[Philip Renne]

I'd like to get a survey of thoughts on the role of the eyelet doublet in defense. I'm referring to the armor made by sewing small rings together with cord or thread as opposed to onto a backing of some kind. It seems to be a very inferior form of armor in that thrusts would only by chance be caught in the rings rather than pass through the fabric, and any cuts the armor managed to block would destroy the armor. Were it reinforced with a second layer of rings offsetting the gaps in the first it would greatly increase the protective capabilities of the garment but no such effort seems to have been made. Yet it was produced and presumably used.

Was the eyelet doublet more affordable than a shirt of mail? It seems almost as laborious to produce as a haubergeon, but this may be my lack of skill as a weaver on display. Perhaps such an elaborate product would be a simple task for a skilled sewer to manufacture.

Was there some specific role that the eyelet doublet would exceed at, some situation where one would choose to wear one of these things rather than other forms of armor? To my own way of thinking, if I knew I was headed into a neighborhood where I was likely to be stabbed and needed an expedient and flexible way of protecting myself I would likely choose a jack of plates or even a very thick gambeson, or even just wrapping a thick bunch of beach towels around the vitals before I went with the eyelet doublet.

[Dan Howard]

Instead of relying on suppostion it would be better to look at the primary accounts. According to Sir John Smythe* it was perfectly capable of stopping weapon points.

"Archers should wear either eyelet holed doublets that will resist the thrust of a sword or dagger and covered with some trim to the liking of the captain... or else jacks of mail quilted upon fustian."

The passage implies that it was just as good as a mail.

* John Smythe, Observations and Orders Militarie, (1591). 185

[Philip Renne]

[Luka Borscak]

[Dan Howard]

The term referred to an entire mail shirt sandwiched inside padding. Originally they were called "jazerants". Then they were called "gestrons". In the 16th century they started calling them "jacks of mail".

I can't think of any extant examples of a shirt made of various patches sewn individually onto a garment. Why would anyone do that when it is so easy to link them back together? We have plenty of examples of mail patched together from pieces from various sources.

[Philip Dyer]

[Dan Howard]

[Matthew Amt]

[Philip Renne]

[Philip Renne]

another example, same source:

[Philip Renne]

One more to show what I'm talking about:

[T. Kew]

This almost certainly has a full fabric layer which has been completely sewn through with eyelets, each reinforced with a ring on the outside (under the thread).

[Dan Howard]

[Philip Renne]

[Andrew Gill]

I'm no expert on eyelet armour, but here are a few thoughts and observations:

1.Eyelet armour has fewer metal rings (by a factor of nearly 2) than a similar piece of mail armour because the rings don't overlap so it will be lighter and possibly more flexible (depending on how thick and tightly bound the eyes are).
2.It will also use less metal, which may have been less expensive by the late renaissance than in the high middle ages, but this could still have been a factor.
3.The labour in stitching the eyes may have been significant, but I suspect that the cost of sewing labour was considerably less and more ubiquitous than metal workers capable of producing mail, so you could have more people making them, more cheaply.
4.The rings can all be made either by punching from a from a flat sheet, or possibly by winding around a mandrel. If the latter, I suspect they can be butted rather than riveted with far less loss of effectiveness than mail would experience. A ring opening doesn't compromise all the rings around it, or even its own attachment to the garment. So the actual metalwork required is simpler.
5.The tailoring is probably a lot less tricky, as you have a foundation garment to build on. The foundation is probably distorted or shrunk slightly in making the eyes, but this will be relatively uniform and by a constant factor across the entire garment, for a given ring size and fabric.
6.The rings are so close together in the extant examples that the gaps between the rings are actually smaller than the hole in the centre of the rings. See the relative sizes of the pink circles in the attached picture.
So the relative chance of a piercing weapon passing between the rings is actually rather small (if there is even a serious risk of armour failure associated with this). Also, remember that the people wearing the doublet aren't going to be standing still while you try to poke them with something sharp - the armour just has to stop or deflect the odd blow that isn't avoided or deflected with a weapon or shield.
7. Cutting at the armour will be much less effective than thrusting, because you have to cut all the many threads binding a ring in before you can remove a single metal ring. The blade may at best cut one or two per ring, and possibly less, considering that the whole garment is flexible.

So although it looks like a goofy idea at first, there were probably some good reasons for using it.

Edit: I may be wrong about the lower weight (point 1): I assumed that the rings were of similar size and mass to those used in mail, but they may be heavier.

[Matthew Amt]

[Philip Renne]

[Dan Howard]

In Europe, making armour, including textile armour, was heavily regulated by the authorities and controlled by the appropriate guilds. You couldn't recruit grandmothers and washerwomen to make textile armour for you. You couldn't ask a blacksmith to make metal armour either. If they accepted the job, they ran the risk of a heavy fine and being run out of town.

[Philip Renne]

[Philip Renne]

In the course of experimentation I quickly knit a floret without any fabric backing, it was pretty easy even with my crap skills and intermittent assaults by a kitten.

On close examination of most of the samples I've been able to find on the internet it does seem that the eyes are sewn into a fabric backing but I'm now unsure about the Swedish example which really does look un-backed.