Hauberk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A hauberk is a shirt of mail armour. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves. Haubergeon ("little hauberk") generally refers to a shorter variant with partial sleeves, but the terms are often used interchangeably.[1] Slits to accommodate horseback-riding are often incorporated below the waist. Most are put on over the head. Mail is a flexible cloth made of interlocking metal rings. Hauberk can also refer to a similar garment of scale armour.
[edit] History
The word hauberk is derived from an old German word Halsberge, which originally described a small piece of mail that protects the throat and the neck (the 'Hals'). A simple version of the hauberk, of scale construction, consisted of a padded cloth jacket covered in cow horn, bronze or copper scales or other hard, flat material. Later, the shirts began to be constructed of interlinked metal rings, and were used in Europe as early as the 8th century in this form. This design developed into what is ordinarily known as a hauberk near the beginning of the Middle Ages, as the mail-making industry became more established.
The earliest known mention of the chain armour is in 2 Chronicles 26:14 when the Judean king Uzziah equipped his army with "habergeons" around 750 B.C. There are mentions of encounters with armor similar to the scale hauberk in Celtic graves in the 3rd century BC. The Roman writer Varro mentions mail and attributed the invention to the Celts. Roman armies adopted similar technology after encountering it while invading Gaul.
The earliest wholly surviving hauberks in Eastern Europe were discovered in Black Grave near Chernigov, dated to the 970s. They may have been imported by Slavs from the steppe nomads, such as Sarmatians. In the Viking Age, hauberks are seldom found outside Russia. However, the Bayeux Tapestry, a long embroidered cloth which depicts scenes commemorating the Battle of Hastings (ca. 1080) illustrates Norman soldiers wearing a knee length version of the hauberk with three-quarter length sleeves split from hem to crotch to make riding possible.
A hauberk dating from the 12th century stored in the Prague Cathedral is one of the earliest surviving examples in Central Europe and was supposedly owned by Saint Wenceslaus. In Europe, use of mail hauberks continued up until the 14th century, when plate armor began to supplant it, and mail armour started to be recycled into other metal objects or used for scouring pads. In parts of Central Asia, it continued to be used for longer.
[edit] Construction
The hauberk is typically a type of chainmail (chainmaille) armor which is constructed of loops of metal woven into a tunic or shirt. The sleeves sometimes only went to the elbow, but often were full arm length, with some covering the hands with a supple glove leather face on the palm of the hand, or even full chain gloves. It was usually thigh or knee length, with a split in the front and back to the crotch so the wearer could ride a horse. It sometimes incorporated a hood, or coif.fr:Haubert de:Brünne
