British and Foreign Arms & Armour

by Charles Henry Ashdown

As the structure of banded mail always presents difficulty to the student, and many conjectures made at various times have as a rule rendered the question more difficult still without solving it, it is obviously not out of place in this work to deal comprehensively with the subject and, it is hoped, to definitely decide the question. The premises from which we may argue are as follows:—

Fig. 162.—Banded mail: knight of the De Sulney family at Newton Solney, Derbyshire.

1. From the time of the first Crusade, or approximately about that time, chain mail proper was the flexible defensive covering for the English knight, and various kinds of jazeraint armour, in which leather, metal plates, padded material, &c., were indiscriminately used, for the ordinary soldier. The chain mail was obviously too dear for the average purse.

2. During the period mentioned above archery was in an incipient condition, and bodily defences were adapted to withstand the weapons in ordinary use, which, if we exclude the javelin, and, under extraordinary circumstances, the lance, were hand and not missile weapons.

3. The simultaneous adoption of banded mail, not only by the common soldier, but also by a large proportion of the knightly forces, points conclusively to the fact that chain mail was no longer considered an adequate defence; in other words that the adoption of a new arm had rendered it inefficient, and that another description of armour was imperatively demanded to withstand its effects.

4. The use of leather as a means for bodily defence had been known from the most ancient times, and in England had been freely used by the Saxons, as we have seen. From the Conquest onwards it had steadily advanced in favour, and culminated in importance in the first half of the fourteenth century during the Studded and Splinted Armour Period, not finally disappearing until the adoption of total plate defences rendered its use obsolete. Its second rise into favour during the seventeenth century is obviously not connected with this question, except to emphasise the fact that leather has always been considered an efficacious defence against sword-cuts, and also against missiles which are not gifted with too great powers of penetration.

5. The fact that banded mail, whether seen upon the inside or the outside, presents exactly the same appearance (see the Creke, Northwode, and d’Aubernoun brasses) and is delineated in such manner in illuminated manuscripts, and carved the same in monumental effigies, precludes the supposition that rings of metal were sewn down or otherwise affixed to a garment of leather, as had been the fashion with Saxons and Normans. Unless, however, we suppose a total abandonment of leather as a defence which had been growing in favour previously and which culminated afterwards, we must conclude that leather in some form was used in the construction of the mail.

6. The abandonment generally of chain mail and the adoption of banded mail occurred synchronously with the extraordinary development of the long-bow in the latter part of the thirteenth century.