Hauberk
A hauberk is a shirt of
mail armour. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves. Haubergeon generally refers to a shorter variant with partial sleeves, but the terms are often used interchangeably. Slits to accommodate horseback-riding are often incorporated below the waist. Most are put on over the head. Mail is a flexible
cloth made of interlocking
metal rings.
Hauberk can also refer to a similar garment of
scale armour.
Encyclopedia
A
hauberk is a shirt of
mail armour. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves.
Haubergeon generally refers to a shorter variant with partial sleeves, but the terms are often used interchangeably. Slits to accommodate horseback-riding are often incorporated below the waist. Most are put on over the head. Mail is a flexible
cloth made of interlocking
metal rings.
Hauberk can also refer to a similar garment of
scale armour.
History
The word
hauberk is derived from an old
German word
Halsberge, which originally described a small piece of mail that protects the throat and the neck . A simple version of the hauberk, of
scale construction, consisted of a padded cloth jacket covered in cow horn, bronze or copper scales or other hard, flat material. Later, the shirts began to be constructed of interlinked metal rings, and were used in Europe as early as the 8th century in this form. This design developed into what is ordinarily known as a hauberk near the beginning of the
Middle Ages, as the mail-making industry became more established.
The earliest known mention of the chain armour is in 2 Chronicles 26:14 when the Judean king Uzziah equipped his army with "habergeons" around 750 B.C. There are mentions of encounters with armor similar to the scale hauberk in Celtic graves in the 3rd century BC. The Roman writer Varro mentions mail and attributed the invention to the Celts. Roman armies
adopted similar technology after encountering it while invading
Gaul. The
Bayeux Tapestry, a long
embroidered cloth which depicts scenes commemorating the
Battle of Hastings illustrates
Norman soldiers wearing a knee length version of the hauberk with three-quarter length sleeves split from hem to crotch to make riding possible. A hauberk dating from the 12th century stored in the Prague Cathedral is one of the earliest surviving examples in and was supposedly owned by
Saint Wenceslaus. Use of mail hauberks continued up until the 14th century, when plate armor began to supplant it, and mail armour started to be recycled into other metal objects or used for scouring pads.
