[James Barker]

Legio XX is local to me and I have gone to Roman Days; only some of it's members wear one.

Let’s be clear that Legio XX makes it an option not mandatory. Matt the fellow in the images may show up and comment on this himself as he is on this forum.

[Gary Teuscher]

[James Barker]

Matt's page also says the 4th century reference could be a weapon; it is all guess work. Matt being the researcher of that info can comment better on how good the references really are.

However this is a big tangent; even if some Romans had them it does not make it standard issue and this still does not prove the Scandinavians had this military tech hundreds of years later.

[Gary Teuscher]

I agree James it went way off tangent.

BTW - I don't think it was the fourth century reference that says it may have been a weapon, as it goes into detail about the construction of leather and cloth. It's more likley that one of the earlier handful of references to the Subarmalis that are a bit vague, though apparently the other early references to it are not as vague.

While this is a tangent, there were references earlier though that it's pure specualtion that the Romans wore a padded undergarment, which I was adressing. From the information we have, I certainly don't believe it's specualtion, though the exact construction of one we have some infomation on but not any exact descriptions of.

My whole point of this is that padding had been worn under metal armour by many cultures for a long period of time. As it was worn by Romans, it's no big stretch that their Allies who were later enemies also wore something similar. After all, many of the legionairres of the later Roman period were often Germanic tribesmen themselves.

Bearing this in mind, these Germanics either quit wearing at after their association with Rome, or else they continued wearing something like this through the middle ages.

With this I don't think it's any stretch to think the Vikings would have been doing something similar. Maybe some had a true dedicated piece similar to a subarmalis, maybe some just wore a thinck woolen tunic.

If we are looking for any proof the Vikings wore this under mail, we won't find any. Just some questionable references in a saga.

Though if they did not, they were some of the only Northwestern Europeans not wearing a padded type garment under their mail, unless we assume that the Germanic tribesmen, particularily those who were legionairres, stopped wearing something similar to a subarmalis after their association with Rome.

The other issue for me is that something akin to a subarmalis will look extremely similar to clothing in any illustration, and even a find of such a garment will be almost indistinguishable from clothing. So in all likleyhood we will never have true "proof" of something like this being worn by Vikings, regardless of whether it was or not.

Not that this is evidence, but is anyone aware of any refereces in some of the earlier germanic sagas such as Beowulf or Sigurd that mention anything regarding underarmour, padded jackets or anything of the like?

[Dan Howard]

[Gary Teuscher]

[Dan Howard]

I think you might be confusing gambesons and aketons. A gambeson was standalone armour. It was never intended to be worn under mail and was to thick for such use. Try it and you'll look like Kenny in his parka. Aketons and pourpoints were worn under mail and had much less padding. The thickness of these are not much different to a couple of layers of clothing.

[David Huggins]

Just rambling now...Related by a friend, it took a Swedish lady friend experimenting with linen fabric reproduction a total of 10 square meters of flax to make linen about the size of a table clothe, say perhaps one layer of padding, so multiple layers required for padding or armour in the form of the so called linothrax would require a massive area to make just one!

Silk has been mentoned in this thread, but in the viking age it was very expensive and was a luxury item in the North, used sparingly for trim on clothing and making small items, a couple of onces of silk worth an almost equal amount in silver.
Wool and leather seem a reasonable alternative as products for a paded garment in my mind,or as has been suggested, layers of combined leather, wool and linen. Still this garment could prove very expensive.

Perhaps there could have been a level of machismo, armour been shunned by some, as suggested by Paddy Griffiths remarking in his book The Viking Art of War on the lack of helmet finds.

Don't know if that is a convincing argument though, how many Roman helmets have actually been found, perhaps not enough to kit out a cohort, a legion?

[Elling Polden]

In the 13th c, the laws distinguish between "Våpentøye" (weapon shirt) and Panzar (protection). Both are made in the same way, from soft canvas, but the Panzar is sleeveless. They are somtimes mentioned as "Weapon shirt AND Panzar", most likely signifying that they where worn on top of each other.

All the sagas where written in the 13th c, with some exceptions, so the litterary references are a bit shak. Without written sources, how acurately would we be able to describe warfare in the 17th century, even if we studdied it?

In my experience, a well made mail shirt (one that weighs 10 kg or less) is actually more comfortable and less tiring to wear without padding.
Keep in mind that dark age warriors didn't fight THAT much, and spent more time hanging around with their kit than we (reenactors) do. Thus, comfort and convenience becomes more of an issue.
They where also not tied into a strong chain or command, or subject to much dicipline , so what the individual man wore would be much more left to himself. The laws that decide spesifically what a warrior should own and wear except for his "Peoples weapons" (shield, spear, hand weapon) don't show up until the 1270's.

Another issue is that if one used square stitched cloth armour in the dark ages, one must at some point have STOPPED making them, burned them all, and made new ones. (along witht he leather braces, lammelars, eastern style helmets and big baggy pants. Theoretically this happened as a spontanous act of grief after the death of (st) Olav Haraldson in 1030)

[J Horn]

In response to Ellings post:
The idea that Viking age warriors did not fight as much as re enactors is pure speculation as many small skirmishes would have been unlikely to have been recorded. Pollington comments on the low number of recorded battles per generation (something like 2 or 3) and that unrecorded skirmishes could have been much more common. Also with the idea that a Hird or Housecarl would do nothing except fight for his jarl (no day to day labour) it seems unlikely that they would not be training for war whenever they were unoccupied - although this is speculation. Also with the the large Trelleborg style fortresses in Scandinavia it is quite possible to believe that there was more organisation of Viking armies (at least in the later period) than we give them credit for. Having an army of that size requires much organization.



Back to the subject at hand there has been some research into the subject leather tanning and leather armour - Esther Cameron shows that the leather of finds of scabbards, sheaths and other leather items was often incompletely tanned. It is quite possible that some technology of leather tanning was lost after the downfall of the Roman empire. This to me questions the possiblity of its use for armour.

Whilst their have been numerous finds of shoes, scabbards and sheaths from numerous sites of the Viking period just because there are no finds of armour leather or cloth cannot rule out their existence. For a reenactor though we are supposed to be portraying what we know - not what we do not.

Johnny

[Gary Teuscher]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Aren't we mixing up "padding" with "padded garments" here? As far as I'm concerned, ordinary clothing worn beneath mail is padding, even though it might not be a padded garment at all....

[Hadrian Coffin]

[Dan Howard]

[David Huggins]

Gary Tesher asked how expensive silk was.

Silk 1 oz 37 Anglo-saxon silver pennies weight 57gram modern value £740 Sterling

A mail shirt 529 Anglo-Saxon silver pennies weight 820gram modern value £10,580 Sterling

Source 'Viking Weapons and Warfare' J.K.Siddorn crediting B.Levick's orignal research published in Regia Anglorum Periodic JournaL 'Clamavi'

best
Dave

[Dan Howard]

It is always possible that viking mail had integrated padding. IMO a lot more historical metal armour had integrated padding than we think. Any illustration showing mail with some sort of edging probably has an integrated padded liner.

[Sean Manning]

I was just reading Blair's European Armour, and I noticed evidence that even in the 13th century, some soldiers wore mail over ordinary clothing. One scene in the Maciejowski Bible shows a youth in arming cap, tunic, and hose pulling on a hauberk. You can see inside the hood and the bottom rim of the hauberk, and there is no sign of an integral lining. Have a look here.

The idea that some mail had integral padding does make sense.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Gary, I just want to say you have been the voice of reason through this whole thread. I think for some re-enactors this is an issue they are literally invested in, as any chance in theoretical kit of the historical 'Vikings' then requries changes to kit for thousands of re-enactors and numerous cascading arguments.

I haven't seen a single argument from the usual group who tries to shut down such discussions as the likelyhood of padded garments worn underneath armor by the Norse that stood up to common sense analysis. Just a lot ot games with semantics, segues way out into the Roman army and back, anything to derail the topic.

Only cotton is used as fill? Please. People have used everything from hemp, to horse hair, to felt, to wool as padding within and under armor. Lets also keep in mind that cloth was a form of currency in Iceland for example, in the sagas most of the deals were done with so many ells of flax. It's also worth pointing out the Greeks used armor (linothorax) made enitrely of layers of linen hardened with vinegar or urine ( just like that example of 'harsh wine'.)

No archeological evidence? Surviving textiles are almost non existant this far back. There has been very little mail found even though we know from literary evidence hundreds of panoplies were worn in some battles. And iron is a bit more durable than linen. As has already been asked, are we to believe they ran around naked? Maybe they didn't eat food either since we can't find much of that.

As for the reindeer hides, did anyone consider that the "enchantment' was something like a hardening process?


We know the Vikings were extremely resourceful and pragmatic and quickly adapted to other cultures and other technology, earliest of all specifically military technology (the Rus horse archers among the Drushina and Norman heavy cavalry, to cite two glaring examples)

We also know they used mail for more than 400 years (at least) and yet we are expected to believe in all that time, in the service of armies as sophisticated as the Byzantines and the Khazars, fighting all over Eurasia against such diverse opponents as the Irish, the Saxons, the Moors, the Byzantines, the Khazars, the Venetians, the Arabs etc. they never learned that it was twice as effective when worn with padding underneath, when they in fact also had suitible textiles in quantity all around them?

Also lets keep in mind, Mail was not just for incidental pretection from draw cuts, I can't believe that old canard is floating around. The principle weapons on the battlefield they would need protection against would be first and foremost low-energy missiles (javelins primarily, also axes, darts, rocks etc.) a certain amount of high-energy missiles (some longbows and maybe crossbows, recurve bows on the Steppes, and in some cases such as Byzantium seige engines / artillery of the Roman type) followed by spears, and then things like axes, seaxes and swords. Most armies of this period, both in naval and land engagements, would go through a long period of showering each other with javelins and spears before one side or another charged. Many warriors who had been in a battle would never actually fight hand-to-hand but would merely endure this exchange of missiles for a period followed by either victory or defeat / fleeing.

The principle protection against missile weapons was a rather lightly made shield, the various sidearm weapons (swords /axes etc.) could chop these shields to bits quickly and could and did go around both the shields and the armor normally to kill an armored opponent, since armor was rarely worn on the lower legs or hands etc. Perhaps it is not a coincidence so many Viking swords got names like "Foot biter" and "leg cutter" in the sagas.... (this also famously backed up by Wisby excavation)

Basically, I just want to thank the people who contributed to the actual discussion of this topic, I think either you can look at this with common sense, or you can play semantic games, I guess it depends if you are interested in the actual history or if it's more important to win an argument (or have a certain type of kit for your ren faire)

J

[Jean Henri Chandler]