Gambeson

A gambeson (also aketon, padded jack, pourpoint, or arming doublet) is a padded defensive jacket, worn as armour separately, or combined with mail or plate armour. Gambesons were produced with a sewing technique called quilting that produced a padded cloth. They were usually constructed of linen or wool; the stuffing varied, and could be, for example, scrap cloth or horse hair. During the 14th century, illustrations usually show buttons or laces on the front.

Depiction of a 13th-century gambeson (Morgan Bible, fol. 10r)

Edward Clinton, Lord High Admiral, in an arming doublet, 1562

An arming doublet (also called aketon) worn under armour, particularly plate armour of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, contains arming points for attaching plates. Fifteenth-century examples may include mail goussets sewn into the elbows and armpits, to protect the wearer in locations not covered by plate. German gothic armour arming doublets were generally shorter than Italian white armour doublets, which could extend to the upper thigh. In late fifteenth-century Italy, this also became a civilian fashion. Men who were not knights wore arming doublets, probably because the garment suggested status and chivalry.^[1]

Men's gambeson, c. 1660–1670. Collection Centraal Museum, Utrecht.

Etymology

The term gambeson is a loan from the Old French gambeson, gambaison, originally wambais, formed after the Middle High German term wambeis, 'doublet', in turn from Old High German wamba, 'stomach' (cognate to womb).^[2]

The term aketon, originally the medieval French alcottonem, might be a loan from Arabic al-qutn, meaning 'cotton' (definite article – "the cotton").

In medieval Norse, the garment was known as vápntreyja, literally 'weapon shirt', or panzari/panzer.^[3] Treyja is a loan from (Middle) Low German.^[4] Panzari/panzer is probably also a loan from Middle Low German, though the word has its likely origin in Italian, and is related to the Latin pantex, meaning 'abdomen',^[5] cognate with English paunch.^[6]

History

Open, quilted leather jackets and trousers were worn by Scythian horsemen before the 4th century BC, as can be seen on Scythian gold ornaments crafted by Greek goldsmiths. As stand-alone cloth armour, the European gambeson can be traced at least to the late tenth century, but it is likely to have been in use in various forms for longer than that. In Europe, its use became widespread in the thirteenth century, and peaked in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The gambeson was used both as a complete armour unto itself, and underneath mail and plate in order to cushion the body and prevent chafing. Evidence for its use under armour does not appear until the mid-twelfth century. It was very insulating and thus uncomfortable, but its protection was vital for the soldier.

Although they are thought to have been used in Europe much earlier, gambesons underwent a revolution from their first proven use (in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries) as an independent item of armour to one that facilitated the wearing of mail, but they remained popular amongst infantry as cloth armour. Although quilted armour survived into the English Civil War in England as a poor man's cuirass, and as an item to be worn beneath the few remaining suits of full plate, it was increasingly replaced by the 'buff coat' – a leather jacket of rough suede.

There are two distinctive designs of gambeson: those designed to be worn beneath armour, and those designed to be worn as independent armour. The latter tend to be thicker and higher in the collar and faced with other materials, such as leather or heavy canvas. This variant is usually referred to as padded jack and made of several (some say around 18,^[7] some even 30^[8]) layers of cotton, linen or wool. These jacks were known to stop even heavy arrows,^[8] and their design of multiple layers bears a striking resemblance to modern-day body armour, which used at first silk, then ballistic nylon and later, Kevlar as its fabric.

For common soldiers who could not afford mail or plate armour, the gambeson, combined with a helmet as the only additional protection, remained a common sight on European battlefields during the entire Middle Ages, and its decline – paralleling that of plate armour – came only with the Renaissance, as the use of firearms became more widespread. By the eighteenth century, it was no longer in military use.

While the use of linen in these jackets has been proven by archaeological evidence, the use of cotton – and cotton-based canvas – is disputed, since large amounts of cotton cloth were not widely available in Northern Europe at this time. It is quite probable that Egypt (and Asia Minor generally) still produced cotton well after the 7th and 8th centuries, and knowledge (and samples) of this cloth was brought to Europe by the returning Crusaders; however, the logistics and expense of equipping a town militia or army with large numbers of cotton-based garments make its usage doubtful when flax-based textiles (linen) were in widespread use.

Linothorax was a type of armour similar to gambeson, used by ancient Greeks. Meanwhile, the Mesoamericans were known to have used a kind of quilted textile armour called Ichcahuipilli before the arrival of the Spaniards. Another example is the bullet-resistant Myeonje baegab that was created during Korea's Joseon Dynasty in an attempt to confront the effects of Western rifles.

 

Sultanate of Bagirmi horseman in full padded armour suit, 1901

See also

• Doublet (a.k.a. pourpoint)
• Buff coat
• Jack of plate

References

1. Breiding, Dirk H. "Fashion in European Armour, 1400–1500". Department of Arms and Armour, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
2. "Gambeson". Merriam-Webster.
3. Heggstad, Leiv; Hødnebø, Finn; Simensen, Erik (2008) [1909]. Norrøn Ordbok. Oslo: Det norske samlaget. pp. 477, 703–704. ISBN 978-8252171501. OCLC 768091918.
4. trøye (in Norwegian). University of Bergen. Retrieved 29 March 2020. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |work= ignored (help)
5. panser (in Norwegian). University of Bergen. Retrieved 29 March 2020. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |work= ignored (help)
6. "paunch". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 29 March 2020. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
7. Embleton, Gerry (2001). Medieval Military Costume: Europa Militaria Special. Crowood Press UK. p. 67. ISBN 978-1-86126-371-1.
8. Embleton, Gerry; Howe, John (1994). Söldnerleben im Mittelalter. Motorbuchverlag. p. 47.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gambeson.

• "The Function of Armor in Medieval and Renaissance Europe". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• a translation of the mid-fifteenth century treatise on armour, translated into modern English and accompanied by pictorial references.
• "A Roman Armor that has been Missed? Did Roman Soldiers Wear Quilted Armor?".