copyright 2012 David Belt, http://www.etsy.com/shop/beltsandchains

Chainmail: A History, A Tool, A Lifestyle
Over the next few weeks I will be writing a multi-part series on chainmail.  I am frequently asked questions and have become something of a resident expert on the subject.  Here, I will be sharing some of what I have learned.  Thus far, we have covered the history of chainmail and its usefulness as a tool in practical applications.  Now, I’d like to discuss the centralized and often less practical lifestyle that is the world of chainmail.

Part 3: A Lifestyle
For over 3000 years, men and women have been devoting themselves to manufacturing and using chain.  The manufacture of chain has always been tedious work, weaving strong metals, independently, to retain both strength and flexibility.  In modern times, metals are drawn into wire.  This wire is wrapped on a mandrel, and then cut into individual rings.  Finally, the rings may be woven into the intended pattern, some patterns utilizing 50,000 or more individual rings.  If additional strength is desired, the rings may be welded or riveted together, doubling the overall workload.
Prior to the development of steel, historians do not believe metallurgists of early iron working had learned the practice of drawing wire.  This leads to a number of debates as to exactly how these early blacksmith crafted chain.  One thing is certain, by 300 AD, thousands of suits of chainmail armor was being manufactured for the armies of the world.  With modern technology, it would take a skilled armorer more than a month to craft a single suit of armor.  So, how did these armorers of old craft so many for their respective armies?
The answer lies in the lifestyle of the times.  People lived to work.  It was not so much a love of work, but a necessity to survive.  War always brought new resources and thus new opportunities for people to make a living.  Teams of people would apprentice themselves to a master crafter.  Twenty or more individuals would work for a single master crafter.  In the world of armor making, strong arms would punch or cut rings from sheets of hammered iron.  These rings would be collected in buckets, usually by young children or women who couldn’t work the heavy hammers.  Then, the rings would be prepared for the master crafter by boring holes and fashioning rivets, finally the master crafter and perhaps a few trusted senior journeymen would receive as many as 10,000 rings a day to weave and rivet into the patterns laid out by the master.
This was their life, day in and day out, resting only for their respective Sabbaths.  It was hard work but rewarding as well.  For those who worked, ate.  For those patriots who believed in their nation or had loved ones at war, they had a hand in ensuring their victory and safe return.  And for those who could not or did not want to war, a master armorer could shield them from recruitment into the armies, as they provided a service that could not easily be replaced.
Chainmail certainly played a practical role in lifestyles of people thousands of years ago, but what about today?   Without the need for armors of war, how has chainmail remained a lifestyle to so many today?
Next week, I’ll answer these questions in my fourth and final part to this series.  Chainmail: A Modern Lifestyle.

text copyright 2012 David Belt

http://www.etsy.com/shop/beltsandchains

Chainmail: A History, A Tool, A Lifestyle

Over the next few weeks I will be writing a multi-part series on chainmail.  I am frequently asked questions and have become something of a resident expert on the subject.  Here, I will be sharing some of what I have learned.  Last week, we covered the history of chainmail.  This week, we will be looking at chainmail as a tool and covering its practical applications.

Part 2: A Tool

Chain was originally designed for use in pulley systems as a replacement for rope in heavy duty applications and is still used for this purpose today.  If innovation has taught us anything, it is that tools often have more uses than that for which they were originally designed.

Around 400 BC the Celtic empire developed the gladius, an iron short sword with a bronze and wooden handle.  This weapon would later become standard issue for soldiers throughout Europe due to its quick deployment, ease of use, and most importantly, the ability to penetrate the bronze and leather armors of the time.

During this time period, technologies in bows were also advancing, including the development of the armor piercing crossbow.  By 200 BC, these weapons were so prevalent, bronze and leather armors were made obsolete.

As Celtic technology started the demise of conventional armor, Celtic technology also devised the answer in what would eventually be called European chainmail armor.  This armor was made of thousands of iron rings, riveted together into a shirt or coat of mail.

The effectiveness of this new armor style was twofold.  First, the riveted iron rings could not normally be penetrated by the weapons of the time.  A layered padding of thick cloth or hide was worn under the chain to help cushion the blow from a mace or heavy handed sword.  This padding would also reduce the impact speed of bolts and arrows, limiting their ability to penetrate, as well.  Secondly, the flexibility was vastly superior to its stiff leather and bronze predecessors, allowing the wearer complete freedom of movement on the battlefield.

The most common design of chainmail armor was the hauberk.  This armor consisted of a chest piece, which fell as far down as the knee, and ¾ length sleeves that ended just past the elbow.

Variations to hauberk did include a hood, called a coif.  While the coif was widely used, it was equally ineffective.  The head did not have the same padding as the body, so there was no protection from skull fracture, and lacerations could be caused by the riveted chain.  Any rust on the chain could then lead to an infection, which was a leading cause of death on the battlefield.  Imagine being killed by your own armor…

Another common variation was the inclusion of leggings and full length sleeves.  Since the majority of chainmail armor in Europe was mass produced for large armies, there was little to no custom fitting outside of the nobility.  This meant full length arms and leggings were bulky and cumbersome, weighing limbs down, and often, tiring the wearer before the battle was over.

By 1400 AD, metallurgy had replaced iron with steel, and tempering techniques allowed for the manufacturing of steel plates that functioned superior to chainmail.  While chainmail was widely used to support the new plate mail, it eventually died out completely and was no longer in use in Europe by 1600 AD.

In Asia, however, chainmail was still in military use until the 1800s, most notably in Japan, where the kusari armor was fashioned for the samurai.  Kusari was an elegant design with as many variations as there were samurai, because each suit of armor was custom fitted to the samurai.  Kusari largely composed of tempered steel rings woven around leather strips, providing fluid movement and full body protection.

Firearms ultimately remove the feasibility of all metal armors as the increasingly powerful weapons would easily punch through the heavy armor.

There are, however, other modern applications for this ancient tool.  Deep sea surveyors will wear a suit of chainmail, commonly called “Shark Mail.”  This armor consists of approximately 100,000 titanium rings and is very effective at preventing most injuries caused by shark bites.

Another modern use of chainmail is the butcher’s glove, which pairs nicely with a butcher’s knife and prevents accidental loss of butcher’s digits.

In a surprise return to warfare, Pinnacle’s Dragon Skin armor is an adaptation of scale mail which was an early form of plate and chain armor.  While this modern armor of Kevlar fused metal discs has no direct connection to the chain of old, designer Murray Neal admits the design was inspired by medieval scale mail armor.  Dragon Skin armor is used today by law enforcement and military throughout the world as a means of defense against firearms and bladed weapons.

No one knows what the future holds for chain, but one thing is certain.  Chainmail has been and will continue to be a very useful tool.

Join me again next week as I start to really “geek out” when I delve into the lifestyle, past and present, of chainmail.

Copyright 2012 David Belt

Over the next few weeks I will be writing a multi-part series on chainmail.  I am frequently asked questions and have become something of a resident expert on the subject.  Here, I will be sharing some of what I have learned.
Part 1: A History
There is much we do not know about the history chainmail, largely due to the lack of historical documentation.  It would appear that records of chainmail, its use, and manufacturing processes were not important to the scribes and historians of the times.  Our knowledge of its origins is based on the few surviving drawings, statues, and artifacts depicting its use, as well as a few fragments of actual mail.
Historians still debate over who developed chainmail first and how it spread to become the dominant armor used in the world for over 2000 years.  What we do know is that it was independently developed in both Asia and Europe at approximately the same time.  The Chinese and Etruscans both developed chain approximately 3000 years ago as a decoration and as a tool for pulley systems.  Wire drawing and iron working technologies had not yet been developed, so chains made were not very strong and were heavy, so they were not suitable for armor.
Prior to 400 BC, we know the Etruscans developed chainmail armor as we have depictions of generals wearing such, but this armor would have been made of bronze, not iron, and its ring pattern does not match the patterns later used throughout Europe.  Oddly enough, almost 1000 years later, the Japanese develop kusari for their samuri, a form of chainmail with striking similarities to the Etruscan armor.
The Etruscan culture died out and was assimilated by both the Romans and Celts.  The Romans learned armor crafting from the Greeks, but the Celts may have learned from the Etruscans.
 The Celts did develop iron working first, and crafted the first chainmail made of iron around 300 BC.  However, the pattern of the mail is quite different from the early Etruscans, which means the Celts may have developed the technology separately.  Regardless of its origin, the Celtic chainmail was so effective that it was undoubtedly the leading cause of their early victories over the Romans, when Rome invaded Gaul (early France) around 200 BC.  This is where the original word “chainmaille” comes from, a French word meaning “net of chain.”  Eventually, the Romans conquered the Gauls and adopted their superior chainmail armor and iron working techniques, spreading the technology throughout Europe and into Asia.  The Celtic armor pattern is today referred to as European mail.

As metallurgy techniques developed, steel replaced iron, and eventually plates of steel replaced much of the riveted links of chain, giving birth to platemail as the dominate armor in Europe around 1400 AD.  Though chainmail was still in use as military armor as late as World War I by the British army as flak protection on the outsides of their helmets.

I’ll leave you now with this bit of history.  Join me again next week, as we delve into chainmail as a tool, its uses in history and today.