Did Chainmail Always Need Padding?

If you have spent any time around historical armour, you've probably heard that mail, or chainmail, was worn over a gambeson to cushion impacts and make it better against blunt force. But was that always true? Did everyone who wore mail use a gambeson underneath, or did some people wear mail without it? Well, first of all, it's important to remember that the term gambeson is mostly a medieval term used for a specific kind of medieval padded armour, meaning a sort of armour that appeared during the 12th century. And obviously mail is much older than that, mail appeared approximately in between the 4th and 3rd century BCE, so obviously the people using it from the appearance of mail until the 12th century obviously did not wear any gambeson underneath, since the gambeson is a lighter kind of armour. So the better question, in a sense, is not was mail worn over a gambeson, but rather was mail always worn over some form of padding? Because obviously wearing some form of padding underneath mail armour is extremely beneficial, because mail is incredibly good to protect against cuts, and it's also okay to protect against thrusts, but it is not ideal to protect against blunt force, meaning that if you get hit by a heavy blow when you are wearing mail, okay, it might not cut through your mail, but you're still going to have a lot of force going right through the mail because it's inflexible, and therefore hurting you even though the mail hasn't been pierced. So by having some form of padding underneath armour, that padding can absorb that blunt force, and with that layering system you can have a much much better armour. However, this does not mean that padding was universal under every single mail shirt. Obviously you would wear like normal clothing underneath your mail shirt, because mail is incredibly uncomfortable to wear right on bare skin. I don't think I've ever tried wearing mail straight on bare skin, but I have worn it over a short sleeved shirt, and have had it on my arm, just bare on the arm, and it is incredibly uncomfortable, because when it is cold outside, the mail shirt will get cold because it's made out of metal, and will make you very cold, and if it's very hot outside, the opposite will be true, it will get very hot and will burn you. And you also have the problem that mail is very rough on the surface, so it's not going to be comfortable on the skin, and so on. So obviously the vast majority of people would at least wear it over some form of clothing. Obviously you might have some one or two people trying to wear it straight on bare skin, but this was definitely not the norm, and we're only then talking about some few exceptions, and there is no evidence that have happened. So people would at least wear it over some form of clothing, which is a sort of padding, but did they wear it over proper padding? Now padding under mail is clearly attested during the late medieval period, as I said we have gambeson appearing during that period, and people would wear gambesons underneath their mail shirts. They would also wear it under other armors, like for example plate armor, so padding underneath metal armors during these periods were definitely the norm. And for earlier periods we know the Romans had some underarmor garments, such as the supermalice, which could be worn underneath. So padding under armor definitely existed, the question is whether it was always used under armor in every period, because as I said mail appeared approximately in between the 3rd and 4th century BCE. However the first traces we have of padding underneath any sort of armor comes much later than that, approximately during the 1st century BCE, so two to three hundred years after the appearance of mail. Now obviously we have to be cautious here, because most likely we will be talking about fabric armors, or at least some form of organic material, that will rot away and will leave less traces than mail. So maybe people wore some form of padding underneath armors before that, only the problem is that we haven't found those remains of those underarmor garments, simply because they are made out of organic materials that rot away. But we must also be cautious with assuming that everyone had some form of padding underneath the mail, because it doesn't appear like this was the case. Because yes, we don't have any surviving example of those fabric armor, but we don't either have any written sources or anything like that describing any form of padding underneath armor before the 1st century BCE. Not only that, but the first examples we have of padding underneath armor is from Romans, meaning that other people who also used mail, like for example the Gauls who invented the mail, there was no evidence that they ever used any form of padding underneath their mail. Now again, maybe they did, only we haven't found any remains of it, but we have no evidence they did. And then we also have the problem that yes, we have evidence of different Roman underarmor garments, like for example the Supermanis, but there is no direct evidence that these armors were used underneath mail. Maybe they were only used underneath other armors, like for example the Lorca Segmentata, which is the laminated armors of the Romans. Because we have no historical source explicitly saying that they were using these underarmor paddings underneath mail. We only have evidence that they had them, not how they used them or under which armors they used them. So we don't have any proof whatsoever that the Romans did use any form of padding underneath their mail, except obviously their normal clothing. During the Dacian Wars they did have petruges, essentially just straps of some kind, hanging from the shoulder underneath the mail and from underneath the mail on the upper legs, which could be a Supermalis or another form of padding, worn underneath the armor and having those petruges standing out on the sides. So maybe they did use padding underneath their mail shirts during the Dacian Wars, probably to defend against the heavy falx blows, but there is no evidence they even did that during these periods. And obviously it is also possible that they did have padding underneath their mail shirts at all time, only we don't exactly know. And if we go further forward in time to something like the Viking Age, again there is no explicit evidence that they did use any sort of padding underneath their mail. Now obviously they probably did have some padding underneath, at least certainly like for example thick clothing or something like that, just because it does make the armor more protective, but there is no evidence that they did do that. And if they added more padding underneath their mail, it would probably only be another tunic, a thicker tunic, something like that. It would not be a dedicated padding to wear under mail, because we don't have any evidence that that ever existed during the Viking Age. So to be fair, the only era in which we have direct evidence that they did use padding underneath their mail is during the Late Middle Ages, because we have evidence that they did use gambeson underneath their mail. Now obviously it is very likely that at least certain people in the other eras wore some form of padding underneath their mail shirt, but there is no direct evidence of that, and most likely at least certain people wore it without. And even during the Late Middle Ages, it seems like certain people wore gambeson over mail instead of underneath mail. Now obviously this was not the norm, and it was probably mostly done to protect the mail itself, because obviously mail is kind of expensive, and if you get a direct hit on it, you might break a few links or something like that, even though the weapon doesn't pierce. So people probably, at least certain people, probably wanted to protect their expensive mail by having the gambeson over it. But it does show that even during the Late Middle Ages, gambeson underneath mail isn't really universal. You can have all sorts of different combinations, and you can even have a gambeson over mail. And to be fair, mail still protects very, very well against cuts, and quite decently against most thrusts. So wearing it without any gambeson underneath still offers decent protection, it just isn't as good as with gambeson underneath. And battlefield threats varied a lot between different periods, so you don't necessarily always need to have a lot of cushioning against blunt force, because you might not be fighting someone with weapons at the level of the blunt force. For example, if you're fighting Romans, they only have the gladius as their primary weapon, so a normal thrust from a short sword is unlikely to deliver a lot of blunt force, and therefore you are less likely to need the gambeson to protect against that blunt force, because it is so minimal. And later on, it becomes more important to have some form of padding underneath the mail, because weapons evolve and get better against armor. So for example, you have things like maces, falchions, and even certain swords become more efficient at cutting and delivering a lot of blunt force, so you're more likely to need that blunt force protection. And obviously you have the problem that any padding you add underneath mail is going to add another layer, meaning that the armor is going to get more impractical, so it might not be worth it. It can also make it way warmer to wear, which can be a problem, especially in certain regions of the world. And it will always add a little bit of weight, so it might not be worth it just for the extra protection to have all of those restrictions from that armor. And just some thick clothing or an extra tunic over your clothing or something like that might have offered enough cushioning to protect against most blows, and therefore having more padding wasn't necessarily necessary. And to be fair, even though they did not have any proper padding underneath the mail like a proper gambeson, they probably had something like just a normal tunic, well first of all to add a little bit more cushioning, but also to absorb all the oil that comes from the mail shirt. Because if you're wearing a mail shirt straight on your normal clothing, your normal clothing is going to get very oily and so on, because the mail is full of oil. When I am wearing my mail shirt, I actually do this, I wear just this normal tunic underneath the mail shirt to absorb all the oil, because I don't want all that oil on my normal clothing. So I have one tunic that I use every single time, so I don't get it all over my normal clothing. And as you can see, this tunic here has gotten quite dark because of all the oil from the mail. Obviously it already was like grey, so it's not really visible that it's full of oil, but maybe if you look on the inside, if you look on the inside right here, the inside is actually much clearer than the outside. I hope you can see that well on camera, I don't really know, but it is quite obvious in reality. The inside is much clearer because it hasn't touched any oil, whereas the outside that is always in contact with oil just gets full of it, and you probably don't want that on your normal clothing, especially if it is quite bright like this normal tunic right here. And even when I'm wearing this tunic right here underneath the mail, it isn't really enough, because this one has kind of short sleeves, a little bit shorter sleeves than the mail, and also my normal sleeves can rub towards the rest of the mail shirt when I'm walking around. And that means that if you look on this tunic right here, this lower spot right here is darker than the upper spot right here, because of all the oil. I don't know if you can see it on camera, I hope you can, but it's quite obvious in reality this spot right here is much darker than this one, because the sleeves do not go that far on this tunic right here, they only go to approximately here. And not only that, but I also have two of this tunic right here, so the oil is getting spread in between the two, and also these are being washed, so I am washing away as much of that oil as I can, but you still get that dark spot on the bottom, which is quite annoying. So all of this does show that you probably want something underneath the mail to absorb all that oil and so on, so it does make sense that they had something, but it does not prove that they had proper padding underneath, it might only have been a normal tunic. So in the end, we do know that in the late Middle Ages, it was the norm to wear padding underneath the mail. There were certain exceptions, like for example what I said with Gamsung being worn over mail, but the norm was to wear padding underneath the mail. But for the earlier period, like for example the Roman era or the early Middle Ages, we have no direct evidence that padding was worn underneath mail. It does make sense that padding was worn underneath mail, but we don't have any evidence. The clearest evidence we have of it is the Roman supermalice, that might very well have been worn underneath mail, even though we don't have any direct evidence of it. Most likely, during these eras that we're not sure about, most likely at least certain people wore some kind of padding underneath the mail, but definitely not everyone wore it, because we have no evidence that it ever happened. And in any case, we cannot say mail was always worn over dedicated padding throughout the entirety of history. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one.