Leather Armor? (NO HOLDS BARRED!!)

[tlclark]

I don't quite follow the "rule". Dan has presented evidence that leather is not perfect, but quite inferior to linen, which was also widely available at the time. So it is not a case of "leather or nothing". The sculptural evidence needs explaining, but the practical arguement is separate.

Fair point and it must be conceded. Some however dismiss the usefulness of leather out of hand, which I think is arbitrary, and you can't even get to the one argument unless you can get around the objection to ANY leather armor.

Obviously an emperor could afford the best, but in many cases, it's exactly these persons that are shown wearing this "inferior" armor, so we have to assume that the armor was either not inferior, or so sufficiently tied into his status as to overwhelm any military inferiority.

My feeling is that it was not as efficient as was possible but not nearly as worthless as some assume, especially if the subarmalis was layerd linen as seems to be the case.

Travis.