What armor are you interested in?

Story & Setting
#142

The problem with working with leather is that it’s EXTREMELY sensitive. It has to be boiled at just the right temperature, for just the right length of time, and you had to get it on the forms very quickly. Some friends of mine experimented with making cuir bouilli gauntlets, and if they didn’t get it exactly right the pieces would either end up too brittle, or too thick to use, or wouldn’t take the right shape. There was VERY little margin for error.

Paradoxically, I believe metal armor was actually EASIER to make than hardened leather. The main advantage of leather would have been the cost and availability of materials.

#143


I don’t think we’ll be seeing her in the game, but here’s a couple more pictures of her instead.

1 Like
#144

Such a shame. I think I’m in love.

#145

So do you think that that the technology to develop cuir bouilli garments wasn’t developed properly before maybe 13th - 14th century, and therefore it wasn’t used as additional protection in earlier centuries?

#146

I’m not saying the technology didn’t exist. I’m saying that it’s a matter of balancing the the effort against the returns, and that by and large, cuir bouilli didn’t provide enough of an advantage to make its wide-spread use as a primary defense worth the difficulty of actually producing it when other options were easier.

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#147

That’s a really nice example of the transitional style…

It’s got a variety of mixed elements to it. An almost Barbuta styling across the brow, and the helm itself is very Bascinet like in it’s shape. Vervelles for Aventail attachment as well… really nice helmet.

:smile:

#148

just think about the raw-material you need. Where does leather grow? Well on animals, so you always have a limited amount of leather you can use (this equals the amount of animals you can kill to get their skin, also keep in mind you have to raise and feed them for years), while steel on the other hand is fairly simple to produce. Find ore, chop wood and produce coal, --> blast furnace --> steel. As much as you want, you only need the wood (not so hard to get in the middle of europe) and ore/steel, which also was not so hard to get in the middle of europe. A huge amount of the steel came from Upper Palatinate which shares a border with the Czech Republic. The armourers from Nuremberg got their steel from there as well as from Tirol.

About the technology, it was there. Why they didn’t use it before the 14 century? They probably didn’t need it. The big developments from maille to plate armor was triggered by the introduction of the crossbow to european battlefields. As well as a rising number of bows being used in battle. And that 's the point where they start to experiment with leather, textile and steel.

The infrastructure for an armor-industry existed already. You had goods being produced and sent all over the continent for centuries. Since the 11th century you had water-powered hammers (Note: This is the time-mark when the first one-piece helmets show up). And wars could be found anywhere. But it didn’t start right away. Which shows us, maille was enough. Until the warfare changed.

#149

So you think that armorers weren’t continuously attempting to improve armor over the centuries and that the improvement of bows and crossbows was the only factors that made people realize that maille wasn’t enough. I would assume that maille wasn’t particularily strong against lance attacks or other thrusts either, so I would suppose that people who could afford it were allways struggling for better solutions, even before crossbows and bows became more common (or stronger?). Or maybe people simply accepted the amount of protection that maille gave, you tell me, I guess you’re the expert since you apperantly are an armorer:)

#150

Well we need to make a bigger jump back in time. To the romans! The romans had an huge armor industry. After the fall of the west roman empire this industry ran out of orders. The big roman army in the west was gone. No one was there to buy armor. So over centuries the armor production declined. It didn’t vanish, we still have the corpus of finds from the early middle ages, where maille and scale armor, similar to the roman stuff was found. As well as helmets like the Sutton Hoo finds which are beautiful and highly decorated. This tells us, there still had to be smiths left that could produce armor of such high quality.
In vienna a helmet, about 500 p.Chr., might be from “Ravenna”, in northern Italy. We have little evidence but probably there armor was still produced. At later time, Genua, Milan etc. pp., which are also sited in northern Italy were to produce armor again in large quantities. Steel production has been there for centuries.
So, we have less armorers. Less customers as well and a change in military strategy. When Francia showed up a new military power existed in europe, which needed armor. So the production rose again. Have a look at this, the picture is taking from a bible of the 8th century. It shows us a fight David vs. Goliath, while about a hundred years later the soldiers are shown in scale armor.
If you now take a look at the Bayeux Tapestry the maille/scale armor reaches above the knees. While two centuries later the maille covers the whole body.

So yes, there was development. They had to create new patterns, for example how to cover the legs and be able to ride/walk/fight in it. And to rediscover old techniques.

The romans had waterpowered hammers, as the industry vanished those hammers did too. You can’t produce steel sheets in high numbers without such hammers. Without sheet --> No plate armor. Small scales are no problem to make. But helmets? No chance. The first one piece helmets in Europe since the roman empire were produced in the 11th century. And during the 12th century they start to make new helmet styles. (Great helm) In the 13th century knee cops show up. At the end the first coat of plates can be found. So yes, there was development.

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#151

So then back to the topic about leather armor. When you say that large steel sheets were hard/impossible to produce without waterpowered hammers, it would also have rendered it impossible to make plate armor earlier. (have to go back to the romans, who actually had these hammers to find plate armor.) How come no one didn’t come up with the idea to make different cuir bouilli pieces to protect arms, legs and torso earlier? Do you think they were too hard to make? Did they consider it unneccessary or unfashonable? Or did no one actually come up with the idea? (which seems unlikely)

#152

Uhh… maybe they had that stuff. But as long as we have no evidence. We just have to assume: There was no leather armor until the 14 century. I say, maybe they did experiment with leather. But as I said in the beginning, as long as we have no evidence: THERE WAS NO LEATHER ARMOR. (Have to repeat it a couple of times for all those viking-leather folks who have no idea how a timeline and living history works… god, I hate those guys)

EDIT: Btw. as people often use the term “cuir bouilli”, I remember something like that doesn’t actually mean some sort of armor. But is used in a french book dated to the 14 century. And no one actually knows what it means. The translation word by word means as much as cooked leather. But you can use bee wax and cook leather in eat, too. For example to make it water proof and get a leather bottle.
So no idea how someone came up with “that must be leather armor he is talking about”. But it got stuck in the peoples mind and is being used generally to refer to leather (cooked) armor.

#153

Individual elements can be made from leather, sometimes.
Tartu, Estonia 1370
http://arheo.ut.ee/theses/BA10_Pruus.pdf

Vambrace, Doldrecht 1300-1370
http://www.elpenbeen.nl/vambrace.pdf

Критика куманов/половцев в игре
#154

Yes, but this is a period where leather was known to be used as armor

#155

Yeah when I first heared it, I though about it like some sort of full leather armor suit (Like one of the fantasy armors in mount and blade, which is called cuir bouilli) . Now I just use it to refer to hardened leather, but mostly armor in that context, just correct me if that’s wrong

#156

Lack of evidence IS NOT evidence of lack.

#157

So you 're saying: “We have no evidence for laser weapons in the 20th century b.c., but “lack of evidence is not evidence of lack”, so they probably had laser weapons.” Am I getting you right?

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#158

Now you’re deliberately being ridiculous, and it doesn’t help you make your point. It’s just making you look asinine.

The technology for producing hardened leather existed. And there ARE surviving examples of hardened leather COMPONENTS (as velizariy provided). The only thing that can’t truly be determined is how widespread or common it was. Artwork is unreliable, and lack of surviving examples is easily explained by the fact that leather tends not to last for centuries unless specially cared for.

#159

I think that this debate on the leather armor does not make much sense now. For most of who played in RPG leather armor seem natural. We accustomed to them, and out of habit we want to see them here.

#160

You just said what I wrote above. Where is the problem exactly?

There was leather armor in the 14 century (we have originals). The question of Anders_R was more like “why didn’t they start to develop it earlier?”.
I said, maybe they did. But as evidence lacks. We can’t say they had it. Yes the techniques were probably known. But we have no images, no finds & no text sources from before the 14th century, so we just can’t say they had armor before that time. We can’t.

#161

Eww leather armour…

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