[Dan Howard]

[Dan Howard]

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Matthew Amt]

[Gregory J. Liebau]

My good friend Descartes once told me that there are such things that we can claim to know with certainty. These are our basic foundations of knowledge, and must be reflected on carefully to determine whether they be true or not so. Once we have established these basic understandings, we can use our higher power of learning to discern for ourselves what may be true that lies outside of our realm of foundational knowledge and strive to learn new things based on evidences that cannot be refuted. Think geometry.

Using this very good idea, as I think it is, we can say that armor is an item of protective quality that is worn both to battle and also under less extreme conditions when it is permitted or most useful to do so. The purpose of it is specifically to remove harm from the wearer through the protection it offers with greater effect than the normal clothing worn by the person.

From there, using my dear friend René's delightfully simple method of clarifying truth, we can look at the physical evidence or literary prose regarding actual armor consisting of organic materials dating to the era in question. Upon finding that this evidence is extremely vague on archeological grounds and can be interpreted in several ways and that the sagas give implausible, magical qualities to such armor to make it viable, the consensus should be thus -

That organic armor during the Dark Ages should be considered beyond the scope of history, is to be regarded as conjecture, and until further evidence is procured it is moot to argue in favor of its existence using rational modes of consideration. Those who do have not an understanding of the processes by which theories are postulated in the sciences. There are threads that have already covered this topic with careful analysis here, on the Armour Archive and elsewhere. If you are one of those who believes your notion of truth and knowledge is beyond the scope of normal rationale, then I cannot help you by pointing out such limitations in our psyche. Proper historians, however, have scruples and methods regarding the way they discern facts from fiction. This topic, as far as the precedence of evidence suggests, still falls heavily under the fictitious category. I beg those who think otherwise to go find those well-researched and lengthy topics on this forum and others regarding the matter, where many knowledgeable fellows chimed in time and again to refute such nonsense based on sound judgment and understanding of proper historic theory-craft.

EDIT: I will add that such debates can me worthy of merit! The burden of proof lies upon those posters who support the ideas being presented in the topic. When you post here and say that you believe such organic armor could have existed, if you do not provide a citation to a contemporary bit of evidence or to a modern expert's work that is readily accessible to those interested in the claims being made, then your post is not worth the time of day. SHOW YOUR EVIDENCE! I came to this thread hoping, in my vanity, that perhaps someone had made such a post... Instead, I am faced with Matt and Dan and Jeroen huddled in a corner, showing pictures of pop art and making analogies to cooking of the good colonel, may he R.I.P.

-Gregory

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

Yep. You know, there's archeogical/historical evidence of the use of horned helmets, double axes, wearing of animal hides with hair on and long beards from various periods and cultures. That doesn't mean that this supports that the following reconstruction of a Viking has any historical accuracy:



If you base your reconstruction on things that can't be supported by archeology, that's what you are ending up with in levels of historical accuracy. Now naturally even if we use all the archeological evidence we do have, we will still often end up with something that would looking like a 20th century reenactor wearing a WW2 helmet, Nikes, bermuda shorts and a blazer jacket riding a WWI plane. Unless, you use pictorial evidence that is. That's why these psalters are so incredibly important. But first you need to establish that what you see in these pictures actually represents the look of people in the appropriate location and time. This can be done by first checking the date and place of creation of the images, and comparing it with archeological evidence from the same time and period. This you also need to be able to interpret what you see in the pictures. Unfortunately, they don't show very well what material things are made off f.e. So that makes proving whether anything you see is made from leather f.e. You can look at the colors for that, but those are quite deceptive, as they often are not realistic. The Stuttgart psalter seems pretty accurate, but there are examples were you will see red and green horses f.e. indicating that color was applied more randomly to accentuate things from one another (unless you're willing to believe that they painted their horses). Regarding the images and armour, you have to keep in mind that leather could be dyed, so even if you see f.e. green, and it is the natural color, it can still be leather. So you will need to look for other clues then just color as well. Basing on memory from looking at the images, I can't remember anything that stood out as potential leather.

However, the following does make me wonder. Below is a scene featuring Charles the Bald, Gold Codex of St. Emmeram, Hofschool, around 870AD. Munchen, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (CLM 14000, f5v):





It could just be clothing though (luxury clothing as royal guard?), which I actually think is the most likely. At any rate, those helmets are quite interesting

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I think there are two issues here which are getting entangled. One is leather armor, for which there is little evidence anywhere in Europe at any time, and the other is textile armor which we know did exist.

On leather armor,

What we typically do see more commonly than Hollyywood "sword and sandals" style leather muscle curirass or Dungeons and Dragons / computer game style leather armor, is lamellar. We know animal hide was one of the materials commonly used or lames in armor worn across the Asian Steppe, in Japan, in South Asia and the Middle East, along with other materials including horn, bone, wood etc. But as far as I can tell 'leather' armor usually actually turns out to be hide armor, from other animals like Chinese water buffalo. As we know cow leather hasn't turned out to be very effectiive protection in modern tests. Hide based lamellar armor was apparently fairly good protection but it was never popular in Europe.

One other hide armor was Rhino and Elephant hide armor worn in the Indian sub-continent, where cattle skin would have been taboo. This was apparently reasonably effective protection.

On textile armor.
We don't have a great deal of literary evidence of anything in Northern Europe between the gradual fall of the Rome and the re-emergence of literate culture in the Middle Ages. Even the Icelandic sagas are not Viking Age literature precisely, since they were written down in the 12th Century.

I personally think it's unrealistic to assume that no textile armor was ever worn partiuclarly under mail, since we know it existed in Europe before the end of the Classical era and again afterword. I think textile armor has existed as long as textiles have. But the truth is we don't have much direct archeological or literary evidence, other than the hotly debated reindeer hide armor reference and a few fragments like the 11th Century Irish leather. (This does correspond to how textile armor was used by the descendants of the Norse in the Hebrides a century and a half later, with textile 'aketons' made with an outer layer of doe skin covered in pitch for waterproofing). The issue is that artwork and written literature did not exist in this period and textile materials do not endure intact enough to determine their structure for centuries in the soil. It is a little off IMO to insist passionately that there wasn't any textile armor being worn simply because this was a period in which there could not have been much evidence either way.

I'd also like to add that don't think it's accurate to claim that the Varangians and the Vikings are utterly different, we know for a fact there was a great deal of movement between the Russian steppe and down to the service of Byzantium and back to Scandinavia, as perhaps most famously demonstrated in the story of Harald Finehair. It's always tricky to talk about the 'Viking Age' because most people tend to focus on a very specific zone, and usually a specific time period, which is often a much more narrow slice of the 8th - 11th century period in the vast region from Ireland to Spain, from Finland to Armenia, where the Norse were active... This is particularly significant because the Byzantines, the Khazars, the steppe Nomads and the Rus themselves appear to have had many types of armor and other kit in use which were rare in Europe, such as lamellar armor, recurve bows, and maces.

We have had this discussion before, and this echoes other similar debates, such as whether "the Vikings" had lamellar, which it now appears from evidence at Birka and other places, that they indeed did at least have access to it. I think Lamellar didn't spread widely to the West because because it was not as well suited as to the type of warfare practiced on the Steppe. But that didn't mean it wasn't available.

It would be nice to be able to conduct discussions like this with less heat and more light, but in the past it hasn't gone that way around here. Many people from various places around the world often chime in to these discussions with interesting local archeological evidence but it tends to get drowned out in the debate. Our ultimate goal should be to learn more and I suspect the truth is there is a great deal of evidence out there which as not yet been fully aggregated or synthesized which could shed light on this.

J

[Dan Howard]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Maurizio D'Angelo]

Not by the merits of the matter, but regarding the influence that businesses have had with their weapons.
David Nicolle writes:
"By the 12th century those with a more regular curve, and thus more in common with the Gibraltar example, were still rare but usually had Scandinavian associations. This should not necessarily cast doubt on an eastern stylistic origin, since Scandinavia in the so-called Viking Age had strong commercial and, in terms of military technology, surprisingly strong cultural links with both Byzantium and the eastern Islamic world."

Of course, I remember Ninjas post , but here, he talk the weapons influence, not trade only . Is there a possibility?

[Nathan Beal]

[Juan Cocinas]

Scandinavia is cold, yes; especially when snowing. Must not vikings have worn furs and layers of woven garments for regular day to day wear? Layers, hides and furs: decent armor. Layers, Hides, Furs and Maille: very good armor. Good versus arrows, spears, axes, swords, what have you. I find it hard to believe also that vikingr(aside from bersrkr) would not have worn some kind of protective clothing, whether he possessed maille or not. Must say, however, is very hard to argue with dan as he makes good points. Unfortunately, we have no preserved finds of viking era gambesons, jacks, or hardened leather armour. Maille thrashes on clothing pretty good without padding, yes?

[Dan Howard]

Why must protective clothing be worn? There are documented examples of Scandinavians, who had plenty of money to buy any kind of armour they wanted, who chose to fight with nothing but a helmet and shield.

[Stuart Thompson]

I do not claim to know nearly as half as much as most members here but my two pence would be, just because there is a lack of historical proof doesn't mean it did not exist.

They had minds like us, if I were a viking i'd have liked a leather 'jerkin styled' vest to cover the chain mail. IF mail was worn, if not then all the better as it offers a poorer man some protection. Protection that offers more than a few linen/wool layers. I'd expect to se the Scots/Picts or Irish wearing heavier leather armour but like Jean Henri Chandler said that can be the Hollywood view..especially with the Scots, downtrodden underdogs, poor people who stand up against the English. So Braveheart comes to mine *faceslap*

I think it's possible, especially to the lower classes who might not have been able to afford mail or even those who wanted that extra bit of protection. Then again we have too look at their fighting style, the most feared warriors of their age so we assume they fought hard, means being able to move quicker, hit faster and harder so having a tight or hard leather vest/jacket/leggings might have been a disadvantage.

Like I said I don't know anymore than you do, but I can't see a swine-herder armoured up to the gills, maybe leather was affordable. Who knows?

[Luka Borscak]

Big shield is your best defence. Without it, you are dead anyway.

[Stuart Thompson]

[Tom King]

[Matthew Amt]

[Luka Borscak]

[Dan Howard]