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Medieval Tweed Arming Jacket

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Description

My pride and joy! I got a friend to wear it for me while I took the photo.

It's a padded medieval arming jacket, intended to be worn as the base layer of my suit of plate armour. The outer is heavy Harris Tweed in a mottled grey colour, the inner coarse woven wool, padded with one layer of cotton batting. The cut is quite tight around the waist and the sleeves are narrow and the entire thing is now being laced up from the neck down to the groin.

It is quite warm and needs to be worn with a cotton undershirt to prevent sweat rashes but is an absolutely essential garment for the medieval soldier in heavy armour.

It provides a degree of shock absorption and prevents chafing and pressure bruises under all that ironmongery. Historically it would have attachment points at the shoulders, arms and skirt where bits of plate are tied on with waxed string. This is where the old English expression 'armed at all points' comes from.
I have gone for the Italian style of arming, though, and am wearing a strong welded mail shirt over my jacket, the armour then being simply laced onto the rings of the former.

This style of jacket would have been worn with slight alterations in a civilian setting, too. Common every-day jackets are not usually as heavily padded, though, and are laced up in a different way.
Not also that this is not a 'Gambeson', which is a heavily quilted form of late medieval textile armour, often worn OVER maille as stand-alone armour. My arming Jacket is just supposed to make wearing heavy plate more comfortable.

It performs very well so far though i may add leather patched to the shoulders and elbows to prevent the maille eating the fabric at those stress points.

It's all machine stitched, the lacing having been done with an automated button hole setting, otherwise it's reasonably authentic for around 1400, or so I'm told.
Image size
514x994px 360.39 KB
Make
FUJIFILM
Model
FinePix E500
Shutter Speed
1/64 second
Aperture
F/2.9
Focal Length
5 mm
ISO Speed
100
Date Taken
Mar 27, 2009, 9:34:51 PM
© 2009 - 2024 Thaly
Comments1
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SpectorKnight's avatar
That's a damn cool jacket :D