Dear Bernard
You recently answered a reader’s question about the use of ‘chain mail’ in the C9th. It’s quite correct that the Gauls were using mail during their wars with the Romans about 1000 years earlier, and the Romans adopted it as lorica hamata which was used right through the imperial period. I’m not so sure it was very common in the C9th though. Amongst warriors, yes, but I suspect that many men relied on leather and padding, with some metal reinforcement if they were lucky!
Just as a matter of interest, this type of armour was known as mail (or maille) at the time. Chain mail, ring mail, banded mail, plate mail and all the rest of the names that people use date from the C19th, possibly starting with Sir Walter Scott. It was difficult to depict mail in medieval art/tapestries and the artists usually resorted to using various types of rings and dots which later writers interpreted as different types of mail. Plate mail is just a modern nonsense, used incorrectly to describe plate armour.
Looking forward to the new book but, must admit, I’d like to see another Starbuck or 100 Years War story!
Martyn Kerr