The TRUTH about padded and leather armor (Gambeson / Aketon)
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- čas přidán 27. 12. 2015
- The Gambeson (aketon, padded armor) is a very misunderstood and under-appreciated piece of armor, being replaced in movies and TV with the mostly fictional leather armor. Lets try and change that.
"You might notice theres something different about me"
Me : "Youre standing"
"Im not wearing my glasses!"
Me : "Oh. . ., ok."
MadBad Meerkat yup
MadBad Meerkat shots fired
exactly my thoughts
i immedeately thought the same xD
I mean that was the joke
"LEATHER IS COOOOOOOOOL
Cloth is boring"
~Hollywood
hollywood sucks at realism but if it comes to fantasy, sci fi or even historical battles (WW2) then they make (sort of) good movies.
When was the last time you saw a metal band wearing gambesons?
HA !! Or a Rock band CALLED 'The Gambesons'...! :D
Pretty much.It's a difference between a hardened leather molded to look like muscle, or being... wrapped in a thick carpet? Great at stopping blows, but soldiers in movies are supposed to look good.
Veng3r King Arthur and the Gambesons. I'm claiming that name.
It looks damn near fashionable.... Could become a winter coat or something
True. And protection from melee damage as welcome bonus. No more fear from switchblade armed robber in dark alley. You can kick his ass and he can't hurt you.
Marcin Kąpiński Where can I get mine? Any links?
next minute robbers now arming with polearms and spears
I find it hard to imagine swinging long white weapons in relatively narrow spaces. :P
i'd wear it
you, lindybeige and skallagrim are my favourite history teachers
and medieval history podcast is also great
I also like Metatron
Particularly as it's applied, or reconstructive history.
Thoughts - weight, heat in battle. Effects of sweat on thick cloth? Worst of all, if you end up in water, you're dead. A number of massacres in the York/Lancaster wars were due to men ending up in the river, weighed down with heavy cloth they couldn't remove. Why couldn't they remove it? Something in the fastenings used?
Difference between Lindybeige & Skallagrim is that Lindybeige is an actual professor of history and have studied it for years whilst Skallagrim just googles information that he needs for each particular video. Source: One of his earlier videos.
didn't skall study archeology?
i think the gambison was overlooked mostly because it resembled clothing too much.
Grammar Not I Has You might be right. You don't see coats of plates and such much in media either, because they look like normal jacks, kind of.
Not only that but if you hired a buff movie star you don't want to put him in padding
But the abbs! Why can't we show his abbs?!
Rule of cool.
most of the armor Geralt uses on the witcher series are gambeson, specially on witcher 2
one more reason why the Witcher series is awesome
witcher 3 as well, the thickness is just right to be considered. and then theres the stagger plate over gamberson armors he wears.
I noticed that, it's almost all gambeson.
Well, isn't Geralt a superhuman monster hunter? And count in large monster claw attacks and tree people.
powerist That has nothing to do with gambesons. The fact that Witcher remembered they existed makes it the best game ever. Gambesons are underated armors, effective and cheap compared to other armors.
It's kind of funny that you mentioned how hot a gambeson can be. Having played D&D for decades, one of the main reasons to use padded armor (at least in the games we played) was when the party was fighting in the desert, because it had the lowest penalty to save against heatstroke.
"Why is leather armor so prevalent in movies?"
Simple -- Aesthetics. It looks more like what modern people think of as armor, and shaped leather (or faux-leather) are relatively simple to construct to (for instance) accentuate breasts or have interesting protrusions.
so a kevlar vest is basically a modern gambeson : >
More like modern brigandine if it has ceramic plates too.
Basically. Plate anything is great and all but maximizing protection while minimizing the loss in mobility has always been the name of the game. With the stuff many countries are developing nowadays, having both might be a possibility very soon.
jake eugster
good observation :)
Many people don't understand just how effective armour was during the middles ages. Gambesons were good but mail was even better and plate was better still. Now we live in an age where weapons far outclass personal body armour but during the late middle ages armour outclassed weaponry. It's not like today where many soldiers prefer mobility to added protection; no one in their right mind would choose *not* to wear plate on a medieval battlefield if they could.
Robert R
dont worry i know how effective the armour in middle ages are supposed to be (unlike butted mail that some people test as legit mail) , look at the video we both met at :D. i just meant that kevlar protection follows simmillar principles as a gambeson- relatively light protection that is relatively comfortable and cheaper (the main part ofcourse) ( i imagine that kevlar armour is cheaper than the ceramic or steel plate vests atleast if not this perfect analogy falls appart :D) and if you did not imply that i am uneducated in the function of medieval protection sorry for the missunderstanding. honestly if i was a modern soldier i would wear all the armour i could still, there are some really good new armours being made :)
The wicther 3 is pretty fair to the Gambeson. Some of the best armor types in the game
Dont forget about boromir, and stark, same guy, always a gamberson and leather on top, whatever role he plays
But it doesn't defend him for shit
I was about to say the same. There are even very few armors which contains iron/steel and the other metals in the game. Most of the armors and even most of the best armors are gambesons.
Mount and Blade is where you should look for gambesons, aketons, and stuff like that.
Máté Kovács Still rather use plate
Regarding the heat inside a gambeson, it helps to buy one without armpits, so you can raise your arms and ventilate the torso - or stun nearby enemies with the smell, who knows!
And, about the leather armour: it was used above the gambeson, to further prevent damage, specially by arrows. The case is leather could be also sort of expensive, considering the materials for the gambesons could simply be home produced (linen, wool).
Where have you seen that leather was worn over gambeson?
@@Vicotnik I don't have any links, but there are historical findings for parts of leather armour, such as vambraces, which were likely worn over other pieces of armour.
Additionally, check out Todd's workshop where he demonstrates what he believes could have been medieval leather hardening (the recipe is lost/unclear, so all he can do is make an approximation) that shows how effective hardened leather armour might have been.
This is interesting to note since the leather he tested basically looked like the poor man's plate armour, which gives more credence to it being used as parts of armour on top of a gambeson or even chain mail. Of course, it would be more expensive than a gambeson, but likely still cheaper than metal armour.
Whatever you do, do not buy one without armpits. It's a sign of a poor tailor. If they do not know how to properly make gussets, then they have no business making gambesons and charging people for them.
Leather was used as armour, but this wasn't just regular tanned leather. That was never used as armour in the medieval Europe, as far as we know. What they did use was cuir bouilli, boiled leather. Unlike the name implies, it often wasn't boiled and instead went through a specific process to toughen it. This type of leather was used as armour in some cases, but it was quite rare.
This triggers me I'm gonna go talk on Reddit about how my LARP character would totally own a medieval battlefield with his leather armor and dual daggers.
Yes. We don't want men's fashion for boys and Justin Beiber lookalikes. We don't want men's fashion for baby boomers or other elderly. We want... you know. Something for everyone. Something for an age group in the middle.
Something middle age.
Bring back the gambison. Pass it off as winter clothing for a year or two until people start to adopt it everywhere.
GregTom2 plus it can protect you from being robbed by people with knives!!!
GregTom2 i might prefer leather in any form, but gambeson are still far better than those feather-filled plastic-y gigantic winter jackets.
Ugly, sticky and just all around horrible, at least gambesons wouldn't be sticky and shiny.
Not sure if I'm missing something but how come stabproof jackets that don't reliably work are becoming a thing when there's already the gambeson
fucking imagine getting slashed or stabbed by some asshole and being completely unharmed
If your in London gambeson coats have a damn good chance of coming back
@@0zone247 Easier to disguise.
As a video game developer, I thank you. Gambeson and Brigandine type armors have become our go-to. :)
They look way cooler than most "leather armors" anyway. It's a sin not to show these off!
Soul Forge what game are you referring to?
Did Shad ever follow through with that promise to go shopping in gambeson?
As an aspiring author, let me tell you how much I love these videos!!! THEY’RE AMAZING! Very insightful and equally entertaining! Even though there is a soft magic system in my story, I try and keep it as grounded in reality as I can, and you have saved me a ton of research! I’m going to have to go back and change all those character descriptions! It just makes so much sense, to wear a gambeson over leather armor (the freedom of movement!). And in your video with “Am I wrong about leather armor”, made me realize that my richer characters should actually use leather armor, to show off the fact that they are rich (and wasteful/arrogant) will really add another layer of depth to my story.
It just makes sense leather armor wouldn’t really be so widespread, but a person of wealth wearing leather armor would be a great symbol of that wealth. “Yeah, I can afford to cut down my oxen in their midst of their prime for some sweet leather armor.”
And I will definitely give my more pragmatic characters, a bitchen gambeson! Thank you Shad, keep em coming brother!
Literally same here.
And same here
I mean. In D&D one would assume that the chainmail includes a gambison undergarment. Same with plate.
GregTom2 in second edition dnd, padded armor and chainmail were listed as part of the suit.
I checked my 5e book, you get penalties for stealth with gambeson, yet you don't get the penalties for chain shirts
Crimson Wizard Yeah, whoever decided that probably only ever knew what a "padded armor" was from reading about it in D&D 3.5
IRL, padding or heavy cloth was worn under mail. A heavy blow on mail could drive the metal rings into the flesh, causing a nasty wound that could also become infected. The padding also kept sweat from rusting mail armor.
That was my conclusion at the end of the video. In D&D "padded" (i.e. the gambeson) could be the lowest level protection because all the others are the armour (chainmail, half-plate etc.) + gamebson.
A chain shirt having no stealth penalties could be chalked up to it being chain over thick cloth, never mind how one could be as stealthy as wearing just a cloth shirt with all those chain links clinking around.
In fantasy's defence, gambesons are at the bottom tier mainly because, though they may be able to stop a sword, arrow, axe, or any other weapon you can come up with, layers of cloth are going to be significantly less useful against fireballs
/casts Heat metal spell
ghosturiel of course, a gambeson would save you from heat metal, so
gambeson 1/magic 0
eh, in many games armor rating doesn't negate magic damage anyways.
Dunno, I mean, the question is what a fireball actually is. Fire looks scary, but if it's a burst of fire, I'd assume that it will be easily stopped by a gambeson. That said, since chain mail is obviously better (especially for the underlying gambeson), a fantasy hero will definitely wear one. As for how bottom tier those are considered, in the horrible D&D 4E, they (that is, "cloth armor") offered exactly zero protection if not enchanted.
Natural fabrics are really hard to put on fire.
The thing is about a gambeson that was worn under armor was a lot thinner. The arming coats under mail and plate are designed for this purpose. The thick gambesons like the ones used to stop the long bow arrows earlier in the video were designed to be standalone armor pieces and not meant to be worn under armor. So drawing the conclusion that gambesons were what'd you go and buy before mail and plate is somewhat misleading.
If you were a common soldier strapped for coin it is reasonable to imagine that you'd wear one of the thicker variants under mail if you had to buy it first. If you were going for plate armor I'd definitely think that you'd replace such a thick garment though.
I'd say you got two different versions of gambeson, there.
An arming-grade (where mail patches are sewn on the armpit and other parts where armor gaps are, with additional straps to help fixing your full-plate-armor)
A poorman version (pure 10000 layers of linen fabric)
Question for anyone decently knowledged on Gambeson (including Shad):
Where can you purchase good Gambeson?
I'd like to know as well
Same
Steel Mastery makes some great models. I really like mine.
You can get all kinds of armor at a site called kult of athena
forge of svan have very high quality gambesons i actualy have one myself but GDFB (get dressed for battle) also make a very good one
Never understood why canvas armor/gambesons never come up in zombie apocalypse fiction. A full bodied suit, even one like what firefighters wear, would prevent bites effectively.
With enough coverage you could practically lie down in a hoard of zombies while they try in vain to bite you through the padding. As long as they can't tear the pieces off, there's simply no way their teeth are getting through the stuff.
Good point!
You haven't played Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead clearly.
So , if you wear a gambeson and chainmail on top, AND a plate armor on top of all, you were practically invincible?
and you probly couldnt move, not to mention heatstroke
Practically. Against a fully armored knight, you often times had to basically bludgeon them stupid, get on top of them, open/remove their helmet, and hold them at daggerpoint (which is why ransoming nobles was common after a battle apart from the financial reasons).
You have to remember though, that you are 1) Slower and 2) going to tire quickly. So, if you find yourself alone facing a couple of peasants with pitchfork, you could potentially end up disarmed, held down and literally pummeled to death with sticks. It happened often enough that, in England, knights would knight peasants that had them trapped like this in exchange for being let go. It was considered legally binding, too, unless 'accidents' were arranged.
You will die from concusion hits. You will git hit in the head so many times you will want to vomit. Same effect that a depresurised tank has on its crew when it shots the cannon.
thisisthemeaning Do you even watch videos about armor mobility?
Shad: "In ENGLAND though, it would be perfect, especially in winter!"
Me: "Oh, you mean those five snowflakes every year?"
In Canada, for somebody used to the heat like you, that jacket is good up until mid April, or even late May on colder years. For somebody like me, that's something I would wear in -40 degrees Celsius. I would make a terrible knight, I would be visibly dripping!
When it comes to dungeon and dragons armour I consider the "better" more expensive armour types to include a gambeson.
Leather, chainmail or plate isn't exactly useful against an owlbear if it doesn't have some sort of padding underneath.
+I am Shad I think that the conclusion you came to through your "thought experiment" is right, but for the wrong reason. Tests preformed by the Allan Williams (published in The Knight and the Blast Furnace) show that pound for pound linen provides better protection than boiled leather. That's probably the biggest reason that aketons/gambesons were preferred. Also I don't think that soldiers back then bought a gambeson, instead of leather armour, in hopes that they might later add a mail shirt over it. A gambeson thick enough to provide adequate protection in its own right is too thick and heavy to be worn under other armour. While a gambeson intended to be worn under mail is too thin and light to provide adequate protection on its own. One 15th century French source states that a jack (another name for a gambeson ) to be used with a mail shirt should be made of ten layers of linen, while a jack used on its own should be 25 to 30 layers. These two types of garments are different and cannot be used interchangeably. In the late medieval period the names of these garments (aketon gambeson jupon jack etc) were not standardized, and were often used interchangeably, and this has led to a lot of confusion. To avoid this confusion, many today use aketon to refer to a garment used under mail, and gambeson to refer to a garment used on its own.
Perhaps they would modify the gambeson once they got steelier armor? One great thing about cloth is that it's easily modified. Hell, I've heard of gambesons that had a lot of the padding sewn on separately so that it could be replaced with new pads more easily. That could be misconstrued accounts of someone modifying an under armor aketon to function properly independently.
+PsylomeAlpha can't say that I've ever heard accounts of gambesons that were constructed like this. Sounds like a modern idea to me. If you already owned a thick gambeson, and later acquired a mail hauberk, you would probably just sell the thick gambeson, buy a thinner one and have a bit of change left over. No need to modify anything.
Stephen Curtin
then it was probably me seeing pictures of repaired gambesons.
I could also see a no-nonsense gambeson designed for wearing under mail or plate being cheaper than one designed to be effective armor in its own right, so there's a possibility it was an under-armor gambeson (possibly someone's spare or older gambeson) that someone modified into being properly thick by sewing on patches made of old ruined clothing.
Could you possibly point me to a source for the gambeson layer number thing, cause that sounds really interesting.
Ordinances. IIRC one can find french or burgundian ordinances from the 15th century where the specs are 25 layers of linen and a stag skin but preferably 30 layers and a stag skin.
Hollywood costumes could be so easy, give em colors, make them not be covered in mud kings in their muddy dirty castle and give all of the soldiers gambeson instead of biker gear.
Well, they'd generally wear a tabard over it to show their colors if they were part of an army anyway, so that's the colour part out.
Hans Kinki
You mean people weren't wearing burlap sacks and mud for hats and burning torches everywhere all the time?
And people weren't always holding their torch right in their own face to deliberately blind themselves?
You are so awesome Shad! I have been watching a bunch of your videos lately - I am writing a medieval fantasy series and your videos have brought a lot of things up for me to research further. Your enthusiasm for the medieval period is contagious!
I think it really boils down to the image of leather not only as a protective material in sports, but also as something worn by "tough guy" warrior types, such as bikers, or even cowboys and native Americans. Plus, I believe there are examples of leather armors in the pre-medieval periods, and perhaps it was included in early D&D for these reasons, and then transformed by fantasy artists into what we tend to see more frequently these days. The movie Dragon Heart has some good representation of gambesons, if I recall correctly.
thank you. The concept of "studded leather" armor never made sense to me until today.
Playing mount and blade warband was what made me Google how effective leather/cloth armor was. Studding leather armour just doesn't make since unless you were planning on wrestling someone not wearing armour lol
The anime Maria: The Virgin Witch is amazingly/surprisingly accurate in the clothes and armour worn including knights wearing more tailored gambesons to the common soldiers.
one of the best (fictitious) depiction of medieval warfare I've seen, period. and I say that well aware of the the existence of witchcraft and other supernatural forces in that universe (they largely did not interrupt the fighting between the soldiers themselves). the amount of detail extend beyond the equipment. certain lessor-glorified techniques are also shown, with one prominent example being half-swording. although if I had to voice a complaint, it would be that the prosthetic arm worn by the mercenary seem a little too advanced, although not entirely impossible.
wor575 I also liked the way the characters remained faithful to medieval belief. They were Christians who also believed in the spiritual world. A lot of mediæval stories ignore Christianity altogether or portray it in a negative light.
They even got the braies and hose correct.
wor575 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6tz_von_Berlichingen Nice prosthetics for the era aren't that implausible.
MoreEvilThanYahweh thats pretty awsome
Is it any good?
Not only would it look fashionable, it would also help me when I get mugged every Thursday night...
Dech Nourtide
"Give me those Air Jordans! And, ooh, is that an Oakland Raiders gambeson you got on? Gimmie your gambeson too, punk!"
So would carrying a poleaxe if it's legal in your city.
STAB ME BITCH!!!
I absolutely love your videos. I am an armor/weapons enthusiast myself, and particularly enjoy medieval age warfare/tactics, and you do such well-researched and thought-through videos.
Your videos are incredibly informative and engaging.
Thank you for all of the great work! Keep it up!
PLEASE do a video on the brigandine. I can't find information on them. Thanks!
U need moar likes for get some attention i will help ya
Leather armor was a thing, or in fact many things, but the ones loved by Hollywood, not so much, truth is if you where getting about in a a leather carapace that was boiled in oil or wax as part of the forming process you stank, originally from the tanning (after the process of the era was not smell friendly) and forming, than as the original sent died down your stale B.O. was added to the mix, not good on a regular basis. but their where parts where linen wasn't readily available so leathers where used as an entry level option or under Mail or plate
the Gamberson was often the better option and the much more popular where readily available, but leather was often cheaper and easier to make, saying that is had a stigma of being for the poor or folks from the far frontiers.
Most of Hollywood's leather armor stinks worse than actual period leather armor after 6-8 months of solid campaigning.
I fell behind watching your videos for a while but I tell you what, I really missed them!! Been binging your videos for the past 3 days around life and they're hilarious and beyond educational! 14/10 would watch again!
With RPGs and video games, its a mechanic of price vs level of protection offered. Layers of linen would have been cheap and ubiquitous, if it was represented realistically, it would be "OP" as the saying goes.
The gambeson looks great with the jeans:)
Leather is what is/was used for biker clothing. Bikers are considered cool, and free, and tough, and so on. Medieval/dark age warriors (not knights), are considered cool, tough, free and so on. And they both ride with something between their legs, and use mostly sidearms (swords or pistols).
This, combined with lack of porper knowledge meant movie makers/fantasy writers/rpg makers associated what they knew about medieval with their modern warrior counterpart, thus developing the mindset that they must've wore leather as well.
That's my view on this subject.
+rubbers3 Also entertainment value. Leather looks better and we associate it with a rougher crowd. Gambesons work well and even better than leather but looks like you're wearing grannies quilt or just dressed for cold weather so it doesn't show as well, so it has been delegated to media dust, forgotten by most. I even knew some SCA members who were using a furniture moving pad and thought it was a gambeson.
Peter Payson
Exactly. Most modern audiences won't recognize the gambeson as armor at all. They'll say "Why are all these dudes wearing winter coats instead of armor?"
I love Wearing my Gambeson around, because it is comfy and keeps you warm in wintertime.
I discovered your channel fairly recently. Now I'm bingeing all the armour/weaponry videos (and Lindybeige's) so I can make the most out of my Cogent Roleplay campaign. :)
I think it depends on access to the material.... less civilized hunting communities may be making more clothing/armor out of leathers. More civilized areas had access to tons of cloth and like you said, and had the cultural progression of gambeson to chain mail and so on. In fantasy setting it's always the rangers/hunters/scouts wearing leather armor, because they are self-dependent...One man can easily make hide armor or even leather. You would need to buy a gambeson from city folk...
That's a good point. I've actually looked into leather armor making for hunting purposes. People don't seem to make pieces of armor for that purpose. So I have to make it myself.
I'm not a fan of shooting animals, and after I killed one with a knife...well I'm probably not going back to shooting. I wanted armor to protect my hands, feet, and shins. Some of the game like wild boar will easily bit your fingers, and toes off. In the meantime I'm making a knife so I can eventually make one for hunting/fighting.
+Thunder Bird you sir sound like a badass!!!
A more advanced culture would have plenty of access to all kind of materials, maybe with the exception of metal, being leather the byproduct of animal farming as fabric is of agriculture. Also remember, in Europe and Asia fabric has been made since prehistorical times. Thus make me believe that the materials chosen to make protection against weapons used in a war, thus not in hunting, only was a matter of efficiency and cost.
what kind of material is linen made from?
Linen is made from the flax plant. It's actually a superior material IMO, because of several reasons. Apparently it has radioactive resistance. It also has antimicrobial properties. The fabric is 2-3x stronger than Cotten. The last part is that is it allows for better air flow. Meaning it allows your skin to breath better. Outside of the fact it wrinkles more? I'd pick it any day. I actually have some pants made from it, and boy it does wonders.
In my home Pathfinder games the gambeson takes up the slot of Studded Leather. (+3 AC bonus) and the buff coat the slot of Leather (+2 AC bonus). +1 AC armor does not exist in my games,
I'm thinking about something like this as well for D&D 5e. Replace leather armor with the gambeson and studded leather with the brigandine. Should something take the place of padded armor? Perhaps "padded" armor can be bumped up to +2, equal to leather armor, while still being lighter and cheaper but giving disadvantage on Stealth checks. Hmm...
Omg, you're hilarious! Earned yourself another history-buff subscriber! I always nit-pick the historical inaccuracies in media, it's such a pet peeve of mine! Lol! Keep up the awesome videos!
Hello Shad.
First off, let me say that I like your videos. Every one of them is highly informative, well thought out, and presented in a sometimes wry manner that keeps one watching to see if you'll actually get 'angry' at some point.
My reason for this missive is about a VERY little known variation of Cuir Bouilli armor.
This armor had thin metal plates sandwiched between layers of boiled leather ( boiled in wax if memory serves me ), usually with two or more layers on the exterior and a single thick layer on the inside.
I believe this was done to 'harden' the surface layers by making them both thin to be easily worked, and multi-layered to make it harder to penetrate, before reaching the metal backing, and then the boiled leather inner layer.
Such a layered armor seems to make some sense to me. IF, and I do mean 'if', the cost of steel plate was excessive, or the making of such was prohibitively expensive. Or, perhaps such an armor might be made where metals were scarce enough to not 'waste' on armors since tools and weapons would be far more important ( Japan anyone as an example? ).
Just a question and some thoughts,
the Frank Gamer
Leather armors are popular in movies and games for the same reason that we see 2-handed swords before they should even exist or VIKINGS! centuries after they should be. I guess they look cool to someone who doesn't care about historical accuracy ?
+scarfacemperor You're absolutely right, its for the rule of cool and I completely get that as I make concessions for awesomeness in my fantasy all the time. I feel the rule of cool is inappropriate when the media isn't based in a fantasy setting or the concession doesn't legitimately grant something that is more awesome than what was realistic, and to me the gambeson is just as cool as leather, but that's just me ^_^
+I am Shad people thought "hey people had to kill Bambi's father to make leather armor, so that's cool right? forget the coat randy used from a Christmas story as Conan's armor of choice HE KILLED TO MAKE HIS PROTECTION! "
I would buy this as a winter coat, but in my country there is no cold winters anymore.
+Strategiusz I know the feeling ^_^
I've been toying with writing my own table top RPG for years trying to aim for a balance between realism and enjoyability, thanks to you I now have to completely rework my armour system to replace leather with what, padded linen? and work out what improving it looks like and changing every reference to it and redo all the art that features it. (your channel has also made me downgrade armour mobility penalties and get deeply rabbit holed into how much different armour weighs) so thanks? and congratulations, you are successfully educating. (you're also now going to end up in the credits page for your contributions on the off chance I ever decide to release it.)
Here's what I was thinking when the video started: "The Saxons are attacking, fetch me my bathrobe!"
The Gambeson. Or as we know it in the SCA when worn under plate, the wearable sauna.
Lukiel666 never wear polyester kids
Gambeson wasn't the cheaper alternative to chainmail in the sense that you choose one or the other. You choose a gambeson for it's padding and then you wear chainmail over it. If you just wear chainmail your stopping yourself from being cut but it does nothing to stop blunt force trauma. You get hit by a sword just wearing chainmail it'll be the same as being hit by a metal bar. If you have to choose one or the other choose a gambeson every time.
This isn't me correcting Shad since he said more or less the same, I just adding to what he said.
People get annoyed at "studded armour", I get more annoyed at people wearing mail coifs with nothing underneath.
ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ai5A80TRL.jpg
I mean look at that. I don't care that you're wearing that, we meet in a battle I'm going straight for your head.
***** As a game designer I'm having some programming friends look into it.
***** It's just hard making big changes. People like things simple; more armour = less damage. Trying to make it more realistic minimises the market. Hard to get producers to invest in a game if they think we've made it harder to find a market.
then let them customize the layers of armor, or as part of the art design make the armor models so that the layers are included as part of the set. the art approach would change nothing in the system aside from the presented appearance and the description that goes with it and it still keeps the simplicity.
There was thinner & more flexible gambeson for wearing under maille, which was sometimes preferred to thicker & stiffer gambeson that could be worn by itself as cheap protection. Then if you could, you'd have inner layer of thin gambeson, then maille, then the thick gambeson outside that again. That would be incredibly hard to get through.
Oh but of course that goes without saying. The internet is filled with examples of the magic powers of female exposed skin.
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pre06.deviantart.net/45aa/th/pre/i/2013/343/c/7/droppin_some_science_on_ya__by_nebezial-d6xcsik.jpg
This is excellent!
You're so knowledgeable and a great speaker! Subscribed!
I'm really curious about overheating though. Plate on its own would be bad enough, but with a gambeson under it too? Yikes!
Could you please do a video on that?
im surprised that you havent done a video on the armor in the witcher, it seems to have more gamebeson than other games but it does have weird leather armor.
I think regular people can somehow relate more to the weird leather thing, that's why you see it more in movies. Real medieval and renaissance fashion in general is very different from what people wear today and I think the gambeson is a bit of a part of that. Don't get me wrong though. IMO, gambesons are classy and cool as hell. I'm all for making them fashionable.
Many movies and television series are filmed in temperate to warm climates. Leather vests with the arms exposed can show off the muscular arms of the actor and also be a bit cooler than a full Gambeson. So apparently the popularity of leather in these forms of media have a lot to do with appearance and sex appeal and very little to do with historical accuracy or overall effectiveness. If you wore a full Gambeson in a studio under the hot lights, you would probably be subject to heatstroke in about 30 minutes.
Aztec warriors wore quilted armor.
Any culture with cloth or soft leather could have such armor if they had need for it.
@Shadiversity first of all I want to say, great content mate, and I appreciate the layer of family friendly humor that you involve in your videos making them safe to teach children about medieval history. I have a question about gambesons based on examples I've seen online. I've noticed that a few examples seem to have a large and overt gap in the armpit region which considering that this particular area is a vulnerable point even in full plate armor, it seems like a bit of a design flaw. I was wondering is there something I'm not seeing here like allowing ventilation of heat out of the armor, or does the virtue of a piercing strike that can break through chainmail negate the effectiveness of the gambison anyway?
Take a degree in medieval history and start a TV program, I think you would nail it
Almost as if the purpose of tv shows was to entertain and not to be accurate.
Which is a huge problem because many people take almost anything on TV as if it were the absolute truth.
+Leonoldo Aranha
The first step to happiness is to accept that the average person is dumb as fuck and that there is nothing you can do to change that.
manictiger Unfortunately, those same people get to vote for president, and I can't even think of taking this right from them because I do not want to live under an undemocratic state. The next solution would be, then, to hope they educate themselves, a process that TV helps a bit with, but also disrupts a hell lot. If only media companies and advertising agencies' managers were responsible people...
Leopoldo Aranha
I voted Trump. I did not want Hillary as president under any circumstances.
I think you can blame 'Leather Armor' on the very first 'Role Playing' dice game played on a tabletop/borad came out in the 70s & grand-daddy of them all; Dungeons & Dragons. I can see the logic. They want something lower level (then metal) the starting character can use in your game. However not been common in the 'real world', has not stopped every other game made since copying 'leather armor' into their rules and computer games. :)
Also, definitely in live action role playing games, beautfifull armors can be made with leather, which looks very impressiv. I assume leather can do wonderfull things for a cosplay too, while a gambison looks nice for historical accuracy but is not very fancy. Even though I'm wearing a leather armor for such games, I also got a gambison. It's warm and comfortable, just perfect when playing a sentry during cold nights (and I've never known any warm night since I began LARP)
Interesting video, it was really useful, I am studying Computer Games design in uni and I am designing a character, I originally chose leather as I did not know about the Gambeson but now I know I will switch the leather for Gambeson, so thanks for the information.
P.s. I think game devs use leather as its easier and as you said the Gambeson has sort of been forgotten.
Shad, wish to Hell you really taught history back in the day! One of the best YT’ers out there. Thanks again and keep it up Sir!!!
I want a stylish gambeson to wear as a winter jacket!
Could come in handy on a rowdy Saturday night in the bad part of town, right?!
Damn straight. You may as well keep a great helm in the back seat of your vehicle too while you're at it. Seriously though, I'd wear a gambeson as a winter jacket. It looks similar to the coat that I already wear anyway.
Logan Hammonds yeah, and a lance to hang out the window for some highway jousting.
I googled a little, but they seem to make gambesons for HEMA and re-enactment only; which is either not made for looks or disregards about 500 years of fashion.
I actually really like your humour, it's a shame people in the sword classification videos got so upset about it, to me, It makes these videos a LOT better.
damn you DO look good in that :D
Another thought as well is logistics. A leather armour would prove a much more expensive piece of equipment in both maintenance, acquisition and repair. It would also be considerably faster and easier to repair a gambeson as opposed to a leather armour out in the field, which would most likely require specialized tools and raw materials. PS: Big fan of your videos.
most of the richer cities (like venice, Bruges, Paris, etc) in the middle ages had their militia wear Padded armor because of it having the best cost-effectiveness
You must really love the Witcher 3 Armor sets
Great video as usual, actually the first thing I noticed was that you were not wearing your glasses, then I noticed the gambeson and then I noticed the kite shield, also a complaint that I have with medieval RPGs is that they never get the kite shield right, they always take a heater shield and call it a kite shield (at least the ones I played)
Wow, what an awesome video . . . glad I stumbled upon this channel!
"Lightly armored means light on your feet. Smart."~Riften guard 4e 130
Hey Shad,
You bring up how games treat padded armor (if they have it at all) as a weaker armor outclassed by other armors. If you had the chance to design an armor line up for a fantasy rpg (say, for Elder Scrolls 6), what would it look like? Would you organize them in a tier (like is typical) or go with a more branching design? What armors might you include and exclude? Where would the gambeson be?
+Imperiused That's why I really like the armour in The Witcher 3 (although some of the armour being used by witchers kinda makes no sense), they have many gambesons/aketons etc. there, which at least look authentic. And also the "level of protection" they provide varies; they are often better than other armour.
Dude. You are awesome. I'm subscribing right now.
Really appreciate the video. Very informative and you have a great presentation as well. A delight to listen to. I think the rise of the idea of leather armor and all its variants (hard leather, studded, etc.) may have to do specifically with the rise of RPGs. We have entry level armor (gambeson) and higher tier armor (plate). Games needed something to plug in between, and so leather armor became prominent. It's probably also a lot easier to fake for movies than mail and plate are. And as I've seen others suggest, leather armor can be "cooler" looking, especially for fantasy games/movies. Cost (for the fake stuff) and wow factor. Those be the reasons. At least that's my guess.
I've worn my black Gambeson in the sunshine (about 35 C°)
when it's purely out of organic material (linnen/Cotton/wool), you sweat Like hell and you need to drink a lott, but the Gambeson cools you very good when its sweatty.
When you have a syntetc one you will collaps, when it's 35C.
Leather is probably most prominent because it fits roleplay game mechanics. RPG mechanics require tiered systems of upgrade-able armor and materials. Going straight from cloths to metals leaves a lot of in-between easily filled by leather, a sturdy move-able material that easily molds to the body's shape, but can also be hardened nearly to the point of iron toughness. This provides the easily recognizable, Cloth, Leather, Metal armors of most RPG, often associated with Mages, Rogues, and Warriors. This tier gave rise to the styles becoming more and more eccentric, bleeding from the fantasy genres into the medieval genres. The style was later adopted by film and television due to the stylized theatrical nature of the armors making easily recognizable characters, while also making armors and clothing take on a much more imposing and dark look as leather tends to lend itself to. That's my theory anyway. No real straight line of where the style begins and ends, but before rpgs revived interest in medieval and fantasy cultures, you would tend to see more historically accurate portrayals of the times featuring the gambeson due to the styles often being ripped right from paintings
Thanks, Shad. As someone who knows next to nothing about medieval combat, this has been eye-opening.
I love your videos, I'm on the market for an arming doublet, and I figured you of all people would be able to steer me towards the best websites. I do a lot of LARPing, I need it to be sturdy enough to tie my armor to it.
This reminds me of the mythbuster's episode on Paper Armor. That proved just as effective as steel armor.
What?
There may have been rare occurrences of effective leather armor through a hardening process called cuir bouili, which apparently hardens leather to the point of giving it plastic-like properties. That said i don't believe the exact process is known anymore, it is probably an art very few understood and unicorn rare. And even then the gambeson might still offer similar or even better protection, but we can't really say because we can't actually test it^^
Thanks for this video! I'm planning a Renaissance-era-esque fantasy story with my buddy and this'll be really useful. I can just imagine plate knights having a drink at the guild in their gambesons when they're off the clock.
Quick background I knew nothing other than what pop culture taught me about swords and armour but I've been watching your videos for a while and I have to say you have educated me on a lot things. Respect on the gambeson has been earned
"It kind of is a rug. You're just wearing it." lol
6:21 "Better do that with the foam sword. . ." Safety first! XD
Terrific video! I’ve been inspired to remove “leather armor” from my board game and work this material in as additional components to the real armor of the times. Thanks for the insight
Shad. Great video! I'm custom ordering a gambeson and I want it to actually be functional when HEMA sparring. How many layers of linen would you recommend for use with blunted swords? I saw the 14-layer one you referenced that can stop arrows, but I'd like to cut it back since I'll be wearing it near the equator. =P
dammit man, now i want one of those as a stylish winter coat. i'll order it in the style of THE GRAND DUTCHY OF LITHUANIA!!!
Couple of questions: How much does a Gambeson weigh when it gets wet? How affordable was it? You mention soldiers wearing the Gambeson I though the average soldier of the time was a peasant or farmer or laborer with tradesman/craftsmen (your blacksmiths, your cobblers, your tailors) basically working as support.
It was quite cheap.
I agree, I got this prison guard coat from the thrift store and it is a BEAST.The back bottom stitching ripped a few years ago and when I was stitching it up (btw it was way to thick for my moms to sow it, I had to do it by hand) when I was stitching it I got a good look at it and it has 6 lairs, canvas, cotton, some kinda rubber cloth, cotton, rubber cloth, then a soft silky cloth for the inner lining. I call it my zombie coat lol
Hey Shad
Can you make a video with a level system of armor and weapons for a video game. Something like:
Level 1: Helmet and Sword
Level 2: Gambeson
Level 3: Mail
and so on.
I think you are the best CZcamsr fr doing something like this.
Those brigandines look pretty cool.
but padded armor gives you disadvantage on stealth!
Something I always thought was ridiculous considering leather armor would creak if it got weather exposed.
adir mugrabi leather chaps sliding on brush would be noisier than wool and with better freedom of movement and lighter depending on thickness the gambisin would be much better for stealth
Gurky Cecilia lmao!
Consider my thinking changed. I always knew medieval-era soldiers wore some kind of padded underclothing but I was unaware that they were relatively effective armor in their own right.
Thanks for the info, very interesting :)
Thank you for the info, I never even knew this type of armor existed. I'll definitely incorporate it into my fantasy writing from now on.
I wonder how more or less effective( I suspect very effective) a gambeson would be made of Kevlar/Aramid material.Hell might as well go all out and throw some modern alloy chain mail (welded of course)on top of that.
There's actually a material that's being tested right now, can't remember the name but Game Theorist did a video on it, that is many time's stronger and only as thick as a sheet of paper. It's layered together and is nearly impossible to puncture by any normal means. Pretty sure that's the armor of the future, just little sheets you lay over yourself. Boring but effective
Graphine
+mrwindupbird101 There still would be needed a padding layer to absorb the shock of the impact.
Poparod Cassidy That's what kevlar armor is, it's made up of many many layers of kevlar to better catch bullets.
Yes,I know but modern vest are usually only designed to protect the vital areas in the chest I was talking about a full gambeson from wrist to just below the knees!
from looking at boiled leather armor it looked like something that could be worn with a gamberson, as it seems not to seem to have the role of the flexible armor but the hard inflexible armor. I am no expert on historical accuracy but h hard top layer on top of the padding could help and it might be cheaper until one could afford a better top layer.
+nitsugoYT I can see this being the case, I just haven't found any evidence for it.
+I am Shad I have seen a few said historical illustrations that showed high status vikings wearing a type of boiled hard leather cuirass over chainmail.
The British Museum has a 14th century Rerebrace (upper arm armour) made of Leather in it's collection, images canbe found on a google search
Not being a smartass, but that kind of evidence may be hard to find because leather decays faster than cloth and metal. (Just heard you saying it on the video, gonna leave it for the lulz)
Being that said, if leather was really a thing at any point, it was an additional piece of armor, not the principal.
Shad, love ur vids.... ur gambeson vids started a debate in my house and at my work on wiether or not it would b good anti-zombie armour?? Any opinion helps!
-Kansas, USA
Dear Shadiversity,
I really enjoyed the video on Gambesons which I agree are criminally under represented in most medieval/fantasy films. Yet I have a question as I am a young college student looking to enter the world of medieval reenactment. I have chosen the 12-13th century style of European knight with mail and padded armor. I am just curious how thick should my gambeson be? Should it be light because a lot of the medieval manuscripts look like they are rather light, especially in the coif department. I am looking at sights for mail, custom most likely but I am just curious as people have told me I need a thick gambeson others said I need a lighter one. Which would work best for reenactment purposes and what was used historically for knights in that time period.
Sincerely, A long time subscriber
PS: I LOVE YOUR CONTENT!!!!
How did you do that spinny thing, technuique vid please
czcams.com/video/CCBaFWX6ig4/video.html
Exactly how thick is your gambeson? Metric is fine, even though I'm American.
You liar . . . At 6:20 That is already a foam sword, what do you take us for?
Synthetic, it's a hard-ish plastic.
Looks like how my sister twirled her baton when she was with the marching band.
so its pretty much like medieval Kevlar in a way... huh... go figure.
Before I came to your channel I never knew gambeson was a thing, so, thank you for educating me =)
Defense against piercing also depends on material. I think felted materials is harder to pierce. Someone, might have been lindybeige, mentioned that quality when talking about arrows. I would love to see that explored more.