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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Thu 14 Nov, 2013 12:53 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

So why were seven ox hides reqiured to make a single girdle? It seems that even this was considered insufficient to protect the wearer because he also wore a corselet made from 27 layers of linen.
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Omero Bernardone Quinto




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PostPosted: Thu 14 Nov, 2013 1:30 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Yes because 27 layer of linen is economic. I have posted a video for demostrate how much 12mm of leather in resistant.
why must be necessarly be 7 layer? that would make something like 30mm and 18kg, i can't belive that.

"his champion's battle girdle made from the forequarters of 7 young oxen."

forequarter is not an entire hide, and what is? rawhide? leather? cuirboulli? is different, and however this is mytology.
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Kel Rekuta




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PostPosted: Thu 14 Nov, 2013 5:45 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Omero Bernardone Quinto wrote:
Yes because 27 layer of linen is economic. I have posted a video for demostrate how much 12mm of leather in resistant.
why must be necessarly be 7 layer? that would make something like 30mm and 18kg, i can't belive that.

"his champion's battle girdle made from the forequarters of 7 young oxen."

forequarter is not an entire hide, and what is? rawhide? leather? cuirboulli? is different, and however this is mytology.


The forequarters of an animal hide is typically termed a double shoulder in the modern leather industry. The hindquarters are sometimes dressed out as a double bend for belts being the thickest part of a bovine or equine hide. This cut is also roughly rectangular so produces belts with little waste. True sole leather is always made from the hindquarter of a bovine animal. The neck and outer edges of a double shoulder are too stretchy by comparison.

I have more commonly seen this passage translated as the "best parts of the hides of seven cows." Never made any sense to me. It could be rawhide, half tanned or fully tanned leather. I for one, would not want to be wearing rawhide armour in the Irish climate.
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Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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PostPosted: Thu 14 Nov, 2013 6:27 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

"The boats which they employ in fishing or in crossing the rivers are made of twigs, not oblong nor pointed, but almost round, or rather triangular, covered both within and without with raw hides."
-- Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriae, Ch XVII

These coracles were used by the Welsh, Irish, and Scottish. I think the word "coracle" comes from corium ("hide") though the Celtic language has a similar root. If they could make a boat from rawhide then the Irish weather proably wouldn't be much of a bother.

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T. Kew




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PostPosted: Sat 29 Nov, 2014 5:04 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Resurrecting somewhat, but I happened to be combing for references about the lack of Viking leather armour and came across this topic again.

Specifically on the 'battle-sark', it's a term for armour generally, and almost certainly a mail hauberk specifically. The literal meaning would be 'battle shirt'.

Borrowing the quotes from Chris Last:

Project Gutenberg's Beowulf wrote:
Their battle-sarks rattled, the gear of the heroes;


This is a kenning - a form of metaphor very common in this kind of poetry*. It's based on using one noun, and then adding adjectives to it to change the meaning. So a battle shirt is armour.

Project Gutenberg's Beowulf wrote:
And there against foemen my firm-knotted corslet,
Hand-jointed, hardy, help did afford me;
My battle-sark braided, brilliantly gilded,
Lay on my bosom.


Here we have another kenning: All of these lines are describing the mail shirt - hand jointed, hardy, film-knotted, etc etc. So it's talking about armour again, and there's nothing to directly lead us to believe that it's some special form of fabric armour - a poetic allusion to mail armour is much more likely, and makes much more sense with the various descriptions being applied.

*My personal explanation for why is that it's an absolute bastard to write alliterative verse otherwise. Kennings let you change which sounds you're using to express the same concept, which makes it a lot easier to alliterate.
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Pieter B.





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PostPosted: Sat 29 Nov, 2014 5:20 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I just have this little snippet to add.

Quote:
Et
ceulxqui seroient ā pié auroient guisarmes ou bons
espieux trenchans et que chascun eust les mains ar-
mées; et au regart de moy, je auroye aussi cher des
ganteletz que on fait en Allemaigne de cuyr boully
que d'autres.


which means that leather armor or gauntlets in the 15th century were a novel thing in Western Europe.
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Philip Dyer





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PostPosted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 8:07 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

James Barker wrote:
Hadrian Coffin wrote:
stuffed with wool


Just FYI anytime you read cotton wool they mean raw cotton; it is a slang term. There is no wool content in the stuffing of any of the extant arming cotes we have.

Wow, I find that quite surprising. I didn't think cotton was that prevalent in the middle ages. I thought that most gambesons and aketons, would have been made of linen and stuff with raw wool because thought that the cotton during that time was rarely grow garment, sheep and linen fibres where relatively abundant and wool has certain properties which make it useful in several different applications, it has antibacterial properties and the oils in raw can help prevent ferous metals from rusting.
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Philip Dyer





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PostPosted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 8:21 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Kristian Fagerström wrote:
Nick Trueman wrote:
Hi

Your going to be hard pressed finding any lamellar finds for those cultures. There is only one find in Birka, sweden fpr leather lamellar armour. And that was of steppe origin.
You will have to do rus, and associated steppe peoples persona to be able wear lamellar. There are plenty of examples from russia for this period.
Your best bet is to do rus/viking, even better do khazar or magyar!

Sorry my eye is really sore to continue, this pic is from a steppe nomad burial, prob turkic. Not sure if it is metal or leather.


The Birka lamellar http://fornvannen.se/pdf/2000talet/2004_027.pdf is not leather, but metal. As far as I know, there is not a single leather lameller found in scandinavia.

Do you know where that pdf file could found in English?
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Gary T




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PostPosted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 10:04 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard Wrote:

Quote:
So why were seven ox hides reqiured to make a single girdle? It seems that even this was considered insufficient to protect the wearer because he also wore a corselet made from 27 layers of linen.


Kel Rekuta Wrote:

Quote:
I have more commonly seen this passage translated as the "best parts of the hides of seven cows." Never made any sense to me. It could be rawhide, half tanned or fully tanned leather. I for one, would not want to be wearing rawhide armour in the Irish climate.


My understanding by saying the "best parts" we are talking about the thickest parts of the Ox hide, the area around the shoulders. I don't think we are looking at layers - instead we are looking at the thickest part of the hide.

I did some research on this before. First, we must remember oxen were a fair amount smaller at this time than modern oxen. IIRC at this time period we might be looking about 2/3 of the size of a modern ox. That's maybe 2/3 of the available hide, and being a smaller animal thinner hide. So apparently to get enough of the "thick" hide to make a belt it took 7 oxen (bit of a misnomer, the "belt" would be very very broad compared to a modern belt, a "mid section wrap" might be more appropriate).

I think this also goes to show some of the problems with leather armor. To get enough thick hide even for a very partial armor, you have to slaughter 7 oxen, which usually goes above and beyond what most small landowners have access to.

So yes indeed, metal armor might be expensive, but so was leather armor, and this broad "belt" provided no where near the protection of a mail byrnie.

Just as a side note cloth armor, like a 27 layer tunic was in no way cheap either. In a time where a standard serf may have 2 sets of clothes, and 5 sets of clothes meant some personal wealth, 27 tunics was a small treasure when one realizes how incredibly labor intensive the making of cloth from raw wool or flax.
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 12:43 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Leather and cloth might have been cheaper than metal but that is a pointless comparison. There was no such thing as a low-cost armour for poorer fighters. It is like comparing the difference between a $200,000 sports car and a $500,000 sports car. The average person can afford neither of them.
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Luka Borscak




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PostPosted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 2:27 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Low cost armour for poor warrior is a shield. Wink
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Gary T




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PostPosted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 5:13 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Quote:
Low cost armour for poor warrior is a shield.


Indeed. I think the idea of leather armor in general has been emplaced in peoples minds by to many "B" fantasy/sword and sorcery/pseudo historical films and TV shows, as well as role playing games.

My biggest pet peeve from these is the "studded leather". At best, it's a misinterpretations of an artist's rendition of brigandine or something similar.

Unfortunately, the idea of "leather" armor has been so ingrained into many people's heads that it is thought of as historically accurate by many. Confused
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Matthew Bunker




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PostPosted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 11:26 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Studded leather you say....

https://www.facebook.com/durhammedievalmarket/photos/a.10151606178461546.1073741856.137291856545/10151606179456546/?type=1&permPage=1

"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Tue 02 Dec, 2014 3:50 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Those were splinted vambraces. The studs were rivets to hold the metal splints in place - just like brigandine.

Original article here.
http://arheo.ut.ee/theses/BA10_Pruus.pdf

Four rows of 12-19 iron rivets 7-8 mm diameter, spaced between 5-6 mm apart. The strips of iron were about 2 mm thick and 7-8 mm wide.

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Robert Rootslane




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PostPosted: Tue 02 Dec, 2014 5:01 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

ive seen these in real life and if i remember correctly it was alternating rows of splints and just studs. Gonna have to chek thol...
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Tue 02 Dec, 2014 1:44 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

One suggestion is that half the splints were inside and half were outside. If someone could translate the relevant part of the above article, it would help.
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Robert Rootslane




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PostPosted: Tue 02 Dec, 2014 2:59 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

ok, here comes, loosely translated. I skipped some unimportant parts. (sry for some grammar mistakes etc.)

The vambraces were found from a lavatory cess pit with the left vambrace inside the right one. The vambraces were nearly completely preserved.

The author figures they were made from thick horsehide from the animals back, he suggests cuirbouilli technicue was used.

The vambraces have 4 rows of round-headed rivets, the rivets are placed 5-6mm from eachother. The diameter of thr rivets is 7-8mm, and they were set in rows of 12-19. The vambraces were further reinforced by five steel splints, that were riveted onto the leather. The splints are about 2mm thick, and 7-8mm wide, and are placed 42-45mm from eachother. The splints alternated with studded rows.

The endmost rivets of splints and studded rows also helped to attach the buckles and the edging. The measurements of the vambraces was 25,5cm in lenght, 27 in with near the elbow, and 19cm near the wrist.


The author also claims the vambraces to be rather rare since few or no such finds exist in whole of Europe.




Personally i havent looked at the inner side of those vambraces, but i will in a few weeks, if i remeber it Happy
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Gary T




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PostPosted: Tue 02 Dec, 2014 3:08 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

And really it's not the occasional vambrace I have an issue with in films. It's the consistent use of leather body armor, or even more hated the "studded leather" hauberk, or "ring" hauberk.

Although I thought I read something about an armor in Poland from about the 13th century, in a book by Ian Heath. Whether this is based on any actual finds or Mr. Heath's interpretation of an artist's rendition I do not know.
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William P




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PostPosted: Wed 03 Dec, 2014 1:38 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
One suggestion is that half the splints were inside and half were outside. If someone could translate the relevant part of the above article, it would help.


theres also a sassanian gauntlet with studs in the cuff, and no evidence whatsoever of any plating or anything. although they might have just been decorative
https://scontent-a-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/10624813_855250324515450_647066372394850583_n.jpg?oh=2526789e243ed889ed88d130b580aa47&oe=550C9DB9

as fir the adoption of the early cuir boulli chest protectors for tourneys at least it's obvious why they were chosen, since mailles greatest weakness is the fact it has almost no shock resistance aka it transfers all the force right to your body, cuitr boulli is very rigid so would be able to much better absorb the impact of tourney weapons, especially the lance, even a blanted lance couched under the arm at full speed would cause severe injury to the body due to the sheer concentration of force alone.
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Wed 03 Dec, 2014 3:45 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

William P wrote:
as fir the adoption of the early cuir boulli chest protectors for tourneys at least it's obvious why they were chosen, since mailles greatest weakness is the fact it has almost no shock resistance aka it transfers all the force right to your body, cuitr boulli is very rigid so would be able to much better absorb the impact of tourney weapons, especially the lance, even a blanted lance couched under the arm at full speed would cause severe injury to the body due to the sheer concentration of force alone.

Sometimes. It depends on the mail. We have plenty of accounts of riders wearing mail being able to continue fighting even after being hit with multiple lances - sharpened war lances, not blunted ones.

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