Info Favorites Register Log in
myArmoury.com Discussion Forums

Forum index Memberlist Usergroups Spotlight Topics Search
Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > Diamond patterned garments. Gambesons? Reply to topic
This is a standard topic Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next 
Author Message
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 5:17 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Joonas Pessi wrote:
i certainly dont think that a gambeson would have been worth the amount of money equivalent to 100000 $ in modern currency, because in the assize of arms of 1181 all burgesses and freemen were required to own a gambeson.


These men were in the top 15% of the population. What is the wealth level of the top 15% today? In the US that would give you an income of around $100,00 per year.

Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books


Last edited by Dan Howard on Tue 28 Nov, 2017 5:30 am; edited 1 time in total
View user's profile Send private message
Stephen Curtin




Location: Cork, Ireland
Joined: 17 Nov 2007
Likes: 110 pages
Reading list: 18 books

Spotlight topics: 1
Posts: 1,220

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 5:28 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Craig Peters wrote:
There were certainly soldiers in the 13th century who were not able to afford a helmet but might be able to afford a gambeson and padded coif, so that doesn't seem out of place. I take it you're objecting to Dan's statement that could imply you either have a metal helmet or no armour whatsoever. Perhaps Dan's statement might be revised to "Of all the parts of armour made of metal, the helmet would be the first priority assuming one could afford it."


According to the documentary evidence gambesons and aketons actually cost about the same as helmets. Check out these figures taken from Randall Storey's PHD Thesis:

Aketon
lowest = 12d
highest = 160d
average = 67d
sample size = 60

Basinet
lowest = 12d
highest = 120d
average = 43d
sample size = 47

So it seems that anyone who could have afforded to buy a gambeson could have bought a helmet instead. And from what I've seen of laws dealing with what arms and armour a population was required to own, helmets were always required before gambesons.

Éirinn go Brách
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Joonas Pessi




Location: Finland
Joined: 05 Oct 2017

Posts: 76

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 5:40 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Stephen Curtin wrote:
Craig Peters wrote:
There were certainly soldiers in the 13th century who were not able to afford a helmet but might be able to afford a gambeson and padded coif, so that doesn't seem out of place. I take it you're objecting to Dan's statement that could imply you either have a metal helmet or no armour whatsoever. Perhaps Dan's statement might be revised to "Of all the parts of armour made of metal, the helmet would be the first priority assuming one could afford it."


According to the documentary evidence gambesons and aketons actually cost about the same as helmets. Check out these figures taken from Randall Storey's PHD Thesis:

Aketon
lowest = 12d
highest = 160d
average = 67d
sample size = 60

Basinet
lowest = 12d
highest = 120d
average = 43d
sample size = 47

So it seems that anyone who could have afforded to buy a gambeson could have bought a helmet instead. And from what I've seen of laws dealing with what arms and armour a population was required to own, helmets were always required before gambesons.


Thanks for the numbers, i was wondering about the cost of these things in relation to each other Happy

From what i have read, iron was quite a bit more expensive earlier in the middle ages and thus helmets would have been quite a bit more expensive too. I wonder how much difference would be in the cost of these items relative to each other earlier in the middle ages?
View user's profile Send private message
Stephen Curtin




Location: Cork, Ireland
Joined: 17 Nov 2007
Likes: 110 pages
Reading list: 18 books

Spotlight topics: 1
Posts: 1,220

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 6:27 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Yes iron was more expensive earlier in the middle ages, but so was probably everything else, including the materials needed to make a gambeson. How much more expensive these things were in earlier times, unfortunately I don't know.
Éirinn go Brách
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
William P




Location: Sydney, Australia
Joined: 11 Jul 2010

Posts: 1,523

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 6:38 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

including the gambesons stuffed with just about everything from rags to hair?? i remain skeptical they would be nearly as expensive as one made of layer upon layer of linen
though not all of those in the same garment, though you get the idea
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 6:48 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

William P wrote:
including the gambesons stuffed with just about everything from rags to hair?? i remain skeptical they would be nearly as expensive as one made of layer upon layer of linen
though not all of those in the same garment, though you get the idea


There was no such thing as a gambeson stuffed with "just about anything from rags to hair". They were made to a standard by registered guild members and faced inspection at every muster. If your gambeson didn't meet a minimum standard, you'd be fined and sent home. Randall Storey's work proves this. The cheapest gambeson cost the same as the cheapest helmet. The average gambeson cost considerably more than the average helmet.

There was no such thing as "cheap" armour. It never existed. Poor people were either completely unarmoured or, more often, they were not permitted to fight.

Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
View user's profile Send private message
Joonas Pessi




Location: Finland
Joined: 05 Oct 2017

Posts: 76

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 8:39 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

So the discussion has got a bit sidetracked and i feel that some of the questions have been left unanswered. So what do you think would explain the difference in colour and pattern to the depiction of mail in the same manuscript, and what would it be depicting then?
View user's profile Send private message
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 2:12 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

It is simple artistic licence. If you show a mail shirt to a class full of people and ask them to draw it, every single one of them will render it differently. How do you tell whether any of them drew it accurately if you don't have the original item?
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
View user's profile Send private message
Arne G.





Joined: 31 Jul 2014

Posts: 126

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 7:52 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
It is simple artistic licence. If you show a mail shirt to a class full of people and ask them to draw it, every single one of them will render it differently. How do you tell whether any of them drew it accurately if you don't have the original item?


Yes, but wouldn't a given manuscript page be rendered by a single person? If one person has made different renderings, is it at least not possible that they, in fact, are representing different things?
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Philip Dyer





Joined: 25 Jul 2013

Posts: 507

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 8:51 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Arne G. wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
It is simple artistic licence. If you show a mail shirt to a class full of people and ask them to draw it, every single one of them will render it differently. How do you tell whether any of them drew it accurately if you don't have the original item?


Yes, but wouldn't a given manuscript page be rendered by a single person? If one person has made different renderings, is it at least not possible that they, in fact, are representing different things?
Depens on the size of the work. Also, it wasn't,t unheard for manuscript to be modified over time. The bayou ex tapestry was made by several people because the sheer size and scope of the subject matter and demand made it impossible for a single person to do the entire thing.
View user's profile Send private message
Mart Shearer




Location: Jackson, MS, USA
Joined: 18 Aug 2012

Posts: 1,302

PostPosted: Tue 28 Nov, 2017 9:25 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The same artist may have chosen various styles on different figures to help distinguish them, or to save time -- the late Angus McBride once noted that he wondered which took longer, making mail, or painting it. Also keep in mind the small scale of these figures, or the distance from which they would be seen.

https://myArmoury.com/feature_mail.html
Dan Howard wrote:
The other major problem with mail terminology came from initial attempts to interpret contemporary illustrations. Samuel Rush Meyrick, writing early in the 19th century attempted a very "literal" interpretation of the armour depicted in contemporary effigies and illustrations (such as the Bayeux Tapestry) and invented a variety of constructions to resemble them closely5. These constructions included banded mail, tegulated mail, mascled mail, rustred mail, and trellised mail. Most of Meyrick's proposals have since been demonstrated to be either impractical or could not be physically reconstructed to resemble contemporary representations. Doubts about Meyrick's work began to be expressed later in that century by scholars, such as Hewitt, Laking, and ffoulkes. However, some writers, such as Ashdown6 and Viollet-le-duc7, perpetuated Meyrick's inaccuracies into the 20th century, which were picked up and used by many modern writers, including the authors of fantasy role-playing games. The final word on this subject is attributed to Claude Blaire in the middle of the 20th century8, and since that time, no armour scholar has seriously considered Meyrick's theories to be valid. The general consensus today is that the difficulties involved in realistically illustrating medieval mail led to a variety of stylistic conventions and that all of the contemporary illustrations and effigies are depicting nothing more elaborate than typical 4-in-1 mail. Blair quoted from F. M. Kelly, who wrote:

And at the start let me define plainly what I mean by "mail". I hold that in the Middle Ages and, indeed, as long as armour continued...the term applied properly, nay, exclusively, to that type of defence composed...of interlinked rings. Only through a late poetical licence did it come to be extended to armour in general. "Chain-mail" is a mere piece of modern pleonasm; "scale-mail" and still more "plate-mail" stark nonsense. As for Meyrick's proposed classification of mail—"ringed, "single", double-chain, "mascled", "rustred", "trelliced", etc.—it may be dismissed without further ado. His categories, in so far as they were not pure invention, rested wholly on a misinterpretation of the evidence; the passages he cites to support his theories...all refer to what he calls "chain" mail; otherwise MAIL pure and simple.9



 Attachment: 88.3 KB
Cambridge Ee.3.59 fo.12v.jpg
Cambridge Ee.3.59 fo.12v

ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui
View user's profile Send private message
Joonas Pessi




Location: Finland
Joined: 05 Oct 2017

Posts: 76

PostPosted: Wed 29 Nov, 2017 4:40 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
Joonas Pessi wrote:
i certainly dont think that a gambeson would have been worth the amount of money equivalent to 100000 $ in modern currency, because in the assize of arms of 1181 all burgesses and freemen were required to own a gambeson.


These men were in the top 15% of the population. What is the wealth level of the top 15% today? In the US that would give you an income of around $100,00 per year.


That assertion is just flatout wrong, a freeman was basically anyone who wasn't a serf, and a burgess would be an inhabitant of a town or borough with full rights of citizenship. In the assize of arms these people had the lowest requirement of equipment. So no, these wouldnt be the top 15%.
View user's profile Send private message
Stephen Curtin




Location: Cork, Ireland
Joined: 17 Nov 2007
Likes: 110 pages
Reading list: 18 books

Spotlight topics: 1
Posts: 1,220

PostPosted: Wed 29 Nov, 2017 4:56 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Many modern artists seem to love the idea of diamond patterned stitching on aketons and gambesons but to my knowledge this was rarely done historically. Think about it, why would someone choose to stitch in a diamond or square pattern when stitching in straight lines would accomplish the same result with less thread used and less work?
Éirinn go Brách
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Wed 29 Nov, 2017 5:47 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Joonas Pessi wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
Joonas Pessi wrote:
i certainly dont think that a gambeson would have been worth the amount of money equivalent to 100000 $ in modern currency, because in the assize of arms of 1181 all burgesses and freemen were required to own a gambeson.


These men were in the top 15% of the population. What is the wealth level of the top 15% today? In the US that would give you an income of around $100,00 per year.


That assertion is just flatout wrong, a freeman was basically anyone who wasn't a serf, and a burgess would be an inhabitant of a town or borough with full rights of citizenship. In the assize of arms these people had the lowest requirement of equipment. So no, these wouldnt be the top 15%.


15-16% of men were freemen (called "sokemen") at the time and they owned around 20% of the land. Keep in mind that this only included the males in society so the real percentage of freemen was closer to 8% of the total population..

Around 40% of men were villani, also called "serfs" or "nativi", who were tied to the land.

8-9% were slaves.

Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
View user's profile Send private message
Joonas Pessi




Location: Finland
Joined: 05 Oct 2017

Posts: 76

PostPosted: Wed 29 Nov, 2017 6:26 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
Joonas Pessi wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
Joonas Pessi wrote:
i certainly dont think that a gambeson would have been worth the amount of money equivalent to 100000 $ in modern currency, because in the assize of arms of 1181 all burgesses and freemen were required to own a gambeson.


These men were in the top 15% of the population. What is the wealth level of the top 15% today? In the US that would give you an income of around $100,00 per year.


That assertion is just flatout wrong, a freeman was basically anyone who wasn't a serf, and a burgess would be an inhabitant of a town or borough with full rights of citizenship. In the assize of arms these people had the lowest requirement of equipment. So no, these wouldnt be the top 15%.


15-16% of men were freemen (called "sokemen") at the time and they owned around 20% of the land. Keep in mind that this only included the males in society so the real percentage of freemen was closer to 8% of the total population..

Around 40% of men were villani, also called "serfs" or "nativi", who were tied to the land.

8-9% were slaves.


But my point still stands, the freemen were neither in the lowest or highest strata, because freeholders and nobles were above them, but they were the lowest strata wich was required to have military equipment as described in the assize of arms.
View user's profile Send private message
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Wed 29 Nov, 2017 7:43 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Joonas Pessi wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
Joonas Pessi wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
Joonas Pessi wrote:
i certainly dont think that a gambeson would have been worth the amount of money equivalent to 100000 $ in modern currency, because in the assize of arms of 1181 all burgesses and freemen were required to own a gambeson.


These men were in the top 15% of the population. What is the wealth level of the top 15% today? In the US that would give you an income of around $100,00 per year.


That assertion is just flatout wrong, a freeman was basically anyone who wasn't a serf, and a burgess would be an inhabitant of a town or borough with full rights of citizenship. In the assize of arms these people had the lowest requirement of equipment. So no, these wouldnt be the top 15%.


15-16% of men were freemen (called "sokemen") at the time and they owned around 20% of the land. Keep in mind that this only included the males in society so the real percentage of freemen was closer to 8% of the total population..

Around 40% of men were villani, also called "serfs" or "nativi", who were tied to the land.

8-9% were slaves.


But my point still stands, the freemen were neither in the lowest or highest strata, because freeholders and nobles were above them, but they were the lowest strata wich was required to have military equipment as described in the assize of arms.


Freemen were in the top 15th percentile of the population. They were wealthy men. These people in the US today have incomes of at least $100,000 pa and a net worth in excess of a million dollars. It requires men of this sort of means to be able to afford body armour. It has already been demonstrated that gambesons were not cheap. They were inaccessable to the vast majority of the population.

Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
View user's profile Send private message
Iagoba Ferreira





Joined: 15 Sep 2008

Posts: 192

PostPosted: Wed 29 Nov, 2017 8:26 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
It is simple artistic licence. If you show a mail shirt to a class full of people and ask them to draw it, every single one of them will render it differently. How do you tell whether any of them drew it accurately if you don't have the original item?


I have seen drawings of the same mail armoured reenactor made by children, they managed to depict it in 4 different ways, every one of them identic to period depictions. And yes, lonzeges (or tarotee) too. Wink
View user's profile Send private message
Joonas Pessi




Location: Finland
Joined: 05 Oct 2017

Posts: 76

PostPosted: Thu 30 Nov, 2017 12:40 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The lowest price of aketon mentioned in the thesis is 12 pence, and the yearly wage of a kitchen servant in the 14th century would have been 2-4 shillings (1 shilling=12 pence), so about half of the lowest yearly wage for a kitchen servant. Not cheap i know, but not as expensive as you suppose. http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html
View user's profile Send private message
Joonas Pessi




Location: Finland
Joined: 05 Oct 2017

Posts: 76

PostPosted: Thu 30 Nov, 2017 12:45 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I think there is no conclusive evidence to either completely reject or accept the idea that gambesons were used in 12th century before its last quarter. Personally i think they might have been used a bit earlier than the assizement of arms, perhaps brought to western europe by the returning crusaders from byzantine? Just my thoughts though Happy
View user's profile Send private message
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Thu 30 Nov, 2017 1:46 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The name "aketon" implies that the earliest ones in Europe were made from cotton. Cotton was brought to Sicily by the Moors but it never spread to the rest of Europe until the Norman conquest of Sicily in the 12th century. So there couldn't have been any in Europe before this time.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books


Last edited by Dan Howard on Thu 30 Nov, 2017 2:06 am; edited 2 times in total
View user's profile Send private message


Display posts from previous:   
Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > Diamond patterned garments. Gambesons?
Page 2 of 3 Reply to topic
Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next All times are GMT - 8 Hours

View previous topic :: View next topic
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum






All contents © Copyright 2003-2024 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Basic Low-bandwidth Version of the forum