I wear a lightly padded undergarment called an arming doublet that a mail skirt and sleeves (or gussets) points to - they are not permanently sewn in place (have to be able to clean them). I also have a standard (collar) for my neck.

I am not sure how early your portrayal is, and I have seen the advice given you elsewheres - I would have you keep this in mind. Firstly, mail is useless as a defence without some padding underneath it. Without a modicum of padding, links broken in combat would be driven into your flesh by the force of a blow, guaranteeing the experience to be fatal as a wound like that would be guaranteed to become septic.

Secondly, we do not know for a fact what very early (pre Norman) Northern European arming garments were called, or even what they looked like, but we know for a fact that mail was worn, and that mail is useless without an undergarment - ergo one must have been worn. We know Romans had such garments, soldiers of Byzantium wore such garments - they must have been worn elsewhere if mail was worn.

We know that specialized arming garments from l;ater periods followed civillian fashion in cut - I wager that this is true for earlier periods. You unfortunately suffer in that textiles do not survive the millenia well in Northern Europe, and descriptions or depictions of soldiers in the era you portray are sparse (if you are as early in your portrayal as I think you are), so you are going to have to experiment a bit.

A thing to keep in mind is that the padded undergarment is nowhere near as thick as a gambeson (as has been suggested elsewhere), as that would preclude freedom of movement. It just needs to be padded enough to act as a shock absorber of sorts, and to ease the discomfort of wearing the defence. Gambesons, to be effective as armour, need to be thick enough to be stiff (in the body of course, there are fewer layers on the arm and cutaways at the inside of the joints). This would make them unsuitable as an arming garment. I can assure you that people who suggest otherwise are either using the wrong terminology, or have never handled a good reconstruction of one (moving blanket gambesons are NOT good reconstructions).

I hope this helps a little anyway.

Did some thinking...

Yes, it seems that under-maille padding is needed for many reasons:
1. It keeps the maille from wicking the heat away from your body.
2. It keeps the maille from chafing your skin when you wear it.
3. The maille absorbs some of the force of the blows; the padding takes up the slack.
4. It keeps the maille from being driven into your skin during blows.

It doesn't want to be stiff or constrictive. Maille is wondrously flexible and comfortable, and if I'm going to feel stiff, I might as wear plate

I'd agree with Bob that it's important to know what date and what region you are intending to make the garment for. Without this information we'd be boiling the ocean and you'd probably end up with very misleading help.

I would suspect that the reference to a padded arming garment with holes comes from the C15th "How a man shall be armed..."but I need to recheck. However I do not believe this to be appropriate to a pre-C15th garment as it relates to padding for under white harness rahter than mail.

As to Bob's comments on gambesons ... I am dubious about the statement of rigidity,
"Gambesons, to be effective as armour, need to be thick enough to be stiff".

Whilst I agree tat the standard of many reconstructions leaves alot to be desired and again this relates to the C15th, and to Jacks, but Dominc Mancini in describing the soldiers of Richard of Gloucester in 1480 describes the Jacks as 'soft', indeed he stresses that the soldiers considered that the softer the better.

Cheers
Dave

Oh, I don't know, wearing mail for comfort is a consideration if being alive is comfortable ! I find mail to be far more uncomfortable than plate - a bloody shirt drags at your shoulders - the wieght is not evenly distributed over the body. A short 15th c. shirt (haubergorn ?) an infantryman might wear to augment a padded jack is not too bad.

I think this effect is even worse with the classic hauberk c. 1066 - 1150, where you have a knee length garment with elbow lwngth or below sleeves. There is no gather to distribute the wieght except for a belt if worn outsude the hauberk. The 13th c. expedient of leather thongs across the forhead, above the elbow, and at the wrist I speculate are a means of combating this problem.

I tend to think of jack construction along the lines of the described 22 layer type, which seems to be not as flexible as the sort of Jack described by Dominic Mancini Dave is quoting - I think that sort is less layers and heavily stuffed with tow and quilted. Dave pointed out quite a while ago that there are many differing forms of cloth armour used in Northern Europe. A gambeson worn over mail and a breastplate as in the classic 1370's - 90's style with a houndskull and aventail would have to be soft and very flexible - but how about the bodies of the padded armour worm by infantrymen in the Macjowski bible ? The ones laid out like a 13th c. hauberk complete with full arms and bag mittens - not to mention the padded chausses? Obviously thge arms and chausses would be softer and flexible, but what about the torso and standing collar?

Are there any decent descriptions akin to the surviving 15th c. instrructions on making a jack for 13th c. and earlier defences? I do think that padded defences are highly under-represented in re-enactment in the US. I STRONGLY encourage the guys in my company to make or aquire good reconstrructions of padded jacks - for the roles where they are specified in the Ordinances. I want to get to the point (halfway there) where we have two complete sets of infantry equipment for recruits consisting of simple helmets, padded jacks, mail standards, bar & chain arms, bucklers, and single hand swords. We already have company halberds and plan on aquiring a crossbow and handgonne as well.

Studies done at the RA and other places back up Bob R.'s comment that mail is quite useless w/o some kind of padded backing. Or, at least, the padded backing increases its effeciency by phenomenal standards. This leads me, most others (I think), and the Templar group I'm involved with to think therefore that some kind of padded garment MUST have been worn under the mail for 11th-13th century. Here's a pic of a gambeson one of our members has made:

Boy is that ever a pretty thing! I love the off-center collar.

Lovely!

Construction is a linen shell & liner, with the "pockets" or "tubes" stuffed with a long rolled piece of wool.

It makes mail almost comfortable, especially when the mail is belted at the waist to take some of the load off of the shoulders. Flexibility is good, even if overstuffed (Michelin Man configuration). It'll absorb a pretty severe blow, but doesn't protect well as a stand-alone, as the only protection in the valleys beteen the padded sections is the two layers of linen. And, surprise, they get a bit warm.

construction tips-

I wish MN'd have stayed together long enough to return to the Big Hastings. I missed out on going to the last Big Hastings.

quote:

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Originally posted by JeffJ:

I wish MN'd have stayed together long enough to return to the Big Hastings. I missed out on going to the last Big Hastings.

[This message has been edited by JeffJ (edited 07-17-2000).]

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I corresponded with Mr. Gerring briefly. I was interested in becoming involved with MN, but we lost contact. I think it *may* have been due to my involvement in the SCA. He intimated getting burned by SCA types, so I can understand his reticence somewhat. I wish they hadn't broken up.

Robert Coleman, Jr.

Those who beat their swords into plowshares end up plowing for those who don't.

Actually, it's short for Milites Normanorum, an 11th C. Norman group in the Eastern US. IMHO, the authenticity was high, & it was a great group. We split up about 2 years ago, but most of us are still doing Medieval reenacting.

The hard part about reenacting the 11th C. was the near total lack of non-durable artifacts like clothing and the rarity of realistic artwork. It's not easy to prove anything is right. Some people still argue about the square panels on the Norman Hauberks in the Bayeux Tapestry. (They are loose ventails, dammit)

- I'd have to dig up my documentation to give specific references, but the vertical tubes are documented.

- Tow is a legitimate period padding material, but it would settle to the bottom of the tubes. That's why we went with a cloth. Whatever period material you choose has as much documentation as the wool we used.

- I think natural Rope in the US is usually Jute. It's your call if you want to make any substitutions, but jute fibers are pretty coarse & may poke through the shell & make the gambeson scratchy.

- Hastings only does a big event every few years. The last one was about 10 years ago. Four MNs went and one of them returned with a cracked bone in the shoulder, courtesy of an enthusiastic Saxon. The standard gambeson became thicker after that...

- The only Hasting over here that I know of is a Markland event in Maryland. I've never attended, but from videos I've seen, the Authenticity level is not high.

Are you having fun?

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"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph."