Leather Armor

Origin

The making of armor from leather by the human hand was not bound to one civilization at one seat, and grew up in different branches at different seats. In Bronze and Iron Age Greece, the linothorax, hardened linen, was the more common at the same seat, and a single suit of leather kept its place at a small seat. In late 13th-century Europe, cuir bouilli took its root in earnest, and in the late 14th century, in the Sir Thopas of Geoffrey Chaucer of England in his Canterbury Tales, the phrase 'jakke of fyn cuir bouilly' is set down clearly. In the Mongol Empire of central Asia and the nomadic dynasties that followed, a single suit of lamellar of lacquered leather scales laced with cords became the mark of one seat, and the small scales (kozane) of the o-yoroi and tosei gusoku of Japan also gave a great place to lacquered leather. The Plains Indians of North America and some Siberian peoples also used hides of bison and elk hardened at one seat as armor.

Features

• Cuir bouilli, in which the hide was set in warm water, wax, or oil and hardened
• A light single suit kept at one seat at about five to eight kilograms
• A quiet grain without the sound of metal, fit for scouting and ambush
• A low price and easy mending of only a few parts of that of mail and plate
• Often laid as part of a great suit, the elbow and knee guards and small scales
• A mark not bound to one civilization, of the Mongols, the Japanese, and the Plains Indians

Stories

Leather armor worked at one seat in two different places by its lightness and quietness. The first was the seat of a foot soldier whom a great single suit did not reach, and the scout, the light foot, the thief, and the hunter wore a leather coat and a leather hood at the same seat and watched a single point of the enemy in the mountain and the wood. The second was as part of a great single suit, in which the knight of 13th- and 14th-century Europe laid a couter (elbow guard) and a poleyn (knee guard) of cuir bouilli over the mail, and in England and Burgundy of the same age the jack of plates, with small iron plates riveted on leather, became the mark of a single suit of the foot. Another seat was the tournament and the hunt: about the year 1500, in the time of Maximilian I, a single suit of cuir bouilli tournament armor, light and yet good at guarding a man, was raised to the seat of the ceremony. In the East, the Mongol horseman bore a single suit of lamellar of leather scales and shot a bow that made full use of the range at one seat, and the Japanese samurai set lacquered leather kozane together at one place of an o-yoroi.

Weakness

The greatest weakness of leather armor lay in that hardened leather at the same seat could not match the hardness of mail or steel. The same single suit held well enough against a single quick cut, but against a long-drawn stroke of a sword or the blow of a heavy axe, it split easily at the same seat, and against an awl-like thrust pressing exactly at one point, it was pierced straight through. Leather was, moreover, weak against water at one seat, and a suit caught in a rain grew soft again and lost its hardness, and at the same seat mold and worm easily ate into one piece. Above all, the same single suit cracked as it dried under a strong sun, and at one seat the inside of the same armor often rotted with sweat in the summer. So a single suit of leather covering a man from head to foot at one seat was rare, and from the start the same single suit often stayed at the auxiliary seat, laid under mail and padded armor, or set as a guard at one place.

Cultural Significance

Leather armor is a mark not bound to one civilization, and stands at one of the earliest seats where the human hand drew protection for its own seat from the hide of a beast. The form in which the cuir bouilli of late 13th-century Europe came to be part of the knight's harness at one seat is set down clearly in the Sir Thopas of Geoffrey Chaucer of late 14th-century England, in the line 'jakke of fyn cuir bouilly,' and the illuminated manuscripts and tomb sculpture of the same age also cut the same guards in detail. In the Mongol Empire of one seat, a lamellar of lacquered leather became the clearest visual sign of that seat, and the army of Genghis Khan left its mark as the sign of one seat reaching from east to west. The small scales (kozane) of the Japanese o-yoroi are a rare seat at which lacquered leather took a great place at one seat, and at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Tokyo National Museum, and the Royal Armouries in Leeds, England, actual leather armors of the 13th to the 17th century are kept and carry the seat of the same piece to this day. The figure of a man wrapped from head to knee in a suit of leather alone, however, is swollen at one seat by the period drama and the fantasy literature of the 19th century and later, and in the seat of true history a suit of leather more often stood paired with mail and small iron plates.

In Popular Culture

Leather armor is the most familiar mark in films, period dramas, and games as the mark of the thief, the rogue, the archer, and the scout. The hobbits and Legolas in the Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) series, the same in the Hobbit (2012-2014) series, and the seat of the wildlings and the rogues in Game of Thrones (2011-2019), wear the same single suit as a visual sign of one seat. The BBC period dramas Merlin and Robin Hood, and every film of Robin Hood, place the same single suit, and the action RPGs The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the Assassin's Creed series, and the Dark Souls series set the same single suit as the starting armor of the player. The same works, however, draw the leather armor more lavishly than the true historical seat, and so blur the truth that the single suit of leather more often stayed at the auxiliary seat. At the museum, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Tokyo National Museum, and the Royal Armouries in Leeds, England, show the most clearly the true seat of the same piece in the actual pieces they hold.

Trivia

• Cuir bouilli is French for 'boiled leather,' but it was not made by boiling proper; the hide was set in warm water of about 70 to 80 degrees Celsius, or in wax or oil. Setting it in boiling water would, on the contrary, have ruined the leather, and so the name itself stands at a slight gap from its literal meaning.
• About 1500, in the Sir Thopas of Geoffrey Chaucer of England in his Canterbury Tales, the phrase 'jakke of fyn cuir bouilly,' a fine leather jacket, is set down clearly, and stands as the clearest single piece of evidence that leather armor took its place as part of the European knight's harness of that age.
• The figure often drawn in films and games of a man wrapped from head to knee in a suit of leather alone is more swollen than the seat of true history. The commonest seat of leather armor was as part of a great single suit, the guards laid over mail, the small scales of the Mongol and the Japanese, and the jack of plates with small iron plates riveted on leather, and it often stayed at the auxiliary seat at one place.