Category talk:Padded armour
JC: an Irish reference to gambrson and leather armour? In the Irish Tain Bo Cuailgne (10-11th century), Loeg, Cu Chulainn’s charioteer, is described wearing a deerskin tunic (inar), and mantle (bratt). Cu Chulainn is armoured thus: “…twenty-seven tunics [cneslenti] worn next to his skin, waxed, board like, compact, which were bound with strings and ropes and thongs close to his fair skin…Over that outside he put his hero’s battle girdle [cathchriss] of hard leather, tough and tanned, made from the best part of seven ox-hides of yearlings, which covered him from the thin part of his side to the thick part of his arm-pit; he used to wear it to repel spears [gai] and points [rend] and darts [iaernn] and lances [sleg] and arrows [saiget], for they glanced from it as if they had struck against stone or rock or horn. Then he put on his apron [fuathbroic] of filmy silk with its border of variegated white gold, against the soft lower part of his body. Outside his apron of filmy silk he put on his dark apron [dond{f}uathbroic] of pliable brown leather made from the choicest part of four yearling ox-hides with his battle-girdle [cathchris] of cows’ skins about it.” (ibid., 11 2215ff)
In the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, there resides the remains of a c.1150-1190 quilted leather aketon* found at Cornmarket/Bridge St, Dublin.
An interesting discussion can be found here:
http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=162054
BC: interesting, but from a rather problematic source. The story is set in the first century AD, and the poem (or versions of it) were evidently circulating by c.600, with hints of written versions by the seventh century. The earliest extant manuscripts of the Tain appear to be from the twelfth century (with a partial text from late 11th/early 12th century Clonmacnoise). In the 12th century Book of Leinster version, rather concerningly "the language has been modernised into a much more florid style".
Without knowing more about the textual history of this passage I would not feel at all confident admitting it as primary evidence for our period. It could as easily fossilise a description from before the seventh century (as with the reference to chariots used in warfare) or have been updated in the twelfth century, when padded under-armour was indeed in use.
The latter problem also bedevils use of saga material. While I have no reason to doubt the overall story of the sagas, they were compiled in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the compilers seem to have retrospectively projected details of the 12th/13th-century world (eg references to kettle hats, polearms etc). I would regard this sort of material like a modern-dress performance of Shakespeare - the outline hasn't really changed, but minor details will be brought up to date to reflect the audience's world. Benedict
- Could more be said (especially in the "rules" bit) about padded armour worn on its own? i.e. that other than lower-status 1066 timeline it shouldn't be! +Wiglaf (talk)
- Done! Benedict