Lamellar Armor
Armor of small plates laced together with cord
Lamellar armor is armor made of small plates, usually rectangular and called lamellae, pierced with holes and laced directly to one another with cords or leather thongs. Unlike scale armor, which fixes its scales to a backing of cloth or leather, lamellar has no backing at all: the plates themselves are laced together in rows, both vertically and horizontally, to form the structure. The hard plates overlap densely to stop cuts and arrows, while the laced joints flex and follow the movements of the body. Originating in East and Central Asia, it spread across Eurasia, and the Japanese o-yoroi, the lamellar of Goguryeo Korea, the Byzantine klibanion, and the armor of Mongol horsemen are all built this way. The lamellae could be iron, bronze, hardened (lacquered) leather, horn, or bone, and at roughly 15 to 20 kg the armor rivalled plate in weight. A damaged plate could simply be re-laced and replaced, which made repair easy, but the lacing itself demanded constant care.
Origin
Lamellar armor is thought to have arisen in the ancient Near East and Central Asia before the common era, developing independently in several regions across Eurasia. It was especially widely adopted by the horse peoples of the Central Asian steppe and across East Asia, where it became the principal armor of China, Korea, and Japan. In Korea, iron lamellar is attested in the tombs and tomb paintings of Goguryeo and Gaya, and in Japan, lamellar armors such as the o-yoroi and the do-maru developed from the Heian period onward. To the west it reached Sasanian Persia and the Byzantine Empire (the klibanion), and later the cavalry of the Mongol Empire: this method of lacing plates together spread across the continent along the steppe roads.
Features
- Rectangular lamellae laced directly to one another
- No cloth backing, unlike scale armor
- Wide use across East Asia, Central Asia, and Byzantium
- Roughly 15 to 20 kg, comparable to plate armor
- Easy to repair by replacing a single damaged plate
- Lamellae of iron, bronze, leather, or horn
Stories
Lamellar was the principal armor of horse warriors and heavy infantry, worn over a padded garment to cover the torso and shoulders and sometimes the thighs. Because the laced lamellae flex at every joint, the armor moved with the body even in the large motions of shooting a bow or handling a spear from horseback, while still turning cuts and arrows. The construction of plates laced in rows made it easy to fit the length and width to one wearer, and a damaged section could be repaired by unlacing only those plates and fitting new ones. The armies of East Asia, the steppe, and Byzantium used it for a long time alongside mail and scale.
Weakness
The greatest weakness of lamellar is the lacing that holds the plates together. If the cords break, the lamellae of that section come loose all at once and the protective structure collapses, so the lacing had to be renewed regularly. Natural cords, such as the silk lacing of Japanese armor, soaked up rain and blood, grew heavy, and dried slowly; in cold weather they froze, and dirt and vermin lodged easily among them. For this reason the Mongols favored water-resistant leather lacing, and in later ages armorers moved toward joining the plates with rivets and hinges rather than cord.
Cultural Significance
Lamellar is the representative armor form of East Asia and the Eurasian steppe cultures. Because plates laced together could be decorated with cords of varied color and pattern to suit the wearer's body, rank, and region, the Japanese o-yoroi rose to the level of an art object expressing a warrior's formality and aesthetic. When East Asian armor became known in the West, however, it was often lumped together as 'scale armor', though scale (scales fixed to a backing) and lamellar (plates laced directly together) are strictly distinct methods. Today lamellar has become the iconic look of the Eastern warrior in period drama and games.
In Popular Culture
Lamellar appears widely in East Asian period dramas, in works about warriors and steppe horse peoples, and in fantasy. In Japanese samurai films and games the brightly laced o-yoroi is drawn as the symbol of the warrior, and laced lamellar also appears in works set in Mongol or ancient Korean settings. In games it commonly serves as a mid-tier armor between mail and plate, or as armor of an Eastern style. In fiction, however, lamellar and scale armor are often not distinguished, and the real structural detail of plates laced together is frequently not represented accurately.
Trivia
- Lamellar differs from scale armor: scale armor fixes its scales to a backing of cloth or leather and is worn like a garment, whereas lamellar has no backing and laces small plates directly to one another to form the structure itself; the two were often confused once East Asian armor became known in the West.
- The Japanese o-yoroi and do-maru are lamellar armors built from lacquered iron and leather plates (kozane) laced with silk or leather cords (odoshi), in which the color and pattern of the lacing expressed the formality of a warrior's house and served as an artistic element.
- The chronic weakness of lamellar was the lacing that joined the plates: silk cords soaked up rain and blood, grew heavy, dried slowly, and froze or harbored vermin, so the Mongols favored water-resistant leather lacing and later ages moved toward joining the plates with rivets and hinges.