Subarmalis or gambeson?

[Dan Howard]

Only illustrations and sculptures. No surviving examples.

But I think the illustrations and sculptures only show the edging on the shoulder flaps of the old-style hamata, which was built like a linothorax. The Vachères warrior clearly has edging on the shoulder-pieces of his mail, but not at the ends of the 'sleeves'. Quite possibly these shoulder 'yoke' pieces were backed with leather anyway, and intended to be quite stiff.

Unless there are some other depictions clearly showing leather edging at the hem of the mail, and considering the decorative bronze or copper edging that turns up in the archaeological record, we must surely assume that no leather or fabric edging was used on Roman mail and thus there were no integral liners, whatever might have been done in the medieval world?

That's certainly possible. A lot of us are basing our conclusions on the unproved premise that mail can't be worn without some kind of padding - integrated or otherwise.