A gambeson (or aketon or padded jack) is a padded defensive jacket A jacket is a type of sleeved hip- or waist-length garment for the upper body. For clothing older than the mid-nineteenth century, a distinction is often maintained with a coat, but in many instances the terms are now interchangeable. A jacket is generally shorter, ending just below the waist, and often lighter. Some jackets are fashionable, while, worn as armour Armour or armor is protective covering used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat. Armour has been used to protect soldiers, war animals such as war horses (the application for the latter called barding), and war machines such as warships and separately, or combined with mail Mail is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh or plate armour Plate armour or plate armor is personal armour made from large metal plates, worn on the chest and sometimes the entire body. Gambeson were produced with a sewing technique called quilting The process of quilting uses a needle and thread to join two or more layers of material together to make a quilt. Typical quilting is done with three layers: the top fabric or quilt top, batting or insulating material and backing material. The quilter's hand or sewing machine passes the needle and thread through all layers and then brings the. Usually constructed of linen Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather or wool The term wool is usually restricted to describing the fibrous protein derived from the specialized skin cells called follicles in sheep. Wool is taken from animals in the Caprinae family, principally sheep, but the hair of certain species of other mammals including goats, llamas, and rabbits may also be called wool. Wool has several qualities that, the stuffing varied, and could be for example scrap cloth A textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw wool fibres, linen, cotton, or other material on a spinning wheel to produce long strands. Textiles are formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, or pressing fibres together or horse hair. During the 14th century, illustrations usually show buttons or laces up the front.
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Etymology
The term gambeson is a loan from Old French gambeson, gambaison, originally wambais, formed after the Middle High German Middle High German , abbreviated MHG (Mhd.), is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German. In some uses, the term covers a longer period, going up to 1500 term wambeis "doublet", in turn from Old High German The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of Old High German proper to 750 for this reason. There wamba "stomach" (cognate An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt and skirt, the former from Old English scyrte, the latter loaned from Old Norse skyrta, both from the same Common Germanic *skurtjōn-. Words with this type of relationship within a single language are called doublets. Further cognates of the same word in other Germanic to womb The uterus is a major female hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ of most mammals, including humans. It is within the uterus that the fetus develops during gestation. The term uterus is used consistently within the medical and related professions; the Germanic term, womb is more common in everyday usage. The plural of uterus is uteruses or.)
The term aketon, originally medieval french alcottonem might be a loan from Arabic Arabic (العربية al-ʿarabīyah, ( Arabic pronunciation ) or عربي ʿarabi) is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, Arabic is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million al-qutn "cotton Cotton is a soft, staple fiber that grows in a form known as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant, a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa. The fiber most often is spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile, which is the most widely used natural- (definite article - the cotton)".
In medieval Norse, the garment was known as vapntreyiu, lit. "arming shirt" or pannzar/pannzarum, another loan word from middle high German.
Also known as: Aketon, acton, arming coat, auqueton, gambeson, hacketon, haqueton, pannzar, vapntreiyu, wambais, wambesium, or wambs.
History
Quilted leather open jackets and trousers were worn by Scythian The Scythians or Scyths were an Ancient Iranian people of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who throughout Classical Antiquity dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe, known at the time as Scythia. By Late Antiquity the closely-related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scythians in this area. Much of the surviving information about the Scythians comes horsemen before the 4th century BC, as can be seen on Scythian gold ornaments crafted by Greek goldsmiths. The European gambeson can be traced at least to the late 10th century, but it is likely to have been in use in various forms for longer than that. In Europe, its use became widespread in the 13th century, and peaked in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The gambeson was used both as a complete armour unto itself and underneath mail and plate in order to cushion the body and prevent chafing. It was very insulatory and thus uncomfortable, but its protection was vital for the soldier.
Although they are thought to have been used in Europe much earlier, gambesons underwent a revolution from their first proven use in the late 11th and early 12th centuries as an item of armour that simply facilitated the wearing of mail to an item of independent armour popular amongst infantry. Although quilted armour survived into the English Civil War The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II in England England ( /ˈɪŋɡlənd/ ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental Europe. The mainland of as a poor man's cuirass, and as an item to be worn beneath the few remaining suits of full plate, it was increasingly replaced by the 'buff coat'- a leather jacket of rough suede.
There are two distinctive designs of gambeson; those designed to be worn beneath another armour, and those designed to be worn as independent armour. The latter tend to be thicker and higher in the collar, and faced with more resilient materials, such as leather, or heavy canvas. This variant is usually referred to as padded jack and made of several (some say around 18[1], some even 30[2]) layers of cotton, linen or wool. These jacks were renowned to stop even heavy arrows [2] and their design of multiple layers bears a striking resemblance to modern day body armor A ballistic vest, bulletproof vest or bullet-resistant vest is an item of protective clothing that absorbs the impact from firearm-fired projectiles and shrapnel fragments from explosions. This protection is for the torso. Soft vests are made from many layers of woven or laminated fibers and protect wearers from projectiles fired from certain, which substituted at first silk and later Kevlar Kevlar is the registered trademark for a light, strong para-aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora as fabric.
For common soldiers who could not afford mail or plate armour, the gambeson, combined with a helmet as the only additional protection, remained a common sight on European battlefields during the entire Middle Ages, and its decline - paralleling that of plate armour - came only with the Renaissance The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the, as the use of firearms became more widespread, until by the 18th century it was no longer in military use.
While the use of linen has been shown in archaeological evidence, the use of cotton - and cotton-based canvas - is disputed since the access to large amounts of cotton cloth was not widely available in northern Europe at this time. It is quite probable that Egypt (and Asia-Minor generally) still produced cotton well after the 7th and 8th centuries and knowledge (and samples) of this cloth was brought to Europe by the returning Crusaders. However logistics and expense of equipping a town militia or army with large amounts of cotton-based garments is doubtful, when flax-based textiles (linen) was in widespread use.[dubious – discuss]
See also
- Doublet A doublet is a man's snug-fitting buttoned jacket that was worn in Western Europe from the Middle Ages through to the mid-17th century. The term also refers to a formal jacket worn with highland dress, a variation of which is called an Argyll jacket or Prince Charlie jacket (a.k.a. pourpoint)
- Arming doublet
- Buff coat
External links
Notes
- ^ Embleton, Gerry: "Medieval military costume", p.67, Crowood press, 2000
- ^ a b Embleton, Gerry & Howe, John: "Söldnerleben im Mittelalter", p.47, Motorbuchverlag 1994
Categories: Medieval armour | Personal armour
Jonya Pacey
Sat, 24 Nov 2007 14:33:51 GM
1:01 i've had lunch and finished the . gambeson. and need to go to the store for pizza and more stuff to de-lime the dishwasher. then drag the armor in and check fit of the elbows (do they need to be pointed to the . gambeson. ? ...
