[Robert Morgan]

Sorry for coming to this late.

[William P]

one definate example (from the 15th century) s of a man depicted in the painting 'the matyrdom of st ursula' wearing maile under a padded jack,
One argument i have heard regarding this is that of sizing and fitting, depending on it's thickness, a padded gambeson will mean that a well fitted piece of maile is likely to be a bit bigger, thus a bit more expensive, there is also the factor of the gambeson being on TOP to foil the efforts of needle pointed weapons easily breaking maile links, the maile nderneath taking care of any slicing and slashing weapons

notably, this man though is wearing jack chains on his arms to help protect his limbs.

another source is that of the byzantine armies of the 10th or so century, a bit earlier than this focus, and not western europe eiter, but it WAS done, most of this is, from what Ive heard, according to the military manuals of the time, some of their troops used both the kavadion (under armour padded gambeson) and epilorikion (an over-armour quilted defense), but this second layer was usually only worn by the heavier troops, usually top end cavalrymen. Whereas the Kavadion, either as a standalone defense, or in conjunction with other armour was used by pretty much the whole army.

[Robert Morgan]

An interesting image. So, we have a slick hose layer underneath, then the "rougher" mail, and finally a hypothetically slicker padded jack. One could imaghine the two slicker layers moving reasonably well over the rougher mail layer.

Bob

[William P]

http://www.companie-of-st-george.ch/cms/?q=en...k-series-1

I also just found this page, looking up the Martyrdom painting that examines the padded jack more closely it doesnt give any speculation why the maile is under, not over the jack, though.

as for the byzantines, going a tad bit off topic, there is a scarce bit of evidence suggesting kataphract lower limb defences may have been made of densely quilted cloth, one piece of protective gear i have seen that made me stand up and say 'that might just work' is the Kote, i.e the gauntlets used by kendo practitioners.
The 'vambrace' part of the kote is made purely of fabric, and the kote is definetely rigid. (I asked a few people about whether these were made purely of fabric, without some plastic reinforcement or something. and they confirmed it for me )
While that vambrace might be a bit small, and a bit thin to stand up to a full blown battlefield scenario, a thicker varient would, I think have the capacity of stopping sword blows, however this hasn't been tested in any way so this is pure speculation on my part.
Close-up of the stitching of the Kote.
http://a248.e.akamai.net/origin-cdn.volusion....1370569645

A pair of kote
http://tezashibogu.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/kote-terms.jpg

[Lafayette C Curtis]

I vaguely recall an old thread where it was mentioned that having mail sandwiched between two relatively lightly-padded layers of fabric (or a lightly-padded layer underneath and a thick but unpadded layer above) gave more protection than a more thickly-padded garment either above or beneath the mail. I haven't been able to dig up the link, though. The only thing I remember clearly is that the conclusion resulted from experiments in a (modern) jousting arena or tournament.

[Dan Howard]

[Mark Griffin]

I've only just come across this thread, very interesting and thought provoking.

It may be a spurious and not very scientific form of testing but has anyone subjected kendo armour to damage from arrows and swords, point or edge? It seems that might add something. It won't prove the construction techniques of bronze age armour but it will show how good that type of armour is...or not as the case may be.

Cheap bogu off ebay and off you go!

Griff

[Mark Griffin]

[Dan Howard]

You snipped the important part of the post. There is plenty of evidence of mail sandwiched between padding. In the Middle East they were called kazaghands. Around the same time in Europe they were called jazerants. A couple of centuries later they were called gestrons. And later they were simply called "jacks stuffed with mail". Lafayette is not questioning their existence, he is suggesting that they might provide better protection than the same mail combined with a single thick layer of padding.

[Mark Griffin]

Wasn't debating that, all you say is true effendi! They certainly existed.

Always thought that many of the Beauchamp Pageant soldiers are wearing the very same. Something padded but augmented in some way.