wrong? How is my theory worse than the alternative?

[Len Parker]

Maybe they're not crudely drawn. I might be wrong, but aren't these pictures meant to be Biblical or clasical scenes? Later medieval artists would use scale armour to give the look of antiquity. Maybe this started with the Carolingians.
We think images like this are meant to show a shirt and skirt, but maybe it's just a mail shirt with pterges added for an ancient look.


Compare the Carolingian art to this 6th century image:
http://vk.com/squama_1#/photo-75491281_338408221


Also, compare to this 12th century image:
http://vk.com/squama_1#/photo-75491281_338408199
Would this also be a case of copying older art? Could this be a spangabrynja? I have no idea.

[Mario M.]

[Márk György Kis]

I simply don't, since we are talking about Merovingian/Carolingian/Ottonian periods, and though we see clearly different armors later, we can easily distinguish between them. And even then, do not underestimate the tendency of the artist to just mess things up, i.e. 3-4 different mail textures in one picture!