[Naythan Goron]

hello guys and lades

I plan on building a suit of chainmale and scale armor for my viking kit, but i wanted to know if early Normans gotten scale armor and chainmaile and ever decided to combine them. In a way that the chainmaile was connecting the scales or there was scales running in rows down the front and back, or sides and had chainmale down the rest. if so are there any examples fo this anywhere?

thank you for taking the time to look at my post.

[Michael Ekelmann]

Naythan,
From what little Norman armour has been found and from descriptions in art and manuscripts, the answer is no. At least not in the manner you are describing, which is more or less a lorica plumata, from the Roman Era. http://www.larp.com/legioxx/squamata.html When the Normans expanded into the Mediterranean, taking over Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples, they would have found scale and lamellar armour in use by the locals and the Byzantines. Did they adopt it themselves, since it seems better suited to the local conditions? No evidence one way or the other, except in some Osprey Military series illustrations. Now, a hundred or so years later, scale armour begins to show up here and there in art, and not just on the biblical bad guys, which is where it had been seen before. It is often show as being worn over maille, possibley coinciding with the more widespread adoption of the crossbow, forcing those who could afford it to increase their armour in response.

I really like scale armour, it's what I use for SCA stickfighting, but it seems that maille was the prefered armour for Middle Ages until it is superceded by plate armours. At least in Western Europe.