Methods of Making Chain Mail (14th to 18th Centuries): A Metallographic Note

Abstract

METALLOGRAPHY PROVIDES a useful adjunct to historical or archaeological studies. A great deal can be learned from the microstructure of a metallic object about the techniques used in making and treating it. An example is provided by the use of such a method on links of chain mail armor, the manufacture of which has been discussed by Burges' and Burgess.2 Both authors believe that riveted links were made by coiling drawn wire round an appropriate mandrel, cutting to give a series of rings, then overlapping and flattening (perhaps in a die) to give a thickened section through which a rivet hole is drifted with a pointed tool, the rivet being inserted and upset by the use of pliers at the time of assembly of mail. Burgess describes an ingenious set of simple tools which he had devised for the sequence of operations, although he provides no evidence beyond plausibility that they were actually used by makers of mail in earlier times. Some mail is composed entirely of riveted links, but a more usual form is alternate rows of solid and riveted ones. Burges believed that solid links were made by punching from sheet iron with a double punch or by punching a single hole and trimming the outside. Through the courtesy of Mr. S. V. Grancsay, Curator of Arms and Armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, I was able to examine some sixteen links from various suits of armor