Use of Leather as armor

[Sean Manning]

Hello Dan

I seem to recall that soldiers were taught to swim as part of their training. This is possibly mentioned in the collected works of R.W. Davies.

Vegetius tells us in his first book that soldiers should learn to swim (1.10 ad usum natandi execendos tirones). If a man in armour fell overboard, well, I suppose he would be very motivated to get out of it in a hurry. No different than a pikeman finding an enemy at close quarters, or a legionary being ordered to attack a Macedonian phalanx deployed in a breach, or an archer being jumped by men with javelins. Soldiering was risky.

We have some evidence from the early middle ages that a strong man could keep above armour in a light coat of mail, and I think that someone recently had himself videoed trying it in white harness.