ENG 321 mail

Each of the tens of thousands of rings has this decoration, and was hand-riveted to
its neighbor, time-consuming labor that made this mail shirt a high-status possession.

Great endurance is obviously required to fight

for long periods in armor, and men-at-arms trained in armor from childhood

to be able to do so.

Mail, brigandine, mail with selected large plates,

and, in some places, even thick leather were all used, depending on the

finances of the fighter and the role that he played on the battlefield.

Often embellished with precious metals and jewels, the finest examples proclaimed the wearer's or bearer's social status, wealth, and taste.

A 30 lb hauberk, I'm guessing you're using 14g since 16 is a bit lighter, around 20-25 lbs. Still, it's about 100-125 hours for that, and at that rate,

By 870 the Danes had overthrown the
kingdoms of East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia, and were preparing
to do the same to Wessex. Standing in their way was a young king of
Wessex, Alfred by name

The spear was the principle weapon, but nobles are recorded as owning
a sword and wearing a mail shirt - presumably kings did so too if they wished
to be kings for any length of time

There are no descriptions of armed peasants in the literature. However,
as they could certainly be called upon for military service we may assume they
would have armed themselves with the crudest of weapons: spear and shield, knife,
wood axe, bow or some agricultural implement. Peasants would probably have travelled
and fought on foot if they ever found themselves in such a position.

The
crew would have varied from 40 - 60, and in addition to a spear, iron cap (helmet)
and shield for each member, one mail shirt per ship, and one bow and arrows
per 6 benches were required.

hese figures varied slightly in different countries
and times but provide a good average guide, although if each crew had say three
times the number of bows and arrows to mail shirts, then carnage was almost
always guaranteed. So either there was an expectation that more mail was owned
by the lithsmen on board or this figure of one shirt is erroneous

Not that this prevented all families however poor, from owning a few items made from iron. These would have been knives for everyday uses, some tools, and another key piece, an axe. Without these, an early medieval family could not have operated. These things would not necessarily have been new or recent either. Many items would have been resurrected by reforging, or converting old and truly past their best hand-me-downs.

There were those who were not above using iron to flaunt their status and wealth.

One quality of iron that is overlooked is it's ability to withstand corrosion.

Iron on the other hand, tends to create a corroded surface, that then actively prevents the oxidising process from getting any deeper beyond this boundary into the core of the iron.

This is why we have so many artefacts from the period and earlier, despite being found in waterlogged conditions, and even in the sea.

unless he charged
too much for his time. He had to worry about the price that he had to pay for
charcoal, the cost of the iron he was about to use and the time it took him
to forge any given item, even if it was a revamp of an older piece. If a component
was fairly large, he might have to modify his hearth to accommodate the work,
and certainly needed to draft in help to control the hot metal on the anvil.

Gold was virtually only ever used for jewellery

Straight Tin was sometimes used to coat iron objects (such as helmets)

In order to make anything the smith first had to obtain his iron. Again, he
was unlikely to have smelted it out for himself. This above all was a messy
and time consuming task that would have been done nearer the source of iron
and away from the town. First he had to obtain the iron ore. This was generally
obtained from deposits near the surface of bogs, and is called not surprisingly
bog ore. This source of ore is quite iron poor, unlike the ores that were
later to be quarried out from cliff faces. The ore is heated or roasted in a
pit. This helps to break it down, clean it and dry it out. It's then placed
on a larger stone and broken up into small nuggets. The iron ore was then heated
in a chimney shaped clay furnace about four feet high and 16 inches across (a
process called smelting) at very high temperatures to remove the impurities,
known as slag. The smelter is made from clay with lots of 'grog' or straw mixed
in to help it withstand the extreme temperatures.

The iron then melted out of the ore and the slag collected in the shallow pit
at the base of the furnace. The bottom corner of the smelter was broken open,
the slag tapped off, leaving the smith with a fairly pure lump of iron called
a bloom. Once the iron had cooled and set, a file was drawn over the surface
to gauge the hardness of the iron bloom to see if it had any steel in it - the
file being of a known quality itself. The bloom then had to be reheated and
beaten over several workings to remove any other remaining impurities. The more
diligently done the better, which resulted in nearly pure iron ready to be worked
into many different objects. This type of iron is called wrought iron, but the
Saxons were also able to add carbon (from charcoal) to convert it to steel.
This was necessary where extra hardness and strength were needed, such as on
knife edges, hammer heads or chisels

The quality of the iron has
been shown to be superlative. So good in some cases that it's quality was
not matched until the mid 1800s. The reason for this seems to lie in the
work that was done to the iron to convert it to steel post the smelt. By a simple(!!)
process of reheating the pure iron until it absorbed the relevant carbon
levels to convert it to steel, until you could no longer heat it to good effect.

armour

flexibility, strength and durability.

Mail of the period was made by cutting thin
strips of iron from a piece of sheet, or drawing iron wire through a draw-plate,
and winding this around a cylindrical former. It was then cut off with a chisel
to form the links. The links would then be compressed so that the ends overlapped.

Half of the links were then welded shut in the forge. The other half had the
ends of each link were flattened and then had holes punched in them. As the
mailshirt was assembled a punched ring was linked to four of the welded rings,
a rivet was put through the holes to close the link. Alternatively, the whole
shirt could have been made entirely made with rivetted rings. Finally the whole
mailshirt was likely to have been 'oil tempered' to make it stronger and give
some degree of rust-proofing.

The early mailshirts seem to have reached to just below the waist and have
short sleeves (there is no evidence for sleeveless mailshirts like those known
from the Iron Age). These short mailshirts seem to have been referred to as
a byrnie and are sometimes shown with a vandyked lower edge.

The mailshirt became longer towards the eleventh century until it reached the
knees or just below with sleeves to the elbow. These long mailshirts, often
with an integral hood, were split to the groin at the front and back to enable
riding and could well have taken a year to make. The term hauberk, often used
to describe these long mail-coats, is actually derived from the Old English
word 'healsbeorg' which was in fact a mail hood (what is now called a
coif); it was not until later that hood and shirt together were known by this
name

Mail worn on its own would stop the cutting edge of most weapons, but did not
stop the crushing effects. So some kind of padding would have been worn under
the mail. These padded garments, now known as gambesons, were made by sewing
fleeces, raw wool or layers of woollen cloth between two layers of linen, felt
or leather. Gambesons were probably very thick and could offer very good protection
against the impact of weapons.

Gambesons were usually worn under mail (perhaps even attached to it) and would
tend to be a similar outline to the mailshirt, although it is possible they
could have been worn on their own by poorer warriors.

Mailshirts also have a tendency
to pull your tunic to pieces and stain the cloth, something which a liner such
as a gambeson or leather between would prevent.

Mail coifs, or 'healsbeorgs', were worn from the ninth century and tended to
cover the top and back of the head, the cheeks, chin, neck and perhaps some
of the shoulders. Again coifs are mentioned but have never been found, so we
can only guess as to their original shape. By the beginning of the tenth century
these had become quite common amongst the professional warriors. By the eleventh
century the coif was often integrated with the hauberk becomming a hood.

Limb armour was far rarer than body or head armour. It is possible that a few
kings and greater nobleman may have worn some form of greaves

The Alfredian fyrd was designed to act in tandem with the burwaran,
the permanent garrisons that the king settled in the newly built burhs.
The size of the garrison in each burh varied according to the length
of its walls (4 men for every 51/2 yards), but an average one would have required
a garrison of about 900 men.

The scale of service demanded by Alfred and his descendants was unprecedented,
the garrisons of the burhs alone represented a standing army of almost
30,000 without the fyrd.These figures suprisingly do
not include the military strength of the navy that Alfred raised to counter
the Danish threat either.

How Alfred's fyrdmen were equipped is uncertain, although spears and
shields still remained the prime weapons. It may well be that this was all the
equipment the average burwaran would use, possibly supplied to him by
his lord. The fyrdmen, on the other hand were a professional warrior
class, drawn from amongst the wealthiest men in the country, expecting to face
a well equipped, professional enemy army. The evidence we have suggests that
helmets, swords and mailshirts had become much more common by the time of Alfred's
reforms, and most of the fyrd would have been equipped with at least
a helm and sword in addition to their spear, shield and horse. Many would also
have possessed a mailshirt. Some of the more well off burwaran may also
have been equipped in a similar way to the fyrd.

By the second half of the tenth century, and throughout the eleventh, the Anglo-Saxon
fyrd was more than just a king's host arrayed for war, it was a well
equipped professional army of heavy infantry. Although the spear and shield
still remained the basic weapon of the fyrdman, it was now usual for
all to have a horse, sword, helmet and mailshirt too. Some illustrations suggest
that hand-axes were also used, but whether in addition to, or in place of, the
sword is unclear. There are many references to even ceorls serving in the fyrd
possessing swords, and that mailshirts and helms would have been widespread
is shown by the fact that Æþelred commanded that every eight hides provide
a helmet and byrnie. In addition, the heriot, that is the death
duty paid to a lord when a thegn died, was set at four horses (two with
saddles), two swords and a coat of mail. Since the heriot represented
the return of the gifts of a lord to his retainer, we can see that this was
the equipment a thegn would be expected to possess.

It appears that generally the huscarles were even more heavily equipped
than the thegns. In addition to the equipment associated with a normal
fyrdman, at least at the time of Cnut they were expected to own 'splendid
armour,' including a double-edged sword with a gold inlaid hilt and a 'massive
and bloodthirsty two-handed axe,' this latter weapon having been introduced
into England in the course of the Viking attacks at the end of the tenth century.

Finally, it should not be forgotten that the king's right to call upon 'every
able bodied man' for military service was never forgotten. Right up until the
time of Harold Godwinson the king retained that right. However, just because
the king had the right did not mean he exercised it.

Warfare was not a part of everyday life for many Anglo-Saxons and Vikings

Despite all the heroic deeds in tales and sagas, a grown man would have seen
a major conflict about once every twenty years. And even then he would had to
have been in the wrong place at the wrong time to become involved.

Being even
wounded in a clash would be a very serious thing. Your chances of avoiding blood
poisoning or overcoming infection were slight, often resulting in an agonising
and lengthy death.

Whilst it is true that it was a thegns duty to serve his king in times of trouble,
(this is also true to a greater extent for the Viking ruling classes), this
would often be in a policing action rather than a bloody clash.

To defend your home is one thing, but to die when you can
run to save yourself was more realistic. The only people who had to abide by
any duty of standing with their lord were the warriors as can be seen by the
account of the Battle of Maldon.

The concept that the Vikings slaughtered peasants wholesale is far from the
truth as well. Life then was based solely upon the land and how it could feed
you, and without the local populous in good working order, their farms and livestock
intact, you and your army would starve

From the tribal wars of the early Anglo-Saxon invaders to the Viking and Norman
Conquests of England in the eleventh century, Britain had a long and bloody
history, but it has to be seen in it's context. After all, an uneventful normal
humdrum life didn't make for great headlines, even in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles.

A fyrdsman served because his land grant said he had to, and failure
to serve led to a fine. The money paid would have gone to the king or eorl to
provide food for mercenaries, not wages. The king's obligation to provide food
only began after the men had served their full term

three to four pence per day. This is
roughly comparable to the wages of a knight post-Conquest, demonstrating that
the Fyrd was indeed a select body of men and not a rag-bag collection
of farmers with agricultural implements for weapons.

Completely professional soldiers, they had their own rules
of conduct, living at the king's court and receiving his pay, as opposed to
gifts or kind. They formed a small but efficient and highly organised standing
army, both well disciplined and heavily armed.

Cnut, we are told, required his
Huscarles to possess 'splendid armour' and a double-edged sword with
a gold-inlaid hilt, as a condition of acceptance into his military entourage.
Although a primarily a footsoldier, a huscarl would also have owned a
horse to carry him to battle and in pursuit of the defeated enemy, and a variety
of weapons, including a mail-shirt, helmet, shield, javelin, and, of course,
the 'massive and bloodthirsty two-handed axe' that characterised him. Despite
being paid in coin their obligation to serve in arms arose from the lordship
bond rather than the cash inducement.