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Eric S
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 Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 1:37 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Eric S wrote: | Dan, when you viewed some wedge riveted mail from a hauberk that I showed on another thread you said it looked Italian to you. | Dan Howard wrote: | | My first guess would be Italian - maybe 15th-16th century. |
(http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=30838) |
I thought it was round riveted. |
Ok, so now are you saying that it is German or of unknown origin? I can understand you saying that the only verifiable known manufacturer of European wedge riveted mail was Germany, but if you are saying that Germany was the only manufacturer that would be quite a bit different.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 3:37 am Post subject: |
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There were two main manufacturers - Southern Germany and Northern Italy - and their products were exported all over the world. I can't think of any examples of wedge riveted mail that weren't made in Germany but there are loads of examples that haven't been properly documented. Based on the current state of research, the safest assumption is to say that all extant examples of wedge-riveted mail were made in Germany until someone puts together a good case for a piece being made elsewhere.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Eric S
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 5:02 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | There were two main manufacturers - Southern Germany and Northern Italy - and their products were exported all over the world. I can't think of any examples of wedge riveted mail that weren't made in Germany but there are loads of examples that haven't been properly documented. Based on the current state of research, the safest assumption is to say that all extant examples of wedge-riveted mail were made in Germany until someone puts together a good case for a piece being made elsewhere. |
Dan, that is a bold statement, I am interested in what other people who have an interest in this subject think about it. In the mean time if the Italians were not making wedge riveted mail what were they making?
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Luka Borscak
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 8:37 am Post subject: |
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| Eric S wrote: | | Dan Howard wrote: | | There were two main manufacturers - Southern Germany and Northern Italy - and their products were exported all over the world. I can't think of any examples of wedge riveted mail that weren't made in Germany but there are loads of examples that haven't been properly documented. Based on the current state of research, the safest assumption is to say that all extant examples of wedge-riveted mail were made in Germany until someone puts together a good case for a piece being made elsewhere. |
Dan, that is a bold statement, I am interested in what other people who have an interest in this subject think about it. In the mean time if the Italians were not making wedge riveted mail what were they making? |
Round riveted mail. 
Dan's logic is safe. When you don't have enough evidence for a new thesis, stick with the old thesis until new evidence appears.
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Eric S
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 10:40 am Post subject: |
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| Luka Borscak wrote: | | Eric S wrote: | | Dan Howard wrote: | | There were two main manufacturers - Southern Germany and Northern Italy - and their products were exported all over the world. I can't think of any examples of wedge riveted mail that weren't made in Germany but there are loads of examples that haven't been properly documented. Based on the current state of research, the safest assumption is to say that all extant examples of wedge-riveted mail were made in Germany until someone puts together a good case for a piece being made elsewhere. |
Dan, that is a bold statement, I am interested in what other people who have an interest in this subject think about it. In the mean time if the Italians were not making wedge riveted mail what were they making? |
Round riveted mail.
Dan's logic is safe. When you don't have enough evidence for a new thesis, stick with the old thesis until new evidence appears. |
Luka (and Dan), your suggesting that the Italians continued to make alternating solid and round riveted link mail through the 16th century and never adapted wedge riveted mail?
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Luka Borscak
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 11:13 am Post subject: |
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As far as I know, yes. That is the norm throughout history...
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Mart Shearer
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 11:17 am Post subject: |
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So what's the opinion?
Dupras, Nickolas, Armourers and their Workshops The Tools and Techniques of Late Medieval Armour Production
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4376/
p.215
| Quote: | E.1939.65.e.10 and 11 Left and right greaves of the Avant armour
Italian, Milan, c. 1440
Figures 274-77
These are the greaves from the Avant armour, fully-enclosed with a front and backplate,
and they retain their original mail sabatons although the toe plate has been lost. They
are struck with the maker's stamp of Giovanni da Garavalle, as are the cuisses and
poleyns of the same armour. |
Excerpt from p.436
Figure 276. Greave lower interior
 Attachment: 48.02 KB
ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui
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Ahmad Tabari
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Eric S wrote: | | Moro (Philipine) mail and plate armor, carabao horn (Philippine buffalo) and butted brass mail. |
Hey Eric. Have you ever come across any riveted Moro mail? It seems to me that their mail was almost always butted.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Eric S wrote: | | Luka (and Dan), your suggesting that the Italians continued to make alternating solid and round riveted link mail through the 16th century and never adapted wedge riveted mail? |
They continued to use round rivets like everyone else (except the Germans) but they seem to have stopped using alternating rows of solid links. No idea why.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Ahmad Tabari wrote: | | Eric S wrote: | | Moro (Philipine) mail and plate armor, carabao horn (Philippine buffalo) and butted brass mail. |
Hey Eric. Have you ever come across any riveted Moro mail? It seems to me that their mail was almost always butted. |
All the examples I've seen are both butted and made of brass.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Ahmad Tabari
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Eric S wrote: | | Luka (and Dan), your suggesting that the Italians continued to make alternating solid and round riveted link mail through the 16th century and never adapted wedge riveted mail? |
They continued to use round rivets like everyone else (except the Germans) but they seem to have stopped using alternating rows of solid links. No idea why. |
I have always assumed that using all riveted construction was meant to make the mail garment lighter since wire rings are often lighter than stamped rings. Maybe the minimized slag content in riveted mail did not necessitate the bulkiness of more impure iron stamped rings.
| Quote: | | All the examples I've seen are both butted and made of brass. |
Any ideas why the Moro never used riveted mail?
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Ahmad Tabari wrote: | | I have always assumed that using all riveted construction was meant to make the mail garment lighter since wire rings are often lighter than stamped rings. Maybe the minimized slag content in riveted mail did not necessitate the bulkiness of more impure iron stamped rings. |
My experience has been the opposite. The solid links tend to be lighter than the riveted ones.
| Quote: | | Any ideas why the Moro never used riveted mail? |
Arab or Persian missionaries exposed them to this armour but never taught them how to make it.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Eric S
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | There were two main manufacturers - Southern Germany and Northern Italy - and their products were exported all over the world. I can't think of any examples of wedge riveted mail that weren't made in Germany but there are loads of examples that haven't been properly documented. Based on the current state of research, the safest assumption is to say that all extant examples of wedge-riveted mail were made in Germany until someone puts together a good case for a piece being made elsewhere. |
I believe that other than some German mail which has makers markers that show its origin, the specific place of manufacture of any European mail is mostly guess work. Saying that ALL wedge riveted mail wasmanufactured in German seems to be a personal point of view and not based on any known evidence as far as I am aware, if there is some specific research that proves otherwise please let me know.
One example in particular is the Sinigaglia hauberk, Guy Francis Laking said this about it.
| Quote: | | The hauberk of chain-mail is in every way the finest that I know. Its condition leaves nothing to be desired, its manufacture is of the highest order and its shape of exceptional grace. To assign it a particular nationality is difficult, and we must leave its origin to conjecture. |
Martin Burgess says this | Quote: | | The Sinigaglia shirt is probably Italian |
At the time these descriptions were written why was this hauberk not simply described as being "German" if all wedge riveted mail was made in Germany, has some new knowledge of the origin of ALL wedge riveted mail become known since these descriptions were published?
Both Laking and Burgess did not describe the Sinigaglia hauberk as being of German manufacture, they did not automatically assume that it was German just because it was wedge riveted.
Last edited by Eric S on Mon 03 Nov, 2014 9:49 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Eric S
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Mart Shearer wrote: | | Dan Howard wrote: | | Wedge-riveted mail seems to have been only made in southern Germany between the 13th-16th centuries. |
Dan,
While we have good evidence of wedge rivets being used in mail of known provenence due to signet rings being made in southern Germany, I think it might be too premature to say that it was never produced in Milan, Cologne, or the Netherlands.
I suspect a study of Italian mail attached to datable plate armors (as mail sabatons, below the demi-greave, etc.) might give us a better idea of how Italian mail differed from German examples. |
| Mart Shearer wrote: | So what's the opinion?
Dupras, Nickolas, Armourers and their Workshops The Tools and Techniques of Late Medieval Armour Production
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4376/
p.215
| Quote: | E.1939.65.e.10 and 11 Left and right greaves of the Avant armour
Italian, Milan, c. 1440
Figures 274-77
These are the greaves from the Avant armour, fully-enclosed with a front and backplate,
and they retain their original mail sabatons although the toe plate has been lost. They
are struck with the maker's stamp of Giovanni da Garavalle, as are the cuisses and
poleyns of the same armour. |
Excerpt from p.436
Figure 276. Greave lower interior
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Mart, I agree completely with what you are suggesting, I find it very unbelievable that only Germany produced wedge riveted mail, and were is the evidence if that is true. If all other European countries continued to produce round riveted mail throught the 16th century then were are those examples?
The mail connected to the Italian greaves you posted a good example of why the theory that only Germany produced wedge riveted mail needs to be throughly examined before it is taken as anything other than a theory.
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Eric S
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| Posted: Mon 03 Nov, 2014 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Mart Shearer wrote: | So what's the opinion?
Dupras, Nickolas, Armourers and their Workshops The Tools and Techniques of Late Medieval Armour Production
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4376/
p.215
| Quote: | E.1939.65.e.10 and 11 Left and right greaves of the Avant armour
Italian, Milan, c. 1440
Figures 274-77
These are the greaves from the Avant armour, fully-enclosed with a front and backplate,
and they retain their original mail sabatons although the toe plate has been lost. They
are struck with the maker's stamp of Giovanni da Garavalle, as are the cuisses and
poleyns of the same armour. |
Excerpt from p.436
Figure 276. Greave lower interior |
Here is a closer view of the mail from the italian greaves, obviously wedge riveted.
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Eric S
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| Posted: Wed 05 Nov, 2014 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Ahmad Tabari wrote: | | Eric S wrote: | | Moro (Philipine) mail and plate armor, carabao horn (Philippine buffalo) and butted brass mail. |
Hey Eric. Have you ever come across any riveted Moro mail? It seems to me that their mail was almost always butted. |
Ahmad, actually as of now I know of no examples of Moro mail and plate armor were the mail is not butted, but that does not mean they never used riveted mail, we only have a very few examples to look at. If you look at my Pinterest site, I have posted images of every known Moro armor I could find, there must be many more in public and private collections that do not have images online. If you use Japanese mail as an example, for many years there was not even a single image of Japanese riveted mail online, now there are several, I am sure that more will turn up, maybe the same thing will happen with Moro mail.
http://www.pinterest.com/worldantiques/armor-...rrounding/
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Eric S
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| Posted: Wed 05 Nov, 2014 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Round rivets were the norm, not the exception, all over the world from the 3rd century BC onwards. Wedge-riveted mail seems to have been only made in southern Germany between the 13th-16th centuries. |
If you read these sentences from "The medieval inventories of the Tower armouries 1320–1410" by Roland Thomas Richardson, 2012, there is no mention of Germany being the sole manufacturer of wedge riveted mail. In the inventory there is mail listed from many different countries. I have no idea were the theory that only Germany manufactured wedge riveted mail came from but I have no seen any evidence of this in the way of research or images of existing armors.
Richardson never mentions that only Germany manufactured wedge riveted mail, if you read the full listing of mail from the Tower of London inventory over the years and in particular these sentences there is absolutely no mention of Germany being the only country that manufactured wedge riveted mail. Here is a link to were anyone can download a copy.
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3919/ The section on mail starts on page #31.
| Quote: | The rivets with which the links are closed are usually wedge-shaped, and fit into wedge-shaped holes punched through the overlapped section of the link from the inside out. The overlapped sections of the links themselves are formed with a swage and hammer with a flat section on the inside of the link and a wave-shaped ‘watershed’ on the outside of the link, so that when the link has been joined to its neighbours and the rivet inserted and hammered closed, with the wide end of the rivet completely flush with the inside of the link, and the pointed end riveted down on the outside, on top of the wave-shaped overlapping section. This in turn means that the mail garment when worn has its smooth side inside, so the rivets do not catch on the padded garments worn underneath.
The evidence in the Tower accounts shows that the traditional date of 1400 before which European mail was made of half-riveted, half solid links, needs to be revised to about 1340. The accounts of Fleet’s successors as keeper of the privy wardrobe, Robert Mildenhall and William Rothwell, also distinguish mail ‘with high nails’ (de alta clavatura), These accounts also show that earlier shirts (made before 1344) had no collars and the newer types did. An example of such a mail shirt, offered for sale at auction in 2006, is a short-sleeved, collarless shirt which was extended with a collar and sleeve extensions of all-riveted mail.(88) Very few European mail shirts of this early, half-riveted, construction are known. Perhaps the best known example formed of alternate rows of riveted and solid links is the shirt traditionally associated with Rudolph IV of Hapsburg, duke of Austria, Carinthia and the neck defense, from a mail bard of the same construction in the Royal Armouries. (this bard is alternating wedge riveted and solid links, listed as 14th century)
88. Christie’s, Antique Arms and Armour from the Collection of Dr. & Mrs. Jerome Zwanger (London,
12 December 2006), lot 208.
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Detail of the inside of an example of mail horse armour of the fourteenth century,
showing the inner ends of the wedge-shaped rivets. (alternating wedge riveted and solid riveted links), Royal Armouries no. VI.566.
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T. Kew
Location: London, UK Joined: 21 Apr 2012
Posts: 256
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| Posted: Thu 06 Nov, 2014 3:41 am Post subject: |
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As I understand the thread of Dan's argument - and with apologies to him if I get it wrong:
1. Most mail which has survived from most periods of history is round-riveted.
2. Most mail is also hard to precisely date or localise, so it's hard to be specific.
3. Some samples of existing mail have signed rings which let us localise them
4. Some samples of existing mail are made of wedge riveted links, not round riveted.
5. All of our samples from the intersection of those two categories are from southern Germany.
Therefore, until we can precisely guarantee that a given wedge-riveted shirt wasn't made in southern Germany, we should assume all wedge riveted mail was.
It seems quite solid as a thread of logic - while we might assume it's reasonable that the Italians also made wedge riveted mail, if our only verifiable examples are from Germany, we should take that as a starting point.
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Dennis Courneyea
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| Posted: Thu 06 Nov, 2014 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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| T. Kew wrote: | As I understand the thread of Dan's argument - and with apologies to him if I get it wrong:
1. Most mail which has survived from most periods of history is round-riveted.
2. Most mail is also hard to precisely date or localise, so it's hard to be specific.
3. Some samples of existing mail have signed rings which let us localise them
4. Some samples of existing mail are made of wedge riveted links, not round riveted.
5. All of our samples from the intersection of those two categories are from southern Germany.
Therefore, until we can precisely guarantee that a given wedge-riveted shirt wasn't made in southern Germany, we should assume all wedge riveted mail was.
It seems quite solid as a thread of logic - while we might assume it's reasonable that the Italians also made wedge riveted mail, if our only verifiable examples are from Germany, we should take that as a starting point. |
Were signed rings used anywhere other than Germany? If Italian armourers didn't use signed rings, then the lack of wedge riveted rings with Italian markings tells us nothing.
Consersely, were signed rings so prevalent in Germany that we should assume unsigned rings come from elsewhere?
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Mart Shearer
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| Posted: Thu 06 Nov, 2014 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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There are signet rings ("MAGISTER") on the Lyle bascinet's (RA IV.470) original aventail which are presumed to be, like the bascinet, north Italian. Unfortunately, there is no makers mark on the bascinet, nor has the identity of "MAGISTER" been localized.
The side view of the rings does look like wedge riveting to me, however.
ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui
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