05-24-2010, 10:06 PM
Quote:about cotton wadding... I'm not sure what the Byzantine authors ment by that or how it was translated, but I tend to think of cotton in the 17th C England sense - a soft thick loosely woven WOOL material. or as wool batting or felt, loose, or perhaps even a silk batting or felt, as was reported to be in some mongol padded coats. (Considering Byzantium famous as a center of silk production and the known strenght of silk)Yep. We have no idea how the Byzantines made their padded armour. The sources are open to speculation and various interpretations. I don't think there are any physical extant examples. Any attempt to use Byzantine padded armour as a source for Roman padded armour is simply using speculation to justify further speculation.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books