[David Huggins]

Once a jock ...certainly there is a degree of elitism in wearing an animal pelt and having worn one on many occasions bear pelt (over mail) in re-enactment sports combat it certainly can look pretty intimidating. I think that their are enough sculptural depictions of Roman warriors in animal pelts to assume that they where not cumbersome in real combat, do not pelt wearing auxiliary also appear on Trajan's column depicting the vanguard of Trajan's army during the Dacian campaign?

best
Dave

[Gary Teuscher]

Just going from memory - are not the stadard bearers usually the ones with a bearskin or something
similar?

[Len Parker]

For more proof of the numerous amount of cattle during the middle ages there's this account from Froissart:
And so in an evening they departed from Tournay, and by that it was day in the morning, they were before Courtray. By that time the sun was up, they had gathered together all the cattle thereabout ; and some of them ran to the gates, and slew and hurt divers that they found without. And then they returned without any damage and drove before them all their preys, so that when they came to Tournay, they had more than ten thousand sheep and as many swine, beeves and kine, whereof the Flemings were sore troubled. http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/books/Froissart/index.cfm?page=0059 Ten thousand kine doesn't sound like there exactly rare.

Also there's this mention of friesians being armed in leather:
The Wars in Friesland
ch.79
Three valiant Friesland knights, sir Feu de Dorekerque, sir Gerard Cavin and sir Tiny de Walturg, seconded this proposal; but the people would not listen to it, and they were supported by several of those noble men called Elins, who are gentlemen and judges of causes. They opposed what the great Frieslander had offered with such success, as to occasion it to be determined that, as soon as they should hear of the enemy landing, they were to march and offer them combat. This being resolved on, the assembly broke up, that every one might make his preparations. To say the truth, they were in general very poorly armed many had no other defensive covering than their waistcoats made of coarse thick cloth, scarcely better than horse-cloths. Some were armed in leather, others with rusty jackets of mail, which seemed unfit for service; but there were some perfectly well armed. http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/m...ieslan.htm

Now let me say that I have been unable to find the original french version of this (Book IV) and so there's always room for error in translation. But if this is correct then it's what most people suspect, that in times of war people will look around their environment for anything to put on their bodies for protection, like thick cloth, leather or any armour they can find.

[Gary Teuscher]

10,000 Cattle does seem like a lot, Len. And I never said they were rare - merely that they were less common it seems than many other farm animals.

But it's all about scale. It's not how many cattle were there, but about supply and demand.

The Flemish lands were poplous during this time. As just Antwerp itself had a population of over 100,000 by the 15th century or so, there would be a lot of demand as well.


We DO know that the Buff Coat was an expensive item, more expensive that a plate cuirass it seems.

And apparently Chulainn's garment was expensive as well.

[Dan Howard]

[Matthew Amt]

Okay, coupla things before I go back to my woodpile. First off, there are *numerous* uses of leather or hide for armor throughout the history of the planet. Bronze Age rawhide scale armor in the middle east and Egypt (King Tut's tomb, for example); the Classical Greek spolas; a section of leather or rawhide lamellar armor from Dura Europas, 250 AD (apparently Persian); a Roman reference to leather armor not being suitable for wetter conditions because it gets soggy; Cuchulain, of course; a couple iffy bits in Homer such as the bullhide cap that Diomedes wears at one point; Homer's description of hide shields; the Bronze Age leather shield from Clonbrin, Ireland, plus at least one wooden mold for making similar ones; 17th century buff coats; cuir bouilli pieces from all through the later middle ages; plus at least a couple others I can't come up with at the moment. Leather armor DID exist, at SOME places, in SOME times.

This does NOT allow us to conclude that it was used in OTHER places and times, without further evidence of some sort!

"Skirmishing"--I think this is a rocky road. Light forces with javelins and such often skirmish at the opening of a battle, before the heavies engage. Then there are raids and such which may involve "skirmishing". BUT it is also common to use the word for, basically, "any warfare short of war"! Many of the smaller actions blithely tossed off by modern writers as "skirmishes" may have seemed like very legitimate battles by the participants! Half a dozen fully armored knights on foot could "skirmish", ending when one side decided to leave, even if no one was wounded. Granted, for things like scouting and smaller raids, cavalry was often preferred, but I don't think the poor defenders on foot who got slaughtered by 500 Roman cavalry would call that sweeping hand of death through their little village a "skirmish"! The cavalry would all be in mail and scale, and the defenders would have spears and shields cuz that's what they always used. Just one example, obviously! I guess what I'm looking for is some sort of indication that "skirmishing" by most any definition requires body protection that is less protective than mail or scale armor, in an age when it was perfectly common to go to war with just a shield and spear.

For that matter, Cuchulain's story is about a skirmish, a cattle raid. I really think a mailshirt would be lighter, far more flexible, and more protective than what he is described in! Personally, I don't think his layered shirt and war belt were meant to be worn with mail, they sound like stand-alone armor. If that section of the story pre-dates mail, a nice bronze cuirass would do the trick, and we know that such a cuirass was well within the technical capabilities of Ireland at that time.

Lots of folks had cows and oxen, and many cultures had booming leather industries. You can't jump from there to the significant use of leather armor, though. For just one example, if every family owns a milk cow and two oxen to pull their plow, sure, it means bovines are common, but they aren't likely to slaughter them to make armor.

Every culture that I know of hunted, but quite often it was the upper classes who hunted, while the lower classes simply farmed. Even farmers who slaughter cattle regularly don't have time to hunt, and there probably enough aristocrats around to hunt enough wild cattle to meet international commerce and tribute needs. So a demand such as the Romans inflicted on those German tribes would mean some kind of hardship, or even worse a complete change in socio-economic structure.

[Len Parker]

I just wanted to say that I didn't join in this topic to prove leather was used as armour. Gary Teuscher said that Ireland in the 9th-10thc were probably "hide-rich" in comparison to other areas" and I had these references to cattle on the continent that I thought would contribute to this topic. That's all.

[Matthew Amt]

Gotcha. Didn't mean to sound adversarial! Economic research like that CAN turn up the darndest things, so thanks for jumping in.

Matthew

[David Huggins]

Gary

Standard bearing are amongst those known to wear animal pelts, however in scene 36 of Tranjan's Colum are a number of pelt wearing warriors wearing wolf and bear skins but perhaps importantly mail knee breeches,tunics, and armed with shield and drawn sword, they do not carry standards or signalling devices. Other warriors in the employ of Rome on the Column are depicted barefooted and naked above the waist too!

It has been said that perhaps the Romans took to wearing bear hoods for there own standard bearers after adopting them from the Northern tribes as much as they adopted the torque from Celtic foes.

best
Dave

[Gary Teuscher]

[Michael Curl]

Two comments:

1. Simply because someone is exporting cattle doesn't necessarily mean that they have a surplus, their cattle could be much more valuable traded to neighboring country than to neighboring provinces. This also happened in Ireland during the potato famine, where there was more money to be made trading the other crops to Britain than their was giving it to the starving Irish. (Of course there are other issues in there as well but I'm just using it to illustrate a point.)

2. Even nowadays soldiers frequently wear much less armor than they could. My cousin was just recently back from Afghanistan and commented on how infantry never wear all of the armor that they are given. He said that only people on base or turret gunners wear everything.

[Justin H. Núñez]

[Justin H. Núñez]

[Dan Howard]

There are so many inaccuracies in how armour is depicted on Trajan's column that it can't be relied upon as a source for any kind of armour research.

[David Huggins]

No doubt there are conventions within Roman Triumphal Architecture but would a Roman public familiar these conventions and the actuality of the make up of the Roman Army be fooled by outrageous license? BTW we seem to be straying well of topic now!

best
Dave

[Len Parker]

I might as well jump back in this topic with a couple of things I just grabbed from the Russian Medieval site 13c.ru/ (nothing to do with viking).
One argument against leather armour is that it's to thin. Well, what's stopping anyone from layering it. Here is a mention from Charles Folks The Armourer And His Craft: "The Hon. Robert Curzon, writing in 1869, mentions a cuirass of three thicknesses of leather found in a stone coffin of the thirteenth century (Arch. Journ. XXII, p. 6)." (posted by Rusia, scroll down half way) http://www.13c.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=141&a...p;start=45

Also, since Dan brought up leather armour being used in the east, when this thread was started way back, I thought I'd also link you to Al-Tarsusi's instructions on making leather lamellar (here called jawshan).(scroll down half way, it's in english). http://www.13c.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=141&a...mp;start=0
To make the plates, it sounds like they're putting rags or skins over a mold, then filling it with the crushed camel clippings, glue and other materials.

I didn't want to get into another argument over who wore leather armour, but I did want to show with my posts that leather was available, and things could be done to turn it into armour if one had the desire.

[David Huggins]

I would like to just return to the question asked by Gary which was would an animal pelt worn in combat be too cumbersome and which I used the warriors depicted on Trajan's Column as one example of pelt wearing warriors, not as Dan pointed out as the source as a reliable one for the research of armour (although it would seem to depict the cosmopolitan make up of troops types in the employ of Trajan), I believe there are examples of grave stella depicting and commemorating bear hooded auxiliary unit standard bearers, one from Bonn and another from Mainz. Other cultures at different times have used animal pelts which would suggest they did not find wearing pelts an hindrance, Aztec Jaguar Knights are yet one other such instance.

best
Dave

[Johan Gemvik]

Seems to me it would get rather hot and cumbersome in summertime, though no more than some gamboised armour types worn in later ages I suppose.
On the other hand, though standard bearer animal pelts look really cool, did the legionaires really wear them in combat? They were big on being rather practical above all else after all. Are there any sources stating they did wear them in battle, or was it more like a parade uniform?

The aztec knights had thin pelt I thought, I don't know if it's comparable to thick bear pelt but possibly to wolf skins and others the Romans also used.

[David Huggins]

No doubt they would get hot in summer time for European warriors as they would be for sub-tropic Aztec warriors wearing a jaguar pelt over a padded organic textile armour. I am not sure if a jaguar pelt is lighter or heavier then a wolf pelt. I suspect an element of awe was an expectation if a pelt was worn in combat.

It has been mentioned here that mail was eschewed due to hot weather and I suspect the source is the Norwegian forces of Harald Sigurdson actions at Stamford Bridge, but perhaps in that instance circumstances should be taken into consideration, Sigurdson was awaiting an embassy from that town, and believed he had been victorious and appears to have been caught by surprise by the appearance of Godwinson's army, much of his force was with his fleet and it was these warriors who it is said went without mail in their haste to quickly reinforce Sigurdson's beleaguered stand at Stamford Bridge against the southern English army.

According to the saga, Sigurdson is believed to have worn his mail hauberk named 'Emma' during the battle if memory serves me well, and I expect his warriors encamped outside of York did to.

best
Dave

[Matthew Amt]