[Nathan Robinson]

Hey Everybody-

I was hoping to start a conversation about fabric/textile armour and arming garments. I realize that the terminology surrounding these items is varied and open to some debate and discussion. However, I thought it might be good to at least try to identify a few things seen in historical artwork by applying names to these items. In some cases, the images may be vague or a particular item might fit more than one definition. This is the type of discussion I'm trying to prompt.

I've added arrows with letters (A-T) to make discussion easier. When discussing a specific garment, please refer to it by letter. Some items may very well not be considered arming garments at all. This is worth noting, too.

Thank you for your time.

[Craig Johnson]

Hey Nathan

I am not up on clothing as much as I probably should be but the break down that I see seems to be

B,C,D,E,F,G,I,J,K,L,M,N all seem pretty straight forward as Gambesons, some different stitch patterns but armor for combat.

A seems to be a Tunic more than padded armor to me, by the way, the art work on the first picture is really exceptional when you look close, a very good artist did this. Is it a miniature?

H maybe a coat of plate by the look of it but might be a gambeson as well, with some kind of an armored skirt and a particularly fetching sleeves top :-) interesting guy here my guess is he is upscale compared to the others in the group.

OOps I got to run more later.

Best
Craig

Had to run to fight practice. Now back to our previously scheduled program.

O looks as if it is over a mail shirt or the piece may have a mail collar. This may well be over hard armor as well but that is hard to judge from such art work as the actual figure maybe just a 1/2 inch high or less and we ar trying to distinguish what is underneath by shape and hang.

P,Q,R all seem to be Jerkin style arming jackets with padding for additional protection/padding if worn under armor. Though these may well have been strictly fashionably cut pieces they are designed to also wear under armor. The Archer specifically has the breastplate worn over the piece.

S,T see to be more tunic orientated as depicted though S may well have some padding or integral plates as it seems stiffer and bulkier in appearance.

In contrast the figure at the far left of the first picture and the figure standing next to N both have obvious tunics of simple cut and worn over what ever protection maybe under the pieces and are probably not relied on for any protective qualities.

OK now I am done :-)

Craig

[Grayson C.]

Nathan you've been posting some pretty thought provoking stuff recently!



I think that most of these are, as Craig states, typical gambesons, but several strike me as not falling in that catagory. O for instance is too form-fitting and elaborate to be a typical arming gambeson. Maybe something diferent?


Nice post though, I'll see if I can find a bit more later?


Also, where are these from?


EDIT: S is another one that is pretty different from the rest. It appears to be studded and is the only thing worn by this particular person in terms of torso protection

[Blaz Berlec]

I'd say that most of these garments aren't cloth armours at all.


Garments A - O are late 14th - early 15th century jupons, worn over plate armour. I have no idea how thick or protective they were - I believe they're more of a fashion thing, hiding the ugly bright steel breastplates (before the fashion and tastes changed to "allwhite").

P, Q and R are 15th century jacks of various designs. Substantial cloth defences, made of multi layered cloth (usually 20 or more layers of linen).

S and T are 13th century gambesons. Dotted lines show stitching, not studs. By the way they're folding, they don't seem very thick or stiff. They also seem to sleeveless, with another padded garment with long sleeves underneath - or the sleeves are attached to the garment so that it seems like that.

[Craig Johnson]

Hi Blaz

I spent all morning trying to remember that word as I was going to say that I was lumping the over and under worn garments of padded quilted garment together. It was, of course, a different idea behind each but I think the basic format and style were very much the same. A layer of shock absorbtion between the incoming attack and your body.

Now in the context of Nathan's discussion one probably should differentiate the difference as intended use is a clear distinction but as fars as I have been able to see from the items and research I have looked at construction seems to be very similar and it is probably a size issue in the transition period.

Best
Craig

[W. Schütz]

Not to make things any more complicated but i think one type is left out here (maybe it was ment that way and im just creating chaos..) but anyways - The arming doublet - worn underneath breastplates/brigandines, with points and thick as an aketon but figure/fashioned like an civilian doublet. Sometimes with voiders attached. These are real tricky to spot since doublets with points was high fashion at the time, but i think they differ in how they are made structurally.

There REALLY should be an typology (ala Oakeshott) made for this - an firm official one, carved in stone....

[W. Schütz]

Ill add my view on the whole topic..

Pourpoint;


Aketon;


Jack;


Arming doublet;


Jupon;


Gambeson;


And JUST to confuse things - TWO layers of arming clothes!

[W. Schütz]

And one more to clear up;
Civilian doublet WITH points, that where just for fashion and not used.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Just a thought about " jupon " or " surcoats " that cover other armour: Plate or maille or a combination of both. Even in a form giving no extra protection wouldn't these make finding the chinks / vulnerable gaps between plates in the armour worn underneath more difficult ? Or even know exactly how well armoured one's opponent's was ? The whole idea of hiding the exact placement of weak points making it harder to aim at those weak points.

So fashion was probably a reason for these and any extra protection a bonus !

Oh, in some cases a very thick gambison is obviously THE armour and not just something extra or decorative.

[W. Schütz]

[Randall Moffett]

Nathan,

You are great! This is a very cool thread. Sorry I have posted so infrequently lately but just back from a few day stay at the hospital and I feel (and in some aspects look) like I got beaten up by a group of drunken huns.The surgeons were good I am supposing they just had to stray me down while under general. Who knows.

I think A-O all fall into three main catagories though I will end with perhaps a forth.
You have the over plate/mail (no this is not plate-mail but and or) armour, example B and C (look heavier and have quilting lines) . This is hard to say how thick they were and fabric armour is not so commonly preserved. The black princes (most assume it is over armour as it is so decorated but I do not think that follow 100 percent as he was the heir to the throne, I assume his underwear was faily nice, possible decorated as well, so it could be under armour as well though very thick for that) is very, very thick. I have a friend from the Armouries who works with textile armoures and she said looking at it it could have been stand alone armour it was so thick but most probably was used in conjunction with plate armour.

Some of the men are wearing unquilted fabric overtunics, likely over plate/mail armour as in some cases, F. for example looks like he would have armour under his fabric covering but it seems (no quilting lines) unpadded.

also padded defences w/out plate/mail armour under. D possibly. The garment has the lines of a quilted item and looks somewhat solid how the artist has it drawn.

So there we have three forms of armour; worn alone, over or under plate/mail and an unquilted covering. These are termed all sorts of things. Some have taken aketon to be the under armour and gambeson the over armour (Blair, though he knows this is not accurate but just convenient, I agree). In the huge number of primary sources I go over in england aketon is very common in civic records (commissions of array, probate inventories, public records,etc.) aketon clearly is used in conjunction with 'plates' so I assume it is under as they in some cases are then given what I assume is uniforms. So aketon could be a stand alone garment as indicated in Edward II's minimum requirements for men at arms in the early 1320's but less than ten years later Edward III is requiring the aketon with 'plates' as minimum. Clearly the term has all sorts of uses and why not, the same garment perhaps could be used in multiple places.

Jack is something that has been seen as a 15th and on garment but appears as a term earlier. It also has been come to be Identified with a many layers of linen or leather. Recent dissections of a 15th century jack indicate this was not always the case. Not only does this one not have the great number of layers as commonly stated but was also padded with untreated raw wool.

In the end after years of looking and listening to many ideas on what terms to apply I have just figured that it actually makes it more difficult to understand what the original medieval texts are saying if we assign terms they used in many different cases to one specific mode. It really is not that bad. In the case above it becomes clear the aketon and ' plates' are used together. Whether worn under, over or alone the padded armours historic terms used are many and likely the same item will be called by diffeent names. The only real catagory I figure could be done would be the surcoat or supertunic, unpadded over armour, opposed to padded over armour. I admit I have adopted using some terms that Blair and others recommend, aketon for under armour, gambeson for over, jack for a defence that was used often alone in the 15th by common soldiers but in the end in their historic use they still shift and change so it is more for my own organisation.

Jean,
interesting thought. I do imagine it would though. it also could perhaps give a surface that would make getting a bit anywhere very difficult.

W. Stilleborn,

Making a typology would help us discuss them for sure. The funny thing is the specialists all have decided on their own as it suits their studies. I find myself doing the same the more I read and it seems one term fits one catagory better. I will email my friend at the armouries and see if she has anything writted down like a rule of thumb and see what she says.
Nice picture bye the way, the reenacters pages especially are great!

cheers,

RPM

[Alexi Goranov]

It seem that differentiating between pictorially depicted textile garments can be an up-hill battle To me the toughest is to tell the difference between a "gambeson", "aketon" and the "jupon". In my understanding, the aketon/gambeson garments could be stand alone defence articles (though they were used with other defences such as mail or plate), while the jupon was sort of a cover of the plate armor (relatively thin and less protective as compared to the gambeson). Now, how do we tell the difference on a pictorally represented garment....I do not know

One overly simplified way is to assume that if the wearer has much plate armor on the extremities, he would have a breast-plate and he would be wearing a jupon on top of it.

Following this assumption one gets :

A: might be a tunic, as Craig suggested.

B,C,D,F,G, M, O, N, might be jupons

E,I, J, L, S, T: gambeson/aketon

P, R, jacks

Q, arming doublet? (jack maybe??)

H is confusing. (a gambeson or arming coat).

Is there away of knowing for sure? Likely not. So if you ask 10 people, you will get 15 opinions on what the various garments are. I'd rather label them with what they could be.

Alexi

[Phill Lappin]

The interesting thing about S is that it seems to have some sort of hard or soft collar.

[Randall Moffett]

on the thought of hard/soft collars that appear different to the rest of the padded armour, in the Mac bible there seem to be alot of those. Blair mentions early gorgets in his great work on armour pre 1700 could these be them? I think so in alot of ways. I find inventories all teh time with wierd plate throat guards. Theyhad to have existed pre bevor....

RPM

[James Barker]

[Nathan Robinson]

Would anybody else like to add input to this?

[Johan S. Moen]

[Richard Fay]

[Martin Wallgren]

Does not aceton mean "a Centon" in translation to modern english of cotton?

I thought that the specification of aceton where the textile they where made of!

I could be in the totally wrong street here though.

BTW I voted this topic as a spotlight topic.

[Richard Fay]