09-16-2014, 01:07 PM
We know that senior Byzantine officers wore highly decorated armour - John I's golden helmet at Shaizar and Manuel I's golden armour - and a kivanion is more easily given a decorative treatment than mail. Also the klivanion gave a classical look to a soldier, it being like a muscle cuirass in outline, not something that a Byzantine general would forsake easily.
What we are looking at is relative likelihood. I have met so often on this sort of discussion site an unwillingness to accept argument based on probability and unrealistic demands for absolute proof where such does not exist.
Mail is difficult to depict, most artistic representations of it are uncertain, I don't think I have seen a fully realistic depiction of mail earlier than about 1250, and even subsequently there is the "banded mail" red herring.
The majority of soldiers depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry are universally believed to be wearing mail armour. In fact they are shown wearing garments covered in circles that if scaled up would have been 4 to 5 inches in diameter, they could represent anything. As for Byzantine mail, it is depicted in a similarly uncertain manner. If one ignores the extant mail in Mt Athos and Sofia, believed to be 10th to 11th century in date (4 in 1 and riveted), then much of the armour depicted as repeated circles, dots and apparent small scales must represent mail. In the Byzantine Alexander manuscript (14th century admittedly) soldiers wearing apparent scale aventails (one even face-covering) are shown. Is it more probable that the artist had difficulty depicting mail or that a face-covering scale aventail is factual? The clincher for me is in the Byzantine Psalter of Theodore dating to c. 1066. In it a man waving a sword and bearing a shield is depicted, he has splints covering his upper arms and his torso is covered in irregular circles (more convincing as mail than the depiction on Bayeux Tapestry) as are his legs down to mid-calf. This is the depiction of a man wearing a mailshirt (interestingly with splinted sleeves - so I rescind me earlier comment ) with mail chausses - the idea of scale chausses being highly improbable.
What we are looking at is relative likelihood. I have met so often on this sort of discussion site an unwillingness to accept argument based on probability and unrealistic demands for absolute proof where such does not exist.
Mail is difficult to depict, most artistic representations of it are uncertain, I don't think I have seen a fully realistic depiction of mail earlier than about 1250, and even subsequently there is the "banded mail" red herring.
The majority of soldiers depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry are universally believed to be wearing mail armour. In fact they are shown wearing garments covered in circles that if scaled up would have been 4 to 5 inches in diameter, they could represent anything. As for Byzantine mail, it is depicted in a similarly uncertain manner. If one ignores the extant mail in Mt Athos and Sofia, believed to be 10th to 11th century in date (4 in 1 and riveted), then much of the armour depicted as repeated circles, dots and apparent small scales must represent mail. In the Byzantine Alexander manuscript (14th century admittedly) soldiers wearing apparent scale aventails (one even face-covering) are shown. Is it more probable that the artist had difficulty depicting mail or that a face-covering scale aventail is factual? The clincher for me is in the Byzantine Psalter of Theodore dating to c. 1066. In it a man waving a sword and bearing a shield is depicted, he has splints covering his upper arms and his torso is covered in irregular circles (more convincing as mail than the depiction on Bayeux Tapestry) as are his legs down to mid-calf. This is the depiction of a man wearing a mailshirt (interestingly with splinted sleeves - so I rescind me earlier comment ) with mail chausses - the idea of scale chausses being highly improbable.
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
Fac me cocleario vomere!
