Details

LOT 0300

Frankish Warrior's Iron Byrnie Chain Mail Armour

NORTHERN EUROPE, CIRCA 6TH-10TH CENTURY A.D.

25 1/2 x 29 1/2 in. (4.71 kg, 65 x 75 cm).

A nearly complete short-sleeved ring armour composed of interlocking links in the four-through-one formation with alternating rivetted rings.

Provenance

From the private collection of a London gentleman, from his grandfather's collection formed before the early 1970s.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.13041-248010.

Literature

Cf. Nicolle, D., Carolingian Cavalryman, AD 768-987, Oxford, 2005; Wijnhoven, M.A., Moskvin, A., Moskvina, M., ‘Testing archaeological mail armour in a virtual environment: 3rd century BC to 10th century AD’ in Journal of Cultural Heritage, 2021, no.8, pp. 106-118; Wijnhoven, M.A., Ringed battle shirts from the iron age, Roman Period and Early Middle Ages, Amsterdam, 2022.

Footnotes

The rings are arranged in rows, and the links within the same row do not join. Instead, each ring connects to two rings in the row above and two in the row beneath. A great majority of all-rivetted mail comes from Southern Scandinavia and Northern Europe, notably Sweden, northern Germany and Poland. All-rivetted mail already occurs there during the Roman Iron Age, and continues into the Migration, the Vendel, and then the Viking periods. Rivetted rings were usually fabricated by shaping metal wire into a circle with the ends overlapping several mm. Here, the riveted rings seem to be of reshaped oval form.