People also forget that armor is extremely useful at saving your life against a glancing blow. Without armor, a sword merely grazing your chest can open a wound that will bleed profusely - with mail or even padded armor like gambeson, those glancing blows become harmless, allowing the soldier to keep fighting. Not all blows were precise death blows - many were mere grazing blows that just barely touched the enemy, and armor was extremely good at turning those blows into a harmless strike.
also accidents. If you are in a line of a hundred other guys carrying pointy weapons and everyone is going crazy during a battle, there will be lots of people who accidentally poke here or there. Your arms move easily but if you are packed in between shields and other heavy people, you might not be able to move your torso to escape an accidental poke if you are shoved or someone else is shoved into you.
This applies to pretty much any type of combat or martial art. Getting a full contact, perfectly powerful strike on someone is rare. It’s much more likely to glance off as you say or for the person to react and move slightly and partially deflect your blow. Even in modern combat, look how many bullets simply wound instead of kill.
@@tsmspace Can easily imagine this. Played hockey as a teen in varsity and anytime we'd scrum together for a team chat or stand in line for a photo etc, we'd invariably end up accidentally smacking one another with our hockey sticks as we moved about or even just stood there.. harmless since they were just sticks and we had armor / padding.. but easy to imagine were they swords / spears etc and we had no armor on? Many a wounded person would there be just from standing in a line.
@@wobblysauce Agreed, but at the same time, I don't think that every cut would have resulted in infection and death. Despite what people think, they did have some actual medical knowledge during the Medieval and Renaissance periods, it wasn't all just bleeding and prayers. There's a fairly famous account of a young Henry V(?) having an arrow surgically removed from his face, granted he was a crown prince and a commoner likely would have died from the wound, but it shows that they actually knew about fighting infections back then.
Yes, and keep in mind that the wearer can focus on the few threats that could defeat it, so he would be more effective at fending of those than if he was unarmoured.
@@TheGlassgubben Yep. It's a few less things to worry about, when you're in the middle of battle. If nothing else, not having divided attention can be the difference between life and death.
@@Bluecho4 Even when armored in a fight few people will deliberate take a hit to their chest . Any normal person will still pay attention to be not hit in the chest. And you actually need more attention to ignore attacks on certain body parts. Because instead of blocking/evading immediately you first got to analyze if the attack goes to a dangerous place. And remember while it should protect you on paper (parchment?), you are gambling with your life. That's why heavily armored tanks in WW2 still retreated when hit repeatedly by weapons that should not be able penetrate them on paper. Because the crews did not want to find out if the papers were right. (Plus the discomfort of being hit, and not knowing the exact weapon that's shooting at you).
The Battle Of The Standard in 1138 is an excellent case study in the effectiveness of maille - a Scottish army of 16,000 mostly unarmoured infantry failed to overcome an Anglo-Norman force of 10,000 with a solid core of armoured Milites.
To the man who first had the idea, "Hmm, I wonder if smithing a thousand little circles and connecting them together to make a shirt will stop my friends from dying as often." We solute you, you nameless legend. You saved millions of our ancestors
I used to wear full head-to-toe chainmail to dive with sharks every day. My mail had smaller loops but it was still stinking heavy. It doesn't stop crushing force, but it will allow you to keep your limbs. The stuff is heavy but it works and that's why, in some professions (like working at an aquarium) it is still around. Thanks middle ages and thanks Sir Jason and Kasumi!
Similar technology is used in food service too. I used to wear chain link gloves while cleaning a meat slicer. I imagine there are similar industrial uses for them too. It's interesting in which ways it was adaptated and remains relevant.
the mail gloves are also used in the fishing industry, i use to work on trawlers and we used them while gutting fish, stripping shells and when using heavy lines to pull them in when a fish is caught. mostly this is a steel mesh but the guys i worked with said that the best were steel ringlets that were 1/5 riveted much like with medieval armor of the time.
I used to fight in 13th century reenactment wearing mail. Somethings I found : it is surprisingly able to absorb quite a lot of impact if leather or fabric is under it. You inevitably smell of oil and rust/iron after wearing it. On hot days, sweat will make it worse and it does get hot and transfer heat. In cold weather it will sap any heat from your body and become ice cold. And yes, you definitely have to take it off like that and sometimes the folds jam into each other so you have to shake like your having a fit! Made even worse after a fight in summer when your sweating and exhausted....
I had to stand in a full hauberk on a cold windy day waiting at a documentary shooting. Didn't have my warm stuff with me I normally take to events. That was hell
@@weirdsciencethe2nd205 I've heard it's more a slash resistant piece than a stab resistant piece, at least thats what they were saying on a different test vid
In my previous job as a medieval themed falconer (crazy asf I know lmao) I regularly had to wear mail like this alongside being armed and having a 10lb+ bird of prey on my fist also and lets just say I'll never forget some of the looks I got ahahaha. It's not everyday you see a 6,8' 'knight' shopping in your local co-op etc.
They stopped using solid rings for chainmail because producing solid rings required hammering out flat sheets of metal to which you would stamp out the solid rings. Once the process of drawing metal into a wire was produced around the 10th century it became presumably easier, cheaper and less wasteful to just make bunch of wire rings and rivet them together rather than stamp out solid rings from sheets of metal
@stormy weather I very seriously doubt it for a couple of reasons. 1, In combat, the edges are nicked and dulled quite seriously. 2, the weak spot in the mail is the riveted ring, not the 4 solid rings, so even if a nice sharp edge did hit the one riveted ring, it is still re-enforced by the four solids. Add in the thick layer of the padded gambeson worn under the mail and it is a quite thick layer of armor. Historically, the two handed "great" sword came about after plate armor was showing up. Most all serious injuries were from blunt force trauma unless you found an opening in the armor. Cheers.
@@ModernKnight could you do a comparison against metal scale armor? I would think it would be more effective against puncture than mail (so long as the strike doesn't come angled upwards of course) and keep the same mobility
Credits to “Warlord, Thunder Bringer, Boudicca, Valkyrie, Gossamer, Talos” ...was there ever a stable of horses with such fantastically strident names?! Then of course there is ‘The Mule with No Name’ who has glory in nameless mystery! Thank you for these fantastic vids!
The wise thing to do with horses is give them a little bit to nibble on, before throwing the rest of the food in, in order to prevent them from devouring you...
In the early 90s I worked at a meat plant and regularly would wear about 20 pounds of mail. Gloves, sleeves and a split leg apron. Really felt like it was more of a burden than anything, then I saw a guy without his gear on cut himself, can't remember not wanting to wear it afterwards.
Yup, I know a guy who was an apprentice butcher, company forced him to work without protection as it wouldn't arrive for another day. He cut his hand and fucked it, only has 30% usability left. Got a big settlement as it was legally required for the company to provide chain mail gloves. Doctors said that his hand would have been completely fine if he had just had his gloves.
Another important advantage of mail ... logistics. Any apprentice smith can draw the metal into wire, turn the wire into loops, link the loops into chained pattern. Any idle soldier can pull (spare) links off the bottom edges to repair damaged vital areas. Anyone with a campfire and a hammer can pound deformed links back into shape with some success. Indeed, the mail is still useful even if poorly repaired on the field with bits of wire and string. And any commoner (or his wife) who owned such armour could resize or tailor an existing piece to custom fit.
"No armour will protect you from every threat". Well my good sir, step right up and behold! A suit of armour; made entirely of a strange new material. It comes from a land in the distant West and this miracle material is called - Plot. Saves you from anything.
i hate plot armour so much which is why i never watched starwars in every bit of media that wants to put the main character in 'danger' but not too much danger so they only suffer a minor wound as compared to the hundreds of faceless nameless NPCs that die from a breeze which is why i like films that have the balls to kill off main characters and think it should be done more
Anyone who participates in HEMA knows that the vast majority of hits are of minimal force. Your main protection is your own weapon and your own defense. It is a rare strike that is delivered with full or even 75% force. As such, mail is very protective from those sorts of strikes. As you state, it's only the unexpected hits and a very rare hit if you've been disarmed that is likely to get through mail.
A ways back I did a lot of medieval close combat stunt work (basically renfest stuff). Chain mail is absolutely amazing for a lot of reasons mentioned here, but I think one of the main elements that don't get brought up very often is that it BREATHES. Working/fighting for hours in a hot summer day and it's comparatively very comfortable to wear, whereas a gambeson would make you useless in that scenario. If you've have it lying in the shade for while doing some labor when you put it on it even cools you down and feels comfortable, even with the extra weight. Soldiers are not just there for fighting, so much of the work is logistics, fortifications etc and doing those tasks while battle ready requires comfort/not overheating. IMO it's the perfect balance.
@@mikitz Half of them did. Saladin was successful in battle because the Europeans were overheated and dehydrated most of the time. He'd even build great fires upwind of them to make it even more horrible. Saladin would capture water access and then just wait for the Europeans to attack their fortified position once they were partially mummified. I mean, better than just getting killed by Saladin's archers I guess? Early on in the crusades, the Knights seemed basically unkillable in full plate until the saracens figured out that you just force them to stay in their armor with poke attacks for 5 days straight and they pretty much just keel off their horses.
I love how you and other UA-camrs tackle modern medieval misunderstandings. I teach history and usually dedicate one to two lessons for knighthood, medieval battles and combat gear. You’d be surprised with how eager teenagers are to learn about knights, medieval soldiers and their gear. Especially since I usually make my students fight each others with boffer swords after which we analyse what their ”injuries” would have meant in real life during the medieval times. Let’s say that most understand the value of armor after the demonstration. :)
Indeed. People of the past were not stupid. They just didn’t know the things we do nowadays, just like we have lost a lot of the wisdom that people of the past had gained over centuries. Thank you for being one of the people that bring the past to life for us modern folk.
@@Razidurgh This might not be exactly what he was referring to, but I will try to answer your question in a couple of ways, then explain more in detail. The first answer is probably more along the lines of the answer you were looking for, and the second is what I believe to be an example of wisdom and knowledge that you may not have been considering. I mean no offense by this, it was just in how I interpreted your comment. :) 1. The knowledge of the composition and production of Wootz steel (i.e. true damascus steel) is lost to us, as recently as the 18th or 19th century. Modern damascus is just two or more distinctly different types of steels that are layered together in a pattern (i.e. "pattern damascus") which somewhat imitates the appearance but not the characteristics. 2. The knowledge of how and why the Late Bronze Age collapse occurred (and the inherent wisdom that can be distilled from the knowledge of how an entire civilization collapses). This is still partially a mystery to us- we have bits and pieces of the puzzle, but we don't really know the whole story and maybe never will. I guess the bigger question I would like to ask back is, what exactly do you consider to be wisdom and knowledge? How much knowledge and wisdom was lost when London burned in 1666? How much knowledge and wisdom was lost when the Notre Dame cathedral burned last year? How much knowledge and wisdom was lost from the tens of thousands of scrolls that burned in the Library of Alexandria? I know the answer is most certainly not zero, but beyond that I cannot tell you. We tend to view our modern notion of "knowledge" and "wisdom" through the lens of science (and I interpreted your comment as an observation that we have replaced historical knowledge and wisdom with more correct or more accurate knowledge through science and technology, which is why I am approaching my answer in this regard). This "scientific lens" is obviously very useful for us, and science is arguably one of the most useful tools we have for understanding the world around us (please do not think I am saying otherwise). However, knowledge and wisdom do not necessarily have to be encapsulated in a scientific context (e.g. the "medical humors" turn into "biology or human physiology" or "alchemy" evolves into "stoichiometry"- this is what I think of when you described knowledge becoming outdated or replaced). Science strictly leaves out (among other things) questions of value or questions of morality, because they are not testable or provable within its scope or "framework" (a discussion on the limitations and scope of science is really interesting, but this comment is long enough so I will leave it at that). If we go back to the example of the Late Bronze Age collapse, it is likely to contain knowledge and wisdom around cultural and social phenomena of that time, as well as perhaps changes in the natural world (which science could potentially tell us about). Consider what it would mean if we lost the knowledge of the events of the Holocaust? There is a significant amount of cultural and social wisdom we can gain by studying these events and asking the questions "How and why did this happen? How _could_ this even happen?". If you actually read my comment, thank you. It started off as a genuine intention to think of a good example to answer Laszlo's question, but then it morphed into a personal thought experiment that I thought answered the question even more deeply than intended. Only a few more days left in 2020- hopefully we can all revel in the knowledge of that and seek whatever wisdom will come from having survived it!
Watching you put the mail on in 10 seconds makes me think no one would want to be in a place like, say, a camp that might be raided, without mail available to put on. A surprise attack makes it pretty impossible you'll get your plate on, but a surprised sleepy man can still put on mail.
@@generic_asian_ Yeah, fs, the combo of all the stuff is just if time is willing (as I assume the dress time to armor ratio would be much better than plate, let's say)
More than that, it looks comfortable enough to rest/sleep in unlike many plate pieces. I'd say as a town watchmen or guard you could put it on in a hurry if off duty.
This is a moot point since AFAIK plate armor was always worn with mail underneath. So a plate armored soldier would have his mail shirt as well. It's not mail or plate, it's mail or mail plus plate, which makes the question do you want plate completely irrelevant; if you could afford it you would have it
I live in an area in Normandy where there were skirmishes and small battles during the 100 years war. I often find small pieces of chain mail with my metal detector....
@@karliikaiser3800 It all depends on the chemistry of the soil and the elements and all that stuff. If you dig a few inches on Mars, the soil is no longer red
You have your license for that? France is pretty strict about using metal detectors and archaeological remains. A guy just got busted recently for stealing an enormous number of artifacts... claimed he found them in Belgium, which has more lenient laws, but he was actually doing detecting and digging in France.
Chainmail is still used today in food preparation and for shark suits. Butchers use it when dismantling a carcass so they don't accidently stab themselves. (the youtube channel Bearded Butchers talk about this occasionally) Chain gloves are still used by people who have to cut or chop lots of vegetables or fillet lots of fish. And of course divers who are going to be around large sharks wear chain as well, so they don't get bitten. It's really interesting how it's still useful today.
I think it's funny when people spend time "proving" that mail or other armour wasn't effective: "Look! This longbow arrow goes right through it! How silly of them to use something that wouldn't protect them." Uh, have you seen modern armour? Modern armour's ratio of effectiveness to the lethality of weapons we're up against is a way bigger gap, yet we still seem to think it worthwhile for our police and soldiers to wear it. Kevlar may protect against 9 mm, but it's not going to do a ton against a rifle or anything more hard-core. Most bullet-proof glass is made to withstand handguns, not rifles. And why wear a helmet if a bomb can rip you to shreds, or an IED can blow you to smithereens? The reason, of course, is that the armour is for mitigating risk. It doesn't protect you from all threats; what it does is make a certain percentage of lethal attacks no longer lethal. And that's a big deal if you want to stay alive, doing a risky job, day to day.
Even the ceramic plates in most vests are only effective up to intermediate rifle calibers, but it's better than nothing and I can confirm that. I would not be here if not for my level 4 plates.
You would be surprised how little energy even a hardcore AP bullet will retain after passing through a moderately thick log, however. What would go through your soft armour twice over without a barrier will be stopped by it after penetrating a log, only inflicting a bruise or a contusion as a result. And we're not even talking about frag resistance. I think it's a much more fitting analogy for Medieval mail in modern context.
@@jumpingbean69 I was always very amused that my ballistic armour came with a money-back guarantee in the event of failure. The government couldn't lose.
The switch to full rivets may have made repairs easier. You only make the shirt once, but it would get damaged and being able to replace the lowest number of rings possible would be preferable to having to remove chunks for the sake of one split link.
My thinking too at first, but then I came thinking: why not make it 4:1 and then bring riveted for replacement? Gradually more and more parts would become fully riveted, but initial production would still be quicker and cheaper.
Punching solid rings requires additional tools, and then you have to collect all the bits you punched out of the middle and turn them back into sheet iron, which seems like it would be a pain. Any shmuck can make riveted rings.
@@peterrose5373 I think that this is really it. Making chainmail doesn't require extreme talent in the way a comparable plate would. Just lots of time.
@@roberthammarberg7438 Maybe, but not by as much as the video says. The ratio of punched links to riveted links isn't actually 4:1, it's only 1:1. You can make clusters of 5 links with only 1 riveted link in the center, but attaching that cluster to a sheet of mail requires riveted links, so you can make at most 50% of your links by punching them out. As metalworking techniques advanced and the manufacture of wire became easier (while punching rings out of a sheet of iron remained as difficult as it ever was) the economics probably shifted and made riveting every link cheaper than punching out half of them. I'd hazard a guess and say that the disappearance of punched rings from mail probably coincides with the development and adoption of the wire drawing process, rather than making wire by slicing thin strips from a sheet of metal.
The manufacturing process may also be a factor to consider. We tend to think it demands 4x the time to do 4:4 because we assume one person is working on the shirt. But in the old days they would probably have more than 1 person working on the same shirt at the same time. Imagine 1 worker holding each link in one hand and riviting with the other, he would have to do the riviting movement 4 times for each link. Now think of 2 people working on each link at the same time, each worker would have to rivit twice, and so on.
One of the best and most practical things that this channel is the actual interaction with horses. It’s very likely that horses would have been ubiquitous in military settings but also common in any house that could have had any means of affording them.
Splendid! I was thrilled to get to watch one of your videos sir knight! Thank you for sharing, a fantastic job, as always. For the Romans I'd just like to add that probably the period term would be thoracomachus, as sub armalis (pronounced "soob") ", even though it is Latin, is more of a modern term, similarly to how lorica segmentata is how everyone calls the Roman segmented plate armour, even though again, the name is Latin, but it's not period. A more probable name for segmentata would be lorica laminata. I say probable because we just don't know, but we do know that the Romans called the segments laminae, hence the possibility of it being called laminata. Anyhow just a small addition to a very good video! Looking forward to more. ps: I hate taking my mail shirt off. I always protect my hair with basically an improvised bandana, before I start the process. I do that when I put it on too. Probably not historically accurate, but it keeps the rings from plucking out some of my hair.
Hey Noble One: Have you tried going bald? Has worked wonders for me, no more hair catching.. But I disagree on you last point: I bet everyone (who had worn mail at least once before) put something over their hair, just as you do, I don't think there was ever a period where ppl enjoyed having it ripped out in clumps :D Maybe that's why late Viking/ early Normans loved the shaved back and sides hairstyle, with the mop on top: your neck hair getting pulled by mail has gotta get old REALLY fast when you are riding along on a horse. Anyway Ciao my dude!
Thanks Metatron, I hoped you'd provide more details about the Roman side of things, as you know so much about that period of history and say Latin much better than anyone else I know. My schoolboy latin is both rusty and badly pronounced, though I imagine that these islands had people with funny Latin accents even during Roman times.
They could just have used those padded caps, that go under the mail hood or helmet, for this purpose. I mean, they are going to be worn anyways, why not make the most of it?
@Ice Hockey is Pretty Pretty Good In my History GCSES we learnt about medieval crime and punishment, interesting enough, but it was too specialised to be any fun - especially when we had to do essay after essay about the same topic
@@silvermoon4068 Really though, people fighting in chainmail would have been a tiny part of a feudal levy's life. Crime and punishment was an everyday consideration. I'd say this was the specialisation.
Brilliantly put. What you say about this armour is equally true of modern armour. No armour is perfect (modern ballistic or chainmail), frequently it protects you from the most common injuries on the battlefield, and perhaps more importantly, it downgrades potentially fatal attacks, to mild or serious injury. I have heard the same things you were saying used to describe modern ballistic armours precisely. Chainmail stops a casual slash from severing an artery and stops stabbing attacks from penetrating your entire thorax. Thats a 95% positive user rating right there.
Your comment on chainmail being universally recognised throughout the ages, made me think. We almost have the same effect with camouflaged uniforms. you could show a picture of a man in uniform to almost anyone and they would know he was a soldier. I would think the same with mail armour, you would know any statue, engraving or relief covered in little circles was a warrior.
Camo emerged no earlier than WWI and wasn't a mass thing until late WWII. Mass WWII uniform is still plain (grey+green or black for nazi, green+brown for the Soviet). If you look at XVIII- XIX century soldiers - you find them in bright very decorated uniforms with bizarre hats. Meanwhile, chainmail has been developed as early as in the Roman empire (so definitely before V century) and stayed in use all the way through the thousand years of Middle ages up to XVIII century (sic, irregular warriors. Not soldiers, but adventurers and explorers). On the territories of Russia alone, chainmail is found dating back to VIII- XVIII centuries and in bulk. If you come at a small museum in any little town, the first three things you find there as ancient archeology are pottery, arrow tips and a piece of chainmail rusted into a stone.
I remember reading a book of fiction (it was a fantastic romance, too modern for fantasy, too weird for sci-fi), and there at some point a hero who comes out of XIX century or so bumps into US marines. (Weird, i told you. It also involves aliens). They're described as guys in some weird green spotted PJs.
Looking at how this armour works I'm surprised in D&D they don't allow wizards and thieves to wear this kind of mail. It looks super flexible and don't seem to make undue noise. Great demo :-)
I think the lore explanation is that metal intervenes with arcane energies so if the wizard wears too much of it he can't cast spells reliably. In reality it's a balance thing, wizards are supposed to be vulnerable to balance out the powerful spells they can use. If wizards can wear armor there's no reason to play a martial. See 5th edition of DnD where wizards CAN wear armor and most martials are just pointless
Not sure if you know but he's the joint CEO founder of Rebellion Games mainly known currently for the Sniper Elite and Zombie Army games series. They also own the rights to Judge Dredd comics.
Having made some chainmaille…One of the reasons for all the rings being riveted is easy of making! Forge welding that tiny ring to a solid ring is difficult. Peening a rivet is much easier
Full respect for constructing a riveted byrnie. I have knitted a couple from butted links (ahistorical I know) and that took some serious time and effort. Riveted? I can only imagine.
As someone who makes modern maille (jewellery and accessories mainly using mostly aluminium rings) 1, rings that are already closed are a HUGE time saver, 2 maille on the scale of a shirt takes a very long time unless being made as a team, 3, while much lighter than plate, it is heavier than you'd expect. And especially with experience with maille, this video was super enjoyable!
I think many modern people forget that war isn't like sparring in a gym. War is mostly marching, digging, riding, etc., so the gear soldiers wore needed to be appropriate for those tasks as well as combat. The best harness in the world is useless if it isn't on you when the enemy appear.
I have this argument with martial arts and MMA people when they say ancient martial arts are useless they forget that it was for killing and the martial arts today is not.
@@johnree6106 ancient martial arts are useless in a contemporary modern day setting, sure. But at the time, they were the most effective systems available. The belabour the point that Jason made in the video; people were not stupid, they used what was available to them as effectively as possible. You’d be incredibly naive to say that about 700 years would make no difference to our understanding of effective fighting systems!
@@genuinejoe2103 Having done both Military CQC, and Modern MMA there is a distinct difference in the two. One is meant to disable or kill, and the other is basically play fighting in comparison. Which is something most MMA fighters don't seem to grasp, is the point. While yes, there are advancements and certain things can be effective. I'm not about to try to wrestle a man down, and arm bar him. I'm going to aim to invert Elbows, Knees, gouge eyes, Crush throats. Whatever is readily available. It's going to be as quick and dirty as possible. There is a good reason that MMA fighters in general are afraid of, or avoid street fighters. Because one is a sport and the other could potentially be life and death. There is an exceptionally different mentality and flow to the two.
@@HauntingSpectre The anecdote of the Spartans being banned from wrestling at the games because they did not believe in a sports version of Greek wrestling and the martial version included eye gauging and breaking bones and joints. And the normal ancient Greek wrestling had very very few rules already, not being allowed to blind your opponent intentionally was one of those very few ones...
Funny enough, nearly that exact method of removing the armor is how I had to take off my plate carrier. The weight of the armor plates makes it hard to just pull it up like a t-shirt, so you need to let gravity help you out. A modern plate certainly isn't much like ancient maille, but the fast way of removing the latter really activated a memory there.
they went from 4 solid to all rivets because they started to make mail from wire not plate. The solid rivets were punched out of small plates then the riveted link was made by hand. Once they started to wind the wire to make the links there was less waist of material. The round wire was hammered flat to make the same shape. I would say its to save on material as labour would still be very cheap compared to the cost of iron or at that point likely steel.
Not sure what you mean here. Mail was never all-solid rings in medieval Europe. It started out all-riveted in the early medieval, then gradually transitioned to 1:1 solid rings and riveted in the high medieval. This was a big labor savings. In both cases the primary fabrication technique was drawn wire. Punched rings are generally inferior.
@@MinSredMash 4 in one means 4 links connected by one. In the video he states the solid links use to be connected by one riveted link. He goes on to state how he did not know how or why they switched to all riveted links. Links where not drawn into wire in the early times they where punched out of plate. These would be solid links not drawn wire. I know a repeat but the switch was when they made all links from wire. Hope this clears if up.
I used to make maile and from my research, the last time that it was used on the large scale was about 1910 in India. It was used longer than anything other than animal hide (which may have been used for thousands of years). As for why: 1) It was easier to make than plate armor. 2) It was more of a 'one size fits most' than plate armor.
interesting thing is, and i've tried to locate as many sources as possible, but making maille may be easier (in terms of skill), BUT it takes MUCH longer, at least twice as long, sometimes a bit longer depending on what part of the body you making it for.
@@ericaugust1501 Of note is that the production time shortens drastically when you figure out that a dozen peasants can be taught to rivet rings of metal together. Yes, it's dozens of peoples labor to make one shirt quickly, but a dozen peasants labor isn't more expensive than a single highly skilled armorer making plate. It can be a pseudo-industrial process at that point. A hundred peasants hammering rings flat and riveting them together can churn out mail tremendously, with little skill needed.
It follows the old saying: "If it isn't broke, don't fix it." It's relatively cheap. You do not need massive stores of refined steel to make it. Repair requires fastening new links - nothing more. If it's rusty, drag it through the sand. If it's muddy, let it dry and then shake it out....THEN drag it through the sand. It's easy to put on and take off, and protects against the majority of incidental cuts and blows. Add a shield, maybe a coif or other neck/shoulder protection, a helmet, and you're good to go. Add gambeson to taste. Requires little to no training to know how to wear. Were it not for crossbows, I'll bet it would have lasted to the age of gunpowder.
pretty much what I thought! it lasted nearly two thousand years because the threats didn't change, there's a video from the Royal Armouries showing English civil war plate armour being at least proof against period pistol fire at close range, but it still fell out of favor quickly due to the massive cost in time and money to make
One of the things people bring up, that "it can break bones" at least for the Roman period was not a huge issue. Roman doctors were especially good at setting broken bones, and their main trouble was in treating deep lacerations, cuts, and piercing wounds, which maille is very good at preventing. So maybe you might suffer a broken collarbone, and that would be okay, because at least your shoulder joint wasn't cleft in twain, and you were able to stab the other guy in the neck, and live to fight another day. Additionally, with a sharp cutting implement, it's not too difficult to lay flesh open. If you want to try and get through the armour with a big powerful blow, you're likely going to open yourself up in some way where a person could "slip" (using boxing terminology) in and counter your big powerful blow. You're better to go for the places that don't have the armour, but those are not nearly as easy to hit as centre-mass, especially not when they've got a nice big shield in their other hand.
In addition to being a very useful modern analog to explain the risk of attempting a powerful blow, your boxing analogy has the added bonus of invoking an image of a Roman officer wandering about his drilling soldiers and periodically yelling the Latin equivalent of "protecc ya'self at ALL TIMES!". You get a like!
Here is the big thing about blunt damage as opposed to lacerations. The human body can withstand blunt force a lot better than lacerations. A soldier could still fight on very effectively suffer a broken bone or 2, while 2 or 3 shallow cuts takes them out of the fight. Plus infection killed as much, if not more, people than the wounds they suffered in battle up until recently.
Even if you don't have good doctors who could set bone, you're generally more likely to survive a broken bone for many years, rather than a laceration or gaping wound that could bleed out in minutes. That's why stabs and cuts were the major source of battlefield death: the damage itself was overshadowed by the leaking of vital fluids and/or organs. A broken bone is hardly unproblematic, especially if it heals incorrectly, but it's only really an immediate concern if it starts puncturing something (whether the skin outside or an organ). If that is avoided, you can at least survive the day, and potentially get it set before or after the fusing of bone sets in. Bleeding out is a pressing issue that even modern doctors or medics aren't always able to stop. And none of this gets into cuts or stabs that lead to infection. Unless it's peeking through the skin, a broken bone probably won't lead to a slow death from disease.
@@Bluecho4 Even if we only consider open wounds, stabs were much more dangerous than cuts. I recall seeing somewhere that a Roman author noted that whilst a footlong cut was survivable, a 4 in. deep stab could be fatal. Any armour that can protect you against _most_ stabbing and cutting implements is good armour.
The argument that an enemy may inflict a crush wound through the armor makes no sense anyways. If the strike was enough to break bones through mail it would have broken those same bones if you didn't wear mail, on top of other injuries the mail prevented This reminds me of an anecdote from I believe WW1: when the American army introduced a new helmet to its troops, the amount of soldoers with head wounds increased dramatically. This perplexed the American doctors until someone figured it was because the soldiers that would have died from shots to the head now survived with a head wound. The helmets did their job
I love how your black horse lowers the head and nodes slightly on every lance hit... that horse is rooting for ya to do well, and probably going to chide you somehow if you miss for any reason. Loved seeing the personality there. Very serious horse, and loving the interactions. She is magnificent, what a beauty, what a flow of grace when she moves.... like a gentle shadow moving in a slight sine wave, very focused... wow, just love this vid. thank you.
You really ought to invest in an arming cap, Mr. Kingsley. Speaking as a fellow long-haired man, it really helps to keep one's mane from getting in the way or being damaged.
I do miss my long hair, but then I watch the pained expressions from my group members as they put armour on and realise that its a blessing in disguise to be cropped. Even the short hairs on the back of my neck got caught *very* easily when putting maille on or trying to turn my head with it, its part of the reason I started wearing turtlenecks at training, I can't imagine how bad it would be with actual long hair.
Sorry for commenting after such a long time (I only found your channel a couple of months ago and haven't gotten around to watching all - but I really love your videos!). I can confirm that wearing chainmail, especially a shorter shirt like yours, is quite easy for a day or even several. You get used to the weight quickly, and because it's so flexible, it doesn't really get in the way or hinder movement at all. I've worn similar mail shirts before (although they weren't riveted) and I didn't really take them off until the evening - and I've even slept in one (once), which wasn't too bad either. I didn't have a gambeson, just a normal linen tunic - getting hit was uncomfortable and left bruises and some chafing, but otherwise I didn't feel ill-protected. I currently don't own a mail shirt, but I just ordered some rings to start making a new one - will be a while until it's finished, but I'm looking forward to it too. I'm going to see if a 6-in-1 pattern will be flexible enough to have the entire shirt made that way, or if I need to do a 4-in-1 pattern at least for some parts like the shoulders. I do believe that the 6-in-1 pattern will help with the weakness against arrows that chainmail has, because the tighter pattern doesn't leave much room for the arrowhead to get into. As I'm working on a full set of equipment for a 6th to 7th century Alamannic nobleman, I'll propably leave it with shorter arms and use some form of Byzantine cheiropsella for protecting the arms - with some chainmail hand guards because I don't like getting hit on the fingers :D
This is top notch Christmas holiday content. As others have said, the enthusiasm is wonderful, and Jason is a wonderful presenter. Hope for many more in the new year.
whenever I'm putting on my Roman maille, I have to 'hop' to get it on, I tend to cheekily call it the "hamata hop". it is indeed a fascinating technology.
@@Dr_Will_Tarr Getting it on and off by oneself isn't that difficult, just takes some practice. Although having a helping hand is welcome when it happens. In my Roman school programs I'm usually helping young students in & out of armor, but that's because they've never worn it before.
Another interesting Modern History video well done! I've always had a huge love for the medieval times throughout history, novels like King Arthur, and movies/ show based in that time. It's wonderful to meet other people of that same era interest!!! and to get excited while watching Jason getting excited doing his experiments out here! I love this high quality channel and it's interesting medieval knight topics! Keep up the amazing work Sir Jason!
Drawn steel wire becomes a thing in the 14th century. This meant that while each ring had to be individually smithed before, now you could just cut pieces of steel wire, flatten the ends smith it into a circle and rivet the ends together. Even if that means 4 times the riveting the total amount of work is less than the old way of making mail armour. About the vulnerability of your arms, your left arm (for a right-handed person) would be protected by your shield. You're not going to battle without a shield, would you?
Hi, Adam. Yes, and I’ve seen oyster shuckers use mail gloves, too. Another use for mail that many people aren’t aware of is for electrical workers that perform maintenance on high tension cables. They don an entire suit of mail and are lifted to the energized wires by helicopter. There the worker grounds himself to the wire while still on a platform beneath the helo, then physically transfers to the wire itself in order to travel along it for inspection or repair. The mail suit (forgive my non-technical explanation) allows the worker to physically touch the wires while directing the electrical charge around his body instead of electrocuting him. You can find viddies of that amazing job here on YT. I’m sure there are other uses for mail in today’s world that I’m not aware of.
@@nuvostef Oh yes, I forgot about those. I've seen videos of that, they're very cool. Dr Megavolt does a similar thing: ua-cam.com/video/Fyko81WAvvQ/v-deo.html
I've made an entire maille shirt and coif all by my lonesome and just from that perspective, I reckon maille would have remained a popular form of armor for blacksmiths to *sell* for a long time because of what goes into making it It'd be the perfect kind of project to hand off to apprentices. Most of the process is relatively simple, just very time consuming. Drawing wire, winding wire, cutting rings, flatting rings. Riveting rings. Lots of simple, but time consuming tasks that would also help apprentices train up various useful skills for the trade. And with a useful byproduct!
Yeah, the removal technique at the end is what Jill Bearup refers to as "the undignified wiggle dance". It's comforting to know that every knight had this little taste of humility at the end of every battle.
Yep, I remember putting on a hauberk for the first time. Everything felt great until it came time to take it off. It was quite snug, so there was a slight 'panic attack' when it got stuck half way. Then I remembered someone saying 'gravity is your friend', I did the upside down dance and it just fell off.
Some very interesting points, I hadn't considered the advantages of having shorter sleeves, plus the point about not need servants to help you into it gave me some things to think about too. Thanks
I think you could probably mitigate the weight on lower arms with something like garters below your elbows. I have a feeling that was done, even, but that's off the top of my head!
“Chain” Mail can looked at as metallic “fabric”. Although, labour intensive to produce, the fitting of mail must have significant similarities to the tailoring of cloth textiles.
Jason, I honestly think you're the coolest man alive. you're the closest thing to a real life knight that we have in the modern day. Complete with being noble and honorable.
One other thing about chain mail: it just looks good! The Crusader Knight in his chain mail, tunic, and great helm is one of the most imposing and fearsome looks in history (at least as far as modern illustrations of it go).
Think thats the key point isn't it. You can leave mail on and if you get ambushed or otherwise surprised you have some form of protection. Your plate on the other hand does no good (and some degree of hindrance) sitting in a chest on the back of the cart
J Kinglsey is an absolute legend, im sure i saw him riding at dragon slayer down at Warwick castle a few years back. I have seen a mail ring coat made at a forge up near Llangollen, ring by ring riveted one at a time, these coats would have been very expensive.
I would think there were specialized work shops producing mail as long as there was a sufficient demand. Making it is a skill. The more skilled you are the faster and more efficient you can work. I would think scaled armor is actually faster to produce.
Any armor that was in use for almost a thousand years was "effective." These people weren't stupid. I'm sure guards could patrol a city or a castle all day in that stuff. Or walk Hadrian's Wall. And guards who were not on duty, could easily slip into that shirt during emergency
Exactly there's also this annoying thing in movies and books where guards with chainmail and spears are somehow pushovers ... The guys got the perfect armour and weapon to stop a sword or knife ... Hes got reach and protection ...
Literally my first thought when reading the title was "Because it works?" Second thought was you missed an s... Still love your videos so best of luck to you :-)
And is probably relatively cheaper and weighs less than full plate? Which wasn't even developed until very late in the Middle Ages, only to soon die out due to firearms?
@@NodDisciple1 More expensive then a coat of plates, mail shirts averaged 25 shillings, vs 13 S 6d for a cheap pairs of plates in the 1360's Full plate did not disappear on day one of guns, there lots of armor being worn in to the 30 years war.
@@NodDisciple1 Plate was still used into the 1600's and the style had changed a bit to accommodate firearms. Plate armors from that period were tested for being "bulletproof" before being used.
Well the problem it is relatively weak to piercing, will say spears, arrows (,swords to an extent) and does jack all against blunt weapons or kinetic impacts of any kind. Of course it has its strong points as well.
I honestly don't know how Jason can go through his day without a permanent ear-to-ear grin. I remember the first time I got a horse up to canter, and the feeling kept me in ecstasy for days. If I were to ever ride while wearing mail, the Tolkien nerd in me would probably succumb to fatal amounts of glee.
I've been watching this channel nonstop for a week now! So fascinating and it's great that you also cover less-known stuff like rushlight, soap, beeswax wrap, and food (please consider making a historically accurate medieval cookbook! I'll buy it!). I thank the magnificent UA-cam algorithm for bringing me here. I was originally looking for medieval kirtle/gown sewing tutorial, which brought me to a beautiful video about Lady of Shalott, saw the name of the actor who played Sir Lancelot, and the rest is history. Keep up the amazing work! Oh, and also, Percival is Oscar-worthy.
If you are interested in a historically accurate medieval cookbook that includes both history and recipes (but adapted and tested to be doable in a modern kitchen), I'd recommend _Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony,_ by Madeleine Pelner Cosman
I don't know if it's the best book out there, as I'm far from an expert and I happened into owning the book after a library culling, but it was fascinating and I've enjoyed it (made at least one recipe)
Was about to say the same thing. It's slightly heavier because it's made of copper, and he's doing it for a different reason (to simulate wearing a space suit), but the results are roughly the same.
Another great video. Would love to see more armour demos like these. Im curious as to what a full day of wearing a gambeson is like. I imagine it may be similar but tad more insulating due to the number of layers needed to provide the protection
I do HEMA Longsword and the jackets we wear are very much like a gambeson. I can attest to just how fast you heat up and tire while wearing one (plus mask, gloves etc) while in combat. They're horrendous in hot weather.
on one of my birthday's I spent it at a town fair with my local SCA group and one of the knights let me wear his chain mail shirt for the day because it's my favourite type of armour. It felt so amazing and I loved the weight of it. The next day my whole torso and back was that "had a great workout" kind of sore. 15/10 don't need the gym, just wear chainmail and do everyday things, it's way more fun hahaha. Love your videos by the way and you really are living the dream. Keep it up!
I always think that those who diss mail forget that it is often used in conjunction with a shield and-most importantly-a person inside who is actively trying to not get hit. It pads your odds. 15:45. Hey! It’s Mule Who Shall Not Be Named! Does he have one yet?
:D that ending brought back some pretty fun memories for me :) when I witnessed this noble maneuvre of getting chainmail off for the first time. But I totally respected the guy for not being "weak" and prideful and just doing it for the amusement of everybody :D he knew we would laugh and it was a long rainy day so we definitely needed that.
Jason has such a polite relationship with his horses. And if you watch the horses, it seems like they reciprocate his politeness. It's a really nice touch to these videos. Because of modern tv and movies, games ect, we tend to think of horses like we do cars. They're just a vehicle or a "mount" that often has tank controls when you "use" them, but in reality, you're riding on a living thing, with a mind and temperament of It's own. So many of us now have dogs or cats that are every bit as much of a part of our family as our brothers, sisters or children, and there's something indescribably special about having a close connection with a pet, but it must've been on an entirely different scale to be a rider back then. Especially if you had anything to do with the military or if your were a messenger. Your horse wouldn't only have been for transportation, but you'd be keeping each other safe. Instead of just fuel and maintenance on your car, you'd need to worry about food, water, and the wellbeing of your horse. I'm sure many people back then felt like their horse was more of a partner in their travels, rather than a simple commodity. I could go on about this for hours, so I'll just wrap it up here. But I always tend to go down this path of thought when I see Jason with his horses. I don't think I've seen every video on this channel, so it's possible that this has already been done, but it would be neat if Jason did a video about this. About how the medieval people regarded their horses. I don't know if there's anything telling eluded to in surviving writings or illustrations, but if there's enough information to make a video on, it would be great, particularly because, as mentioned earlier, we're often fed a more detatched view of these animals and their roles by modern tv, movies and games. Just as an added tangent. I first played Two Worlds back on xbox once it had hit about the $20.00 mark. That game has a lot of issues. The camera controls and specifically trying to manually aim are horrible. This is all coming off the heels of Oblivion, so Two Worlds had some steep competition. In Oblivion, when you get on a horse, your controls don't really change except you can't strafe. Your inputs move the horse just as it does when on foot. In Two Worlds however, your horse just does things seemingly at random. You're trying to simply go down a path, but you keep veering off to the sides, certain inclines or small gaps in fences can't be navigated, even though you can easily do it on foot. I thought it was the same jankiness that plagued the rest of the game, but it wasn't. Two Worlds actually had a bit of ai in the mounts. Horses could be disobedient and temperamental. They "didn't like" going down steep hills, or through small gaps. And if any of you have ridden before, then you'll know that trying to drift towards the side of the path isn't terribly uncommon, as they're probably looking for a snack. When you get further into the game, you can get better mounts that are more obedient and easier to control, as well as being faster and more responsive. Understanding all this immediately took Two Worlds horse riding from being the absolute worst in a game to the best. Red Dead 2 is the only game to do it as well or better so far.
Ugh. You had to remind me that scene :/ In the book Gimli didn't take any armor from Rohirrim. Rohirrim didn't have *anything* approaching the quality of his own, dwarven armor. I understand it was comic relief scene, but still meh.
@@FrikInCasualMode I had the same split-second reaction to that joke, but the best part that made me like the gag was when the waistline of the mail hit the floor with a clank. So Gimli was that much stockier as well as that much shorter, showing the double difference in kinds. What made it even funnier is knowing that John Rhys-Davies, the usually dignified veteran classical actor who played Gimli, is actually about 6'2" (195cm) tall. The scene setup on the day (and many days) must have looked extra silly, with either a cameraman standing on a ladder to get the down angles, or John playing the scenes from down on his knees, with his boots sticking out the back :)
@@FrikInCasualMode How about the scene where he is trying to see what is happening, on the wall during the battle at Helm´s Deep, and says they should have picked a better spot, when in fact there is a crenellation just next to him that he can see through? Stupid comic relief, made no sense.
One thing to also remember about the drawings that were done back in the day: artistic license. We all know what modern artistic license takes with armor. Who's to say that they didn't also do that with the artwork depicting someone cleaving someone to the navel with a sword to play up the attacker and/or downplay the defender? And if IIRC, most of these artists were not known for actually being there for the battles, so there's no guarantee that they even understood how armor works, or what kind of weapon would make a would like that.
I like watching Jason's horse near the end while Jason is talking and the horse keeps looking over at him as if to say, "Who are you talking to Jason? I'm confused because you're not looking at me. What's going on?" lol
I still do not understand why you have not yet surpassed 1 million subscribers, at the least. Your videos are as educational and informative as they are enjoyable to watch. Your production quality is, in my humble opinion, exceptional and when that is companied with the apparently limitless amount of passion and enthusiasm you have for the subject matter, it makes for an excellent learning experience. Ofttimes when I think of a hearty, wholesome meal, it is hard to not visualize the salmon, bread, herbs, etc. that you demonstrated on your episode featuring what the peasantry ate in medieval times. I'd tried to recreate it meself but it came out nowhere near as good looking as yours was.
On the difference between using solid links or only riveted: you counted wrong the amount of riveted links when solid links are used. Half of the links need to be riveted, not quarter. Those patches of four solid and one riveted ring need to be connected to each other by riveted links.
Maybe someone developed a kind of rivet gun or standing press that made them easier to set? It would explain why the rivet shapes changed when they became much more common.
@@adamrudling1339 interesting. maybe everybody who was able to make decent sheetmetal was working for the production of plate armor, so sheet was not available or became too expensive.
@@ulrichkalber9039 If riveting became easier/cheaper than it was before, it could speed up the manufacturing process to not have to switch between types of rings.
Plot armor is a real thing. The guy who dies can't right a story afterwards. An old guy in my church was a WW2 veteran and he had many stories about everyone dying around him but he obviously made it. He had real life plot armor.
Love your passion and work! Modern History is amazing, I remember watching your early episodes when they only had a few thousand views! This channel has really grown, congrats :) Surprised you haven't have Rebellion make something similar to Kingdom Come.
i subscribed yesterday, and watch a ton of your videos, what i like the most is that when u don't know something you say so, or say " my theory is" , u could say what ever or just lie, but u don't . Good vibes from Argentina
I think popularity of chainmail (I use this term) is in its inherent simplicity. Rings are quite simple to make and it can just be weaved to intended shape and "sewn" together if broken. They are still used so it ain't going anywhere either in applications where cuts can be expected.
All I need to know about you Mr. Kingsley can be observed in the scene with you alone with your horse. Obviously a tight bond there and heartwarming to see. She's beautiful and you obviously care for all your critters very much. Animals are the best judge of character in my opinion. Really enjoy your channel and the way you share your knowledge of the things I dreamed about as a child.
In comparison to the modern equivalent of armor, the mail shirt meets similar standards in defense against the weapons of the era. Both only protect the major vitals in the thoracic cavity, as increasing the armor coverage decreases mobility due to added weight. This has the added bonus of being cheaper to mass produce if you have to field a large army. Both mail and modern armor protect against the majority, but not all of the armament of their respective times. It was brought up as a fault that the mail shirt leaves the neck and limbs exposed. In regard to the neck, mail prevents attacks with most sharp weapons from cutting or piercing, in essence, converting them to blunt strikes. Most neck trauma received from blunt strikes would, sadly, remain lethal with any armor short of plate. As to the limbs, the major arteries in the arms are covered in the upper arm. The legs remain exposed, but the increased mobility is a heaven send if you have to march any long distance. As they say, "One pound on your feet equals five pounds on your back." TLDR: Chest armor has remained popular throughout the ages for may good reasons.
Mass production may not have been such an issue for Western Europe at least until 1430 ish when King Charles VII established his standing army. Standing armies were around before the medieval period (Rome) but don’t seem to be too popular, it was more common to have each soldier pay for their own gear, in the case of a wealthy land owner. In the case of a common soldier there’s an Anglo Saxon text (if I recall) that outlines the number of men expected from each village was based on the overall population, those who are not fighting were expected to equip the few who were
Great video, well produced, and no tedious sponsorship advertising. Another factor to consider when discussing specialist clothing is 'slip.' Bit of a tangent this, but bear with me. Studies and tests have been done on Scott's, Amundsen's and Mallory's polar/summit clothing. While Scott's woollens and rubberised canvas wind suit offered similar levels of insulation in lab tests to Amundsen's gear (in practice, I suspect other factors greatly reduced the effectiveness of Scott's clothing due to the design and increased perspiration from man-hauling being absorbed readily by wool), Scott's layers of wool and canvas increased his energy expenditure by 20% relative to Amundsen's furs, due to the fact that furs 'slip' and layers of wool and canvas created more friction. Mallory seemed to have an excellent understanding of this and had silk layers that enabled slip between layers of wool and cotton. Watching you remove the mail by, well, by twerking until it slipped off made me think of this, and if mail slips easily compared to other types of weapons protective clothing (e.g. padded leather? Even plate?) it would have added greatly to its practicality and reduced energy expenditure, tiredness and hunger. The weight of protective clothing is therefore not the only factor in how practical and wearable it is. Keep up the good work your videos are excellent.
I think a part of what the chainmail would do as well, is give an ordinary soldier a good bit of confidence as well. It would give them a sense of safety as they marched into battle. No armor is perfect. Look at some of the modern "bullet proof" vests. They will stop a relatively powerful bullet, but unless they're a specific type of vest they will be vulnerable to knife stabs. Really enjoy your content. Thanks for taking the time to make it. 👍
People also forget that armor is extremely useful at saving your life against a glancing blow. Without armor, a sword merely grazing your chest can open a wound that will bleed profusely - with mail or even padded armor like gambeson, those glancing blows become harmless, allowing the soldier to keep fighting. Not all blows were precise death blows - many were mere grazing blows that just barely touched the enemy, and armor was extremely good at turning those blows into a harmless strike.
also accidents. If you are in a line of a hundred other guys carrying pointy weapons and everyone is going crazy during a battle, there will be lots of people who accidentally poke here or there. Your arms move easily but if you are packed in between shields and other heavy people, you might not be able to move your torso to escape an accidental poke if you are shoved or someone else is shoved into you.
This applies to pretty much any type of combat or martial art.
Getting a full contact, perfectly powerful strike on someone is rare. It’s much more likely to glance off as you say or for the person to react and move slightly and partially deflect your blow.
Even in modern combat, look how many bullets simply wound instead of kill.
@@tsmspace Can easily imagine this. Played hockey as a teen in varsity and anytime we'd scrum together for a team chat or stand in line for a photo etc, we'd invariably end up accidentally smacking one another with our hockey sticks as we moved about or even just stood there.. harmless since they were just sticks and we had armor / padding.. but easy to imagine were they swords / spears etc and we had no armor on? Many a wounded person would there be just from standing in a line.
Infection killed just as many as a battle.
@@wobblysauce Agreed, but at the same time, I don't think that every cut would have resulted in infection and death. Despite what people think, they did have some actual medical knowledge during the Medieval and Renaissance periods, it wasn't all just bleeding and prayers. There's a fairly famous account of a young Henry V(?) having an arrow surgically removed from his face, granted he was a crown prince and a commoner likely would have died from the wound, but it shows that they actually knew about fighting infections back then.
If you think chainmail is easy to defeat, try defeating it while an armed man who doesn't want to be stabbed is wearing it.
Yes, and keep in mind that the wearer can focus on the few threats that could defeat it, so he would be more effective at fending of those than if he was unarmoured.
@@TheGlassgubben Yep. It's a few less things to worry about, when you're in the middle of battle. If nothing else, not having divided attention can be the difference between life and death.
@@Bluecho4 Even when armored in a fight few people will deliberate take a hit to their chest . Any normal person will still pay attention to be not hit in the chest. And you actually need more attention to ignore attacks on certain body parts. Because instead of blocking/evading immediately you first got to analyze if the attack goes to a dangerous place. And remember while it should protect you on paper (parchment?), you are gambling with your life. That's why heavily armored tanks in WW2 still retreated when hit repeatedly by weapons that should not be able penetrate them on paper. Because the crews did not want to find out if the papers were right. (Plus the discomfort of being hit, and not knowing the exact weapon that's shooting at you).
@@barthoving2053 durrr
The Battle Of The Standard in 1138 is an excellent case study in the effectiveness of maille - a Scottish army of 16,000 mostly unarmoured infantry failed to overcome an Anglo-Norman force of 10,000 with a solid core of armoured Milites.
To the man who first had the idea, "Hmm, I wonder if smithing a thousand little circles and connecting them together to make a shirt will stop my friends from dying as often." We solute you, you nameless legend. You saved millions of our ancestors
*salute
@@KieraQ0323 Solutations
And thus the arms race was born...
@@TheEvertw it started way earlier than that.
A great salution to a difficult problem
I used to wear full head-to-toe chainmail to dive with sharks every day. My mail had smaller loops but it was still stinking heavy. It doesn't stop crushing force, but it will allow you to keep your limbs. The stuff is heavy but it works and that's why, in some professions (like working at an aquarium) it is still around. Thanks middle ages and thanks Sir Jason and Kasumi!
Similar technology is used in food service too. I used to wear chain link gloves while cleaning a meat slicer. I imagine there are similar industrial uses for them too. It's interesting in which ways it was adaptated and remains relevant.
@@BonaparteBardithion Tank Men during WWI had mail face masks to protect them from shrapnel.
the mail gloves are also used in the fishing industry, i use to work on trawlers and we used them while gutting fish, stripping shells and when using heavy lines to pull them in when a fish is caught. mostly this is a steel mesh but the guys i worked with said that the best were steel ringlets that were 1/5 riveted much like with medieval armor of the time.
whats the biggest shark uve had bite you in mail or that uve seen? also is it stainless?
@@mdstmouse7 If a shark bites you I don't think it will be stainless..
I used to fight in 13th century reenactment wearing mail. Somethings I found : it is surprisingly able to absorb quite a lot of impact if leather or fabric is under it. You inevitably smell of oil and rust/iron after wearing it. On hot days, sweat will make it worse and it does get hot and transfer heat. In cold weather it will sap any heat from your body and become ice cold. And yes, you definitely have to take it off like that and sometimes the folds jam into each other so you have to shake like your having a fit! Made even worse after a fight in summer when your sweating and exhausted....
I had to stand in a full hauberk on a cold windy day waiting at a documentary shooting. Didn't have my warm stuff with me I normally take to events.
That was hell
@@CIA-M oof. And that’s why I bought a well padded gambeson before a hauberk
yes, the Republican period of Rome saw the legionary wear a thin padded gamberson under his Hauberk shirt & helmet with leather around the neck area.
@@alexandersarchives9615 i tried to recreate the maciejowski bible style, so only have thin padding. better when im off fighting in the blazing sun
@@CIA-M yeah, I get having a thin gambeson for summer, but winter gets cold where I live... therefore having a few extra layers helps :)
He should definitely be given his own show. Such a watchable presenter. Actually first class.
What do you mean? He has his own show here. Will get more views than on tele.
He has his own show. We're watching it lol
Couldn't agree more
If this was on tv I wouldn’t watch it. All I use TV for is console games and 4K movies. And fewer and fewer of thosebecause new stuff fukin sucks.
@@POdilo actually, probably not, you would be surprised that how often TV is still used by boomers
"how well does chain mail protect you?" *proceeds to stab self with sword like a true scientist*
How else can u check lol
@@weirdsciencethe2nd205 put the armour on a child instead
If Skyrim has taught me anything it’s that children are invincible so sounds like a safe test to me.
@@weirdsciencethe2nd205 I've heard it's more a slash resistant piece than a stab resistant piece, at least thats what they were saying on a different test vid
I have demonstrated with method many a time
When Jason mentioned going about his daily activities in armor, I thought we'd see him at the grocery store in chainmail
😃 great idea!!
In my previous job as a medieval themed falconer (crazy asf I know lmao) I regularly had to wear mail like this alongside being armed and having a 10lb+ bird of prey on my fist also and lets just say I'll never forget some of the looks I got ahahaha. It's not everyday you see a 6,8' 'knight' shopping in your local co-op etc.
0:55 chain mail T-shirt, it deflects and protects, it’s and sweat wicking!
Did this a while ago, the looks of the people standing by were amazing. :)
Jason doesn't buy groceries! He has serfs for that. -_^
They stopped using solid rings for chainmail because producing solid rings required hammering out flat sheets of metal to which you would stamp out the solid rings. Once the process of drawing metal into a wire was produced around the 10th century it became presumably easier, cheaper and less wasteful to just make bunch of wire rings and rivet them together rather than stamp out solid rings from sheets of metal
It's so fun to watch how passionate Jason is about talking about medieval stuff. I love it, keep it up! :)
Thanks, will do!
All of these people doing the history in this stuff are passionate about it and put their mouth where there armor is.
@@luxordeathbed We put our money where the armor is! hehe. My full length hauberk was about $450.00. ;)
@stormy weather I very seriously doubt it for a couple of reasons. 1, In combat, the edges are nicked and dulled quite seriously. 2, the weak spot in the mail is the riveted ring, not the 4 solid rings, so even if a nice sharp edge did hit the one riveted ring, it is still re-enforced by the four solids. Add in the thick layer of the padded gambeson worn under the mail and it is a quite thick layer of armor. Historically, the two handed "great" sword came about after plate armor was showing up. Most all serious injuries were from blunt force trauma unless you found an opening in the armor.
Cheers.
@@ModernKnight could you do a comparison against metal scale armor? I would think it would be more effective against puncture than mail (so long as the strike doesn't come angled upwards of course) and keep the same mobility
Credits to “Warlord, Thunder Bringer, Boudicca, Valkyrie, Gossamer, Talos” ...was there ever a stable of horses with such fantastically strident names?! Then of course there is ‘The Mule with No Name’ who has glory in nameless mystery! Thank you for these fantastic vids!
I don't know why, but I root for that mule every time he's on screen. Maybe he has an "underdog" quality to him.
I very much would like to see an update on The Mule with No Name! He’s by far the favourite of me and my wife!
I think the mule's name should be Odo,after Biship Odo,the half brother of William the Conqueror.
The mule looks so smart, I bet he's named Till Eulenspiegel (after the folk legend jokester).
The wise thing to do with horses is give them a little bit to nibble on, before throwing the rest of the food in, in order to prevent them from devouring you...
In the early 90s I worked at a meat plant and regularly would wear about 20 pounds of mail. Gloves, sleeves and a split leg apron. Really felt like it was more of a burden than anything, then I saw a guy without his gear on cut himself, can't remember not wanting to wear it afterwards.
Yup, I know a guy who was an apprentice butcher, company forced him to work without protection as it wouldn't arrive for another day. He cut his hand and fucked it, only has 30% usability left. Got a big settlement as it was legally required for the company to provide chain mail gloves.
Doctors said that his hand would have been completely fine if he had just had his gloves.
That's so hot bro did you get a chubby after seeing a guy get mangled?
Another important advantage of mail ... logistics.
Any apprentice smith can draw the metal into wire, turn the wire into loops, link the loops into chained pattern. Any idle soldier can pull (spare) links off the bottom edges to repair damaged vital areas. Anyone with a campfire and a hammer can pound deformed links back into shape with some success. Indeed, the mail is still useful even if poorly repaired on the field with bits of wire and string. And any commoner (or his wife) who owned such armour could resize or tailor an existing piece to custom fit.
True, although being so labor intensive also caused it to be rather expensive.
"No armour will protect you from every threat". Well my good sir, step right up and behold! A suit of armour; made entirely of a strange new material. It comes from a land in the distant West and this miracle material is called - Plot. Saves you from anything.
lol
As an aspiring writer, myself, this is one of the best comments I've ever seen! 😆🤣
@@WindWolfAlpha *Bows*
And yet ...
i hate plot armour so much which is why i never watched starwars in every bit of media that wants to put the main character in 'danger' but not too much danger so they only suffer a minor wound as compared to the hundreds of faceless nameless NPCs that die from a breeze which is why i like films that have the balls to kill off main characters and think it should be done more
Anyone who participates in HEMA knows that the vast majority of hits are of minimal force. Your main protection is your own weapon and your own defense. It is a rare strike that is delivered with full or even 75% force. As such, mail is very protective from those sorts of strikes. As you state, it's only the unexpected hits and a very rare hit if you've been disarmed that is likely to get through mail.
Yes Sir, You're absolutely right.
But there could people throwing arriows at you as well, you know
You're right. As a someone with some HEMA, and all 7 forms of Lightsaber fencing, your right. Yes, having a shield, and armour is helpful as well.
In this era, the main protection would be a shield for the majority of soldiers
And, as we all know, the only perfect armor of all time is the plot armor.
@@mortache Soldiers that couldn't afford mail would wear a gambeson (thick cloth armor)
A ways back I did a lot of medieval close combat stunt work (basically renfest stuff). Chain mail is absolutely amazing for a lot of reasons mentioned here, but I think one of the main elements that don't get brought up very often is that it BREATHES. Working/fighting for hours in a hot summer day and it's comparatively very comfortable to wear, whereas a gambeson would make you useless in that scenario. If you've have it lying in the shade for while doing some labor when you put it on it even cools you down and feels comfortable, even with the extra weight. Soldiers are not just there for fighting, so much of the work is logistics, fortifications etc and doing those tasks while battle ready requires comfort/not overheating. IMO it's the perfect balance.
Excellent point!
though you would want a surcoat over it in upper Syria and Egypt in the summer.
PLEASE...tell me how to get some for riding my motorcycle in humid Florida weather so the air can get through the suit. Where do I get it?
@@majedajaber9064 I've always been compelled how the crusaders in the Middle East didn't all die of heat stroke.
@@mikitz Half of them did. Saladin was successful in battle because the Europeans were overheated and dehydrated most of the time. He'd even build great fires upwind of them to make it even more horrible. Saladin would capture water access and then just wait for the Europeans to attack their fortified position once they were partially mummified.
I mean, better than just getting killed by Saladin's archers I guess? Early on in the crusades, the Knights seemed basically unkillable in full plate until the saracens figured out that you just force them to stay in their armor with poke attacks for 5 days straight and they pretty much just keel off their horses.
I love how you and other UA-camrs tackle modern medieval misunderstandings. I teach history and usually dedicate one to two lessons for knighthood, medieval battles and combat gear. You’d be surprised with how eager teenagers are to learn about knights, medieval soldiers and their gear. Especially since I usually make my students fight each others with boffer swords after which we analyse what their ”injuries” would have meant in real life during the medieval times. Let’s say that most understand the value of armor after the demonstration. :)
that's a good idea, and I always try to remember they were the same as us, just with different expectations and technology.
Indeed. People of the past were not stupid. They just didn’t know the things we do nowadays, just like we have lost a lot of the wisdom that people of the past had gained over centuries. Thank you for being one of the people that bring the past to life for us modern folk.
Can you be my teacher?
@@ModernKnight they were us, just only yesterday
@@Razidurgh This might not be exactly what he was referring to, but I will try to answer your question in a couple of ways, then explain more in detail. The first answer is probably more along the lines of the answer you were looking for, and the second is what I believe to be an example of wisdom and knowledge that you may not have been considering. I mean no offense by this, it was just in how I interpreted your comment. :)
1. The knowledge of the composition and production of Wootz steel (i.e. true damascus steel) is lost to us, as recently as the 18th or 19th century. Modern damascus is just two or more distinctly different types of steels that are layered together in a pattern (i.e. "pattern damascus") which somewhat imitates the appearance but not the characteristics.
2. The knowledge of how and why the Late Bronze Age collapse occurred (and the inherent wisdom that can be distilled from the knowledge of how an entire civilization collapses). This is still partially a mystery to us- we have bits and pieces of the puzzle, but we don't really know the whole story and maybe never will.
I guess the bigger question I would like to ask back is, what exactly do you consider to be wisdom and knowledge?
How much knowledge and wisdom was lost when London burned in 1666?
How much knowledge and wisdom was lost when the Notre Dame cathedral burned last year?
How much knowledge and wisdom was lost from the tens of thousands of scrolls that burned in the Library of Alexandria?
I know the answer is most certainly not zero, but beyond that I cannot tell you.
We tend to view our modern notion of "knowledge" and "wisdom" through the lens of science (and I interpreted your comment as an observation that we have replaced historical knowledge and wisdom with more correct or more accurate knowledge through science and technology, which is why I am approaching my answer in this regard). This "scientific lens" is obviously very useful for us, and science is arguably one of the most useful tools we have for understanding the world around us (please do not think I am saying otherwise). However, knowledge and wisdom do not necessarily have to be encapsulated in a scientific context (e.g. the "medical humors" turn into "biology or human physiology" or "alchemy" evolves into "stoichiometry"- this is what I think of when you described knowledge becoming outdated or replaced).
Science strictly leaves out (among other things) questions of value or questions of morality, because they are not testable or provable within its scope or "framework" (a discussion on the limitations and scope of science is really interesting, but this comment is long enough so I will leave it at that). If we go back to the example of the Late Bronze Age collapse, it is likely to contain knowledge and wisdom around cultural and social phenomena of that time, as well as perhaps changes in the natural world (which science could potentially tell us about). Consider what it would mean if we lost the knowledge of the events of the Holocaust? There is a significant amount of cultural and social wisdom we can gain by studying these events and asking the questions "How and why did this happen? How _could_ this even happen?".
If you actually read my comment, thank you. It started off as a genuine intention to think of a good example to answer Laszlo's question, but then it morphed into a personal thought experiment that I thought answered the question even more deeply than intended. Only a few more days left in 2020- hopefully we can all revel in the knowledge of that and seek whatever wisdom will come from having survived it!
Watching you put the mail on in 10 seconds makes me think no one would want to be in a place like, say, a camp that might be raided, without mail available to put on. A surprise attack makes it pretty impossible you'll get your plate on, but a surprised sleepy man can still put on mail.
Gambeson, mail, and a brigandine, you should be very protected very quickly
@@RhodokTribesman you could fight with the brigandine untied and you'd probably still be effective enough.
@@generic_asian_ Yeah, fs, the combo of all the stuff is just if time is willing (as I assume the dress time to armor ratio would be much better than plate, let's say)
More than that, it looks comfortable enough to rest/sleep in unlike many plate pieces. I'd say as a town watchmen or guard you could put it on in a hurry if off duty.
This is a moot point since AFAIK plate armor was always worn with mail underneath. So a plate armored soldier would have his mail shirt as well. It's not mail or plate, it's mail or mail plus plate, which makes the question do you want plate completely irrelevant; if you could afford it you would have it
There's something about Jason's pure genuine demeaner that is utterly inspiring. Bravo Ser! Keep up the fantastic work!
Thank you! Will do!
@@ModernKnight Yay! WE WIN!
Jason seems genuinely excited to share what he's discovered. He has a way of talking about history like it's breaking news. Very inspiring.
@@USMCArchAngel03 That's it. His is an excitement and interest that cannot be faked and is really infectious.
*Sir. Ser is an invention of GRRM for his fantasy series.
I live in an area in Normandy where there were skirmishes and small battles during the 100 years war. I often find small pieces of chain mail with my metal detector....
They have to be quite rusty and small. I was thinking most of them should have rusted away over the centuries.
That's cool
@@karliikaiser3800
It all depends on the chemistry of the soil and the elements and all that stuff. If you dig a few inches on Mars, the soil is no longer red
Good for u. I live in the host country which is savages who doesnt wear armour to war.
You have your license for that? France is pretty strict about using metal detectors and archaeological remains. A guy just got busted recently for stealing an enormous number of artifacts... claimed he found them in Belgium, which has more lenient laws, but he was actually doing detecting and digging in France.
Chainmail is still used today in food preparation and for shark suits. Butchers use it when dismantling a carcass so they don't accidently stab themselves. (the youtube channel Bearded Butchers talk about this occasionally) Chain gloves are still used by people who have to cut or chop lots of vegetables or fillet lots of fish. And of course divers who are going to be around large sharks wear chain as well, so they don't get bitten. It's really interesting how it's still useful today.
I think it's funny when people spend time "proving" that mail or other armour wasn't effective: "Look! This longbow arrow goes right through it! How silly of them to use something that wouldn't protect them." Uh, have you seen modern armour? Modern armour's ratio of effectiveness to the lethality of weapons we're up against is a way bigger gap, yet we still seem to think it worthwhile for our police and soldiers to wear it. Kevlar may protect against 9 mm, but it's not going to do a ton against a rifle or anything more hard-core. Most bullet-proof glass is made to withstand handguns, not rifles. And why wear a helmet if a bomb can rip you to shreds, or an IED can blow you to smithereens? The reason, of course, is that the armour is for mitigating risk. It doesn't protect you from all threats; what it does is make a certain percentage of lethal attacks no longer lethal. And that's a big deal if you want to stay alive, doing a risky job, day to day.
Even the ceramic plates in most vests are only effective up to intermediate rifle calibers, but it's better than nothing and I can confirm that. I would not be here if not for my level 4 plates.
You would be surprised how little energy even a hardcore AP bullet will retain after passing through a moderately thick log, however. What would go through your soft armour twice over without a barrier will be stopped by it after penetrating a log, only inflicting a bruise or a contusion as a result. And we're not even talking about frag resistance. I think it's a much more fitting analogy for Medieval mail in modern context.
It is a silly argument when having armour beats not having armour every time.
@@jumpingbean69 I was always very amused that my ballistic armour came with a money-back guarantee in the event of failure. The government couldn't lose.
@@jeffkeith637 Remember your equipment was made by the lowest bidder.
The switch to full rivets may have made repairs easier. You only make the shirt once, but it would get damaged and being able to replace the lowest number of rings possible would be preferable to having to remove chunks for the sake of one split link.
My thinking too at first, but then I came thinking: why not make it 4:1 and then bring riveted for replacement?
Gradually more and more parts would become fully riveted, but initial production would still be quicker and cheaper.
Punching solid rings requires additional tools, and then you have to collect all the bits you punched out of the middle and turn them back into sheet iron, which seems like it would be a pain. Any shmuck can make riveted rings.
@@peterrose5373 I think that this is really it. Making chainmail doesn't require extreme talent in the way a comparable plate would. Just lots of time.
@@roberthammarberg7438 Maybe, but not by as much as the video says. The ratio of punched links to riveted links isn't actually 4:1, it's only 1:1. You can make clusters of 5 links with only 1 riveted link in the center, but attaching that cluster to a sheet of mail requires riveted links, so you can make at most 50% of your links by punching them out. As metalworking techniques advanced and the manufacture of wire became easier (while punching rings out of a sheet of iron remained as difficult as it ever was) the economics probably shifted and made riveting every link cheaper than punching out half of them. I'd hazard a guess and say that the disappearance of punched rings from mail probably coincides with the development and adoption of the wire drawing process, rather than making wire by slicing thin strips from a sheet of metal.
The manufacturing process may also be a factor to consider. We tend to think it demands 4x the time to do 4:4 because we assume one person is working on the shirt. But in the old days they would probably have more than 1 person working on the same shirt at the same time. Imagine 1 worker holding each link in one hand and riviting with the other, he would have to do the riviting movement 4 times for each link. Now think of 2 people working on each link at the same time, each worker would have to rivit twice, and so on.
One of the best and most practical things that this channel is the actual interaction with horses. It’s very likely that horses would have been ubiquitous in military settings but also common in any house that could have had any means of affording them.
Splendid! I was thrilled to get to watch one of your videos sir knight! Thank you for sharing, a fantastic job, as always. For the Romans I'd just like to add that probably the period term would be thoracomachus, as sub armalis (pronounced "soob") ", even though it is Latin, is more of a modern term, similarly to how lorica segmentata is how everyone calls the Roman segmented plate armour, even though again, the name is Latin, but it's not period. A more probable name for segmentata would be lorica laminata. I say probable because we just don't know, but we do know that the Romans called the segments laminae, hence the possibility of it being called laminata. Anyhow just a small addition to a very good video! Looking forward to more.
ps: I hate taking my mail shirt off. I always protect my hair with basically an improvised bandana, before I start the process. I do that when I put it on too. Probably not historically accurate, but it keeps the rings from plucking out some of my hair.
Hey Noble One: Have you tried going bald? Has worked wonders for me, no more hair catching.. But I disagree on you last point: I bet everyone (who had worn mail at least once before) put something over their hair, just as you do, I don't think there was ever a period where ppl enjoyed having it ripped out in clumps :D Maybe that's why late Viking/ early Normans loved the shaved back and sides hairstyle, with the mop on top: your neck hair getting pulled by mail has gotta get old REALLY fast when you are riding along on a horse. Anyway Ciao my dude!
Thanks Metatron, I hoped you'd provide more details about the Roman side of things, as you know so much about that period of history and say Latin much better than anyone else I know. My schoolboy latin is both rusty and badly pronounced, though I imagine that these islands had people with funny Latin accents even during Roman times.
@@ModernKnight Centurion, in Cockney accent "Get your laminaataah on lads"
Generally most soldiers keep their hair short, because it gets annoying in conjunction with gear.
They could just have used those padded caps, that go under the mail hood or helmet, for this purpose.
I mean, they are going to be worn anyways, why not make the most of it?
You have genuinely taught me more than my history teacher about medieval life
@Ice Hockey is Pretty Pretty Good In my History GCSES we learnt about medieval crime and punishment, interesting enough, but it was too specialised to be any fun - especially when we had to do essay after essay about the same topic
Nothing gets covered properly in middle school or high school.
@@silvermoon4068 crime and punishment was painful to study
Medieval life is generally not a high priority at school.
@@silvermoon4068 Really though, people fighting in chainmail would have been a tiny part of a feudal levy's life. Crime and punishment was an everyday consideration. I'd say this was the specialisation.
Brilliantly put. What you say about this armour is equally true of modern armour. No armour is perfect (modern ballistic or chainmail), frequently it protects you from the most common injuries on the battlefield, and perhaps more importantly, it downgrades potentially fatal attacks, to mild or serious injury. I have heard the same things you were saying used to describe modern ballistic armours precisely. Chainmail stops a casual slash from severing an artery and stops stabbing attacks from penetrating your entire thorax. Thats a 95% positive user rating right there.
You know you're cool when you say "When I'm jousting or in a tournament" so nonchalantly.
Your comment on chainmail being universally recognised throughout the ages, made me think. We almost have the same effect with camouflaged uniforms. you could show a picture of a man in uniform to almost anyone and they would know he was a soldier. I would think the same with mail armour, you would know any statue, engraving or relief covered in little circles was a warrior.
Camo emerged no earlier than WWI and wasn't a mass thing until late WWII. Mass WWII uniform is still plain (grey+green or black for nazi, green+brown for the Soviet). If you look at XVIII- XIX century soldiers - you find them in bright very decorated uniforms with bizarre hats. Meanwhile, chainmail has been developed as early as in the Roman empire (so definitely before V century) and stayed in use all the way through the thousand years of Middle ages up to XVIII century (sic, irregular warriors. Not soldiers, but adventurers and explorers).
On the territories of Russia alone, chainmail is found dating back to VIII- XVIII centuries and in bulk. If you come at a small museum in any little town, the first three things you find there as ancient archeology are pottery, arrow tips and a piece of chainmail rusted into a stone.
I remember reading a book of fiction (it was a fantastic romance, too modern for fantasy, too weird for sci-fi), and there at some point a hero who comes out of XIX century or so bumps into US marines. (Weird, i told you. It also involves aliens). They're described as guys in some weird green spotted PJs.
Looking at how this armour works I'm surprised in D&D they don't allow wizards and thieves to wear this kind of mail. It looks super flexible and don't seem to make undue noise. Great demo :-)
Well the creators of D&D were, and are, not exactly experts on medieval weapons and armor by any stretch of the imagination.
I think the lore explanation is that metal intervenes with arcane energies so if the wizard wears too much of it he can't cast spells reliably. In reality it's a balance thing, wizards are supposed to be vulnerable to balance out the powerful spells they can use. If wizards can wear armor there's no reason to play a martial. See 5th edition of DnD where wizards CAN wear armor and most martials are just pointless
This is the best ad I’ve ever seen. This man hit the jackpot somehow and decided to make bomb ass history vids and I love the dude for it.
Not sure if you know but he's the joint CEO founder of Rebellion Games mainly known currently for the Sniper Elite and Zombie Army games series. They also own the rights to Judge Dredd comics.
@@nath9091 Yeah, he's pretty well off. It's good to see he's using putting his fortune to good use by helping to educate.
This guy is living every nerds dream. He's a bloody legend.
"so I bought a mule from Spain..."
agreed
I want to be him when I grow up... I am 33 years old.
Develops video games, lives like a knight, truly.
@@scruffythejanitor1969 I'm sixty, and feel the same way! 😆
Having made some chainmaille…One of the reasons for all the rings being riveted is easy of making! Forge welding that tiny ring to a solid ring is difficult. Peening a rivet is much easier
Full respect for constructing a riveted byrnie.
I have knitted a couple from butted links (ahistorical I know) and that took some serious time and effort.
Riveted? I can only imagine.
Once you get into the flow of it, it's a very riveting experience.
As someone who makes modern maille (jewellery and accessories mainly using mostly aluminium rings) 1, rings that are already closed are a HUGE time saver, 2 maille on the scale of a shirt takes a very long time unless being made as a team, 3, while much lighter than plate, it is heavier than you'd expect.
And especially with experience with maille, this video was super enjoyable!
I think many modern people forget that war isn't like sparring in a gym. War is mostly marching, digging, riding, etc., so the gear soldiers wore needed to be appropriate for those tasks as well as combat. The best harness in the world is useless if it isn't on you when the enemy appear.
I have this argument with martial arts and MMA people when they say ancient martial arts are useless they forget that it was for killing and the martial arts today is not.
Yes, and by far the easiest way to carry armour is to wear it, unless you're some rich nobleman who can have his harness transported in a cart.
@@johnree6106 ancient martial arts are useless in a contemporary modern day setting, sure. But at the time, they were the most effective systems available. The belabour the point that Jason made in the video; people were not stupid, they used what was available to them as effectively as possible. You’d be incredibly naive to say that about 700 years would make no difference to our understanding of effective fighting systems!
@@genuinejoe2103 Having done both Military CQC, and Modern MMA there is a distinct difference in the two. One is meant to disable or kill, and the other is basically play fighting in comparison.
Which is something most MMA fighters don't seem to grasp, is the point. While yes, there are advancements and certain things can be effective. I'm not about to try to wrestle a man down, and arm bar him. I'm going to aim to invert Elbows, Knees, gouge eyes, Crush throats. Whatever is readily available.
It's going to be as quick and dirty as possible. There is a good reason that MMA fighters in general are afraid of, or avoid street fighters. Because one is a sport and the other could potentially be life and death. There is an exceptionally different mentality and flow to the two.
@@HauntingSpectre The anecdote of the Spartans being banned from wrestling at the games because they did not believe in a sports version of Greek wrestling and the martial version included eye gauging and breaking bones and joints. And the normal ancient Greek wrestling had very very few rules already, not being allowed to blind your opponent intentionally was one of those very few ones...
I love watching you with your horses. I can see how much you love them.
"It's going to oof you..." hahaha Jason you have a way with words! Thanks for the great video.
Glad you enjoyed it.
A man who even lists his horses' (and a mule's) name in the credits is someone I would ike to meet.
Funny enough, nearly that exact method of removing the armor is how I had to take off my plate carrier. The weight of the armor plates makes it hard to just pull it up like a t-shirt, so you need to let gravity help you out.
A modern plate certainly isn't much like ancient maille, but the fast way of removing the latter really activated a memory there.
Thanks for sharing, that's interesting.
A modern plate is like a medieval brigantine. You can find ones which are really close in construction.
@@annasolovyeva1013 well it functions more like a cuirass
they went from 4 solid to all rivets because they started to make mail from wire not plate. The solid rivets were punched out of small plates then the riveted link was made by hand. Once they started to wind the wire to make the links there was less waist of material. The round wire was hammered flat to make the same shape. I would say its to save on material as labour would still be very cheap compared to the cost of iron or at that point likely steel.
Not sure what you mean here. Mail was never all-solid rings in medieval Europe. It started out all-riveted in the early medieval, then gradually transitioned to 1:1 solid rings and riveted in the high medieval. This was a big labor savings. In both cases the primary fabrication technique was drawn wire. Punched rings are generally inferior.
@@MinSredMash 4 in one means 4 links connected by one. In the video he states the solid links use to be connected by one riveted link. He goes on to state how he did not know how or why they switched to all riveted links. Links where not drawn into wire in the early times they where punched out of plate. These would be solid links not drawn wire. I know a repeat but the switch was when they made all links from wire. Hope this clears if up.
Punched out of plate? Punch, plate and wire are all expensive artefacts
I fear 4 solid and 1 riveted ring mail is quite impossible to make
@@MinSredMash i wonder how one would make a mail out of all solid rings. Some magic metalworking perhaps
never thought i would watch someone talk about chainmail for almost half an hour without getting bored
Welcome to the nerd club. Just wait until you learn about machicolations.
I found him to elaborate and repeat a little too often, so I skipped around, but generally good info
@moop that’s what those are!
Welcome. New to nerdy things? Try Lindybeige's talk on siege ladders
God, that mail over your normal clothes looks so good. It's a good protection but most of all it still looks aesthetically pleasing.
I used to make maile and from my research, the last time that it was used on the large scale was about 1910 in India. It was used longer than anything other than animal hide (which may have been used for thousands of years). As for why:
1) It was easier to make than plate armor.
2) It was more of a 'one size fits most' than plate armor.
It's interesting, isn't it, to note that metal chest pieces existed both before and alongside the heyday of maille. It just works
interesting thing is, and i've tried to locate as many sources as possible, but making maille may be easier (in terms of skill), BUT it takes MUCH longer, at least twice as long, sometimes a bit longer depending on what part of the body you making it for.
@@ericaugust1501 Of note is that the production time shortens drastically when you figure out that a dozen peasants can be taught to rivet rings of metal together. Yes, it's dozens of peoples labor to make one shirt quickly, but a dozen peasants labor isn't more expensive than a single highly skilled armorer making plate. It can be a pseudo-industrial process at that point. A hundred peasants hammering rings flat and riveting them together can churn out mail tremendously, with little skill needed.
It follows the old saying: "If it isn't broke, don't fix it." It's relatively cheap. You do not need massive stores of refined steel to make it. Repair requires fastening new links - nothing more. If it's rusty, drag it through the sand. If it's muddy, let it dry and then shake it out....THEN drag it through the sand. It's easy to put on and take off, and protects against the majority of incidental cuts and blows. Add a shield, maybe a coif or other neck/shoulder protection, a helmet, and you're good to go. Add gambeson to taste. Requires little to no training to know how to wear. Were it not for crossbows, I'll bet it would have lasted to the age of gunpowder.
pretty much what I thought! it lasted nearly two thousand years because the threats didn't change, there's a video from the Royal Armouries showing English civil war plate armour being at least proof against period pistol fire at close range, but it still fell out of favor quickly due to the massive cost in time and money to make
All good points, as well, chain mail is flexible, and allows for a pretty much normal range of bodily motion, unlike plate.
It has. See comments from people using it today for shark protection, in policing situations et.
@@andreww2098
I'll have to check that out.
Mail was definitely not cheap, it was extremely labor intensive to produce.
Love that he loosens the cinch before he sits down. Horse comfort comes first.
"Its going to oof you."
A new battlecry has born: "I am going to OOF you!!!"
@@DaCoolCrushIceKillah i read this aloud w a Scottish accent LOL
Go oof yourself
'Hoc est ufere tibi'
One of the things people bring up, that "it can break bones" at least for the Roman period was not a huge issue. Roman doctors were especially good at setting broken bones, and their main trouble was in treating deep lacerations, cuts, and piercing wounds, which maille is very good at preventing.
So maybe you might suffer a broken collarbone, and that would be okay, because at least your shoulder joint wasn't cleft in twain, and you were able to stab the other guy in the neck, and live to fight another day.
Additionally, with a sharp cutting implement, it's not too difficult to lay flesh open. If you want to try and get through the armour with a big powerful blow, you're likely going to open yourself up in some way where a person could "slip" (using boxing terminology) in and counter your big powerful blow. You're better to go for the places that don't have the armour, but those are not nearly as easy to hit as centre-mass, especially not when they've got a nice big shield in their other hand.
In addition to being a very useful modern analog to explain the risk of attempting a powerful blow, your boxing analogy has the added bonus of invoking an image of a Roman officer wandering about his drilling soldiers and periodically yelling the Latin equivalent of "protecc ya'self at ALL TIMES!".
You get a like!
Here is the big thing about blunt damage as opposed to lacerations. The human body can withstand blunt force a lot better than lacerations. A soldier could still fight on very effectively suffer a broken bone or 2, while 2 or 3 shallow cuts takes them out of the fight.
Plus infection killed as much, if not more, people than the wounds they suffered in battle up until recently.
Even if you don't have good doctors who could set bone, you're generally more likely to survive a broken bone for many years, rather than a laceration or gaping wound that could bleed out in minutes. That's why stabs and cuts were the major source of battlefield death: the damage itself was overshadowed by the leaking of vital fluids and/or organs.
A broken bone is hardly unproblematic, especially if it heals incorrectly, but it's only really an immediate concern if it starts puncturing something (whether the skin outside or an organ). If that is avoided, you can at least survive the day, and potentially get it set before or after the fusing of bone sets in. Bleeding out is a pressing issue that even modern doctors or medics aren't always able to stop.
And none of this gets into cuts or stabs that lead to infection. Unless it's peeking through the skin, a broken bone probably won't lead to a slow death from disease.
@@Bluecho4 Even if we only consider open wounds, stabs were much more dangerous than cuts. I recall seeing somewhere that a Roman author noted that whilst a footlong cut was survivable, a 4 in. deep stab could be fatal. Any armour that can protect you against _most_ stabbing and cutting implements is good armour.
The argument that an enemy may inflict a crush wound through the armor makes no sense anyways. If the strike was enough to break bones through mail it would have broken those same bones if you didn't wear mail, on top of other injuries the mail prevented
This reminds me of an anecdote from I believe WW1: when the American army introduced a new helmet to its troops, the amount of soldoers with head wounds increased dramatically. This perplexed the American doctors until someone figured it was because the soldiers that would have died from shots to the head now survived with a head wound. The helmets did their job
I love how your black horse lowers the head and nodes slightly on every lance hit... that horse is rooting for ya to do well, and probably going to chide you somehow if you miss for any reason. Loved seeing the personality there. Very serious horse, and loving the interactions. She is magnificent, what a beauty, what a flow of grace when she moves.... like a gentle shadow moving in a slight sine wave, very focused... wow, just love this vid. thank you.
thanks for watching.
You really ought to invest in an arming cap, Mr. Kingsley. Speaking as a fellow long-haired man, it really helps to keep one's mane from getting in the way or being damaged.
Quite True.
I imagine he has one, seeing as he has a full plate harness.
My hair fell out in my 20's. Little did I know this just made me more efficient in every way, from showertime to arming time.
I do miss my long hair, but then I watch the pained expressions from my group members as they put armour on and realise that its a blessing in disguise to be cropped.
Even the short hairs on the back of my neck got caught *very* easily when putting maille on or trying to turn my head with it, its part of the reason I started wearing turtlenecks at training, I can't imagine how bad it would be with actual long hair.
Kingsley, you are knocking it out of the park with these vids.
Sorry for commenting after such a long time (I only found your channel a couple of months ago and haven't gotten around to watching all - but I really love your videos!). I can confirm that wearing chainmail, especially a shorter shirt like yours, is quite easy for a day or even several. You get used to the weight quickly, and because it's so flexible, it doesn't really get in the way or hinder movement at all. I've worn similar mail shirts before (although they weren't riveted) and I didn't really take them off until the evening - and I've even slept in one (once), which wasn't too bad either. I didn't have a gambeson, just a normal linen tunic - getting hit was uncomfortable and left bruises and some chafing, but otherwise I didn't feel ill-protected.
I currently don't own a mail shirt, but I just ordered some rings to start making a new one - will be a while until it's finished, but I'm looking forward to it too. I'm going to see if a 6-in-1 pattern will be flexible enough to have the entire shirt made that way, or if I need to do a 4-in-1 pattern at least for some parts like the shoulders. I do believe that the 6-in-1 pattern will help with the weakness against arrows that chainmail has, because the tighter pattern doesn't leave much room for the arrowhead to get into. As I'm working on a full set of equipment for a 6th to 7th century Alamannic nobleman, I'll propably leave it with shorter arms and use some form of Byzantine cheiropsella for protecting the arms - with some chainmail hand guards because I don't like getting hit on the fingers :D
This is top notch Christmas holiday content. As others have said, the enthusiasm is wonderful, and Jason is a wonderful presenter. Hope for many more in the new year.
whenever I'm putting on my Roman maille, I have to 'hop' to get it on, I tend to cheekily call it the "hamata hop". it is indeed a fascinating technology.
I tell the public when they put on Malle to do the Roman Jump to set the links in their proper place. Getting it off is usually a two man job....
@@Dr_Will_Tarr Getting it on and off by oneself isn't that difficult, just takes some practice. Although having a helping hand is welcome when it happens. In my Roman school programs I'm usually helping young students in & out of armor, but that's because they've never worn it before.
Another interesting Modern History video well done! I've always had a huge love for the medieval times throughout history, novels like King Arthur, and movies/ show based in that time. It's wonderful to meet other people of that same era interest!!! and to get excited while watching Jason getting excited doing his experiments out here! I love this high quality channel and it's interesting medieval knight topics! Keep up the amazing work Sir Jason!
Drawn steel wire becomes a thing in the 14th century. This meant that while each ring had to be individually smithed before, now you could just cut pieces of steel wire, flatten the ends smith it into a circle and rivet the ends together. Even if that means 4 times the riveting the total amount of work is less than the old way of making mail armour.
About the vulnerability of your arms, your left arm (for a right-handed person) would be protected by your shield. You're not going to battle without a shield, would you?
Divers use chain mail as protection from sharks today, so perhaps the lifespan of this armor is greater than even 1,000 years! 🌹
Plus butchers use mail gloves as well.
Hi, Adam. Yes, and I’ve seen oyster shuckers use mail gloves, too. Another use for mail that many people aren’t aware of is for electrical workers that perform maintenance on high tension cables. They don an entire suit of mail and are lifted to the energized wires by helicopter. There the worker grounds himself to the wire while still on a platform beneath the helo, then physically transfers to the wire itself in order to travel along it for inspection or repair. The mail suit (forgive my non-technical explanation) allows the worker to physically touch the wires while directing the electrical charge around his body instead of electrocuting him. You can find viddies of that amazing job here on YT. I’m sure there are other uses for mail in today’s world that I’m not aware of.
@@nuvostef Oh yes, I forgot about those. I've seen videos of that, they're very cool.
Dr Megavolt does a similar thing:
ua-cam.com/video/Fyko81WAvvQ/v-deo.html
2000 Years now! Chain was from BC and if its still in use now by divers / fishermen etc....
Some police in germany were using them back in 2016ish time I think. It looked rly neat.
Thanks
I've made an entire maille shirt and coif all by my lonesome and just from that perspective, I reckon maille would have remained a popular form of armor for blacksmiths to *sell* for a long time because of what goes into making it
It'd be the perfect kind of project to hand off to apprentices. Most of the process is relatively simple, just very time consuming. Drawing wire, winding wire, cutting rings, flatting rings. Riveting rings. Lots of simple, but time consuming tasks that would also help apprentices train up various useful skills for the trade. And with a useful byproduct!
Love how the horses are all individual in their reactions: from “oh, I’m going to be on camera?” to “hurry up, I’m hungry” to “nice to see you again!”
Yeah, the removal technique at the end is what Jill Bearup refers to as "the undignified wiggle dance". It's comforting to know that every knight had this little taste of humility at the end of every battle.
Yep, I remember putting on a hauberk for the first time. Everything felt great until it came time to take it off. It was quite snug, so there was a slight 'panic attack' when it got stuck half way. Then I remembered someone saying 'gravity is your friend', I did the upside down dance and it just fell off.
Some very interesting points, I hadn't considered the advantages of having shorter sleeves, plus the point about not need servants to help you into it gave me some things to think about too. Thanks
I think you could probably mitigate the weight on lower arms with something like garters below your elbows. I have a feeling that was done, even, but that's off the top of my head!
@@mpj12345 I think that would make it easier to wear as the metal cuffs wouldn't be flapping around, but I don't think it would be lighter per se
@@ruthrouse Not really, it would work the same as his belt in this video, relieving weight from the upper parts.
@@mpj12345 Ok, I can see what you mean by that now.
@@ruthrouse Maybe I should have said belt the first time.
“Chain” Mail can looked at as metallic “fabric”. Although, labour intensive to produce, the fitting of mail must have significant similarities to the tailoring of cloth textiles.
12:57 "it's going to oof you" - I am loving this kind of explanation
I read this just as he said this. Far funnier
Jason, I honestly think you're the coolest man alive. you're the closest thing to a real life knight that we have in the modern day. Complete with being noble and honorable.
One other thing about chain mail: it just looks good! The Crusader Knight in his chain mail, tunic, and great helm is one of the most imposing and fearsome looks in history (at least as far as modern illustrations of it go).
For a significant portion of time being able to arm quickly may have been more important, too.
Think thats the key point isn't it. You can leave mail on and if you get ambushed or otherwise surprised you have some form of protection. Your plate on the other hand does no good (and some degree of hindrance) sitting in a chest on the back of the cart
J Kinglsey is an absolute legend, im sure i saw him riding at dragon slayer down at Warwick castle a few years back. I have seen a mail ring coat made at a forge up near Llangollen, ring by ring riveted one at a time, these coats would have been very expensive.
Labor was cheap.
The Roman army wore mail before switching to plate
I would think there were specialized work shops producing mail as long as there was a sufficient demand. Making it is a skill. The more skilled you are the faster and more efficient you can work. I would think scaled armor is actually faster to produce.
I remember going to a Renaissance faire as a child and wanting a chainmail shirt so badly... watching this video took me right back to that moment
Any armor that was in use for almost a thousand years was "effective." These people weren't stupid. I'm sure guards could patrol a city or a castle all day in that stuff. Or walk Hadrian's Wall. And guards who were not on duty, could easily slip into that shirt during emergency
Exactly there's also this annoying thing in movies and books where guards with chainmail and spears are somehow pushovers ... The guys got the perfect armour and weapon to stop a sword or knife ... Hes got reach and protection ...
@@andrewshraga7301
And they're going to be fast and mobile. So yeah, very dangerous if they've been training all their life
Literally my first thought when reading the title was "Because it works?"
Second thought was you missed an s... Still love your videos so best of luck to you :-)
And is probably relatively cheaper and weighs less than full plate? Which wasn't even developed until very late in the Middle Ages, only to soon die out due to firearms?
@@NodDisciple1 :-)
@@NodDisciple1 More expensive then a coat of plates, mail shirts averaged 25 shillings, vs 13 S 6d for a cheap pairs of plates in the 1360's
Full plate did not disappear on day one of guns, there lots of armor being worn in to the 30 years war.
@@NodDisciple1 Plate was still used into the 1600's and the style had changed a bit to accommodate firearms. Plate armors from that period were tested for being "bulletproof" before being used.
Well the problem it is relatively weak to piercing, will say spears, arrows (,swords to an extent) and does jack all against blunt weapons or kinetic impacts of any kind.
Of course it has its strong points as well.
What a lucky man to be able to live his interests.
I honestly don't know how Jason can go through his day without a permanent ear-to-ear grin. I remember the first time I got a horse up to canter, and the feeling kept me in ecstasy for days. If I were to ever ride while wearing mail, the Tolkien nerd in me would probably succumb to fatal amounts of glee.
lol, I'm pretty happy much of the time.
@@ModernKnight I'm happy to hear it, Sir! And you do look it! I'm glad to see you sharing your joy with us!
Happy new year, sir! To you, all those you love and your animals! I love your channel.
I've been watching this channel nonstop for a week now! So fascinating and it's great that you also cover less-known stuff like rushlight, soap, beeswax wrap, and food (please consider making a historically accurate medieval cookbook! I'll buy it!). I thank the magnificent UA-cam algorithm for bringing me here. I was originally looking for medieval kirtle/gown sewing tutorial, which brought me to a beautiful video about Lady of Shalott, saw the name of the actor who played Sir Lancelot, and the rest is history. Keep up the amazing work! Oh, and also, Percival is Oscar-worthy.
thanks for watching
If you are interested in a historically accurate medieval cookbook that includes both history and recipes (but adapted and tested to be doable in a modern kitchen), I'd recommend _Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony,_ by Madeleine Pelner Cosman
I don't know if it's the best book out there, as I'm far from an expert and I happened into owning the book after a library culling, but it was fascinating and I've enjoyed it (made at least one recipe)
Cody's Lab has been proving the viability of daily-use mail for years 😊
Was about to say the same thing. It's slightly heavier because it's made of copper, and he's doing it for a different reason (to simulate wearing a space suit), but the results are roughly the same.
Another great video. Would love to see more armour demos like these. Im curious as to what a full day of wearing a gambeson is like. I imagine it may be similar but tad more insulating due to the number of layers needed to provide the protection
Very uncomfortable in hot weather. It becomes soaked with sweat, heavy and very smelly
I do HEMA Longsword and the jackets we wear are very much like a gambeson. I can attest to just how fast you heat up and tire while wearing one (plus mask, gloves etc) while in combat. They're horrendous in hot weather.
on one of my birthday's I spent it at a town fair with my local SCA group and one of the knights let me wear his chain mail shirt for the day because it's my favourite type of armour. It felt so amazing and I loved the weight of it. The next day my whole torso and back was that "had a great workout" kind of sore. 15/10 don't need the gym, just wear chainmail and do everyday things, it's way more fun hahaha. Love your videos by the way and you really are living the dream. Keep it up!
I always think that those who diss mail forget that it is often used in conjunction with a shield and-most importantly-a person inside who is actively trying to not get hit. It pads your odds. 15:45. Hey! It’s Mule Who Shall Not Be Named! Does he have one yet?
:D that ending brought back some pretty fun memories for me :) when I witnessed this noble maneuvre of getting chainmail off for the first time. But I totally respected the guy for not being "weak" and prideful and just doing it for the amusement of everybody :D he knew we would laugh and it was a long rainy day so we definitely needed that.
Jason has such a polite relationship with his horses. And if you watch the horses, it seems like they reciprocate his politeness. It's a really nice touch to these videos. Because of modern tv and movies, games ect, we tend to think of horses like we do cars. They're just a vehicle or a "mount" that often has tank controls when you "use" them, but in reality, you're riding on a living thing, with a mind and temperament of It's own. So many of us now have dogs or cats that are every bit as much of a part of our family as our brothers, sisters or children, and there's something indescribably special about having a close connection with a pet, but it must've been on an entirely different scale to be a rider back then. Especially if you had anything to do with the military or if your were a messenger. Your horse wouldn't only have been for transportation, but you'd be keeping each other safe. Instead of just fuel and maintenance on your car, you'd need to worry about food, water, and the wellbeing of your horse. I'm sure many people back then felt like their horse was more of a partner in their travels, rather than a simple commodity. I could go on about this for hours, so I'll just wrap it up here. But I always tend to go down this path of thought when I see Jason with his horses. I don't think I've seen every video on this channel, so it's possible that this has already been done, but it would be neat if Jason did a video about this. About how the medieval people regarded their horses. I don't know if there's anything telling eluded to in surviving writings or illustrations, but if there's enough information to make a video on, it would be great, particularly because, as mentioned earlier, we're often fed a more detatched view of these animals and their roles by modern tv, movies and games.
Just as an added tangent. I first played Two Worlds back on xbox once it had hit about the $20.00 mark. That game has a lot of issues. The camera controls and specifically trying to manually aim are horrible. This is all coming off the heels of Oblivion, so Two Worlds had some steep competition. In Oblivion, when you get on a horse, your controls don't really change except you can't strafe. Your inputs move the horse just as it does when on foot. In Two Worlds however, your horse just does things seemingly at random. You're trying to simply go down a path, but you keep veering off to the sides, certain inclines or small gaps in fences can't be navigated, even though you can easily do it on foot. I thought it was the same jankiness that plagued the rest of the game, but it wasn't. Two Worlds actually had a bit of ai in the mounts. Horses could be disobedient and temperamental. They "didn't like" going down steep hills, or through small gaps. And if any of you have ridden before, then you'll know that trying to drift towards the side of the path isn't terribly uncommon, as they're probably looking for a snack. When you get further into the game, you can get better mounts that are more obedient and easier to control, as well as being faster and more responsive. Understanding all this immediately took Two Worlds horse riding from being the absolute worst in a game to the best. Red Dead 2 is the only game to do it as well or better so far.
people who actually own or work with horses NEVER think of them as cars!
Gimli: "It's a little tight across the chest!"
Ugh. You had to remind me that scene :/ In the book Gimli didn't take any armor from Rohirrim. Rohirrim didn't have *anything* approaching the quality of his own, dwarven armor. I understand it was comic relief scene, but still meh.
@@FrikInCasualMode I had the same split-second reaction to that joke, but the best part that made me like the gag was when the waistline of the mail hit the floor with a clank. So Gimli was that much stockier as well as that much shorter, showing the double difference in kinds.
What made it even funnier is knowing that John Rhys-Davies, the usually dignified veteran classical actor who played Gimli, is actually about 6'2" (195cm) tall. The scene setup on the day (and many days) must have looked extra silly, with either a cameraman standing on a ladder to get the down angles, or John playing the scenes from down on his knees, with his boots sticking out the back :)
@@animistchannel2983 "The first step in casting for a dwarf is to find the tallest actor you can."
@@FrikInCasualMode How about the scene where he is trying to see what is happening, on the wall during the battle at Helm´s Deep, and says they should have picked a better spot, when in fact there is a crenellation just next to him that he can see through? Stupid comic relief, made no sense.
Have it taken up a bit too!
The most charming horse is, in fact, a mule.
Talking of mules, Marius mules did carry mail long before medieval times
One thing to also remember about the drawings that were done back in the day: artistic license. We all know what modern artistic license takes with armor. Who's to say that they didn't also do that with the artwork depicting someone cleaving someone to the navel with a sword to play up the attacker and/or downplay the defender? And if IIRC, most of these artists were not known for actually being there for the battles, so there's no guarantee that they even understood how armor works, or what kind of weapon would make a would like that.
Or just real but very rare events, like more modern medal commendations and accounts.
"and sers Arthur and Mark did see a poor soul (almost) cleft in twain by a monstrous blow by our man."
10:25 Ah yes, that's a Nord footman, I remember hiring these by the hundreds in Mount & Blade. Best low-tire unit in the game.
Wouldn't it be trained footmen? I think footmen only wear fur but trained footmen wear mail
@@combatraptor4592 Might be, it's been a while since I've played vanilla.
Yup, byrnie armour are used by nord trained footmen & veteran archers in vanilla Warband.
I like watching Jason's horse near the end while Jason is talking and the horse keeps looking over at him as if to say, "Who are you talking to Jason? I'm confused because you're not looking at me. What's going on?" lol
The horse is definitely trying to find out
I still do not understand why you have not yet surpassed 1 million subscribers, at the least. Your videos are as educational and informative as they are enjoyable to watch. Your production quality is, in my humble opinion, exceptional and when that is companied with the apparently limitless amount of passion and enthusiasm you have for the subject matter, it makes for an excellent learning experience. Ofttimes when I think of a hearty, wholesome meal, it is hard to not visualize the salmon, bread, herbs, etc. that you demonstrated on your episode featuring what the peasantry ate in medieval times. I'd tried to recreate it meself but it came out nowhere near as good looking as yours was.
On the difference between using solid links or only riveted: you counted wrong the amount of riveted links when solid links are used. Half of the links need to be riveted, not quarter. Those patches of four solid and one riveted ring need to be connected to each other by riveted links.
good point, yes you're right.
@@FlinnGaidin only if you could somehow fuze the rings together
@@tedarcher9120 I think I imagined something incorrectly in my head when I wrote that, lol.
Maybe someone developed a kind of rivet gun or standing press that made them easier to set? It would explain why the rivet shapes changed when they became much more common.
Or the technology for making closed rings was lost.
but probably riveting just became simpler than welding the closed rings
@@ulrichkalber9039 closed rings where often punched out of sheet not welded
@@adamrudling1339 interesting.
maybe everybody who was able to make decent sheetmetal was working for the production of plate armor, so sheet was not available or became too expensive.
@@ulrichkalber9039 If riveting became easier/cheaper than it was before, it could speed up the manufacturing process to not have to switch between types of rings.
Ulrich Kälber it's much easier to hammer out ribbons of metal to punch rings from than a whole sheet.
Plot armor is a real thing. The guy who dies can't right a story afterwards. An old guy in my church was a WW2 veteran and he had many stories about everyone dying around him but he obviously made it. He had real life plot armor.
"history is written by the winners" in other words :)
Other's would call it luck or circumstance
Love your passion and work! Modern History is amazing, I remember watching your early episodes when they only had a few thousand views! This channel has really grown, congrats :) Surprised you haven't have Rebellion make something similar to Kingdom Come.
Thanks for your long term support.
Dude, people really disliked this masterpiece of a video? Just discovered this channel and oh boy am i in love!
Thanks, and even my Happy Christmas short video got some thumbs down! Maybe they're mistakes, or maybe some people just hate everything?
@@ModernKnight you said it right, some people just hate everything and cant appreciate anything. Just the way they were raised
i subscribed yesterday, and watch a ton of your videos, what i like the most is that when u don't know something you say so, or say " my theory is" , u could say what ever or just lie, but u don't . Good vibes from Argentina
Thanks for the sub!
I think popularity of chainmail (I use this term) is in its inherent simplicity. Rings are quite simple to make and it can just be weaved to intended shape and "sewn" together if broken. They are still used so it ain't going anywhere either in applications where cuts can be expected.
I'm considering this video a Christmas present. Thanks
You should!
All I need to know about you Mr. Kingsley can be observed in the scene with you alone with your horse. Obviously a tight bond there and heartwarming to see. She's beautiful and you obviously care for all your critters very much. Animals are the best judge of character in my opinion. Really enjoy your channel and the way you share your knowledge of the things I dreamed about as a child.
In comparison to the modern equivalent of armor, the mail shirt meets similar standards in defense against the weapons of the era. Both only protect the major vitals in the thoracic cavity, as increasing the armor coverage decreases mobility due to added weight. This has the added bonus of being cheaper to mass produce if you have to field a large army. Both mail and modern armor protect against the majority, but not all of the armament of their respective times.
It was brought up as a fault that the mail shirt leaves the neck and limbs exposed. In regard to the neck, mail prevents attacks with most sharp weapons from cutting or piercing, in essence, converting them to blunt strikes. Most neck trauma received from blunt strikes would, sadly, remain lethal with any armor short of plate. As to the limbs, the major arteries in the arms are covered in the upper arm. The legs remain exposed, but the increased mobility is a heaven send if you have to march any long distance. As they say, "One pound on your feet equals five pounds on your back."
TLDR:
Chest armor has remained popular throughout the ages for may good reasons.
Mass production may not have been such an issue for Western Europe at least until 1430 ish when King Charles VII established his standing army. Standing armies were around before the medieval period (Rome) but don’t seem to be too popular, it was more common to have each soldier pay for their own gear, in the case of a wealthy land owner. In the case of a common soldier there’s an Anglo Saxon text (if I recall) that outlines the number of men expected from each village was based on the overall population, those who are not fighting were expected to equip the few who were
Mail is the perfect middleground, effective enough and practical.
Great video, well produced, and no tedious sponsorship advertising. Another factor to consider when discussing specialist clothing is 'slip.' Bit of a tangent this, but bear with me. Studies and tests have been done on Scott's, Amundsen's and Mallory's polar/summit clothing. While Scott's woollens and rubberised canvas wind suit offered similar levels of insulation in lab tests to Amundsen's gear (in practice, I suspect other factors greatly reduced the effectiveness of Scott's clothing due to the design and increased perspiration from man-hauling being absorbed readily by wool), Scott's layers of wool and canvas increased his energy expenditure by 20% relative to Amundsen's furs, due to the fact that furs 'slip' and layers of wool and canvas created more friction. Mallory seemed to have an excellent understanding of this and had silk layers that enabled slip between layers of wool and cotton. Watching you remove the mail by, well, by twerking until it slipped off made me think of this, and if mail slips easily compared to other types of weapons protective clothing (e.g. padded leather? Even plate?) it would have added greatly to its practicality and reduced energy expenditure, tiredness and hunger. The weight of protective clothing is therefore not the only factor in how practical and wearable it is. Keep up the good work your videos are excellent.
I think a part of what the chainmail would do as well, is give an ordinary soldier a good bit of confidence as well. It would give them a sense of safety as they marched into battle. No armor is perfect. Look at some of the modern "bullet proof" vests. They will stop a relatively powerful bullet, but unless they're a specific type of vest they will be vulnerable to knife stabs.
Really enjoy your content. Thanks for taking the time to make it. 👍