[Elling Polden]

Mart:Looking at the drawings, and the width of my own chauses, it would appear that the chauses with lacing visible from the side are either very narrow, or the artists exagerate to show that the lacing is there.

In order for the lacing to be that visible from the side, the chause would cover only the front half of the leg. Which could perfectly well be the case, by all means.

[Mart Shearer]

Elling,
That sounds about right. I suppose it could have been a money issue, less mail is cheaper; or a simple way to make them "one size fits all" for easier sale. Fitting chausses, cloth or mail, is best done in person.

I made a post referencing this one at Armour Archive regarding this as well, since some people don't frequent both boards.
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewto...p;t=161747

It seems to me the most likely historic method of lacing is spiral (zig-zag), rather than crossed. A contemporary example on a sculpture from Angers Cathedral shows this on clothing.

This is the same style seen on the earlier referenced Roland statue at the ankle.


One of the consequences of using this style of lacing is that points lined up opposite each other will be pulled to offset positions. Design seems to accomodate this by lacing offset points together. In other words, the teeth on the edge of the chausses would likely not be woven to meet point to point, but point to valley: Those on the left side being offset by a few rows from those on the right.