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Matthew Amt
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 Posted: Fri 16 Mar, 2012 9:42 am Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | | The Islamic world in High and Late Middle Age generally had less iron available for armament than Europe |
Oh? I didn't know that. (Like I said, the Middle East is not my area of expertise!) Seems surprising, since the Islamic Middle East is generally held to have been very sophisticated with strong trade and industry. So why should they have had less iron?
| Quote: | | while as a country with many nomads and semi-nomads animals and skins are plenty. |
Were the nomadic people the main opponents of the Crusaders? Again, I'm just curious. Plus, I had understood that most of the nomads in that region kept sheep and goats, rather than cattle, but I could be wrong about that.
| Quote: | | Granada, according to D. Nicolle's Medieval Sourcebook II, is a well documented case of Islamic armies using leather where European armies used iron. |
Granada IS in Europe, isn't it?
| Quote: | | Glass could be one solution to increase the penetration resistance of that armour. I doubt it outperformed iron/steel armour. |
I'm afraid I haven't read Nicolle's book, but does he mention any sort of glass-reinforced leather? Even that recipe of Al-Tarsusi above doesn't look like it's being used to reinforce leather, it's molded substance on its own (with camel hide clippings as one of the ingredients).
| Quote: | | The translation of glass and iron still leaves me unsure whether this is a corruption of slag with iron that has properties of glass and by containing some iron ingots a much improved resilence. At least we have some ideas to test now. |
Wait, couldn't they just mean "glass" and "iron"?? If they meant slag, wouldn't they say so? Those are all pretty distinct materials! Trying to lump them together by modern scientific definitions is kind of a stretch, and imposing modern thought processes on ancient people (always a mistake). Maybe I've lost the thrust of your argument, again...
Matthew
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Fri 16 Mar, 2012 11:40 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: | | i suggest people handle a decent quality kendo kote, the wrist portion is made purely of cloth, i have confirmation of this from the guy who owned it., but it is so heavily stitched together it formed a piece of armour that sounded, when knocking on it, like i was knocking on hardened leather/ plastic, or thin wood... at its current thickness it might not stop heavier blows from cutting through it on its own, (or it might, you never know) but it would , i think, certainly stop lighter blows from cutting your wrist. |
I've been saying this for years. Layered cloth can be made as hard as a board with the right quilting and kendo armour is a good example
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...p;start=20
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Fri 16 Mar, 2012 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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@Mathew
Granada is in Europe, but under Islamic rule had a problem of getting military supplies from their northern Christian enemies. hat's why they used the things they could produce locally and get from the southern Islamic Mediterranean. This probably also has to do with costs because this small country tried to field as large an army as Castille. So they might have been able to buy metal armour, but at a "Moslem special" price, making it unaffordable for the numbers they fielded and the type of rather irregular war they tried to fight.
I said, I guess this could be corrupted and mean slag with iron ingots. It's my own guess and I mentioned it because other than the composition obviously described I consider it another candidate for a test.
Sorry, but there's too much contribution now that doesn't get me anywhere, so I'll quit answering al and everything.
Leather on its own is not as capable as leather that has been enhanced with lineseed oil. Stitching cloth would have an equivalent with leather that is tied or riveted together. In my opinion it's likely that there were composites of cloth, quilted fibres and leather combined into a most useful armour, depending on availability, requirements and costs.
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Len Parker
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Fri 16 Mar, 2012 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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The Late Roman source cleverly known as "Anonymous" describes the thoracomachus, a garment worn under armor, as being made of heavy cloth, with an outer covering, apparently separate, of "Libyan hide" for waterproofing. It reminds me of the 16th century description of the thing worn by Highlanders, "a linen garment sewed together in patchwork, well daubed with wax or with pitch, and with an over-coat of deerskin." This is obviously a translation, and I have heard some debate about the details, but it sounds like a gambeson with a removable deerhide cover. It's even possible the deerskin has nothing to do with the linen garment but is simply a cloak or overcoat on its own. The wax and pitch are very intriguing! But in both cases, there is no indication that the leather is hardened or added for weapon resistance, in fact for the thoracomachus it is specifically described as being for waterproofing. Feel free to add these to the "composite" collection, though.
| Kurt Scholz wrote: | | I said, I guess this could be corrupted and mean slag with iron ingots. |
You've said "ingots" twice--do you mean "inclusions"? Just want to make sure we all understand! Because an ingot is a bar or slab of smelted metal, ready for working. Certainly medieval slag had more iron traces in it than modern methods would leave, but if it was in a usable state they would have used it. I'd still say that glass powder and iron filings, specifically referred to in a recipe, have nothing to do with slag.
| Quote: | | Leather on its own is not as capable as leather that has been enhanced with lineseed oil. |
Hadn't heard that before. I do remember oiling a pair of turn shoes that I made with linseed oil rather than the neatsfoot oil that I usually used. They turned out to be a bit stiffish, but they didn't strike me as armor-like. Have there been tests to support this claim?
| Quote: | | Stitching cloth would have an equivalent with leather that is tied or riveted together. In my opinion it's likely that there were composites of cloth, quilted fibres and leather combined into a most useful armour, depending on availability, requirements and costs. |
I hate to put it this way, but without some solid evidence to back up your claim, your opinion is a house of cards. We all agree that fabric and leather and hide were used for protective garments in various times and places. There are enough descriptions and mentions, sometimes surprisingly detailed, to give us a good idea of how such things were constructed. The "doublet of defense" recipe is the only *European* reference that even comes close to some sort of composite, but it is most likely just a method of gluing leather together. Really, there's some good evidence out there, just stick with that and fight the urge to drift off into speculation.
Matthew
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William P
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| Posted: Fri 16 Mar, 2012 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: | | Quote: | the question is whether non hardened leather , over or under a gambeson would behave in a way when struck, that is significantly different to quilted cloth
the idea, like with all composite combinations, is the idea that one portion behaves differently, so that anything that would triumph over the gambeson, would not do so well against leather, and anything that would do well against leather, would maybe be foiled by the gambeson. |
From what I have seen, even moderately thick non-softened leather, like 8oz for instance (about mocassin bottom thickness) does virtually nothing against any type of attack.
If you are looking at 6oz (per square yard as opposed to sqaure foot as leather is measured) as a standard weight for a 27 layer tunic, you could get 12 layers of cloth tunic for one layer of 8oz leather. This is close to half the thickness in layers needed for a true gambeson.
So you add greatly to the weight, for little or no protection.
If I were to make a gambeson and would incorporate leather, I'd use maybe a 4oz layer of leather on the outside, merely for water resistance. Or I would forgoe any leather at all.
| Quote: | | also in terms of cloth armour and how effective heavily quilted cloth can be as armour |
In the tests I have seen, it (27 layers or so of linen) perform remarkably well. It seems they can ward off any but the most determined cuts and thrusts. The few layers of linen with a cotton batting do not perform nearly as well.
Actually, the layered linen performs as well or better than hardened leather of say 8oz weight, though the hardened leather might give better protection from blunt trauma over "hard" areas such as shins, knees, and the skull. |
maybe i shouldnt have put the line about quilted cloth seperate..
because that line was meant to be a prelude to talking about the kendo gauntlet
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Wed 21 Mar, 2012 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | | The Islamic world in High and Late Middle Age generally had less iron available for armament than Europe |
This can only hold true if the definition of "Islamic world" is somehow shifted and juggled around to exclude Iran and Northern India, both of which were massive producers (and exporters) of iron during the period in question. Never mind that iron ore isn't always particularly hard to find in the rest of the Middle and Near East either....
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Omero Bernardone Quinto
Location: Rocca degli ottomani (Italia) Joined: 31 Oct 2013
Posts: 7
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Tue 12 Nov, 2013 7:31 am Post subject: |
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| Omero Bernardone Quinto wrote: | | 12mm water hardened leather is very Arrow-resistant, it can be made whit 2/3 layer of stag skin. |
I think most of us would agree with that, in general. The problem is that you can do the same thing with plastic, fiberglass, titanium, or old carpeting. That does not prove that any of those were used in medieval Europe. I'm not trying to sound snide! But what we'd love to see is *historical evidence* for whatever leather armor you think "must have" been used in a particular time and place. (I realize you did not say that, but you've revived 2 old leather armor threads so you seem to have a strong interest in it!) Some of it we can absolutely prove, much of it is simply modern speculation. Sorry!
Matthew
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Tue 12 Nov, 2013 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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We know that leather and rawhide were used to make armour from the Bronze Age onwards. Obviously it can make effective armour. The question is whether is was used in medieval western Europe.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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D. S. Smith
Location: Central CA Joined: 02 Oct 2011
Posts: 236
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| Posted: Wed 13 Nov, 2013 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Matthew Amt wrote: | | ... The problem is that you can do the same thing with plastic, fiberglass, titanium, or old carpeting. That does not prove that any of those were used in medieval Europe. |
Your analogy is a fair ways off Matthew. Unlike the other items you mentioned, we do know that leather was available (maybe not widely) during the medieval ages, and that it was used by people for clothing, if not armor, and had been used as armor previous to that time period. I would say those facts would bump it up considerably above any of the other items you mentioned.
I hear what you're saying about wanting proof instead of speculation, but I've always had a slightly bitter taste about that thought process. I'd say an absence of proof from finds may tell us that something was not common, but not that it was completely unheard of. I keep thinking that if 1,000 years from now they dug up finds from our current civilization they could easily be very misled on what was "common" or normal simply by whether they unearthed my houses remains versus my next door neighbor's.
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Wed 13 Nov, 2013 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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| D. S. Smith wrote: | | Matthew Amt wrote: | | ... The problem is that you can do the same thing with plastic, fiberglass, titanium, or old carpeting. That does not prove that any of those were used in medieval Europe. |
Your analogy is a fair ways off Matthew. Unlike the other items you mentioned, we do know that leather was available (maybe not widely) during the medieval ages, and that it was used by people for clothing, if not armor, and had been used as armor previous to that time period. I would say those facts would bump it up considerably above any of the other items you mentioned. |
That's a fair point, but I was deliberately going to extremes to prove my own point. In these leather armor "debates", I tend to remember arguments like "Well, I have leather work gloves, so Vikings MUST have used leather armor!" Makes me a little frothy... I *try* to be good...
| Quote: | | I hear what you're saying about wanting proof instead of speculation, but I've always had a slightly bitter taste about that thought process. I'd say an absence of proof from finds may tell us that something was not common, but not that it was completely unheard of. |
Certainly it wasn't unheard of, there was that fellow they ridiculed as "Leatherneck" because he was so kooky as to make himself some kind of leather armor! But in a case like this, there is actually *evidence of absence*. Several surviving sources for muster requirements from the general era (I believe there is at least one Carolingian one, as well as a couple Scandinavian ones) give rather detailed lists of what a man of any particular wealth category is supposed to have, and leather armor is never mentioned. As you say, in spite of the wealth of surviving leather artifacts, none of them are armor. Plus, there is practically no artwork that shows something that is REALLY more likely to be leather armor than something else.
| Quote: | | I keep thinking that if 1,000 years from now they dug up finds from our current civilization they could easily be very misled on what was "common" or normal simply by whether they unearthed my houses remains versus my next door neighbor's. |
*That's* an analogy which is also "a fair ways off", eh? Considering the incredibly massive amount of stuff our culture has produced.
We absolutely don't know everything, and I for one am always thrilled when a new find makes us all say "WE WERE ALL WRONG!" But when we *do* have at least a certain amount of archeological, literary, and pictoral evidence, and it's all consistent, why keep speculating pointlessly?
Matthew
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D. S. Smith
Location: Central CA Joined: 02 Oct 2011
Posts: 236
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| Posted: Thu 14 Nov, 2013 9:19 am Post subject: |
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I definitely can't fault your historical knowledge Matthew, you've forgotten more about medieval history than I'll ever know (I mean that truthfully, not tongue-in-cheek  ). I was just trying to keep the discussion fair, and you're right, I ended up using an analogy that was as far off as yours to make my point.
What I CAN answer is your last question. I think many of us keep speculating because deep down we hope that leather was used as armor. I'm sure I'm not the only one here whose interest in the medieval ages actually grew backwards from an interest in fiction/ fantasy. And in those environments, leather armor has always been as widely accepted as plate or mail, so it only makes "sense" that this would have a basis in reality. Of course that isn't always the case, and this seems to be one of those times. But for many of us that still doesn't mean it's not a fun topic to theorize and speculate about. I'm assuming that's why this is in the "Off-topic" sub-forum instead of the "Historical Arms" sub-forum. It's good to have the knowledgeable people come along and keep the dreamers in check though, so I appreciate you directing us towards the right path. 
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