When the Norman’s invaded in 1066 the majority of the knights wore armour consisting totally of maille.
It was flexible and offered reasonable protection against incoming blows from a foe. Worn over a quilted padded Jack called an Ackheton
or Gambeson, the mail shirt (Hauberk) would be made up of individually formed links of iron wire formed into rings and linked together
to form a shirt or leggings. This form of armoured protection persisted until the end of the medieval period and somewhat beyond.
Maille construction was an arduous and time consuming task (a full Hauberk might consist of over 80,000 individually riveted rings)
Each individual link had to be made from fine strips of iron wire before being linked together with other links, then a small rivet
would be inserted to hold all the links together and to prevent them splitting.
Maille is flexible (if heavy)
and helps to spread the impact of a blow.
However, it could not be relied upon to stop a full blow from a great sword
- a blow of any force would shatter bone and crush the wearer’s limbs. An even greater drawback arose when the maille
wearer was faced with bowmen. From the point of view of an arrowhead, maille is nothing but a lot of loosely connected
holes and the arrow simply picks the one it wants to go through, and was fully capable of penetrating the maille armour and the man
inside as well. The force of the arrow was quite enough to pass through the maille on the way out through the
man's back.
Despite its obvious failings against arrows it was still widely in use during the fifteenth century,
especially for covering the vulnerable areas that could not be covered by plate armour (armpits etc).
The piece of Maille shown here is the Standard. It protects the neck from being cut or stabbed.
Without this, the tip of a sword, a knife or Rondel could be pushed between the Bevor and Breast Plate or the Cuirass/Bevor and Helmet
into the neck.
It helps prevent having your throat cut!
