An Introduction To Chainmaille |
Chainmail was the earliest form of metal armour and was probably invented
before the 5th century by the ancient Celts. The name mail comes from the French
word "maille" which is derived from the Latin "macula" meaning "mesh of a net".
The armour itself involved the linking of iron or steel rings, the ends of which
were either pressed together, welded or riveted. Sometimes the rings were
stamped out of a sheet of iron and these were then used in alternate rows with
riveted links. The most common form of chainmail is the "four-in-one" pattern in
which each link has four others linked through it. A few shirts have been found
that appear to have been made of quilted fabric or leather to which were sewn
rings and scales, and these shirts are not considered "true" mail.
Each piece of mail was fashioned specifically for whichever part of the body it
was intended to protect. For the head there were the coif, aventail, mail fringe
and a "bishop's mantle"; for the torso, the shirt, hauberk, skirt and breeches;
for the upper limbs, mail sleeves and mittens; for the lower limbs, chausses and
sabatons.
Until the 14th century, mail was the primary armour for the average soldier. The
main use of chainmail was to stop the wearer from being cut by the opponents
blade. Mail did nothing to stop the damage from the force of the blow however,
and was usually worn over a thick, padded undergarment. From the 1320's, shirts
of mail, known as hauberks or byrnies, were often provided with flared sleeves
covering to the middle of the forearms, and were long enough to reach past the
wearer's knees. Some of the larger hauberks often had sleeves that were extended
to form mittens for the hands. This was also the period when a shorter type of
hauberk, the haubergeon, began to be used more regularly, its lower edge
stopping to just above the knees. Some haubergeons had a flap-like extension at
the center of the rear edge of the base which could be pulled up between the
legs and laced in front to form a breke of mail to protect the genitals.
As there were developments in the armouring world, mail began to have a
subordinate role in relation to plate armour, first being used as a linking
elements for the various plates and then, in the 15th century, it was used to
protect the more vulnerable parts of the body such as the elbow, neck, and knees
joints. Mail shirts retained defensive importance during the 16th century with
light horse and infantry armours, especially in conjunction with small pauldrons
or spaulders and elbow length gauntlets which left part of the arms bare. In
these cases, sleeves of mail were attached to the arming doublet worn under the
armour. After this time, the use of mail slowly diminished as better plate
armour was developed for the arms and legs, although it was still in use as late
as the 17th century in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The craft of making
mail is quite separate and distinct from that of the process of manufacturing
plate armour. Because so much mail was produced, we can assume the method of
manufacture must have been fast, allowing for division of the labour within the
workshop. The most skilled task, the final linking of the rings, would have been
done by the master craftsman, who would have been kept supplied with rings and
rivets. The early stages in the production of mail, (the simple, labour
intensive tasks) were left to apprentices and assistants.
There were two possible methods of producing the rings for the mail. Closed
rings were made by punching them from a sheet of metal with a double punch, or
by simply punching a hole in a piece of metal and trimming the outside edge.
Open rings were usually made from iron wire. There has been (and still is) much
controversy as to whether or not the ancient armourer knew the art of
wire-drawing. This process of making wire involves the drawing of a forged metal
rod through successively smaller and smaller holes until the rod was the right
size for making rings. A similar method was to cut the wires from a thin metal
sheet and then file, scrape and hammer them into the right size. It is more
likely that a combination of both of these methods was used in which a strip of
metal was cut from a sheet about 3 mm thick and then this was drawn through
smaller and smaller holes, until the proper diameter of wire was reached. This
length of wire was then wrapped around a rod the diameter of the required ring,
using a device called a mandrill, to form a long coil. The coil was then cut up
one side from end to end, producing a number of metal rings.
In all the methods described so far the metal was worked cold, but as soon as it
became hard through working, it had to be annealed (heated until it was
softened). This was done by bringing the rings to a red heat in the forge and
then leaving them to cool. For overlapping the rings, they would be driven
through a tapering hole in a steel block with a punch. After this overlapping,
the rings would then be annealed once more. The next stage was the flattening of
the ends, done by hammering. These flattened, overlapped ends were then punched
or bored to make a hole for the rivet. Rivets were always made of iron, even if
the rings were of brass. Rivets were made of wire with one end being hammered
flat and the other cut to a point with wire cutters.
The last stage, the linking, was now done by the master craftsman. The most
common pattern, as mentioned earlier, was the four-in-one pattern, in which each
ring has four others linked through it. The rivets were burred over by the
master using a hammer. When the mailmaker used closed rings he arranged them in
alternated rows with open rings. The closing of the rings was sometime done by
hammer welding.
While assembling the rings, the mailmaker must have used a pattern resembling a
modern knitting pattern. Sadly, none of these patterns have survived, but it is
known that garments of mail were shaped by adding or leaving out rings in each
row. Occasionally, for a stronger shirt, two rings were used in the place of one
in ordinary mail; or sometime the garment was rolled up in charcoal and
case-hardened. Some rings bear the maker's marks, an example being a mail shirt
in the Tower of London, into which is woven three brass rings. The first ring is
marked with the amourer's name (bertolt parte), and the second the name of his
town (isrenloen), the third is plain.
Introduction To Chainmaille written by Stu Glennie