The Chainmail Armor During The Middle Ages
The Chainmail armor was the earliest form of metal armor worn by the average soldier during the Middle Ages. The armor was made from small metal rings joined together to form a closely linked flexible and protective mesh. The word 'Chainmail' was an English combination of two words, 'Chain' meaning a series of metal rings and 'mail' from the French word "maille" meaning mesh of a net.
The Maille armor primarily consisted of a two-part composite defense. the mail itself and the padding worn underneath. When worn in this fashion, mail offered a great resistance to cuts and punctures and helped to reduce the effects of blunt trauma. The design of the mails remain virtually unchanged during the time of their use suggests that it was an extremely …show more content…
While it is fairly certain that a type of armor known as “double mail" existed, there are no solid evidences to prove what form it actually took. Here are few possibilities:
The armor was made from links that was twice as heavy as regular mail
The links were fastened with two rivets instead of one
It had two separate mail hauberks, worn on the top of the other. A light layer of padding was required between the layers to prevent the links from binding with each other.
The mail were made from smaller links so the material required was twice as much as the regular ones.
Mail was tailored in such a way that the garment overlaps and were fastened at the side resulting in two layers of mail protecting the front
Bar Mail
Bar mail or sometimes called as “Theta mail” (as the links in question resemble the Greek character Θ) were occasionally used in India. In bar mail, the solid links are made with a strip of metal horizontally crossing the center. Although it is unclear what purpose the cross-bar served on these links. It is possible that it enabled the mail to provide similar resistance to attacks as a much finer mesh made from smaller links without the additional labour involved in making this finer type of
The Maille armor primarily consisted of a two-part composite defense. the mail itself and the padding worn underneath. When worn in this fashion, mail offered a great resistance to cuts and punctures and helped to reduce the effects of blunt trauma. The design of the mails remain virtually unchanged during the time of their use suggests that it was an extremely …show more content…
While it is fairly certain that a type of armor known as “double mail" existed, there are no solid evidences to prove what form it actually took. Here are few possibilities:
The armor was made from links that was twice as heavy as regular mail
The links were fastened with two rivets instead of one
It had two separate mail hauberks, worn on the top of the other. A light layer of padding was required between the layers to prevent the links from binding with each other.
The mail were made from smaller links so the material required was twice as much as the regular ones.
Mail was tailored in such a way that the garment overlaps and were fastened at the side resulting in two layers of mail protecting the front
Bar Mail
Bar mail or sometimes called as “Theta mail” (as the links in question resemble the Greek character Θ) were occasionally used in India. In bar mail, the solid links are made with a strip of metal horizontally crossing the center. Although it is unclear what purpose the cross-bar served on these links. It is possible that it enabled the mail to provide similar resistance to attacks as a much finer mesh made from smaller links without the additional labour involved in making this finer type of