I have been blundering around google images, and come across a few interesting discussions about armor fabrication and design.
This image above depicts various styles of armour gleaned from the bayeux tapestry and other sources.
1-2 Lists scale armour over mail based on something from the 13th century.
3-4 Depicts an odd armour which it fails to convey the name of(somecharacter-ice?), from the bayeux tapestry. This appears to be a studded leather armour, for lack of more information.
5-6 Shows the horrifying(in my mind) Ring 'mail' armour. I somehow doubt it ever existed.
7-8 Brings our common maille to the mix, but I fail to spot rivets in the pattern. (Tiny dots are rather poor substitutes.)
9-13 Are most strange to me, as before this point I had not heard of such a thing as "banded mail."
What in the world is this? It appears to be mail rings sewn in a line, and attached to a cloth or leather backing.
9 Shows this kind of mail, but covered by leather tubes.
The above all seems odd because of the alignment and illustration of the rings.
Are any of these styles innacurate?
If so, which ones are made up, and which ones are simply belittled/uncommon?
I would also like to see accurate illustrations or fabrications of what is referred to as 'Banded Armor'
in Mount & Blade, which appears to be long strips of leather, riveted together.
Most orthodox interpretations of those drawings say that they are drawn or painted that way to simplify the drawing of maille. It would be extremely tedious to draw all the rings of a maille warrior, let alone several of them, so they did it that way to get the effect but without all the hassle. After all, medieval painters and tapestry makers were not known for being anal about realism (effigy sculptures on the other hand more often were).
never heard of bar mail, and that seems an unusual use of the term 'jazeraint', I thought that referred to a combination of padded armour over mail or something like that, not that it's a synonym of scale armour.
Very well. OP has been updated.
Let us turn our discussion to the main cause of my creation of this thread.
I point to figure 12 in the first image, and in the fourth image, I point to all figures, especially on the neck armour.
The figures in the third image may also represent this style of mail.
I had never before bothered to notice that this was somehow different from regularly linked maille.
You can see the areas in between the mail bands, rather than it being all one weave.
Was this common? Existent? I would love to see some museum pieces.
Having now googled banded mail, I find indeed my suspicions were well-placed.
I have gotten to the wikipedia article for the subject.
Another source: http://www.arador.com/articles/chainmail.html
[quote author=Wikipedia]Banded mail is a neologism, coined in the 19th century, describing a type of composite armor formed by combining the concepts behind the Roman lorica segmentata with splint mail. Its historicity is doubtful. It has become entrenched in the popular consciousness as a result of its inclusion in the armor list for Dungeons and Dragons.
Confusion arises because of the wide variety of terms by which similar armors are known. Banded mail has been described as "a form of mail reinforced with bands of leather", as "overlapping horizontal strips of laminated metal sewn over a backing of normal chain mail and soft leather backing" and as "many thin sheets of metal are hammered or riveted together". The last description more closely fits splinted armor, which consists of long metal splints connected by mail/leather used for arm and leg protection. The final description of metal plates riveted to a sub-strate describe a coat of plates or brigandine, all of which consist of metal plates riveted to a leather or cloth fronting. Finally, armor constructed of rows of plates otplatelets sewn or laced together, without backing/fronting, would be considered "laminar". The current term for small metal plates joined together by chainmail is plated mail.
Although banded mail was considered real during the 19th century,[1][2] later books on history claim that banded mail arose due to a misinterpretation of medieval manuscripts and tomb effigies.[3]
While there have been some attempts at modern reconstructions of banded mail, there are no known historic examples. Existing manuscript and effigy representation has been interpreted as covering a variety of methods for depicting chainmail.
[/quote]
Now that I recall previous discussions, I realize this did not require much exposition.
Even the banded armor in M&B features only riveted leather strips over proper maille.
In conclusion, I seem to have unintentionally created a reminder thread for this particular historical error.
That reconstruction looks like it is from an old book, and the reconstruction might even be older. I would be skeptical of it though. Probably some early archaeologist or historian took a literal interpretation of those old tapestries or drawings and made a harness based off of it. If you found such armor on an effigy I would believe it much quicker.
It wouldn't do jack **** against arrows, lances, spears or sword thrusts. Contrary to popular belief, proper maille actually does protect one from piercing blows pretty well.
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