Gallery - Ironskin

Crist's Collapse under the Cross... Easter is app

Crist's Collapse under the Cross...

Easter is approaching and Nuremberg artist Adam Kraft from 1487 left us a series of stunning reliefs which bring alive the passion of Christ. Despite these artworks being so lively and detailed - can we find inaccuracies regarding the armor? I think so:

Note the sallet helmet with a slit. The thing below it must be a mail-bevor, a neck defense of the time. It has rows of mail running vertically. That is contradicting the extant pieces that I know of. The shown construction would be destined to crease and wrinkle. Luckily there is a slit around the shoulder to relieve the tension. That slit might with some imagination be a real feature - the arrangement of the rows is probably not. What do you think? Often artworks are very accurate in general, yet still, they are misguiding when it is about mail armor.

This relief is displayed inside Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg. The other picture shows a mail-bevor that I made earlier.

#passionofchrist #medievalart #reliefsculpture #germanischesnationalmuseum #nuremberg #nurembergsights #nurembergmuseum #facedefense #medievalsoldier #visor #sallet #15thcentury #armsandarmor #historyofart #europeanart #chirstwithcross #easterinart #medievalsculptures #medievalhelmet #soldierhelmet #passionchristi #secoloxv #sicoloxv #spätmittelalter #neckdefence #ironfacemask #latemedieval

Find vs. Modern Chainmail I didn't even have the

Find vs. Modern Chainmail

I didn't even have the intention to reconstruct this specific piece. Yet recently I had the occasion to photograph one of my handmade meshes next to an original belonging to @antikhd. Both rings are of approximately 4.5 mm inner diameter.

There is no context or other facts known about the original. It can be noted however, that meshes of very small rings were especially common during the Roman period and again in late medieval times. During the latter, they served as extra dense meshes for more vulnerable body parts like the throat and neck.

Thank you, Heiko from @antikhd for dropping by and having a long chainmail nerdtalk with me. Picture by Ironskin.

Scale Sabatons: Germany, 1371 ... I don't often s

Scale Sabatons: Germany, 1371 ...

I don't often show scale armor, but when I do, it's very shiny. Do you also associate scale armor with antiquity or the early middle ages? If yes, then this 14th-century sabaton must somewhat surprise you. This is the effigy of a German knight named Rudolf II. von Praunheim, first mentioned 1318 and died 1371.

The reconstructed foot armor is made up of ca. 25 evenly sized iron/steel scales each riveted onto leather uppers. It is from the group named the keepers (Хранители). Is it for function or for fashion? I'd surly prefer mail foot defence. 😉

Pictures uploaded by Inessa Maksimova via Pinterest. The picture of the effigy is by @roelipilami (Roel Renmans on Flickr), taken inside Frankfurt cathedral.

Mail-bevor from the Churburg armories, about 1480

Mail-bevor from the Churburg armories, about 1480

A bevor is a type of protection mainly for the throat and surrounding areas. Alongside the seemingly more popular plate-bevor, few mail-bevors existed. And I only know of five pieces that have been preserved until today. One of them is the mail-bevor inside the private armories of the family Trapp inside Churburg castle in southern Tirol, northern Italy.

The mail-bevor is likely from 1480, southern Germany. It has a beautiful dense weave around the neck and a well-shaped chin. It must have reached below the nose. The top has a hem with one line of tiny riveted rings. They serve the purpose of pulling the hem tight. The mail must have been suspended from the top.

On the right side of the wearer, there is a gap in the mail to open it. It is not surprising to find it on the right side, which is typically less exposed during fighting.

Pictures by Ironskin. Discover more about the castle here: @churburg_castelcoira

13th-century German knight - an impression by Domi

13th-century German knight - an impression by Dominik Huber alias @der_paerbinger_ritter from the group @ratisbona1250

Dominik is unofficially the first guy - that I know of - who built a coif in that style. He built almost everything you see himself. Under the coif he is wearing a small iron helmet called skullcap.

The surcoat is wool in madder-red. The chausses are the fully enclosed version. There are early iron spurs strapped on top of the feet.

On a side note, Dominik and me had been sending a German podcast about living-history for almost two years. It's named "Maultrommel-Podcast". And only this year it happened that we got to meet in person for the first time. This guy went deep down the rabbit hole of medieval-enthusiasm and is super funny. Thumbs up for Dominik!

#secoloxiii #sieclexiii #ridder #ritter #mountandblade #germanknight #chevaliere #medioevo #kettenhemd #medievaltimes #crusaderarmor #medievalreenactment #medievallivinghistory #13thcentury #crusader #cottedemailles #ringpanzer #cerveliere #livinghistiry #medievaleurope #bannerlord #medievalwarrior #chivalry #minne #ritterlichkeit #mittelalterlich #mittelalter

Viking mail shirt, 950 to 1000 AD When people are

Viking mail shirt, 950 to 1000 AD

When people are asking me what Viking mail looks like, I often refer to this find from Gjermundbu, Norway. After all, there are not many finds from that time and mail armor seems to have been reserved for elites.

The rings here are about 7mm inner diameter with riveted and solid rings. Can you tell the difference? The cross-section of the riveted rings is partially flattened/oval. The solid rings appear punched or drifted. Have a look at my previous post to learn more about drifted rings.

Thank you @histophokles for taking the pictures for us inside the Museum of Cultural History, in Oslo, Norway.

Mail sleeves... Sleeves don't have to be super ti

Mail sleeves...

Sleeves don't have to be super tight. But in case they are, it can happen that they even stop feeling like mail. The wearer, Andreas, told me that he felt nothing dangling at the arm. And thus he had the impression that his arm is one solid, muscular unit. Of course, the elbow area is still loose. That is by design to allow a full bend.

Thank you, Andreas Kuhnert, for your great commission and for visiting the workshop. More pictures are about to follow.

#nohashtags

Mail and Plate armor, Indo-Persian, 16/17th-centur

Mail and Plate armor, Indo-Persian, 16/17th-century

This beautiful armor is mainly made of solid and riveted rings. Not only is the chest reinforced by plates - but also the surrounding rings are made in a stronger variation. While there are two big plates on each side of the chest, there are three rows of plates on the back, overlapping like lames.

On the central front plates, there are buckles for enclosing the chest. There is also a seemingly Persian inscription "Darwish Sahib". Another Devanagari inscription on the inside of one of the large front plates mentions the name of Maharaja Anup Singh and that the armor entered the armory after Anup Singh defeated the Adilshahi dynasty at the siege of Adoni in 1689.

This 17kg heavy piece originated from the Bikaner armory in India. It shares many similarities with object 2000.595 in the Metropolitan Museum New York. The cleaning and restoration of this armor took about a month and was done by its new owner @monster_fish_taxidermy

Thank you @monster_fish_taxidermy for kindly sharing this with us.

Join the crusade: Holy Wars ♰ is a crowdfunded m

Join the crusade: Holy Wars ♰ is a crowdfunded medieval card game. We're here to support their launch on Kickstarter.

You see me introducing the Holy Wars game to my friends during the anniversary event of @die_reisecen. It is like Top Trumps with historical stats about medieval kings and knights. The cards feature historic paintings and short descriptions of medieval leaders from the orient and occident.

How can you get it and support it? Visit @holywarsleague and tap the link in their bio to visit the Holy Wars ♰ pre-launch page on Kickstarter and select “Notify Me” to be the first to get alerted when the crusade goes live.

When and how is it available? The first collectible card game Holy Wars ♰ The Pastime of Kings will be made available for a limited time only from January 21, 2022 as a Kickstarter exclusive.

Launching alongside The Pastime of Kings is Holy Wars ♰ Knights Templar, the first entry in the upcoming series of Holy Wars ♰ Christian military order card games.

Do you have any questions about Holy Wars ♰? Reach out to @holywarsleague or visit www.alcazargames.com for more info.

#holywars #holywarsgame #holywarsthepastimeofkings #holywarsknightstemplar #cardgames #tabletopgames #medievalgames #historygames #kickstartergames #kickstartercampaign #kickstarterproject #firstcrusade #crusade #crusades #crusader #crusaders #templar #knightstemplar #templarknights #medievalhistory #medievalknight #medievalwarfare #medievalgame #medievalcardgame #crusadergame

Mail Shorts with intriguing flap What is normal a

Mail Shorts with intriguing flap

What is normal about this? This is a Brayette - a typical 16th-century buttock defense. It is worn under plate armor. The bulky front is called a codpiece and is perfectly normal for the fashion of the time.

What is strange about this? There is an extra flap on the right side of the picture. That thing is puzzling me so much that I had to recreate it. Fortunately, Daniel Burger put me in a position to build that for him. Now we are keeping an eye on how it performs.

Was it the result of recycled pieces of mail sewn back together in a new way? Or was it providing extra comfort? Or did it cover more of the gap between the plates? What do you think?

First picture by Ironskin. Second picture by the Metropolitan Museum New York, object 27.183.14.

Bascinet with aventail, 1360-1370 Is there anythi

Bascinet with aventail, 1360-1370

Is there anything more iconic about the 14th-century than these pointy helmets with visors? They are called bascinet and they come along with a curtain of mail suspended from a leather band attached to the helmet. Typically the wearers less exposed right side has more breathing holes in the helmet than the more threatened left side.

This example is from Churburg castle in northern Italy. It is attributed to Ulrich IV. von Matsch.

The curtain of mail is called an aventail or a camail. It is made with an even distribution of expansions. Such expansions are deviations from the 4in1-chainmail-pattern that help to expand the mail downwards.

Pictures by Ironskin.

6in1 mail collar - How often did that exist? You

6in1 mail collar - How often did that exist?

You see Charles Lin with his gorgeous 15th-century mail collar. He made the band around the neck from 6mm round rings linked 6in1. It took him 40 hours just for that part.

As a response to his pictures shared on FB, some of you were asking whether these 6in1 meshes truly did exist. In fact, the vast majority of European chainmail neckbands are made from bulky rings linked 4in1. They look dense because the rings are comparably small in diameter compared with their wire crosssection.

To shed some light on that question I ran through mail collars and similar pieces in my memory. What I found was 3 pieces with 6in1 and 47 pieces with 4in1. That means 6% of these pieces are 6in1. 94% are dense 4in1. You find the full list in the comments.

Anyway, for us building such collars, the 6in1 is a handy way to achieve that look without making custom rings. To do so you have to add rings row by row or column by column and set the rivets before adding new rings.

Pictures kindly provided by Charles Lin. Check out his blog for instructions on how to build that:
https://practiceandart.wordpress.com

Living history seems childish in times like these.

Living history seems childish in times like these. Yet more than ever we are longing for a feeling of protection and invulnerability. For us, it is calming to look at these mail mittens. And we hope you get that feeling, too.

These are handsewn by Ironskin with chainmail of 8mm rings. They are a part of a 13th-century mail hauberk. It took about 20 hours just to make the mittens. Now they finally got taken out for a walk in the old town.

Let living history be a thing that brings us together in a time full of things that are splitting us apart.@armoury_al_master @aos.rv.ua @buhurttech @kvetun_armoury @greykeeperhauberk @sergeisimunin

#livinghistory #livinghistorian #mittens #maille #chainmaille #knightout #knightout #medievalarmor #buhurtislove #reenactment #stressedout #invulnerable #handprotection #gauntlets #13thcentury #ironskin #handschuh #historynerds #medievalstuff #medievalknight #chainmailmaking #kettenhemd #reenactors #medievalreenactment #historyfans #chainmail #medievalknights

Burgsinn: a small medieval event in the centre of

Burgsinn: a small medieval event in the centre of Germany. One got to see the manufacturing of shoes, crossbows, wooden mugs, mail-armor and more.

13th- and 11th-century noble men were dressing up in their armor. And guided tours lead people around the romantic water castle.

#mittelaltermarkt #mittelalterlager #schönesfranken #medievalgermany #watercastle #wasserburg #mittelaltergewandung #diereisecen #frankenerleben #mittelalter #spessarterleben

Knight in full mail: It is the year 1257. You see

Knight in full mail: It is the year 1257.

You see @yannick.koch dressing up his 6mm mail armor made by Isak Krogh. He is reenacting count Heinrich V. of Luxemburg. Hence the helmet crest (in German: "Zimir") with peacock feathers.

Yannick's armor weighs a total of 33kg. That is 19kg for the hauberk, 9kg for both chausses, 1kg for the small skull-cap, and almost 4kg for the early-type great-helmet. Which are 42+20+2+8=72 pounds.

The clips were taken during the Harnischfechten-Symposium Lauchröden, an event for practising and studying the fighting in armor. Thank you @yannick.koch, for patiently standing model while everyone was getting excited to fight. Thumbs up for Yannick!

#middeleeuwen #greathelmet #crusaderhelmet #13thcentury #hauberk #tabard #ridder #nobleknight #knightarmor #chainmail #knightinarmour #topfhelm #modernknight #medieval #harnisch #harnischfechten #zimir #medievalfighting #medievalarmor #peacockfeathers #ritter #mittelalterkleidung #mittelalterkleidung #nobleones #medievaltimes

Mail pants stitched onto linen: These iron pants

Mail pants stitched onto linen:

These iron pants are Indo-Persian possibly from the 17th-century. The textile could even be original from that time. The rings are riveted and solid. And the mail consist of various different patches that are joint together. That is done very artfully with the rings on the upper thigh being especially thick and sturdy. The mail below the knee is significantly finer. And there are wedges inserted to taper the pants near the thighs. These incorporate a 90°-cross-pattern seam - which is also found on mail sleeves of Indian origin.

The inside of the legs is without mail. My educated guess is that this is to make riding a horse more comfortable. It certainly also improves walking, but for that, the sacrifice of protection is very high. The pattern orientation of the majority of mail here is what I call "open hang" with rows running vertically. That is in contrast to the style of European examples. They are "closed hang". That means rows run horizontally around the leg.

This piece was acquired and carefully restored by private collector @monster_fish_taxidermy. Thank you for allowing us to share your pictures here.

The mail collar from Nuremberg tells a story of bl

The mail collar from Nuremberg tells a story of bliss and repairs.

This beauty is a neck protection from about 1450. The tiny iron rings are all riveted with an estimated inner diameter of 5 mm. The collar is closed on the back. There must have been straps, hooks, or buckles that are now missing.

While the iron rings serve for protection, there are copper alloy rings for decoration on top of it. Let's refer to it as brass for simplicity. These fringes of brass rings must have been very shiny once when they were freshly polished.

This piece also gives us a hint about the role of butted rings in the middle ages. The brass rings here are mainly riveted. Yet here are some butted rings, which must be repaired. While it was acceptable to have butted rings for the decoration, that can not be said similarly for the defensive iron rings.

The collar is exhibited in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg, Germany. Footage by Ironskin.

#medievalgermany #landsknecht #Kettenhemd #armaduradeargollas #camaglio #cottadimalha #cottadimaglia #cottedemaille #cottedemailles #copperalloy #fringes #brassrings #15thcentury #germanischesnationalmuseum #nuremberg #germanheritage #latemedieval #collar #brassdecoration #germanknight #armourmuseum #nuremberghistory #expensivecostume #butted #chainmail #ironskin #germanhistory

Stars and Rings - an Ottoman Armor Is it Christma

Stars and Rings - an Ottoman Armor

Is it Christmas yet? No, this is Ottoman Armor - beautifully crafted with silver, gilded decorations and red coral pearls.

The collar is made of extra tiny rings and clad with red velvet. Also, the gauntlets have a leather and silk lining.

Barely noticeable, the chest is tapering with seams from the armpits down. It is 10 inches/25cm wider than the waist. With that, the wearer was able to perform wide arm motions, even horseback archery. Under the mail, a fighter would typically wear a padded cotton garment and talisman-shirt decorated with verses from the Quoran.

The armor is likely from the 17th century Ottoman Empire. The mail-shirt weighs 21 pound/9.5kg and the gauntlets 1.50pound/0.7kg each.

These are objects KP B XVII.373/1 and KP B XVII.373/3 from the Museum Hessen Kassel, online on datenbank.museum-kassel.de and here @museum_kassel. Pictures by the museum. Thank you for allowing us to use them here.

Drifted rings - You see an experimental way of pro

Drifted rings - You see an experimental way of producing solid chainmail rings. I'm drifting a pointy cone into a sheet of metal. The idea is to reshape and deform the metal rather than toremove it. This is different from punching, which removes a circle.

Read more about it on my blog:

https://www.ironskin.com/drifted-rings/

Thank you to the kind folks at @middelaldercentret_nyk_falster in Denmark who kindly let me do this on their location. It's a great place for all medieval enthusiasts. Go, check them out! Special thanks to Jorge @preloprints for filming me!

#middelaltercentred #mittelalter #geschichtspark #medieval #tribock #medievallife #medievalcraft #medievaltimes #mittelalterleben #medievale #medievales #medievalpark #medioevo #campomedievale #medievaltown #mittelaltermarkt #alteshandwerk #solidrings #historylive #historypark #oneringtofindthem #mailmaking #cottedemaille #forging #ringschmieden #blacksmithing #ironskin #armormaking

Brigandine with mail and plates, 1570-1580 Brigan

Brigandine with mail and plates, 1570-1580

Brigandines are a type of armor that evokes vivid discussions. Its small plates are riveted onto fabric or leather and these can be manufactured with varying quality. Hence it's up to debate what protection they bring and what size of wallet they aim to be sold to.

This example is clearly on the luxurious side with red silk velvet and tinned brass parts. It originates a time in which it is almost out of fashion. The mail is made from solely riveted rings. You see that frequently in Renaissance mail. The plates show consistent tool marks on the backside. They must have been made with the same hammer and dye-set.

The armor was considered Italian for some time. Now it rather seems to be Central European or Russian. Thank you at @dhbreiding for adding this and pointing towards the new Publication Highlights on arms and armour by @philamuseum.

This is Accession Number 1977167239 from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Pictures by the museum. @philamuseum

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