"The war-byrnie shone, hard (and) hand-locked (heard hond-locen); the bright ring-iron sang in their trappings when they proceeded to go forward to the hall, in their terrible armour."—Canto i. line 640.
"Beowulf prepared himself, the warrior in his weeds, he cared not for life: the war-byrnie, twisted with hands (hondum ge-broden), wide and variegated with colours, was now to try the deep," &c.
Canto xxi. line 2882.
In Canto xxii. we have,—"the war-dress, the locked battle-shirt." ... "On his shoulder lay the twisted breast-net (breost-net broden) which protected his life against point and edge." ... "his war-byrnie, his hard battle-net (here-net hearde)."
If there is meaning in words, surely "the twisted breast-net," the "hard battle-net," the "locked battle-shirt," the "byrnie twisted with hands," the "war-byrnie, hard and hand-locked," can mean nothing but the hauberk of interlinked chain-mail; that garment which, we have so often been told, came to us at some unknown time, from some unknown people, dwelling in some unknown region of the East. If this fabric, which, for brevity, we will call chain-mail, came from the East, where are the eastern monuments that exhibit it? It is not seen in Egyptian, Assyrian, nor Indian sculptures or paintings; and the triumph-scenes of these nations represent in great diversity the numerous tribes of Asia. The same origin has been given to Cannon; but every one who has made any research in this direction knows that the Oriental derivation of this engine has not the smallest foundation in fact[105]. In the Volsunga Saga, a work of the eleventh century, we read that "Sigurd's sides so swelled with rage that the rings of his byrnie were burst asunder;" which could scarcely have happened (adds Von Leber, who notices this passage,) with a garment made of rings sewn contiguously[106]. The well-known enigma of Bishop Aldhelm, written in the eleventh century, so curiously illustrates our inquiry, that we shall be pardoned for reprinting it. It is headed "De Lorica:"—
"Roscida me genuit gelido de viscere tellus:
Non sum setigero lanarum vellere facta:
Licia nulla trahunt, nec garrula fila resultant:
Nec croceâ seres texunt lanugine vermes:
Nec radiis carpor, duro nec pectine pulsor:
Et tamen, en, vestis vulgi sermone vocabor.
Spicula non vereor longis exempta pharetris."
Roy. MS., 15, A. xvi.
A lorica formed of metal, without the aid of any texture of wool or of silk, could scarcely be anything else than a coat of chain-mail. We may further refer to the Bayeux tapestry (Stothard, Plate xvi.), where the pillards are appropriating the armour of the slain. The last figure in the second border of that plate is stripping the hauberk over the head of a fallen warrior; and, in thus turning it inside out, discloses the interior of the garment, which exhibits the ring-work exactly in the same manner as it is seen on the outside of others. At a later period, a similar evidence is afforded by the sculptured monumental effigies; the overlapping folds of the hauberk shewing the ring-work on the inside as well as on the outside. Figures of the thirteenth century in the Temple Church and in St. Saviour's Church, London, offer illustrations of this fact. Further instances may be found at Stowe-Nine-Churches in Northamptonshire, and at Aston, Warwickshire; and probably no English county is without similar examples. Compare also the curious fragment of chain-mail found at Stanwick, Yorkshire, and now deposited in the British Museum.
The defence made of iron rings, of which Varro attributes the invention to the Gauls, appears to be no other than the hauberk of chain-mail:—"Lorica a loris, quod de corio crudo pectoralia faciebant, postea succuderunt Galli e ferro sub id vocabulum, ex annulis, ferream tunicam." Whoever may have been the inventors of this armour, the probability seems to be that it came into use gradually: from its costliness and rarity, leaders only could at first obtain it; that, as handicraft improved, and the efficiency of the defence became acknowledged, its adoption was extended, and its costliness diminished. The notion, that in the thirteenth century the hauberk of chain-mail came suddenly and generally into use, is against all known precedent, and contrary to the natural course of human inventions.
Other kinds of body-armour were worn at this time. Charlemagne, as we have seen, was defended by a kind of jazerant-work. Ingulphus tells us that Harold, finding the heavy armour of his troops an incumbrance in their mountain warfare with the Welsh, clothed them in a defence of leather only. Something similar is seen in this figure from Cotton MS., Cleop., C. viii.
The coat here seems to be of hide, with the fur left upon it; a dress still in use among some of the Cossack soldiers of Russia. Wace appears to describe this garment, where, recounting the death of Duke Guillaume Longue-Espée by the traitorous Fauces, he says:—
"Fauces leva l'espée ke soz sez peaux porta,
Tel l'en dona en chief ke tot l'escervela."—Rou, i. 138.