05-22-2010, 09:01 PM
Does this work for you ? http://s896.photobucket.com/home/Conman10/index
My idea for this method came partly from seeing medieval reenactor's gambesons and partly from the pictures of possible subarmalii in Graham Sumner's Roman Military Dress. Also the Arlon relief of the cavalrymen seem to show something similar to what I had in mind. While almost a millenia later, the byzantine army is thought to have used gambesons called kavadions made in a similar way with a silk facing and a raw cotton filling. I found this in the Osprey book
Byzantine Infantry man Eastern Roman Empirec.900-1204. More specifically the book states that this comes from a field manual written by the Emperor Nikeforos Fokas.
I cant say I have any evidence of straw as padding instead of anything else although I should mention that before this I had made a similar padded garment using the cotton wadding used as stuffing in pillows and duvets. I found that this was quite heavy (4 Kg) while my recent straw on is only about 1.8kg. I believe that this is due mainly to that the straw is a lot harder to compress due to it's rigid nature and therefore means one needs to stuff a padded garment like this with a greater ammount (weight wise) of raw wool/cotton wadding or other similar materials to acheive a similar effect. Considering that an infantryman would have to carry the thing all day it would be simple logic that they would choose the lightest material available which would also seem to be the most cost effective. However I understand that Roman logic does not always corespond with modern logic as seen by the byzantine equivalant above.
My idea for this method came partly from seeing medieval reenactor's gambesons and partly from the pictures of possible subarmalii in Graham Sumner's Roman Military Dress. Also the Arlon relief of the cavalrymen seem to show something similar to what I had in mind. While almost a millenia later, the byzantine army is thought to have used gambesons called kavadions made in a similar way with a silk facing and a raw cotton filling. I found this in the Osprey book
Byzantine Infantry man Eastern Roman Empirec.900-1204. More specifically the book states that this comes from a field manual written by the Emperor Nikeforos Fokas.I cant say I have any evidence of straw as padding instead of anything else although I should mention that before this I had made a similar padded garment using the cotton wadding used as stuffing in pillows and duvets. I found that this was quite heavy (4 Kg) while my recent straw on is only about 1.8kg. I believe that this is due mainly to that the straw is a lot harder to compress due to it's rigid nature and therefore means one needs to stuff a padded garment like this with a greater ammount (weight wise) of raw wool/cotton wadding or other similar materials to acheive a similar effect. Considering that an infantryman would have to carry the thing all day it would be simple logic that they would choose the lightest material available which would also seem to be the most cost effective. However I understand that Roman logic does not always corespond with modern logic as seen by the byzantine equivalant above.
Conor Boyle
Legio XX VV (Legion ireland)
Legio XX VV (Legion ireland)
