Historial Chainmaille Armour

If you are new to the jewelry making world, you might have not heard of Chainmaille, but seen it in movies or serials like the Game of Thrones. Chainmaille, also known as chainmail, or maille is typically armor or jewelry made by connecting metal rings to one another. The word maille derives from the French word maille (mesh), which comes from Latin macula (mesh of a net). Chainmaille today is made from virtually any material that can be formed into a circle. This includes most metals as well nontraditional jewelry materials such as rubber.

Bust of Maharaja Maharana Pratap

Once it was the fundamental technique for making Armour, but now it is increasingly popular in jewelry and there are dedicated artists who making stunning Chain maille jewelry. However this post isnt about Chaimaille jewelry – its about Armours. 
When I visited Rajasthan in September,  I had the opportunity of visiting both Udaipur museum and Jodhpur fort. The Udaipur palace museum housed models, paintings of MahaRana Pratap and Chetak and narrated various stories of patriotism, war and bloodshed. Among all that gore I found stunning examples of handcrafted Chainmaille armours and I am really excited to finally share them with you

MRP with his generals in full armour
Model/actual armour worn by him
 Mail Armour is said to have been introduced to the Middle East and Asia through the Romans and was adopted by the Sassanid Persians somewhere in the 3rd century CE. The Mongol armies  were not in favour of it due to its weight and the difficulty of its maintenance, but it eventually became the armour of choice in India. **
** One of our readers Wendy, pointed out that she saw a display of Gold Chainmaille worn by Genghis khan in a museum, so I did some research on it. It seems that though the army didnt favour it, Genghis khan himself along with few others wore chain maille, but it was mostly acquired from other armies as spoils of war. Also his descendants wore maille in their helmets with Persian weave. The armies usually wore Lamellar – fish scale leather & metal armour.

 Indian mail was typically light in construction and was often used with plate protection, as shown above in the paintings and models. Plated mail was in common use in India until the Battle of Plassey and the subsequent British conquest of the sub-continent.
As the mail was flexible it was a poor defence against head trauma. So the Mail-clad warriors often wore separate rigid helms over their mail coifs for head protection. Also as blunt weapons like maces could harm the wearer by their impact without penetrating the armour, people generally wore a soft armour, beneath.


 Mail wasnt restricted to just people alone. It was commonly also used as armour for cataphracts and heavy cavalry. Find below the picture of the model of Maha Rana Pratap’s trusted steed Chetak, wearing armour and other protective gear


I cant even Imagine how heavy and how cumbersome it must have all been – wearing armour, gears, carrying heavy weapons and then marching for hours together to get to the battle field and then fighting there. But sometimes inconvenience is a normal price to pay for life and freedom. Isn’t it?

References: Wiki 
Thebluebuddhaboutique

Genghis Khan  

Pictures : Divya N, 2012, Udaipur Palace Museum


I hope you it interesting
Cheers 

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