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Lafayette C Curtis
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 Posted: Thu 20 Oct, 2011 2:34 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: |
Probably neither. Need to see the original latin. |
The Latin says "loricis minoribus." Which, for all we know, only means "a short/small piece of body armour." That being said, lorica appears to have been used more often for mail than for leather during the Middle Ages, so "short mail shirt" is more supportable than "leather corselet."
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 20 Oct, 2011 3:05 am Post subject: |
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Excellent. Agreed that "short mail shirt" is most likely.
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Len Parker
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| Posted: Thu 20 Oct, 2011 7:01 am Post subject: |
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Lafayette, thanks for clearing that up, much appreciated.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 20 Oct, 2011 1:48 pm Post subject: |
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FWIW I went through the entire book and there are only two mentions of leather or hides. One refers to shoes and the other refers to boats. No leather armour or clothing or anything else.
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Michael Curl
Location: Northern California, US Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 487
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| Posted: Fri 21 Oct, 2011 8:50 am Post subject: |
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What was the leather on boats used for?
E Pluribus Unum
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Fri 21 Oct, 2011 9:14 am Post subject: |
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Presumably for the hull. Hide stretched over a wicker frame makes a coracle, a very common little boat back then. Do a Google image search, and you'll see a ton of them! Modern ones are often made with modern fabric instead of hide.
Matthew
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Fri 21 Oct, 2011 9:30 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Hide stretched over a wicker frame makes a coracle, a very common little boat back then |
Or even a currach, a far more substantial boat in size, such as the one used by St. Brendan in his semi-mythological voyage in 484 AD.
The reported amount of passengers range form 14 to 60 - even though the fanciful things that happened on this voyage are just that, I would think a currach would be used on the open sea and be large enough t accomodate 10+ passengers.
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Raino S
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| Posted: Fri 21 Oct, 2011 9:58 am Post subject: |
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just want to pipe in here:
in the sagas, specifically Snorres heimskringla it is written that during the battle of stiklestad in 1030,
Tore hund was wearing a "magic" leather tunic made from reindeer skin, capable of withstanding blows from weapons..
specifically:
"Tore Hund had been traveling to the land of the finns these two winters, and both winters he'd been long in the mountains, and gathered large riches. he did a lot of trading with the finns. he had the finns make for himself 12 reindeerskin tunics with so much magic in them, that no weapon had any effect on them, much less effect than on a byrnie."
and:
"on the other side of Kalv Arnesson, Tore hund went forward. King Olav cut Tore Hund at the shoulder. the sword didn't bite.
but it looked like some sort of dust flew up from the reindeerskin tunic. Sigvat says this:
generous king noticed, how powerful spells, from the witchcraft of finns, fully Tore saved. when the lord of gold hammered,
"the dog" over his shoulder, with gold-decorated blade - it failed to bite on him.
Tore struck at the king, and they exchanged strikes with eachother, but the kings sword didn't bite when it hit the reindeer tunic. but tore was still wounded on his hand.
the king said to bjørn stallare: Hit the dog that is unaffected by iron! Bjørn turned the axe in his hand, and hit with the hammer. the hit came at the shoulder on Tore. it was a powerful blow, and tore was staggered by it"
don't know what to make of it though.
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Fri 21 Oct, 2011 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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That's odd--that reference usually gets brought up on the *first* page of any leather armor discussion. We seem to have missed it this time! Nice complete quotation of it, though, so thanks for posting it.
Matthew
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David Huggins
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| Posted: Sat 22 Oct, 2011 12:32 am Post subject: Leather |
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Just to add leather could also be used as rigging hawsers etc on boats in this period.
best
Dave
and he who stands and sheds blood with us, shall be as a brother.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Sat 22 Oct, 2011 2:32 pm Post subject: |
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Here are the only two passages that mention leather or hides in the Gutenberg translation
"The horsemen as their situation or occasion requires, willingly serve as infantry, in attacking or retreating; and they either walk bare-footed, or make use of high shoes, roughly constructed with untanned leather."[Ch VIII]
"The boats which they employ in fishing or in crossing the rivers are made of twigs, not oblong nor pointed, but almost round, or rather triangular, covered both within and without with raw hides." [Ch XVII]
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Mon 24 Oct, 2011 9:16 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | "on the other side of Kalv Arnesson, Tore hund went forward. King Olav cut Tore Hund at the shoulder. the sword didn't bite.
but it looked like some sort of dust flew up from the reindeerskin tunic. Sigvat says this:
generous king noticed, how powerful spells, from the witchcraft of finns, fully Tore saved. when the lord of gold hammered,
"the dog" over his shoulder, with gold-decorated blade - it failed to bite on him.
Tore struck at the king, and they exchanged strikes with eachother, but the kings sword didn't bite when it hit the reindeer tunic. but tore was still wounded on his hand.
the king said to bjørn stallare: Hit the dog that is unaffected by iron! Bjørn turned the axe in his hand, and hit with the hammer. the hit came at the shoulder on Tore. it was a powerful blow, and tore was staggered by it" |
Obviously the problem here is that the are "magical" reindeer hides, which makes it tougher to make any sense of this info.
The one thing I do find interesting - reindeer, even though not overly large animals, are some of the thickest hided common animals out there, approaching the thickness of cowhise, so if a leather is used for armour, reindeer hide would not be a bad choice.
Add this to the fact that with northern steppe nomads, reindeer were one of the animals that was part of their pastoralistic animal mix.
I am not sure if reindeer pastoralism was practiced in Scandanavian countries, but it would not suprise me if it was.
As they are described as "tunics", one would think that they were flexible.
But to get anywhere near the performance given them in the saga, I would think if anything they would have to be a multi-layered textile garment, with reindeer hide providing some waterproofing.
With the Chulainn mention of a 27 layered tunic, it the writer writing in the 10th or 11th century, it would seem a multilayered textile garment was in use in Ireland at this time, so putting it in use in Scandavania is no huge stretch of imagination.
So was this merely a fable of enchanted reindeer tunics? Or was there a shred of truth in there, pointing out a reindder hide used as armour? Tough to say. Though to perform effectively as armour, it would seem to have to be a composite garment of textiles and leather.
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Mikael Ranelius
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| Posted: Mon 24 Oct, 2011 10:57 am Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: |
Obviously the problem here is that the are "magical" reindeer hides, which makes it tougher to make any sense of this info.
The one thing I do find interesting - reindeer, even though not overly large animals, are some of the thickest hided common animals out there, approaching the thickness of cowhise, so if a leather is used for armour, reindeer hide would not be a bad choice. |
In fact it would since reindeer hide is actually very thin and supple and would be awful for making armour. Maybe you have confused it with moose/european elk hide, which does render very tough leather? In the 17th century, moose-hide was the preferred material for making buff coats in the Swedish army, for instance the buff coat worn by Gustavus Adolphus at Lützen was made of moose hide. Buff coats from reindeer howerer are virtually unknown and to my knowledge only mentioned at one odd occasion (in a 1659 estate inventory).
| Quote: | | I am not sure if reindeer pastoralism was practiced in Scandanavian countries, but it would not suprise me if it was. |
Large scale reindeer pastoralism was not common in Scandinavia until the 16th century. Before that the Saami kept a few tame reindeers mostly for milking and as hunting decoys.
| Quote: | | So was this merely a fable of enchanted reindeer tunics? Or was there a shred of truth in there, pointing out a reindder hide used as armour? Tough to say. Though to perform effectively as armour, it would seem to have to be a composite garment of textiles and leather. |
The original icelandic term used for the reindeer garments is hreinbjálfa, a word signifying a reindeer fur coat such as the one featured here. It has nothing to do with hardened leather in any form. There are as far as I know no other references to reindeer hide or fur in a martial context.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Mon 24 Oct, 2011 12:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | In fact it would since reindeer hide is actually very thin and supple and would be awful for making armour. Maybe you have confused it with moose/european elk hide, which does render very tough leather? |
I have seen 2mm thick reindeer hide for sale, which is not quite the 3-5mm buff coat thickness, but is still rather thick comparitively to other hides.
However, I would still lean to a multilayered cloth garment with reindeer hide as the outer layer is it was truly some form of armour.
| Quote: | | It has nothing to do with hardened leather in any form. |
I never said anything about a hardened leather reindeer garment. A buff type coat is clearly not hardened, nor it leather on the outside layer of a gambeson type garment hardened.
| Quote: | | The original icelandic term used for the reindeer garments is hreinbjálfa, a word signifying a reindeer fur coat such as the one featured here. |
What I have seen is that with translation issues, it's often very unclear as to exactly what was being referred to, or to be more specific as to exactly what was meant.
The references in the sage - do we know of the exact term used to describe these garments?
I am not saying that the mention of reindeer hides as "enchanted armour" means that they were indeed used as armour. However, they had direct contact with the Irish during this time. The passage about chulainn's 27 layered garment written in the 10th-11th? century is uncannily similar to other later descriptions of the construction of a gambeson.
It would not be at all a suprise to me if Scandanavians from around this time were using multi-layered textile garments, with a leather covering (reindeer even). However, we certainly have no conclusive proof to this one way or the other.
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Mikael Ranelius
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| Posted: Mon 24 Oct, 2011 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: | | Quote: | | In fact it would since reindeer hide is actually very thin and supple and would be awful for making armour. Maybe you have confused it with moose/european elk hide, which does render very tough leather? |
I have seen 2mm thick reindeer hide for sale, which is not quite the 3-5mm buff coat thickness, but is still rather thick comparitively to other hides.
However, I would still lean to a multilayered cloth garment with reindeer hide as the outer layer is it was truly some form of armour. |
2 mm is rather thin in my opinion, thick enough for shoes but still not really armour-grade leather. Compare this to moose-hide which can be made 10 mm thick. Of course you could make a multi-layered garment with an outher shell of reindeer hide (much like the Burgundian Jacks with an outer layer of deerskin), but I don't see the point of using that material when even thicker bovine, moose or even horse leather would have been much more readily available.
| Quote: | | The references in the sage - do we know of the exact term used to describe these garments? |
Yes, it is mentioned in the original Icelandic version of Olaf the Holy's Saga (in the Heimskringla) as a hreinbjálfi (pl. hreinbjálfa), i.e. a fur coat or a pelt made from reindeer. Whilst a thick fur coat might act as a cushioning to blows and cuts it is hardly to be considered as armour.
http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=&emne=&...araldsson8
| Quote: | | It would not be at all a suprise to me if Scandanavians from around this time were using multi-layered textile garments, with a leather covering (reindeer even). However, we certainly have no conclusive proof to this one way or the other. |
It would however surprise me since there are no references to such a garment neither during nor after the Viking age.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Mon 24 Oct, 2011 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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Quote:
It would not be at all a suprise to me if Scandanavians from around this time were using multi-layered textile garments, with a leather covering (reindeer even). However, we certainly have no conclusive proof to this one way or the other.
| Quote: | | It would however surprise me since there are no references to such a garment neither during nor after the Viking age. |
So you are saying there were no gambesons worn in Scandanavia or Denmark in the 12th centuries and onward?
As I said, I'd look at the reference to Chulainn's 27 layered tunic as evidence of use by the Irish at least be about 1000 AD.
We have the Assize of Arms in 1181 with a Gambeson.
As far as I know, these are the earliest mentions of such a layered tunic in Western Europe.
So I guess we are to assume the Irish 27 layered garment was worn in 1000 AD, worn by no one else but the Irish. This then popped up in England in exactly 1181, then in the 13th century we see it more through western Europe.
I guess the Irish were the "inventors" of this then?
If you are looking for pure hard proof, these I think are the eearliest examples.
Back to your comment - you would be suprised if any Scandanavians around the 11th century were wearing these.
There is a difference between hard proof and what would or would not suprise someone. While I would not say there was "proof" 11th century Scandanavians were wearing multi layered textile garments, I again say it would not suprise me.
Cultures learn and borrow from other cultures when there is warfare between them. From the Romans borrowing mail and the gladius, to Irish illustrations showing warriors armed with Danish axes after strife with the Norse and Danes, etc.etc, cultures do learn and adopt technology from other cultures.
Again it would not suprise me if Scandanavians were wearing multi layered cloth armour in the 11th century. Nor would it suprise me if English were wearing similar garments a century before the 1181 assize, unless one believes the mention of the gambeson on the assize is the first time the English ever wore something like a gambeson.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Mon 24 Oct, 2011 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | 2 mm is rather thin in my opinion, thick enough for shoes but still not really armour-grade leather. |
2mm is not that far from the 3mm thick buff coats - it's 5oz weight vs 7.5 oz.
And that is a not uncommon thickness for reindeer on today's market. If just using the "choicest parts", a thicker tunic could be made, probably in that 3mm range.
| Quote: | | Compare this to moose-hide which can be made 10 mm thick. |
Do you have any references to this thickness of moose hide? Seems awful thick, unless it is rawhide.
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Mikael Ranelius
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| Posted: Mon 24 Oct, 2011 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: |
So you are saying there were no gambesons worn in Scandanavia or Denmark in the 12th centuries and onward? |
There are textual evidence of gambesons being worn in Scandinavia at least from the 13th century. Conversely there are no references to Scandianvian multi-layered jacks from the Viking Age that I know of. As long as such references are absent the use of multi-layered jacks among the vikings will be purely conjectural. Certainly not impossible, but I don't see the point in speculating what could have been used.
Sure, the Norse could have made lamellar armour from horn just like the Chuchi and other East Siberians did, but there are no reasons to believe that they did just because the technology and material was available to them.
| Quote: | 2mm is not that far from the 3mm thick buff coats - it's 5oz weight vs 7.5 oz.
And that is a not uncommon thickness for reindeer on today's market. If just using the "choicest parts", a thicker tunic could be made, probably in that 3mm range. |
The most common thickness of Scandinavian reindeer leather on the market is 0.9-1.3 mm. Finding a reindeer leather that is 1.4-2 mm is difficult at least from Swedish suppliers. Asiatic reindeer and Canadian caribou might yield thicker hides as they are somewhat larger than their Scandinavian cousin.
The question is why the Norse would have wanted to make comparatively thin leather armour from a fairly rare animal when it would have been far easier for them to use thicker bovine leather (or leather from calf, pig, or goat should they have wanted a thinner, more supple material). It makes no sense to me. They might just as well have tried to make armour parts from beaver, otter, or roe deer.
| Quote: | | Do you have any references to this thickness of moose hide? Seems awful thick, unless it is rawhide. |
I've handled it myself, 10 mm brain-tanned buff leather from moose. Buff coats made for the Swedish army in the 17th and 18th centuries were commonly in the 5 mm range. Thinner buff leather (1,5-3 mm) were used for belts, gloves and baldrics as well as both military and civilian breeches.
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Elling Polden
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| Posted: Mon 24 Oct, 2011 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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In the rest of europe, it would seem cloth armour came into use in the late 11th century. Quite posibly as a direct influence from byzantine equipment given to early crusaders.
There are also a increasing number of references to textile armour in the 12th and 13th century sagas. In this period the distinct character of norse culture had largely been replaced by continental influence, and it is quite likely that cloth armour came the same way. The significant import of arms from France and the Rhine area is well documented, and the adoption of cloth armour in these areas would naturally lead to its use spreading to scandinavia.
"this [fight] looks curious, almost like a game. See, they are looking around them before they fall, to find a dry spot to fall on, or they are falling on their shields. Can you see blood on their cloths and weapons? No. This must be trickery."
-Reidar Sendeman, from King Sverre's Saga, 1201
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David Huggins
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| Posted: Tue 25 Oct, 2011 12:45 am Post subject: Leather armour |
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Okay this is throwing another discussion into the thread but we appear now to moving onto textile armour and I would just like to take a quote from Elling
'The significant import of arms from France and the Rhine area is well documented, and the adoption of cloth armour in these areas would naturally lead to its use spreading to scandinavia.'
My point is using a similar construct and knowing of the use of metal lamellar plate in Merovingain Frankia and also known from Langobardic finds in what is now Italy, similairly there is Merovingian influence in Scandinavia, perhaps they also knew of metal lamellar in Scandinavia during the Vendel Period or even in the later Viking Age Norse from other influences. Okay it may not have been 'significant' but it possible if not probable, I don't understand why there is an assumption in the instance of textile armour that 'naturally' the Scandinavians adopted external influences but why in the matter of metal lamellar this is so often dismissed!
best
Dave
and he who stands and sheds blood with us, shall be as a brother.
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