Butted VS Rivited

[Ironhand]

Sorry Dan, but butted was made. The whys are probably very debatable and could probably range from munitions reasons to perhaps even being purely a funerary piece of gear that was quickly made. Thats aside from the subject. I can easily understand groups banning or limiting its use since far too many people would just wear the cheap butted gear like with a lot of groups. That is hardly accurate either as rivetted was the norm. Personally, I would debate the use of butted as actual armour in combat, but enough archaeological evidence has been produced that one cannot deny that it was made and is historically accurate in that it existed.

If you follow the links that I posted, they show two shirts of butted maille (both the 6 in 1 find and another). Until the whys are answered one cannot assume that more were not made until we know the reasons why they used butted instead of a more practical technique that required more man hours of work, but an almost equivalent amount of materials (less if you're making butted thick to compensate for its flaws). What one can show is that rivetted is vastly superior to butted for armour purposes and that it is far more practical for someone who considers themselves a warrior to use. So for most of our purposes as reenacting soldiers I fully agree that rivetted maille should be used.

(Sorry if my grammar is a bit off as I just spent 12 hours at A.P. Hill and I'm a bit tired.)