I think there's another element not often discussed: the AESTHETIC of the period. No matter how brutal many knights were, the overall aesthetic they strove for was ELEGANCE, and you see this in nearly every artistic representation of the period. Today's reenactors (they'll hate me for this) tend often towards an endomorphic 'big cider drinking biker' aesthetic which just often looks silly. Great overweight Vikings who could never row an ocean! These people saw themselves as Christian noblemen with pretentions to chivalry and elegance. If you think LIONS and LEOPARDS, that's how these knights saw themselves, not as bears and Bibendum men!
After struggling to find a gambeson I liked wearing I ended up learning how to make one myself. The best balance I've found is to keep the front, back. shoulders and elbows reasonably well padded, thin the padding on the arms to about 1/4 of what you'd usually have but add some extra layers of linen in the upper and lower arm areas. Tailoring my maille to fit over it made it much easier to wander around in all day too - it's amazing how much weight you can take off.
I think gambesons are the most misunderstood part of medieval armor. One of the most common things I hear is "plate armor made you almost invincible, even blunt force would do little because of the thick padding underneath". Nobody could wear that on a hot summer and survive and even when it's cool it would restrict movement and trap moisture and bodyheat and could overheat you anyways, under plate armor they wore an arming doublet that is barely padded if it was at all. I find the "michelin man" look that many reenactors have with gambesons, when it's like 10 centimeters thick, more annoying than other reenactorisms. It just looks terrible, at least many other inaccuracies look cool. Even plate armor is ruined by this, real historical armor stays pretty close to the shape of the body and it has an aesthetically pleasing silhouette, modern reenactor armor is way too round and bulky, it looks fat even on a skinny person. Edit: I think the second thing is mostly for buhurt armor, it makes sense to pad buhurt armor extra, but I have seen this symptom before in reenactment.
Just my two cents: What if gambison looks floofy on us because it's rigid and we haven't broken them in yet? My background is modern military, but brand new packs and kit looks really big and puffy when new, but after a few years of use and changing hands, they cling to the body much more. You're a jouster, so wear your kit more than most reactors, but you still don't wear it as much as someone from the period I would imagine. Maybe we never take them to the point of breaking them in completely? I have no historical evidence for this, I'm just thinking out loud.
Even just a new uniform can look big and stiff but after hundreds of hours of wearing in garrison and in the field the uniform becomes very flexible and form fitting and in my opinion better
It should also be noted it almost looks like he doesn’t wash it very much, linen get softer the more you wash it and historical process all the more so. You can also see from his sleeves that he has a bunch of extra stuff he doesn’t need, it doesn’t seem fitted to him which the historical garment for a knight would’ve been. Between it not being fitted to him and perhaps not being washed as much as the historical garments the stiffness combined with the extra material tends to make most modern reenactors and martial artists look outright frumpy by comparison to their historical counterparts.
I have learned this with my 12th century kit, I used to use a really well made but thick gambeson. It was horrible with maille on top. I've since switched to a woolen tunic, which gives me freedom and relatively good protection. It also means that while others bake in the sun, I am pretty cool.
Hey. I've been meaning to do the same. Do you recommend a simple wool tunic? Is it enough? Do you use riveted mail? Do the rings/rivets snag on the tunic? I've been thinking about double layer of wool with linen on top to prevent the mail from tearing the tunic.
That wouldn’t be a bad idea because overtime the maille can ruin the tunic. I wear a woolen tunic under my hauberk at the moment and it feels amazing to fight. My hauberk alone is heavy and I already bake in it
Wouldn't the protection be significantly less for anything other than slashes? There's a reason gambersons have so many layers. But then again, I doubt you are actually fighting full tilt, and being more comfortable for recreational purposes seems more important than a hypothetical fight to the death.
@@thorwaldjohanson2526 As a 13th century reenactor, the reason you wouldn’t want to wear a gambeson with many layers is that it will not offer ventilation and you can overheat, you also increase the weight you are carrying, even as a fit person you wouldn’t want that. A wool tunic or aketon that’s lightly padded is just enough. Mobility and flexibility is important, and so as long as the knight kept moving - he was pretty hard to kill. These guys trained since the age of 7. In the earlier centuries, they were mainly warriors on horseback and fought close as a cohesive unit. A knight’s primary defense was his shield. A thick quilted gambeson with many layers could be worn over the mail though, but under would restrict too much mobility. It will weigh and tire you down more, and you could be expected to be engaging in combat longer than what you see in buhurt and armored combat shows. The reason gambesons today have so many layers, is for fulfill safety guidelines and eliminate as much pain just like he said in the video. If I’m fighting to death in the same situation as knights did back then, I’d rather go light and be able to move than be stuffed up with padding that doesn’t allow me to be nimble and finesse with a sword or lance.
A scene in the Morgan Bible shows a distinction in armor between mounted knights and foot soldiers, and I suspect the discrepancy has everything to do with tailoring. The foot soldiers are shown with big, boxy gambeson that we see nowadays, and the mounted knights have a more figured appearance.
You brought up so many good points. Also the quote you may be looking for is from Roger of Hoveden, who died about 1201 and he wrote ‘No athlete can fight tenaciously who has never received any blows: he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack under the fist of his adversary, and when he is thrown to the ground he must fight on with all his might and not lose courage … Anyone who can do that can engage in battle confidently.’
I've been saying this for some time as well, in part inspired by Arne and Isak, but also due to research. But when you mention these things in a facebookgroup, there's always a bunch of buhurt guys saying 'but if you get hit at full speed with a five kilo halberd you'd want thicker padding! I can tell from experience!'. And usually these guys just mention their own buhurt experience (a modern sport) as proof, instead of historical research, to which they don't listen.
Oh you also hear that from hema guys and their long swords. You need a 1600n protection and a breastplate underneath, because your enemy will do a full speed swing. I learn longsword in a school without protection in a fencing school, where long sword is practiced like mayer did in his school. They didn't have protection so they had to learn not to hurt each other, while being fast. They had an emphasis on defense and control, while modern hema practicioners seem to favour speed and raw power, while not caring about being hit. It's a totally different philosophy of education but the way we do it (and you will be fencing at full speed at some point) is historically accurate and because we learn (actually drilled to) have perfect control, we can avoid hurting ourselves and our training partner.
I think one thing to consider is the amount of surviving weapons we have, which is frankly very little. The quality of the original blades wasn’t uniform and surely some blades snapped, broke, bent, or lost their edge must faster than a modern blade reproduction- therefore, a decently padded gambeson would probably defend against a-lot more than what we may believe nowadays- and it’s safe to assume there was variation in padding preference for each warrior, foot soldier or knight
This is why, as a soldier, I was more than happy to trade my gen 3 IOTV out for a plate carrier to increase mobility and drop some weight on the battlefield even if the trade-off was some percentage less protection.
In addition to the potential movement restrictions, too thick a gambeson will roast you alive. A lot of the recreated ones are functionally (heavy) winter coats and wearing them just by themselves could easily make you overheat on the march, let alone wearing them with mail/coat of plates/etc. There's no point in being injury proof if you die of heat stroke.
What people forget is that aketons weren't even always worn under maille in the first place. The Gambeson mafia went overboard with countering media norms, and spread the idea that people wore gambesons under armor at all in the first place, which is definitely wrong. The historical community tends to break up the terms Gambeson, Aketon, and Jupon to mean specific things, and it's not a bad thought. Garments worn under armor are very thin, nobody is wearing thirty goddamn layers of cotton or linen under their hauberk, you'd die of heatstroke even in the dead of winter. Gambesons are standalone armor, consisting of twenty layers or more of fabric generally and tend to be really stiff stuff. You can't get good shoulder rotation in a hauberk if you've got a gambeson under it. Alternatively some surcoats were literally gambesons, being worn over the maille and being quite thick stuff as specified in the King's Mirror for example. Aketons are what's worn under armor at most and they're definitely on the thin side. And of course some people just didn't wear anything but a tunic, the Morgan Bible is full of detailed depictions of Knights wearing only standard clothing under maille with no padding at all. Good maille doesn't need padding either, its weave is dense enough that it will stop a lance (pre arret anyway) as is demonstrated in numerous anecdotes of actual knights. Personally along with blaming the Gambeson Mafia on youtube, I'd also just blame a lack of faith in maille armor. The idea that it's garbage without padding and you need padding for it to be good, when maille was used for centuries before any form of padding was even common. Danes and Norse never used any form of padding for example. The Romans at most had the submarallis... whatever that really was.
Yup, totally agree. iv'e always said that my thicker padding is due to modern safety concessions, rather than historical research. And i think it's fine to do that as long as you are under no delusions as to your concession's historicity.
Also, in a video from Lyndibeige (I hope its correct) he points out how many people on medieval drawings have bigger heads, due to the arming cap, worn underneath the mail coif. So if artists did draw/ paint the heads bigger, why not the wohle knight or fighter if they wore padding underneath the armor? Great Video btw!!
Thank you. There's a strange assumption that we know more about medieval armour than the artists who were around at the time. A very strange assumption.
As an aside, note that idealization of reality does exist in art. The Greeks were generally depicted fighting naked, being the famous example. So while you could argue the stocky look of a gambeson would become the fashion, it's plausible that the art is exemplifying what knights looked like when lightly armed. For example, if they put on a heavier gambeson before battle, and travelled and went about day-to-day activity with a light one, many people would see and associate them with the lighter gambeson. So while the fashion argument you present is worth considering, there are certainly alternatives.
An individual probably owned 2 anyways. A heavier one they bought as solo armor and a lighter one for under metal armor after they’ve suffered stuffing the heavier one under it for a while.
The difference is that there are Greek amphorae and sculptures which do depict armor but no 13th century European artwork that depicts anything like a thick gambeson being worn under mail. The only evidence that this was practiced, then, is that it seems to work in the modern day with blunted weapons, which isn't particularly rigorous in the way of evidence.
Certainly the stuff worn under armour by reenactors tends to be too thick. The later the period the more this tends to be the case. Jacks worn as armour or over armour is a different topic though.
My own experience. Thick padding holds a lot of water (and sweat), and that weighs you down. I would not want to wear a modern gambeson If I was trekking around in a rainy place. Looking at other peoples gear - a lot of buhurtsmen use brigandine rather than white armour. This is significant- because a proper cuiriass spreads the impact of blows dramatically further. My guess is that if buhurt was done with cuirassess that kind of padding would be less neccessary.
You can see how the buhurt brigandine is adapting, the plates are becoming larger and thicker. Now a cuiriass with a great basinet would remove much of knock out game.
@@ZacharyEvans Its interesting to see that developments on the helmets especially borrow from tournament helmets wich are then thrown on 14th century helmets. ( The Kolbenhelm / Original Buhurt helm is used in a makeshift bascinet with bar visors)
This is part of my problem. As an aspiring Al andalus reenactor, my kit is supposed to be set around the war of Granada in 1480-90's. The issue is that my kit includes mail and brigandine, but my clothing are berber inspired and not your average doublet and chausse. So I wonder how I'm going to handle wearing mail on rather thin clothing if I don't have an arming doublet. This as been pushing back my projects for months.
I'd recommend just a skirt and sleeves rather than a full shirt. Make sure you are wearing it the right way round, and if you can afford it get 6mm riveted. If it fits correctly you should find it won't damage your coat very much (barring oil staining).
That's an interesting project! I myself tried to look into it since I recently started a project of doing an early Umayyad/Andalusian kit and thought about working my way into the high and late versions also. However, I hadn't had many luck on sources other than the exquiste arms and armour of the Sultan of Granada which I don't think many of his Fursan and regular Jund would be able to afford to be armed and armoured with. I would appreciate it greatly if you could help in that regard.
Thank you for another wonderful video!! This has been a huge question of mine as many, MANY people sells thick thick thick winter jacket like doublet and gambeson because it has been so heavily influenced. where as in term, the market has been saturated with HUGEEEEEE plate armor go over their overly large ball of fabric. I wasn't aware that back then, they were more careful about cuts than blunt impact, that's an interesting point!
I think there is a tendency for people to want to go with full harness of plate, but not be able to afford / not know who to go to to get it fitted properly. Poorly fitting plate is uncomfortable and leaves spaces where they shouldn't- requiring more padding to make comfortable. This may have something to do with it too? In the last few years, the quality of armour available in the UK has improved massively though, so hopefully that will change.
Interesting video, I have always felt that same way when looking at modern hard steel suit fighters versus looking at historical imagery and effigies. I think your correct in this, yes people were thinner and they were not couch potatoes like we are now, but also I agree that the under padding was not as thick as used today in many cases.
I would also like to add that during the crusades, knights in the middle east would probably die of heat exhaustion if they had to wear thick gambesons.
thats not even counting the fact that, say in the macejowski.. we have infantry in very thick quilted gambesons of various sorts, but when we see knights stripping off their mail, or climbing ladders, we only seemingly see what looks like a tunic underneath... if there were substantial quilted aketons under mail, youd imagine the artist would have given these garments the same little ------ pattern of rows of stitching.
@@spades9681 source? aketons and gambesons are mentioned in the kings mirror, shown in the macejowski bible on infantry bnot as an unde3rgarment... and described in an account in the 3rd crusade i think.
I agree with much that has been said. I think the reality is that there would be different gambesons for different purposes. For example, you may have a thicker gambeson for a melee tourney, where you have 20, 30, 40 knights whaling on each other with opponents in a 360, whereas the battlefield/campaign gambeson may be lighter with some targeted areas for heavier padding, spine, ribs, hips, shoulder yoke, trying to balance movement and protection. I also agree that I think there would be differences between knights, footsoldiers, etc, dependent on the expected function and needs. Loved this topic, as it touches on many things I have been experimenting with for the last few years.
Interesting, I knew that we often used too much padding under plate harness for 15th century re-enactment but assumed that the padding was thicker under maille. I thought a lot of gambesons these days are made according to descriptions from contemporary writings, when it comes to how many layers and stuff? What you say makes sense though, even these days there's a constant battle between levels of protection and mobility when it comes to how soldiers are equipped.
I think generally we wear too much padding all the time. Unfortunately a lot of medieval descriptions say things like "wear this in the usual way" which is really unhelpful.
there are precious few sources. The kings mirror only says a 'pansiere of soft linen that is black' which does not state anything about how thick it is. Depictions of people taking off armour often show flowy robes under them, and there is very little evidence of padding under armour until the 14th c, and then mostly for the torso. There is one sleeve of padded armour from a church in france, but there is no way of knowing if it was meant as stand alone armour or as part of a layered get up. this was however faced in delicate silk. but recently someone made a akheton in this exact way and is wearing a hauberk over, so let's see if it holds up and it must be said it does not look that bulky either. padding over mail is seen more regularly, really, or in the late 14th early 15th mail-padding-mail layering with distinctly heavier mail on the outside. Also multiple layers of mail, like a shirt overlapping full mail hosen, is quite common. I was quite happy doing jousting and steel sword melee in the mail int he picture. we even did a bit of hacking with sharp swords on it, went rather swimmingly. Also i am wearing a hoody over a wool sweater under this in the foto. This was taken when i first tried it on and the full get up wasn't finished.
@@airnt thanks, I'm not very familiar with anything pre mid-to-late 15th century and even then I wouldn't call myself an expert! Were impact weapons much used before 1400? The Norman images I've seen seem to be exclusively swords, axes and spears. But then I see random images of figures like Richard II with maces and suchlike. Is that accurate? I only ask, as I imagine that they would have a greater effect on padding and maille.
@@jevans80 Bishop Odo used a mace at the battle of Hastings in 1066, as he was enjoined from using an edged weapon as a cleric. Shedding of blood was forbidden to the clergy, but crushing skulls was fine, I guess.
@@airnt The sleeve from Bussy-Saint-Martin in France has some rust residue on it from what I remember. It doesn't seem to have been terribly thick, either. A good candidate for extant 13th century under-armor padding.
when i put on my first gambeson that was supposed to be “thin and light” i felt like a balloon and heating up. I was like theres no way they couldve done this 24/7 even if its wool/linen. Padding = more material which costs more. Plus people wore multiple layers. I had to take the fluff out of my gambeson.
Just a thought. How much do you launder and condition your linen before making a gambeson? Modern sizing of fabrics adds both stiffness and mass to them which assists in sewing on a machine. I'm not even aware of what the thread count on medieval linen would be. But I rather expect that most gambesons of the period made use of used fabric like old linen bed sheets purchased from a ragpacker or something. With only maybe a couple of outer layers and one inner layer of new linen. I got this idea from something I read about some Guild rules saying that they had to be made from at least a few layers of new fabric. Which to me implies that some makers were not we're not doing so. The end result with a modern reproduction made from a bolt of new linen, or a period one made from supple and somewhat threadbare used linen could make a pretty big difference.
Most reenactors are recreating a tournament. If a historical knight was looking to go to a tourney and then go home, the thicker padding would make sense, for the reasons Zac states that we today use thicker padding.
There is definitely some evidence that they wore thicker padding for tournaments, but they always had one eye on how they looked as well: padding was generally added where it was needed, but not excessively
@@ZacharyEvans I agree. I've seen some stuff to suggest as many as 30 layers of fabric. I mean, I guess if you have nothing else, but otherwise that is excessive. If you were to do an all day event like a LARP, you would hate to have more than a few layers on under your mail.
I do hema with sharp edges in armor with heavy gambeson and thinner doublet heavy gambeson is correct as plate armor has not been wide spread yet later time thinner such as linen shirt been enough padding with full plate armor
Recreating these perfectly is honestly likely going to be rather difficult simply because, if we read what people said about these region to region: It was different nearly everywhere. Some areas boiled theirs and then were darkened the gambeson via the "Usual way", to make harder segments of gambeson. We don't know what the usual way is, but thats just a part of the traditions being lost.... But not everywhere wrote about darkening gambeson in the "usual way." The romans treated some of their padding in wine and salt, which is significantly different from what we see described in england. If you do this, you can make gambeson segments that are rigid like a plate. Some areas wrote down that they used strictly 32 sheets of linen (Some hardened, others not,) others used alternating layers of linen or wool (And if you searched hard enough, you might find a wide array of recipes like including canvas (Hemp fibers), or any number of fabrics that were the local flavor.) So while we have few examples of armor that could rot, we have examples of plated armor having an immense variety of styles and profiles. So its very likely, and I will say this humbly, that the armor might be made to a villages needs to some common recipe, but this may have varied place to place. Our need to speak about things in a unified way like all gambesons were some way likely is always going to come to a fault, because the medieval people were not sharing recipes via some internet, communication was slow. So, a single word is going to express the topic wrong if we act like it was a uniform, empirical thing. The things people wrote at the time wouldn't make sense otherwise. It was a technique of armor, not a standard. So I think the key rule should be: Make armor that fits our needs, treat it to give it the stiffness or fluffyness we need, and don't worry about whether or not a quilted shirt is a quilted shirt. Its what they would have done.
I wonder how little padding you can get away with in modern day buhurt. I feel most people wear late 14th century and early 15th century armors that require the heavy padding for safety reasons. However I might wager that a late 15th century armor with big pointy couters, full shoulder defense (especially pauldrons that protects the gap on the top of the shoulder) , mitten gauntlets, and steel neck protection would be pretty safe with historical padding especially if worn with maille. The only exception being the helmet, which may need more padding due to constant blunt trauma. There is a good chance I am still wrong since I never practiced Buhurt, its just a feeling. I wish this can be tested out at some point.
I am aiming for a mostly historically correct depiction of a knkght from around 1050-1100. So the period of the battle of hastings to the first crusade. When I do research about what armor they were actually wearing, it's hard to find something that goes beyond "a lightly padded arming jacket" below the mail hauberk with 3/4 sleeves, worn over a tunic. Some sources don't even mention the arming jacket at all. They had a padded coif and some even had a mail coif. Since I dont want "play war" with people I don't trust - maximum is controlled technical training and sparring - I intend to make myself a mostly (because I lack proper sources) historically correct quilted arming jacked made of linen, padded with either horse hair, wool or maybe linen fibre. This will also be better duting the hot Sommers we are experiencing in central Europenat the moment. Lots of reenactors I talked to tend to not fight in a shield wall with strangers anymore, because they value their teeth and overall health. Or they gear up as hard as they can, sacrificing historical accuracy (Visby gauntlets on viking in example).
Some padding is in order if you mean to do sparring but, historically, there would have been no padding at the Battle of Hastings or anywhere in Europe before the late 12th century.
I think the most important research that any modern re-enactor can do is to very very carefully look at all available art and effigies of whatever type of armor or padding one is attempting to create. Artists have an imperative to communicate. In general, they depict exactly what is in their world at the time. So if someone in, say, 1275 is illustrating a bible, and wants to draw a soldier, that illustrator will draw what he sees around him. Effigies from the 14th century are even more accurate because the noble's family has paid the artisan to make the effigy look exactly like their deceased family member.
This sparks one nagging question I have. How did people avoid broken bones while training or fighting in friendly tournaments. It's okay to be macho and say you ain't a man till you've busted some teeth. But no one likes constantly nursing broken fingers and ribs...
i cant speak to joustin but i think it would be rather more extreme than my own experience. In short: in any combat sport you'll get some injuries. One of my favorite guys in battle axes has been trailing off his career because of long term knee injuries from getting cast about and all. You do get hurt and it does take a toll on the body, but it's one people choose to pay because they love the sport. Ain't nothing more to it than that I reckon
There's one more thing to consider, and that's the reason I'm not sure the blunt force trauma argument holds up - quite a lot of medieval fighters didn't use swords, or didn't use swords as their primary sidearm - in a large part of Europe axes were in widespread use. Axes are very good in inflicting severe blunt trauma. Also, sometimes knights didn't face other knights, but much poorer soldiers - and that's where some simpler and cheaper weapons, including clubs, maces and axes could be more common. Blunt trauma was a very real danger on a medieval battlefield. Another thing to consider is the impact of modern medicine on our perpective - a broken bone right now is usually fairly easily healed, a broken bone back then could make someone ufit to fight in the future, or in the worst case could kill someone due to sepsis. Injury could be expected to some degree, but also would have much more severe consequences than in a hobbyist setting, and a split of second could cost a knight his life. Of course there's many factors to consider when it comes to the thickess of the padding, but I'm not sure those two would be the most important ones.
Uh, no, swords were definitely much more common among knights and arguably commoners as well (official statutes usually ask that militiamen bring swords or large knives---not axes). Maces seem to have been relatively rare as well. There's no reason to believe thick gambesons were worn for the purpose of stopping blunt force (there's an argument to be made that their primary purpose was stopping cuts/punctures that had pierced the hauberk!). There is also little reason to believe weapons that inflicted blunt force were ever employed specifically to defeat knights wearing mail (on a whole, weapons like maces seem to have been best suited for smashing a fleeing peasant's head in from horseback). Further, we KNOW that gambesons weren't used before a certain point in history, and that before this point plain tunics were much more common. That being the case it is obvious that hauberks protected the wearer perfectly fine without the aid of padding.
Did gambesons get thicker in response to the rise of archers in prominence? Or was there a change to a different style of armor, padded jack for example.
Gambesons seem to have developed into pourpoints and from there into arming doublets. Padded jacks are a different type of armour that seems to have been worn as the main protection, and so were a lot thicker than other types of padding. As usual the waters are muddied by medieval people using whatever word they want and having no standardised vocabulary.
Oh, and padding doesn't appear to have increased due to archery or guns. If anything it decreases as people opt for more layered defences, including plate, maille and padding.
There are a lot of later half 15th century depictions of commoner infantry or militia in artwork totally cool with just wearing a doublet, and a helmet (sallet or a barbute), with little to no limb protection.
do bear in mind that yew longbows were around from the stone age (literally) and proliferated all over Europe. Of course medieval arrows were equipped with iron or steel heads, but they were so well before the introduction of 'knights' as we know them. Large infantry battalions are around and used to counter cavalry from the 11 century onwards in many examples, and arrows are often metioned. there is quite a few occurances where we specifically hear that 'arrows could not hurt them' like at the battle of Bouvines where the horses were covered with an iron net so they could not hurt them. Since we only really have the Mary Rose to base drawweights on, everybody seems to conveiniently choose a time when these bows supposedly suddenly went up in drawweight. This is curious as most of the well known archery based cultures used composite bows as yew is just not as good, but also they use somewhat lighter drawweights for the same or even greater kinetic energy in their arrows using that efficiency. The law that an englishman should practice for two hours a week does not require him to practice with any specific drawweight, nor is practicing 8 arrows a week going to make you extra strong. Also an analyses of the mary rose arrows suggeests they were made for 120 lbs bows, not the 180 that is often quoted. this is also a bit of an elephant in the room with the drawweights from those bows, as you need to assume a drawlength the stave was made for to determine a draw weight. There are two serious attempts at determining the drawweight and the one least quoted is the lowest and that is congruent with the arrow findings. (100-120 lbs) This type of bow was available all over Europe. Armour in the 15th c was proofed against to different grades of crossbow, not against longbows, which is again curious. Also the praises of the english archers are often sung, but i usually see praise for complete equipment, the large proportion of mounted soldiers, all sorts of important qualities of professional soldiers, but not really anything about how strong their bows are (at least i have not come across such a mention) But if we assume the bows to be rather powerful, then it begs the question why they were not powerfull earlier on, at least from the 13th century, it surely would yield an advantage in range, at the very least. The only reason i can think is that it was not seen as a reasonable expectation of the common archer to be able to draw and be effective with . Also you need to bear in mind that mail comes in grades of weight, and the wire thickness defines the weight and the strength of the weave. Earlier hauberks are a lot heavier than later ones, worn in layered armours. a Hauberk can weigh as much as 18 kg, and adding helmet, shield, cloth equipment and chausures, maybe a coat o plates, then you can easily have heavier equipment than a 15th century knight. Also shields are a really major thing, they are really very well made and nearly always include sinew, rawhide, and hardened gesso layers (hardened by inclusion of glass or iron) this shield is still a very important layer of protection when the hauberk is in its' main use. So i don't think it correlates nor does it bear out of the sources as to why they do things. We have specific mentions of mail stopping arrows, for a very long period.
In facebook XIII century armor group,It's our consensus that not to wear too much padding underneath mail.So you can see many reenactors just wear a wool tunic underneath the mail,which looks very good.A tailored mail with thin padding or tunic is far more cool and lighter than thick padding with not tailored mail. reenators should rely on their weapons and shields to defend themselves, not armor.
1:30 Maybe on the arms you have it too thick... but otherwise, that doesn't actually look too different from the art examples. How much padding you wear is something of a personal preference, but for lancing... that's a lot like a motorcycle crash, getting hit by a 60km/h lance when travelling 60km/h. So, I would expect lancers would wear somewhat similar padding to modern motorcycle helmets, up to about an inch thick. People will also sacrifice safety for effectiveness in combat (which can make you safer). So I acknowledge it is possible gambesons were thinner... but it seems questionable. I mean, is it better to die of heatstroke, or of a lance breaking the sternum? There's also an account of a knight surviving being struck from two opposing directions by two lances, so clearly he was wearing decent padding. Footmen who march to battle likely wear less padding, unless they equip it prior to battle. Saladin asked his advisor, before one battle, why he wasn't wearing his armour, and he said he would put it on before the battle starts. It would be nice to work out what range of thickness of gambesons were in use, but that'd require some dangerous tests, and marching.
You forget that a knight's primary "armor" in the 13th century was his shield. He did not expect his body armor to defeat the force of a lance strike, but carried a shield for that express purpose (deflecting and absorbing blows)
How incredibly interesting, progenitors of the free world. Getting armior made must be expencive? I saw a Coat, PADDING BEING MADE AND THIS WOMEN WAS STITCHING IT TOGETHER AND SHE WAS REALLY PACKING IN THE STUFFING WHICH IS GOOD FOR CATCHING ARROWS IN THE STUFFING. mAY BE IT WAS SOME THING ELSE OR HAD A DUAL PURPOSE I WOULD IMAGINE,
I think there's another element not often discussed: the AESTHETIC of the period. No matter how brutal many knights were, the overall aesthetic they strove for was ELEGANCE, and you see this in nearly every artistic representation of the period. Today's reenactors (they'll hate me for this) tend often towards an endomorphic 'big cider drinking biker' aesthetic which just often looks silly. Great overweight Vikings who could never row an ocean! These people saw themselves as Christian noblemen with pretentions to chivalry and elegance. If you think LIONS and LEOPARDS, that's how these knights saw themselves, not as bears and Bibendum men!
After struggling to find a gambeson I liked wearing I ended up learning how to make one myself. The best balance I've found is to keep the front, back. shoulders and elbows reasonably well padded, thin the padding on the arms to about 1/4 of what you'd usually have but add some extra layers of linen in the upper and lower arm areas.
Tailoring my maille to fit over it made it much easier to wander around in all day too - it's amazing how much weight you can take off.
What did you use for padding?
I think gambesons are the most misunderstood part of medieval armor. One of the most common things I hear is "plate armor made you almost invincible, even blunt force would do little because of the thick padding underneath". Nobody could wear that on a hot summer and survive and even when it's cool it would restrict movement and trap moisture and bodyheat and could overheat you anyways, under plate armor they wore an arming doublet that is barely padded if it was at all.
I find the "michelin man" look that many reenactors have with gambesons, when it's like 10 centimeters thick, more annoying than other reenactorisms. It just looks terrible, at least many other inaccuracies look cool. Even plate armor is ruined by this, real historical armor stays pretty close to the shape of the body and it has an aesthetically pleasing silhouette, modern reenactor armor is way too round and bulky, it looks fat even on a skinny person.
Edit: I think the second thing is mostly for buhurt armor, it makes sense to pad buhurt armor extra, but I have seen this symptom before in reenactment.
Just my two cents:
What if gambison looks floofy on us because it's rigid and we haven't broken them in yet?
My background is modern military, but brand new packs and kit looks really big and puffy when new, but after a few years of use and changing hands, they cling to the body much more.
You're a jouster, so wear your kit more than most reactors, but you still don't wear it as much as someone from the period I would imagine. Maybe we never take them to the point of breaking them in completely?
I have no historical evidence for this, I'm just thinking out loud.
Even just a new uniform can look big and stiff but after hundreds of hours of wearing in garrison and in the field the uniform becomes very flexible and form fitting and in my opinion better
It should also be noted it almost looks like he doesn’t wash it very much, linen get softer the more you wash it and historical process all the more so. You can also see from his sleeves that he has a bunch of extra stuff he doesn’t need, it doesn’t seem fitted to him which the historical garment for a knight would’ve been. Between it not being fitted to him and perhaps not being washed as much as the historical garments the stiffness combined with the extra material tends to make most modern reenactors and martial artists look outright frumpy by comparison to their historical counterparts.
I have learned this with my 12th century kit, I used to use a really well made but thick gambeson. It was horrible with maille on top. I've since switched to a woolen tunic, which gives me freedom and relatively good protection.
It also means that while others bake in the sun, I am pretty cool.
Hey. I've been meaning to do the same. Do you recommend a simple wool tunic? Is it enough?
Do you use riveted mail? Do the rings/rivets snag on the tunic?
I've been thinking about double layer of wool with linen on top to prevent the mail from tearing the tunic.
That wouldn’t be a bad idea because overtime the maille can ruin the tunic. I wear a woolen tunic under my hauberk at the moment and it feels amazing to fight. My hauberk alone is heavy and I already bake in it
Wouldn't the protection be significantly less for anything other than slashes? There's a reason gambersons have so many layers. But then again, I doubt you are actually fighting full tilt, and being more comfortable for recreational purposes seems more important than a hypothetical fight to the death.
@@thorwaldjohanson2526 As a 13th century reenactor, the reason you wouldn’t want to wear a gambeson with many layers is that it will not offer ventilation and you can overheat, you also increase the weight you are carrying, even as a fit person you wouldn’t want that. A wool tunic or aketon that’s lightly padded is just enough. Mobility and flexibility is important, and so as long as the knight kept moving - he was pretty hard to kill. These guys trained since the age of 7. In the earlier centuries, they were mainly warriors on horseback and fought close as a cohesive unit. A knight’s primary defense was his shield. A thick quilted gambeson with many layers could be worn over the mail though, but under would restrict too much mobility. It will weigh and tire you down more, and you could be expected to be engaging in combat longer than what you see in buhurt and armored combat shows.
The reason gambesons today have so many layers, is for fulfill safety guidelines and eliminate as much pain just like he said in the video. If I’m fighting to death in the same situation as knights did back then, I’d rather go light and be able to move than be stuffed up with padding that doesn’t allow me to be nimble and finesse with a sword or lance.
A scene in the Morgan Bible shows a distinction in armor between mounted knights and foot soldiers, and I suspect the discrepancy has everything to do with tailoring. The foot soldiers are shown with big, boxy gambeson that we see nowadays, and the mounted knights have a more figured appearance.
You brought up so many good points.
Also the quote you may be looking for is from Roger of Hoveden, who died about 1201 and he wrote ‘No athlete can fight tenaciously who has never received any blows: he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack under the fist of his adversary, and when he is thrown to the ground he must fight on with all his might and not lose courage … Anyone who can do that can engage in battle confidently.’
I've been saying this for some time as well, in part inspired by Arne and Isak, but also due to research. But when you mention these things in a facebookgroup, there's always a bunch of buhurt guys saying 'but if you get hit at full speed with a five kilo halberd you'd want thicker padding! I can tell from experience!'. And usually these guys just mention their own buhurt experience (a modern sport) as proof, instead of historical research, to which they don't listen.
Battle of nations and whatnot, looks fun, but a historical travesty...
Oh you also hear that from hema guys and their long swords.
You need a 1600n protection and a breastplate underneath, because your enemy will do a full speed swing.
I learn longsword in a school without protection in a fencing school, where long sword is practiced like mayer did in his school. They didn't have protection so they had to learn not to hurt each other, while being fast. They had an emphasis on defense and control, while modern hema practicioners seem to favour speed and raw power, while not caring about being hit.
It's a totally different philosophy of education but the way we do it (and you will be fencing at full speed at some point) is historically accurate and because we learn (actually drilled to) have perfect control, we can avoid hurting ourselves and our training partner.
I love bohurt but this is a pet peeve for me too. You can have a gambison that's thinner and as protective.
I think one thing to consider is the amount of surviving weapons we have, which is frankly very little. The quality of the original blades wasn’t uniform and surely some blades snapped, broke, bent, or lost their edge must faster than a modern blade reproduction- therefore, a decently padded gambeson would probably defend against a-lot more than what we may believe nowadays- and it’s safe to assume there was variation in padding preference for each warrior, foot soldier or knight
This is why, as a soldier, I was more than happy to trade my gen 3 IOTV out for a plate carrier to increase mobility and drop some weight on the battlefield even if the trade-off was some percentage less protection.
In addition to the potential movement restrictions, too thick a gambeson will roast you alive. A lot of the recreated ones are functionally (heavy) winter coats and wearing them just by themselves could easily make you overheat on the march, let alone wearing them with mail/coat of plates/etc. There's no point in being injury proof if you die of heat stroke.
What people forget is that aketons weren't even always worn under maille in the first place. The Gambeson mafia went overboard with countering media norms, and spread the idea that people wore gambesons under armor at all in the first place, which is definitely wrong. The historical community tends to break up the terms Gambeson, Aketon, and Jupon to mean specific things, and it's not a bad thought. Garments worn under armor are very thin, nobody is wearing thirty goddamn layers of cotton or linen under their hauberk, you'd die of heatstroke even in the dead of winter. Gambesons are standalone armor, consisting of twenty layers or more of fabric generally and tend to be really stiff stuff. You can't get good shoulder rotation in a hauberk if you've got a gambeson under it. Alternatively some surcoats were literally gambesons, being worn over the maille and being quite thick stuff as specified in the King's Mirror for example. Aketons are what's worn under armor at most and they're definitely on the thin side. And of course some people just didn't wear anything but a tunic, the Morgan Bible is full of detailed depictions of Knights wearing only standard clothing under maille with no padding at all. Good maille doesn't need padding either, its weave is dense enough that it will stop a lance (pre arret anyway) as is demonstrated in numerous anecdotes of actual knights.
Personally along with blaming the Gambeson Mafia on youtube, I'd also just blame a lack of faith in maille armor. The idea that it's garbage without padding and you need padding for it to be good, when maille was used for centuries before any form of padding was even common. Danes and Norse never used any form of padding for example. The Romans at most had the submarallis... whatever that really was.
Yup, totally agree. iv'e always said that my thicker padding is due to modern safety concessions, rather than historical research. And i think it's fine to do that as long as you are under no delusions as to your concession's historicity.
Also, in a video from Lyndibeige (I hope its correct) he points out how many people on medieval drawings have bigger heads, due to the arming cap, worn underneath the mail coif. So if artists did draw/ paint the heads bigger, why not the wohle knight or fighter if they wore padding underneath the armor? Great Video btw!!
Thank you. There's a strange assumption that we know more about medieval armour than the artists who were around at the time. A very strange assumption.
And also, knights had their whole life to train, so they could trust their skills to protect them, instead of relying on thicker armor.
As an aside, note that idealization of reality does exist in art. The Greeks were generally depicted fighting naked, being the famous example. So while you could argue the stocky look of a gambeson would become the fashion, it's plausible that the art is exemplifying what knights looked like when lightly armed.
For example, if they put on a heavier gambeson before battle, and travelled and went about day-to-day activity with a light one, many people would see and associate them with the lighter gambeson.
So while the fashion argument you present is worth considering, there are certainly alternatives.
An individual probably owned 2 anyways. A heavier one they bought as solo armor and a lighter one for under metal armor after they’ve suffered stuffing the heavier one under it for a while.
The difference is that there are Greek amphorae and sculptures which do depict armor but no 13th century European artwork that depicts anything like a thick gambeson being worn under mail. The only evidence that this was practiced, then, is that it seems to work in the modern day with blunted weapons, which isn't particularly rigorous in the way of evidence.
Certainly the stuff worn under armour by reenactors tends to be too thick. The later the period the more this tends to be the case. Jacks worn as armour or over armour is a different topic though.
My own experience. Thick padding holds a lot of water (and sweat), and that weighs you down. I would not want to wear a modern gambeson If I was trekking around in a rainy place.
Looking at other peoples gear - a lot of buhurtsmen use brigandine rather than white armour. This is significant- because a proper cuiriass spreads the impact of blows dramatically further. My guess is that if buhurt was done with cuirassess that kind of padding would be less neccessary.
You can see how the buhurt brigandine is adapting, the plates are becoming larger and thicker.
Now a cuiriass with a great basinet would remove much of knock out game.
Yes, it seems that as time goes on more and more bohurt armourers are taking cues from tournament armours.
@@ZacharyEvans Its interesting to see that developments on the helmets especially borrow from tournament helmets wich are then thrown on 14th century helmets. ( The Kolbenhelm / Original Buhurt helm is used in a makeshift bascinet with bar visors)
Maybe the slimmer look is due to tailoring the armour (including gambeson) similar to a suit?
This is part of my problem. As an aspiring Al andalus reenactor, my kit is supposed to be set around the war of Granada in 1480-90's. The issue is that my kit includes mail and brigandine, but my clothing are berber inspired and not your average doublet and chausse. So I wonder how I'm going to handle wearing mail on rather thin clothing if I don't have an arming doublet. This as been pushing back my projects for months.
What's the worry? Are you concerned about the blunt force trauma?
@@ZacharyEvans kind of but also the friction from my haubergeon ruining my coat
I'd recommend just a skirt and sleeves rather than a full shirt. Make sure you are wearing it the right way round, and if you can afford it get 6mm riveted. If it fits correctly you should find it won't damage your coat very much (barring oil staining).
@@ZacharyEvans useful feedback, thank you.
That's an interesting project! I myself tried to look into it since I recently started a project of doing an early Umayyad/Andalusian kit and thought about working my way into the high and late versions also. However, I hadn't had many luck on sources other than the exquiste arms and armour of the Sultan of Granada which I don't think many of his Fursan and regular Jund would be able to afford to be armed and armoured with. I would appreciate it greatly if you could help in that regard.
Thank you for another wonderful video!! This has been a huge question of mine as many, MANY people sells thick thick thick winter jacket like doublet and gambeson because it has been so heavily influenced. where as in term, the market has been saturated with HUGEEEEEE plate armor go over their overly large ball of fabric.
I wasn't aware that back then, they were more careful about cuts than blunt impact, that's an interesting point!
You also have the BUHURT nerds that the market tends to cater towards.
I think there is a tendency for people to want to go with full harness of plate, but not be able to afford / not know who to go to to get it fitted properly. Poorly fitting plate is uncomfortable and leaves spaces where they shouldn't- requiring more padding to make comfortable. This may have something to do with it too?
In the last few years, the quality of armour available in the UK has improved massively though, so hopefully that will change.
if it's too thick it's going to restrict movement so the sword swinging thing isn't happening
Interesting video, I have always felt that same way when looking at modern hard steel suit fighters versus looking at historical imagery and effigies. I think your correct in this, yes people were thinner and they were not couch potatoes like we are now, but also I agree that the under padding was not as thick as used today in many cases.
I would also like to add that during the crusades, knights in the middle east would probably die of heat exhaustion if they had to wear thick gambesons.
thats not even counting the fact that, say in the macejowski.. we have infantry in very thick quilted gambesons of various sorts, but when we see knights stripping off their mail, or climbing ladders, we only seemingly see what looks like a tunic underneath... if there were substantial quilted aketons under mail, youd imagine the artist would have given these garments the same little ------ pattern of rows of stitching.
Gambesons don't appear to have been common in visual sources before the very end of the 13th century.
@@spades9681 source? aketons and gambesons are mentioned in the kings mirror,
shown in the macejowski bible on infantry bnot as an unde3rgarment...
and described in an account in the 3rd crusade i think.
@@elgostine My bad, poor choice of wording. Specifically meant when worn under mail.
even then the kings mirror seems to make the mention of underaketons clear @@spades9681
I agree with much that has been said. I think the reality is that there would be different gambesons for different purposes. For example, you may have a thicker gambeson for a melee tourney, where you have 20, 30, 40 knights whaling on each other with opponents in a 360, whereas the battlefield/campaign gambeson may be lighter with some targeted areas for heavier padding, spine, ribs, hips, shoulder yoke, trying to balance movement and protection.
I also agree that I think there would be differences between knights, footsoldiers, etc, dependent on the expected function and needs.
Loved this topic, as it touches on many things I have been experimenting with for the last few years.
Interesting, I knew that we often used too much padding under plate harness for 15th century re-enactment but assumed that the padding was thicker under maille. I thought a lot of gambesons these days are made according to descriptions from contemporary writings, when it comes to how many layers and stuff?
What you say makes sense though, even these days there's a constant battle between levels of protection and mobility when it comes to how soldiers are equipped.
I think generally we wear too much padding all the time.
Unfortunately a lot of medieval descriptions say things like "wear this in the usual way" which is really unhelpful.
there are precious few sources.
The kings mirror only says a 'pansiere of soft linen that is black' which does not state anything about how thick it is. Depictions of people taking off armour often show flowy robes under them, and there is very little evidence of padding under armour until the 14th c, and then mostly for the torso.
There is one sleeve of padded armour from a church in france, but there is no way of knowing if it was meant as stand alone armour or as part of a layered get up.
this was however faced in delicate silk.
but recently someone made a akheton in this exact way and is wearing a hauberk over, so let's see if it holds up and it must be said it does not look that bulky either.
padding over mail is seen more regularly, really, or in the late 14th early 15th mail-padding-mail layering with distinctly heavier mail on the outside.
Also multiple layers of mail, like a shirt overlapping full mail hosen, is quite common.
I was quite happy doing jousting and steel sword melee in the mail int he picture.
we even did a bit of hacking with sharp swords on it, went rather swimmingly.
Also i am wearing a hoody over a wool sweater under this in the foto. This was taken when i first tried it on and the full get up wasn't finished.
@@airnt thanks, I'm not very familiar with anything pre mid-to-late 15th century and even then I wouldn't call myself an expert!
Were impact weapons much used before 1400? The Norman images I've seen seem to be exclusively swords, axes and spears. But then I see random images of figures like Richard II with maces and suchlike. Is that accurate? I only ask, as I imagine that they would have a greater effect on padding and maille.
@@jevans80 Bishop Odo used a mace at the battle of Hastings in 1066, as he was enjoined from using an edged weapon as a cleric. Shedding of blood was forbidden to the clergy, but crushing skulls was fine, I guess.
@@airnt The sleeve from Bussy-Saint-Martin in France has some rust residue on it from what I remember. It doesn't seem to have been terribly thick, either. A good candidate for extant 13th century under-armor padding.
when i put on my first gambeson that was supposed to be “thin and light” i felt like a balloon and heating up. I was like theres no way they couldve done this 24/7 even if its wool/linen. Padding = more material which costs more. Plus people wore multiple layers. I had to take the fluff out of my gambeson.
Just a thought. How much do you launder and condition your linen before making a gambeson? Modern sizing of fabrics adds both stiffness and mass to them which assists in sewing on a machine. I'm not even aware of what the thread count on medieval linen would be.
But I rather expect that most gambesons of the period made use of used fabric like old linen bed sheets purchased from a ragpacker or something. With only maybe a couple of outer layers and one inner layer of new linen. I got this idea from something I read about some Guild rules saying that they had to be made from at least a few layers of new fabric. Which to me implies that some makers were not we're not doing so.
The end result with a modern reproduction made from a bolt of new linen, or a period one made from supple and somewhat threadbare used linen could make a pretty big difference.
Absolutely. And when you multiply those thickness differences over multiple layers it really adds up.
Sorry but, i do Buhurt, and i gotta make sure that i don't get my spine broken after a hit from an axe!
Very smart arguments, never heard about this point of view 👍
Most reenactors are recreating a tournament. If a historical knight was looking to go to a tourney and then go home, the thicker padding would make sense, for the reasons Zac states that we today use thicker padding.
There is definitely some evidence that they wore thicker padding for tournaments, but they always had one eye on how they looked as well: padding was generally added where it was needed, but not excessively
@@ZacharyEvans I agree. I've seen some stuff to suggest as many as 30 layers of fabric. I mean, I guess if you have nothing else, but otherwise that is excessive.
If you were to do an all day event like a LARP, you would hate to have more than a few layers on under your mail.
Now add 90°F and 90% relative humidity, and your thesis becomes undeniably true!
My new gambeson came in, custom fitted. Very bulky and thick.
I think The modern Gambeson are much closer to the soldiers variant which we see in the Morgan Bible for instance.
I do hema with sharp edges in armor with heavy gambeson and thinner doublet heavy gambeson is correct as plate armor has not been wide spread yet later time thinner such as linen shirt been enough padding with full plate armor
this is a good question how about for SCA combat gambessons ?
It seems historically they would pad the areas that were hit regularly: tournament was as much about looking good as the combat.
Recreating these perfectly is honestly likely going to be rather difficult simply because, if we read what people said about these region to region: It was different nearly everywhere.
Some areas boiled theirs and then were darkened the gambeson via the "Usual way", to make harder segments of gambeson. We don't know what the usual way is, but thats just a part of the traditions being lost....
But not everywhere wrote about darkening gambeson in the "usual way."
The romans treated some of their padding in wine and salt, which is significantly different from what we see described in england. If you do this, you can make gambeson segments that are rigid like a plate.
Some areas wrote down that they used strictly 32 sheets of linen (Some hardened, others not,) others used alternating layers of linen or wool (And if you searched hard enough, you might find a wide array of recipes like including canvas (Hemp fibers), or any number of fabrics that were the local flavor.)
So while we have few examples of armor that could rot, we have examples of plated armor having an immense variety of styles and profiles.
So its very likely, and I will say this humbly, that the armor might be made to a villages needs to some common recipe, but this may have varied place to place.
Our need to speak about things in a unified way like all gambesons were some way likely is always going to come to a fault, because the medieval people were not sharing recipes via some internet, communication was slow.
So, a single word is going to express the topic wrong if we act like it was a uniform, empirical thing.
The things people wrote at the time wouldn't make sense otherwise. It was a technique of armor, not a standard.
So I think the key rule should be: Make armor that fits our needs, treat it to give it the stiffness or fluffyness we need, and don't worry about whether or not a quilted shirt is a quilted shirt. Its what they would have done.
I wonder how little padding you can get away with in modern day buhurt. I feel most people wear late 14th century and early 15th century armors that require the heavy padding for safety reasons.
However I might wager that a late 15th century armor with big pointy couters, full shoulder defense (especially pauldrons that protects the gap on the top of the shoulder) , mitten gauntlets, and steel neck protection would be pretty safe with historical padding especially if worn with maille. The only exception being the helmet, which may need more padding due to constant blunt trauma.
There is a good chance I am still wrong since I never practiced Buhurt, its just a feeling. I wish this can be tested out at some point.
I am aiming for a mostly historically correct depiction of a knkght from around 1050-1100. So the period of the battle of hastings to the first crusade.
When I do research about what armor they were actually wearing, it's hard to find something that goes beyond "a lightly padded arming jacket" below the mail hauberk with 3/4 sleeves, worn over a tunic. Some sources don't even mention the arming jacket at all.
They had a padded coif and some even had a mail coif.
Since I dont want "play war" with people I don't trust - maximum is controlled technical training and sparring - I intend to make myself a mostly (because I lack proper sources) historically correct quilted arming jacked made of linen, padded with either horse hair, wool or maybe linen fibre. This will also be better duting the hot Sommers we are experiencing in central Europenat the moment.
Lots of reenactors I talked to tend to not fight in a shield wall with strangers anymore, because they value their teeth and overall health. Or they gear up as hard as they can, sacrificing historical accuracy (Visby gauntlets on viking in example).
Some padding is in order if you mean to do sparring but, historically, there would have been no padding at the Battle of Hastings or anywhere in Europe before the late 12th century.
I think the most important research that any modern re-enactor can do is to very very carefully look at all available art and effigies of whatever type of armor or padding one is attempting to create. Artists have an imperative to communicate. In general, they depict exactly what is in their world at the time. So if someone in, say, 1275 is illustrating a bible, and wants to draw a soldier, that illustrator will draw what he sees around him. Effigies from the 14th century are even more accurate because the noble's family has paid the artisan to make the effigy look exactly like their deceased family member.
Personally i like thicker padding just because it feels nice and makes me feel more safe and comfortable
This sparks one nagging question I have. How did people avoid broken bones while training or fighting in friendly tournaments. It's okay to be macho and say you ain't a man till you've busted some teeth. But no one likes constantly nursing broken fingers and ribs...
i cant speak to joustin but i think it would be rather more extreme than my own experience. In short: in any combat sport you'll get some injuries. One of my favorite guys in battle axes has been trailing off his career because of long term knee injuries from getting cast about and all. You do get hurt and it does take a toll on the body, but it's one people choose to pay because they love the sport. Ain't nothing more to it than that I reckon
There's one more thing to consider, and that's the reason I'm not sure the blunt force trauma argument holds up - quite a lot of medieval fighters didn't use swords, or didn't use swords as their primary sidearm - in a large part of Europe axes were in widespread use. Axes are very good in inflicting severe blunt trauma. Also, sometimes knights didn't face other knights, but much poorer soldiers - and that's where some simpler and cheaper weapons, including clubs, maces and axes could be more common. Blunt trauma was a very real danger on a medieval battlefield.
Another thing to consider is the impact of modern medicine on our perpective - a broken bone right now is usually fairly easily healed, a broken bone back then could make someone ufit to fight in the future, or in the worst case could kill someone due to sepsis. Injury could be expected to some degree, but also would have much more severe consequences than in a hobbyist setting, and a split of second could cost a knight his life. Of course there's many factors to consider when it comes to the thickess of the padding, but I'm not sure those two would be the most important ones.
Uh, no, swords were definitely much more common among knights and arguably commoners as well (official statutes usually ask that militiamen bring swords or large knives---not axes). Maces seem to have been relatively rare as well. There's no reason to believe thick gambesons were worn for the purpose of stopping blunt force (there's an argument to be made that their primary purpose was stopping cuts/punctures that had pierced the hauberk!). There is also little reason to believe weapons that inflicted blunt force were ever employed specifically to defeat knights wearing mail (on a whole, weapons like maces seem to have been best suited for smashing a fleeing peasant's head in from horseback). Further, we KNOW that gambesons weren't used before a certain point in history, and that before this point plain tunics were much more common. That being the case it is obvious that hauberks protected the wearer perfectly fine without the aid of padding.
Oh, and bloody good vid 👍
Do you do lewes or evesham?
Thanks. I don't do either, as I do not own suitable kit for that period anymore.
@ZacharyEvans Ah, fair enough man. But yeah, I completely agree with the thickness. I no longer do bohurt, so I worked on much thinner aketons.
Did gambesons get thicker in response to the rise of archers in prominence? Or was there a change to a different style of armor, padded jack for example.
Gambesons seem to have developed into pourpoints and from there into arming doublets. Padded jacks are a different type of armour that seems to have been worn as the main protection, and so were a lot thicker than other types of padding.
As usual the waters are muddied by medieval people using whatever word they want and having no standardised vocabulary.
Oh, and padding doesn't appear to have increased due to archery or guns. If anything it decreases as people opt for more layered defences, including plate, maille and padding.
There are a lot of later half 15th century depictions of commoner infantry or militia in artwork totally cool with just wearing a doublet, and a helmet (sallet or a barbute), with little to no limb protection.
@@ZacharyEvans yes I was thinking of padded jacks. Thanks and Happy Everything!
do bear in mind that yew longbows were around from the stone age (literally) and proliferated all over Europe. Of course medieval arrows were equipped with iron or steel heads, but they were so well before the introduction of 'knights' as we know them.
Large infantry battalions are around and used to counter cavalry from the 11 century onwards in many examples, and arrows are often metioned.
there is quite a few occurances where we specifically hear that 'arrows could not hurt them' like at the battle of Bouvines where the horses were covered with an iron net so they could not hurt them.
Since we only really have the Mary Rose to base drawweights on, everybody seems to conveiniently choose a time when these bows supposedly suddenly went up in drawweight.
This is curious as most of the well known archery based cultures used composite bows as yew is just not as good, but also they use somewhat lighter drawweights for the same or even greater kinetic energy in their arrows using that efficiency.
The law that an englishman should practice for two hours a week does not require him to practice with any specific drawweight, nor is practicing 8 arrows a week going to make you extra strong.
Also an analyses of the mary rose arrows suggeests they were made for 120 lbs bows, not the 180 that is often quoted.
this is also a bit of an elephant in the room with the drawweights from those bows, as you need to assume a drawlength the stave was made for to determine a draw weight. There are two serious attempts at determining the drawweight and the one least quoted is the lowest and that is congruent with the arrow findings. (100-120 lbs) This type of bow was available all over Europe.
Armour in the 15th c was proofed against to different grades of crossbow, not against longbows, which is again curious.
Also the praises of the english archers are often sung, but i usually see praise for complete equipment, the large proportion of mounted soldiers, all sorts of important qualities of professional soldiers, but not really anything about how strong their bows are (at least i have not come across such a mention)
But if we assume the bows to be rather powerful, then it begs the question why they were not powerfull earlier on, at least from the 13th century, it surely would yield an advantage in range, at the very least. The only reason i can think is that it was not seen as a reasonable expectation of the common archer to be able to draw and be effective with .
Also you need to bear in mind that mail comes in grades of weight, and the wire thickness defines the weight and the strength of the weave.
Earlier hauberks are a lot heavier than later ones, worn in layered armours.
a Hauberk can weigh as much as 18 kg, and adding helmet, shield, cloth equipment and chausures, maybe a coat o plates, then you can easily have heavier equipment than a 15th century knight.
Also shields are a really major thing, they are really very well made and nearly always include sinew, rawhide, and hardened gesso layers (hardened by inclusion of glass or iron) this shield is still a very important layer of protection when the hauberk is in its' main use.
So i don't think it correlates nor does it bear out of the sources as to why they do things. We have specific mentions of mail stopping arrows, for a very long period.
In facebook XIII century armor group,It's our consensus that not to wear too much padding underneath mail.So you can see many reenactors just wear a wool tunic underneath the mail,which looks very good.A tailored mail with thin padding or tunic is far more cool and lighter than thick padding with not tailored mail.
reenators should rely on their weapons and shields to defend themselves, not armor.
Been telling people this for years
I actuely use a wollen tunic under my mail.
1:30 Maybe on the arms you have it too thick... but otherwise, that doesn't actually look too different from the art examples. How much padding you wear is something of a personal preference, but for lancing... that's a lot like a motorcycle crash, getting hit by a 60km/h lance when travelling 60km/h. So, I would expect lancers would wear somewhat similar padding to modern motorcycle helmets, up to about an inch thick.
People will also sacrifice safety for effectiveness in combat (which can make you safer). So I acknowledge it is possible gambesons were thinner... but it seems questionable. I mean, is it better to die of heatstroke, or of a lance breaking the sternum? There's also an account of a knight surviving being struck from two opposing directions by two lances, so clearly he was wearing decent padding. Footmen who march to battle likely wear less padding, unless they equip it prior to battle. Saladin asked his advisor, before one battle, why he wasn't wearing his armour, and he said he would put it on before the battle starts.
It would be nice to work out what range of thickness of gambesons were in use, but that'd require some dangerous tests, and marching.
You forget that a knight's primary "armor" in the 13th century was his shield. He did not expect his body armor to defeat the force of a lance strike, but carried a shield for that express purpose (deflecting and absorbing blows)
I think my doctor called it obesity
How incredibly interesting, progenitors of the free world. Getting armior made must be expencive? I saw a Coat, PADDING BEING MADE AND THIS WOMEN WAS STITCHING IT TOGETHER AND SHE WAS REALLY PACKING IN THE STUFFING WHICH IS GOOD FOR CATCHING ARROWS IN THE STUFFING. mAY BE IT WAS SOME THING ELSE OR HAD A DUAL PURPOSE I WOULD IMAGINE,