\"Celtic\" military technology and the Romans

[Renatus]

As I read it: face-mask helmet, scale body armour, articulated armour for arms and legs with spaces between limbs and body protected by mail, and apparently mail gloves.

[Dan Howard]

The Byzantines used doubled mail camails, and some 12th century illustrations seem to show lamellar worn over mail.

Example please. I've had a look through a lot of illustrations and most of them are too ambiguous to conclude that they are depicting lamellar worn over mail.

Also, from an earlier post on this site concerning a description of cataphract armour:

Ammianus Book 16 ch. 10 -8

"thoracum muniti tegminibus et limbis ferreis cincti" is usually translated as "protection of iron breast-plates, and girdled with belts of iron". However, limbis is not a usual word for 'belt' in Latin, and literally means "piping" or "border/edge". Could be the description of some sort of combination armour for the torso.

What does this have to do with mail?

[Dan Howard]

Is your objection to the suggestion that one form of armour was worn beneath another?

Yes. In Europe and the Middle East this didn't start to happen until the late 12th century. The practice likely started around the same time in Byzantium too. It cannot be attributed to cataphracts from earlier periods.

[Dan Howard]

IIRC plates connected with mail, right?

This is usually called "mail and plates" or "combined mail" and, as far as I can tell, the earliest evidence of this dates to the 14th century. It was likely developed as a replacement for lamellar.

[Youngster]

I am now very curious about this matter. Certainly all those osprey books couldn't have been basing their reconstructions on nothing! Is there a basis to this? Or is it pure speculation?

My own research has only yielded a few Persian depictions of catapracts wearing what could be multiple types of armor. These are not detailed enough to determine what they are wearing exactly. Laminated arm guards seem probable, but the chest could be mail, a solid cuirass or a cloth surcoat. However, we do know that mail aventails were used with plate helmets by both the Romans and Sassanids. As combing lamellar and laminated armor would probably create gaps, would some mail not be sensible? The aventails prove that ancient knew the value of covering gaps with a flexible armor.

[Dan Howard]

I am now very curious about this matter. Certainly all those osprey books couldn't have been basing their reconstructions on nothing! Is there a basis to this? Or is it pure speculation?

Yes it is pure speculation. Most reconstructions are based solely on contemporary illustrations which can be interpreted in more than one way. IMO the only decent reconstruction was done by Beatson because he used plates that were actually found in Byzantium and used a lacing pattern that was in use in the region at the time (Krefeld-Gellup).

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandp...ellar.html

The dots on some illustrations that Dawson has interpreted as rivets are more likely an embossed dome to strengthen the lame as has been found on extant examples. See Figure 6, No. 3.

[Urselius]

The Byzantines used doubled mail camails, and some 12th century illustrations seem to show lamellar worn over mail.

Example please. I've had a look through a lot of illustrations and most of them are too ambiguous to conclude that they are depicting lamellar worn over mail.

Also, from an earlier post on this site concerning a description of cataphract armour:

Ammianus Book 16 ch. 10 -8

"thoracum muniti tegminibus et limbis ferreis cincti" is usually translated as "protection of iron breast-plates, and girdled with belts of iron". However, limbis is not a usual word for 'belt' in Latin, and literally means "piping" or "border/edge". Could be the description of some sort of combination armour for the torso.

What does this have to do with mail?

You had just written this:

"This is unlikely. We know that they wore both kinds of armour but I can't think of anything to indicate that both were worn at the same time. Even the Byzantines never wore both until very late in the period - about when the Europeans started layering mail with other kinds of armour. "

Forgive me, but what I wrote seemed to be directly relevant to your comments - ie the possibility that Roman cataphracts wore double layered armour for the torso.

Double layered face-covering camails are directly described in a number of Byzantine military treatises. There are depictions from the 11th century showing Byzantine soldier saints wearing lamellar klivania with mail sleeves and mail skirts. Where klivania are shown with splint sleeves and mail skirts I would say that separate mail skirts (kremasmata) are being shown. However, when mail is shown at sleeve and skirt the most logical interpretation is that the klivanion is being worn over a complete mailshirt.

Before the Battle of Sirmium the Byzantine general Andronikos Kontostephanos is described by the historian Choniates as "donning his mailshirt and then the rest of his armour", This is not completely overt, but it suggests that a klivanion is being worn over the mailshirt.

[Dan Howard]

Double layered face-covering camails are directly described in a number of Byzantine military treatises.

Do we know that lamellar was used on helmets?

There are depictions from the 11th century showing Byzantine soldier saints wearing lamellar klivania with mail sleeves and mail skirts. Where klivania are shown with splint sleeves and mail skirts I would say that separate mail skirts (kremasmata) are being shown. However, when mail is shown at sleeve and skirt the most logical interpretation is that the klivanion is being worn over a complete mailshirt.

The only possible example I know of is on the on the church door of San Nicola at Bari but that is more likely scale rather than lamellar and AFAIK it dates to the 12th century.

Before the Battle of Sirmium the Byzantine general Andronikos Kontostephanos is described by the historian Kinnamos as "donning his mailshirt and then the rest of his armour", This is not completely overt, but it suggests that a klivanion is being worn over the mailshirt.

Or he then put on his vambraces, helmet, and gauntlets; maybe even a padded kabadion.

[Urselius]

We know that senior Byzantine officers wore highly decorated armour - John I's golden helmet at Shaizar and Manuel I's golden armour - and a kivanion is more easily given a decorative treatment than mail. Also the klivanion gave a classical look to a soldier, it being like a muscle cuirass in outline, not something that a Byzantine general would forsake easily.

What we are looking at is relative likelihood. I have met so often on this sort of discussion site an unwillingness to accept argument based on probability and unrealistic demands for absolute proof where such does not exist.

Mail is difficult to depict, most artistic representations of it are uncertain, I don't think I have seen a fully realistic depiction of mail earlier than about 1250, and even subsequently there is the "banded mail" red herring.
The majority of soldiers depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry are universally believed to be wearing mail armour. In fact they are shown wearing garments covered in circles that if scaled up would have been 4 to 5 inches in diameter, they could represent anything. As for Byzantine mail, it is depicted in a similarly uncertain manner. If one ignores the extant mail in Mt Athos and Sofia, believed to be 10th to 11th century in date (4 in 1 and riveted), then much of the armour depicted as repeated circles, dots and apparent small scales must represent mail. In the Byzantine Alexander manuscript (14th century admittedly) soldiers wearing apparent scale aventails (one even face-covering) are shown. Is it more probable that the artist had difficulty depicting mail or that a face-covering scale aventail is factual? The clincher for me is in the Byzantine Psalter of Theodore dating to c. 1066. In it a man waving a sword and bearing a shield is depicted, he has splints covering his upper arms and his torso is covered in irregular circles (more convincing as mail than the depiction on Bayeux Tapestry) as are his legs down to mid-calf. This is the depiction of a man wearing a mailshirt (interestingly with splinted sleeves - so I rescind me earlier comment ) with mail chausses - the idea of scale chausses being highly improbable.

[Youngster]

How should we interpret this cataphract from Dura Eurpos. The quality is not great (if anyone has a better picture, please post it!), but he looks to be wearing several types of armor. Possibly mail on the chest, lamellar around the stomach and laminated arm pieces. This looks like it could very well be layered.

[Urselius]

The horse armour matches the bards from Dura, also the limb armour matches the descriptions in Ammianus and Julian's oration and similar gladiator armour. This being the case, we ignore the depiction of the torso armour at our peril. I think that a mailshirt, or possibly scaleshirt, is being shown with a girdle made of rectangular plates over it - the limbis I mentioned earlier.

[M. Val. Naso]

IIRC plates connected with mail, right?

This is usually called "mail and plates" or "combined mail" and, as far as I can tell, the earliest evidence of this dates to the 14th century. It was likely developed as a replacement for lamellar.

I think Ammianus wrote about this though. I have to check.

[Urselius]

Julian the Apostate made a detailed description:

"Your cavalry was almost unlimited in numbers and they all sat their horses like statues, while their limbs were fitted with armour that followed closely the outline of the human form. It covers the arms from wrist to elbow and thence to the shoulder, while a cuirass made of small pieces protects the shoulders, back and breast. The head and face are covered by a metal mask which makes its wearer look like a glittering statue, for not even the thighs and legs and the very ends of the feet lack this armour. It is attached to the cuirass by fine chain-armour like a web, so that no part of the body is visible and uncovered, for this woven covering protects the hands as well, and is so flexible that the wearers can bend even the fingers." Julian, Orations I, Panegyric of Constantius, 37D (Loeb translation)

[Urselius]

The above quotation implies that plate elements of cataphract armour are connected by mail, but the exact form of this connection is not evident. How small the "small pieces" of the torso armour were is also moot. I suspect that if a scale armour had been meant then other more accurately descriptive wording would have been used. Given that the panegyric is quite lyrical, I do not think that references to fish or other scaled creatures would have been wanting.

[Renatus]

The above quotation implies that plate elements of cataphract armour are connected by mail, but the exact form of this connection is not evident. How small the "small pieces" of the torso armour were is also moot. I suspect that if a scale armour had been meant then other more accurately descriptive wording would have been used. Given that the panegyric is quite lyrical, I do not think that references to fish or other scaled creatures would have been wanting.

That is the passage that I alluded to earlier. Personally, I do not think that 'small pieces' can be anything other than scale or, possibly, lamellar.