[Joe Maccarrone]

The books on my shelf diagree regarding the use of leather or padded armours. There is the well-known reference to 'reindeer-hide' armour, but apparently very little evidence for quilted/fabric protection; surely they had some sort of padding under their mail?

Can anyone point to historical sources for these?

Thanks!

[Elling Polden]

The rein deer hide armour reffered to in the Saga of St Olav was suposedly magical. It was bought from a Sami/Lappish shaman, and could stop sword blows.
I doubt that it would count as anything but a curiousity...


Yours
Elling

[Tim Plourd]

Joe. This is one of the those points of history where Archeologists and Anthropologists need to get more comfortable with the phrase "we just don't know".

The fact is that almost all of the physical culture from any particular age comes to us via mother earth. That is to say we dig up the things other people bury (through one method or another) and study it. A glaring physical reality is that things like leather and padding bio-degrade to said dirt, albeit carbon rich dirt but dirt all the same. So if we dig up a helmet, let's say Corinthian style bronze-age, and there is a layer of carbon rich dirt on the inside of our helmet ... is that evidence of a helmet lining or is it carbon rich dirt that got smushed up into the helmet?

On the subject of practicality, it would seem that Europeans were primarily concerned with the issue of getting cut. Within their state of medicine, it would be easier to heal from a broken arm than one that was deeply gashed, for example. Also, maille, wich dominates armor use thought the European landscape in all facets, protects largely against cutting attacks and not so well vs. blunt trauma. So wearing just maille alone would meet this apparent concern over cutting.

For northern European peoples, specifically, there is a tradition of individuals priding themselves on going into a fight with no armor at all. Now weather or not these "beserkers" ever existed or not is irrelevant. The fact remains that the culture had them in their construction of ideals. So it probably would not be uncommon to see a Nordic warrior with just a tunic on under his maille because he was just looking for the cutting protection offered by the maille. Not that I think that this would have been exclusive, just not uncommon.

As a practical matter, I can say from personal experience, that wearing padding under maille makes the ensemble restrictive. Now, I say this in a "dueling" sense. If you are fighting someone in a one on one fashion the padding tends to restrict you in away that might not be worth the trade off. Another thing that we know about Nordic culture is that they were very much a "dueling" society. (Norse Saga, Wergild, etc)

Now, as a counter point ... maille was expensive and rare to very rare depending on the time and for wich group of Nordic people we are discussing, still ... it was hard to come by. SO, what did the common Sven or Ole wear? Leather and padding. I do think however, that even these types of armor were worn with the intent of addressing the cutting issue.

This does not mean, however, that Ragnar, while sporting his oh so qewl maille shirt, didn't look over at Sven or Ole and say to himself "Self, what if I wore my maille on top of one dem padded shirts." I don't think that would have been uncommon either.

I do think it would have been uncommon within the group of people that were constantly pressed to fight duels however. In the end, and when they were pivoted against each other (ie professional duelist against professional duelist) the padding will slow you down and only offer additional protection against the blunt trauma wich you are likely to heal from anyway. Raiding Norse who had gone a Viking would have the same issue, speed and maneuverability were the words of the day.

In the end though, we just don't know. What we have is a collection of educated guesses. That is the great thing about history though .... we get to decide what we think is correct and then support that opinion from the meager facts that we have. This happens to be mine.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Tim;

Very good post there, sometimes we realy don't know and probably never will for sure. But I think you have some really good guesses here about the use of soft armour, what is mostly beyond us is knowing what style or look this armour would have.

The whole issue of giving priority to cut protection and speed of movement makes a lot of sense to me with maille.

If we go back far into prehistory before metal was used I see no reason why leather, fabric or even wooden slats or bone might have been widely used! how about a full suit of armour made of wood slats and leather, maybe like some Japanese armour but using wood instead of steel lamellar armour. Who knows? Maybe something like this was used 10,000 or 20,000 years ago.

Humans were just as smart as today, only their technology was primitive.

[Joe Maccarrone]

Thanks guys; I apologize that my original question was brief to the point of laziness! I posted it hastily before work this morning, after having read a few things last night, and thought I'd throw it out for opinions.

Tim, I agree: I'm not one of the dogmatic sorts, in this hobby, who insist that if we can't find evidence of something, it didn't exist. It is common sense that Vikings would have used leather and fabric defenses -- especially in the earlier part of their 'age' when mail was less common, or when they weren't expecting much resistance (didn't Hardrada's men leave their mail aboard their ships, prior to Stamford bridge?).

I'd love to hear about any known physical or documentary evidence for the form of leather & fabric defensive garments, as used by the Vikings. Aside from hard evidence, I'd welcome any suggestions for 'historically plausible' garments, as I'd like to have one made or modified. Perhaps a fairly thick (but soft) leather face, quilted atop felt and a linen backing?

Thanks

[Allan Senefelder]

Well Joe with the just don't knows of lacking archelogical evidence ect. aside there is some room for extrapolation. The Romans used a garment sometimes called a subarmelis under the lorica. This was a quilted garment made perhaps with two shells of hemp fabric or possibly one hemp shell and one leather stuffed with material(tow?)and quilt stiched.
This garment presumably served the basic purposes as other garments of this type through history, mainly absorb blunt trauma and make armour wear comfortably. An additional factor where maille was concerned is that without some form of cushioning blows landed had a good chance of driving the rings of the garment directly into the flesh. While a great deal of knowledge dissapeared in Europe with the collapse of the Empire this idea of the subarmelis or other quilted/padded base seems to me (read in my opinion only) to be to basic to the use of armour/maille to have dissappeared. What form did the inheritor of the subarmelis take? Well thats a little more free form but probably a decent starting point would be what did the shirt/tunic of the period look like and what is the length of the maille garment to go over the top of it (sleeves, bottom edge of shirt). The resultant garment would of course be purely speculative but you can work only with whats avaliable and in this circumstance thats not very much but theory and a little evidence of what was used in and earlier period.

[Tim Plourd]

Joe, I certainly wasn't trying to say that you thought one thing or another, just that the ivory tower known as The School of History has no direct answer for you. Something that I need to get straight though, is your thought on time frame. The term Viking is a verb, it is something that some Nordic groups did, like running. History uses that term to describe a period in Nordic history that starts with, or just before, the raid on Lindisfarne (8th C. ... 793 AD) and ends with Hadrada's battle at Stanford bridge (11th C ... 1066AD) Thats a long period in time and a change of armor and how it was worn occurred in that culture during that time. Early period Viking suggests that you are looking at the Nordic Viking culture in the 8th century. If that is the case I have always thought that body armor for those folks at that time may have looked something like a thick felt or fleece lined vest quilted in a way that many blankets were for that place and that time. I do think that boiled leather defenses of one type or another might have been used, especially for arms.

It's important to remember that the Bayeaux Tapestry shows no differentiation in armor types between Saxon and Norman. Both of these culture groups were nordic but fighting styles had changed and had moved toward a more cohesive unite style engagement instead of a desire for more individualistic engagements.

This is also why I think Allan's point about Roman design may not be very relevant. Roman designs, at the time Allan is suggesting, was strongly intrenched in the larger unite tactic. This is more static on the individual and therefore the individual is more prone to a direct blunt trauma blow, not the cutting edge that duels tend to produce.

On the issue of what maille does under pressure, it is true that some simple experiments have been done on butted, non-flattened rings that produced results of the kind Allan is describing. By counter point I have worn maille, with just a tunic, in SCA combat for over 13 years and have never had to pick even one ring out of my body. Now, the fact that we are using blunt rattan sticks instead of swords I think is significant, in exactly the same way that a duel-centric culture is relevant to the issue.

Additionally there have been, again simple, experiments done with flattened riveted rings that yielded different results.

So, what I am saying is that I think you can answer this question yourself, especially because academia has no answers for you. My advise to you, however, is that you should 1) stick to a single culture 2) stick to a time frame in that culture that doesn't change much 3) look at aspects of that culture other than armor (in this case what history knows about clothing and the padding technology used at that time, in that place, and for other things) 4) try your ideas out. Make them, put them on, swing a sword at an inanimate object and see what you think. OH! and get into some good arguments ... ah, discusions with friends.

--Tim

[Allan Senefelder]

The Tower Armouries in thier Arms in Action series made the statement regarding rings being driven into exposed flesh and were refering to riveted at the time. They may of course have been have been making a suppposition but this is where I heard it from. Seeing as simply by holding on to somthing tighly between two fingers can leave an impression for several seconds this seemed to make sense to me taking into account how tightly foucsed a force transmition surface the edge of a sword or axe is. As I said however they did not go into further detail so it may have been supposition on thier part.

Tim if I may ask why in your opinion would bone breaking trauma delivered by the narrow edge of a sword or axe become less focused on during the Dark Ages or Viking era ? Have you got any suggestions for reading sources on this as i'd love to pick them up and learn more? Cheers.

[Tim Plourd]

Again Allan, I am not suggesting that bone breaking trauma became less focused on at any time. What I have said is that bone breaking trauma delivered by the narrow edge of a sword or an ax is harder to deliver one on one than it is in mass combat. Caesar as well as many others make this point, thats about as early a source as I can think off of the top, but I am pretty sure that Lechuechner discusses the fact that if you can slide a blow it's traumatic force is lessened, along with discusions of warfare (as it related to his own time) and dueling as separate issues along with the kinds of armor he thought one should wear doing each thing.

Also, I have said that a cut would have represented a larger danger to European people (at many different points in time) than a broken bone. This fact can be read about in a variety of different sources based on the exact time frame and European culture in question. Some facts, however, are transferable. Issues such as infection were hard if not impossible to attend to. This single issue alone would have 1) been relevant to a cut and not a break and 2) not treatable resulting in the death or dismemberment of the individual whereas a broken bone might be mangled to the point of requiring amputation but the frequency of the two are hugely disproportunate, with the cut representing the higher degree.

--Tim

[Allan Senefelder]

Tim I didn't realize that you were refering to individual combat. I was thinking in terms of Joe's question which was a general question about did they or didn't they and wat'd it look like rather than pertaining to judicial/honour duels. I didn't mean to imply if that is how it came off that the subarmelis should be the pattern base but merely using it to illustrate that and earlier culture/ruling group had thought it practicle to provide a garment to fulfill the role.

Also I should have framed The Tower's statement in its context. It was said in a segment during which Thom Richardson(Keeper of Arms and Oriental Collections)was discussing that maille by itself was actually useless and that to be used effectively it needed to be worn on a body over a padded garment.

[Alexi Goranov]

My naive thinking tells me that if pre-viking people used quilted defences (Romans) and post-viking people used them extensively as well (many records of knights and common soldiers show them wearing aketons and gambesons even under PLATE) then the guys in the middle (i.e. Vikings) would have used some sort of quilted/leather defense.

No mater how heroic the people's poems are, folks still feared for their lifes, and tried to protect themselves as well as possible.

There is always a trade off: safer and somewhat slower, or faster and very vulnerable........Based on many existing records, I can venture a guess on what the rich folks (knights) preferred...... and it was not less protection

Alexi

[Jean Thibodeau]

Lets just imagine a draw cut with very little pressure with a very sharp weapon: This should be able to cut you to the bone, cripple you for life if you survive the fight and maybe cause you to bleed to death.

Even a casual cut during a mellee comming out of nowhere could put you out of action.

Add some sort of armour, fabric, leather or even better a maille shirt even if over only a light linen undershirt: All of the above wounds could be avoided.

At this level of protection swords would still be effective but only focused and power blows would be a significan hasard.

I you add heavier swords, danish axes, cavalry lances to the threat you seek protection from, a certain amount of padding would help a lot! And as thing progresses in weapon power: Plate becomes more and more desirable.

Although there is always a chicken or the egg question of what came first: Better weapons / more protective armour.

Getting back to the original question, I think some form of armour would always have been used when possible: At the very least a shield is in a grey zone between protective armour and an active offensive weapon. A buckler can be used very agressively I imagine. ( Lots of reading and imagining on my part, not practical experience: But I tend to believe that logic can get you pretty close to what works, at least until information based on real experience contradicts your best guesses! )

Although the cultural macho factor might send you into battle wearing only blue paint or tatoos

[Tim Plourd]

Allan, I was talking about warfare ... through the eyes of a society that thrives on individual combat.

Also, I would invite Thom Richardson to come inspect my bruises after a heavy days fighting or to inspect divers in shark suits after an attack. Useless? I think not.

Alexi, the issue is not what WE think but what THEY thought. What THEIR cultural values were. Their stories, legends, philosophy are all paramount to the discusion, without that input we are dictating to them what they did. Common sense is only common to the culture and/or sub-culture that created it.

Jean, I agree.

--Tim

[Alexi Goranov]

[Joe Yurgil]

Without surviving examples to show us it is hard to say what, if any, other type of armor they had, like many people have said. One place we could look to though for some insight might be Norse Sagas.

Someone mentioned how the Norse had a dueling cuture. This is very true. If we look at Thorstein Staff-struck there is a prime example of a duel there. It is intersting to note that armor isn't really noted. Only "protective gear" comes up. What this is though is entirely suspect.

Maille is mentioned quite often in the sagas when people go of to battle. It would seem then that maille is only used in battles, not duels since this isn't the only case where there are duels and maille is not mentioned (it would seem to me that this is an important distinction). Thorstein is a poor man (though his father is a great viking so he may have some maille, but i think this is doubtful) and therefor probably couldnt afford maille. Bjarni on the other hand is quite well off so he most likely had maille and just didn't wear it to the duel though. Also there seems to be a custom of "shield bashing" in dueling. Each duelist has so many shields and when they run out the duel is over (one way or another).

Therefore we can be certain taht they did have and use "protective gear" other than maille but unless someone knows of a saga where they point this out specifically (not likely giving the nature of how they are written) or digs up an example of non-maille viking armor (also not likely unless its been preserved in some fassion) we will just have to suffice on little blurbs like these to inference from.

[Allan Senefelder]

Gentlemen , if I may Joe's original question was "surely they must have worn something under thier maille" so he could make a future purchase withsome outside advice. Wheather they fought "one on one " or "like wylde savages" what do folks think they used under maille something or nothing ? My opinion for the hurly burly of combat is yes but thats just IMO.

[Joe Maccarrone]

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. Allow me to send things on a slight tangent:

I haven't had the experience of being hit with anything while wearing mail, or mail over padding. I have, though, been hit with all sorts of things while working as a police officer, in riots and other situations, while wearing no protection but my thick leather duty jacket -- and found it to be adequate as 'padding'. (The fact that my body itself is thicker than most possibly didn't hurt, either.)

How much padding would suffice to do the job under mail? If not a quilted garment dedicated to the task, would a stout leather tunic do? Or several layers of wool or linen?

Some writers have questioned the use of quilted gambeson-type garments during this period -- not only for lack of evidence, but for certain pictorial depictions that seem to show simple tunics beneath mail (to find these references would require a search of my bookshelf beyond the call of duty at 1 am!). As we've been saying, I don't think I'd agree that they weren't using some sort of padding -- but would multiple layers of ordinary garments perform that job well enough?

[Elling Polden]

Now, I have to admit that I have not done great amounts of research on the sagas, but I remember some. I also have quite a bit of experience fighting Viking reenactors….

Mostly, duels where fought with sword and shield. The primary weapon for fighting battles are however shields and one handed spears. This gives a clear advantage in a group fight, but in one on one combat one would drop the spear, and draw the sword instead.

The presence of the large shields make technical attack difficult (Trust me on this, I have fought quite a lot of Viking reenactors….) Your remaining options are going for the head, or his legs. The later is not advised, however, as he will probably either whack you over the head, or slam you once your guard goes down. The later, close assault, is probably the most viable technique. If you have the momentum, you will be able to take him down, pommel him (literally…) or slice him.
In this kind of down and dirty combat, even unpadded maile is of immense value, as it eliminates most draw cuts and low speed stabs.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Elling;

Yes, just a little padding should be enough to protect from draw cuts and low speed stabs.

The problem is people think of armour as something that makes you invulnerable: It's there to improve the odds of coming out of a fight intact or lessen damage and to give you a second chance when you make a mistake and don't deflects or avoid a blow.

Imagine the best plate armour at it's most protective leaving almost no unprotected targets, you would think that to be enough to protect you against anything without making any effort to avoid blows.

Now imagine giving an opponent 30 seconds during which you would stay 100% still and taking NO action to protect yourself or counter attack: An opponent armed with a pocket knife could then just open your visor and ......I leave it to your imagination!
With a rondelle dagger even lifting the visor would not be needed. ( Now this may seem like an extreme or ridiculous example, but a totally exausted warrior or one immobilised by the crush of a melee or a mob is in this possition. )

So armour + some level of mobility is needed when fighting: A little less armour / a little more mobility needed and possible.

[Benjamin McCracken]

One thing that might help to answer this quandary is to think about climate. I live in Michigan and I don't think I would last too long outdoors in a battle with just my skin. Now, I know I'm not as manly as a Nordic warrior, but something tells me they weren't quite that manly either. Even in the heat of battle it would be too cold (depending on the time of year) to wear nothing under a maile shirt. Moreover, depending on the weather I doubt anyone would be fighting without a shirt or coat of some sort. I'm not an expert on Nordic cultures but I think it would be safe to guess that their winter clothing would either be thick cloth or furs. Either one would have given them some protection.

These are just my thoughts. I have no proof for anything I am saying.

Ben
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My companion is my sword.