Medieval Chain Mail Specimen
Medieval Chain Mail Specimen
This authentic, four-in-one medieval chain mail set includes five (5) connected rings, as assembled hundreds of years ago by medieval craft workers. This relatively simple pattern was the standard in Europe for hundreds of years.
📸 Closeup of Medieval Mail Braid
Medieval Heavy Metal!
The set is enclosed in a specimen jar with a removable top which arrives in a handsome, glass-topped riker box case measuring 4 1/2" x 3 1/2". A small informational card is also included.
The rings come from the fragments of several ruined garments, all dating to the 15th Century (CE). This period is considered the sunset of chain mail in Europe, as advanced plate armor completely supplanted mail. As you might expect, each garment has a unique braid and all the rings were forged and assembled by hand. So there will be variations in size, color, and texture.
📸 THE BATTLE OF MÜHLDORF, 1322.
"When we made the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, most of us wore imitation chain-mail made out of knitted wool, which was uncomfortable enough, but Graham Chapman, as King Arthur, wore a genuine metal chain mail coif and found the weight of it unbearable for more than short periods." ~ Terry Jones
📸 Detail image of modern mail braid
Bookended by the collapse of the western Roman Empire in 476 and the beginnings of the Renaissance a millennia later, Europe’s Medieval Period bore witness to centuries of military conflict, augmented by advancements in weapons and armor technology. Chain mail was the perfect armor to protect against this arsenal of battle axes and spiked flails. It was flexible and light enough to keep a warrior unencumbered (though not exactly comfortable), but tough enough to fend off blows from enemies.
📸 A FULL-LENGTH HAUBERK
Valued for flexibility in combat, chain mail was the primary defensive armor in Europe for more than one thousand years, through the entirety of the Medieval Period. To create a 'chain mail' or 'maille' garment, thousands of rings would be punched out whole or riveted from strands of wire. A blacksmith would weave the rings into sheets using a pattern of interlocking rings. Patterns varied by region, dictated by armaments and fighting styles. Given the labor-intensive process of weaving, chain mail garments were costly to purchase but relatively simple to repair.
After being built, chain mail would go through a process called proofing to assure it could stand up to blows during battle. “Armour of proof” or specifically “mail of proof” was chain mail that had been found to survive shots from arrows or jabs from swords. Of course, the very existence of this designation suggests that plenty of chain mail was not strong enough to handle tough blows, especially as weapons became more advanced, like the rise of the longbow in the 14th century. For all its benefits, chain mail was no guaranteed protection against attack.
Front of the Specimen Card
Back of the Specimen Card
Further Reading
Arthur, Harold, and Viscount Dillon. “III.—On a MS. Collection of Ordinances of Chivalry of the Fifteenth Century, Belonging to Lord Hastings.” Archaeologia (Second Series) 57.01 (1900): 29-Gorsline, Douglas W. What People Wore: 1,800 Illustrations from Ancient Times to the Early Twentieth Century. Courier Corporation, 1994.70.
Edge, David, and John Miles Paddock. Arms & Armor of the Medieval Knight : an Illustrated History of Weaponry in the Middle Ages / David Edge and John Miles Paddock. Crescent Books, 1988.
Gorsline, Douglas W. What People Wore: 1,800 Illustrations from Ancient Times to the Early Twentieth Century. Courier Corporation, 1994.
Jones, Terry. Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980.
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