Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Summary
Bibliography
Credits
Appendix

Return to Aethelmearc Archery

Summary

Amida - (359 AD)
Roman arrows penetrate Persian chain mail

Fjalar - (869 AD)
Norse armor resists swords

Kalmar - (940 AD)
Swedish arrows penetrate Danish "helmets and hauberks"

Svold - (1000 AD)
Dull Norse swords have little effect on Norse armor

Nis-River - (1063 AD)
Norse arrows penetrate Danish chain mail

Hastings - (1066 AD)
Norman arrows penetrate Saxon chain mail

Nicaea - (1096 AD)
Turkish arrows penetrate Frankish chain mail

Bremule - (1119 AD)
Hauberk collar stops sword blow

Bruges - (1127 AD)
French armor resists French swords

2nd Crusade - (1148 AD)
French armor protects Louis VII from Turkish arrows, ascribed to 'the will of God', after about forty other mounted Knights die in the same battle

Abergevenni - (1188 AD)
Welsh arrows penetrate Norman chain mail

South of Acre - (July, 1191 AD)
Saracen arrows and stones stopped by unspecified armor

South of Acre - (Sept, 1191 AD)
Saracen arrows stopped by chain mail and thick felt on only one single day out of a six year struggle

Liegnitz - (1241 AD)
Mongol arrows kill Polish Knights wearing armor (unspecified)

On the Nile near Mansoora - (1248 AD)
Jousting armor utilized to stop Saracen arrows

Mansoora - (1248 AD)
Darts seem to have had little effect of a French Knight, no armor specified

Poitiers - (1356 AD)
English arrows kill Earls, Knights, Squires, and 'men of arms'

Otterburn - (1388 AD)
Earl Douglas not affected by sword blows, but killed by spear thrusts

Agincourt - (1415 AD)
English arrows kill Sir William de Saveuses from off his horse, and reduce a force of 800 men-at-arms (mounted) to 140 before the horsemen can start their charge on the archers

    These nineteen accounts of these battles covering over a thousand years of history represent all the accounts I found that actually or potentially apply to the effects of weapons on chain mail in my research for this study. While this study is now finished, it is not complete. No such research project can ever be complete as long as there are texts still to study, and there are a multitude of texts out there that I have not yet studied. In the future, I will be studying some of these additional texts. Eventually, as I get enough additional information to justify it, I'll go in and add the new information. But in the meantime, this study should be sufficient to show why the basic premise presented in that proposal, that being: 'Extensive research has shown that the armor of any period was generally proof against arrows of the same period...'  is in fact false. And if that premise, as the base for the rules needing to be changed, is false, then there is no justification for the implementation of those suggested changes.