In early medieval Europe "byrn(ie)" was the equivalent of a "coat of mail"Ĭivilizations that used mail invented specific terms for each garment made from it. The first attestations of the word mail are in Old French and Anglo-Norman: maille, maile, or male or other variants, which became mailye, maille, maile, male, or meile in Middle English. The Arabic words "burnus", برنوس, a burnoose a hooded cloak, also a chasuble (worn by Coptic priests) and "barnaza", برنز, to bronze, suggest an Arabic influence for the Carolingian armour known as " byrnie" (see below). In modern French, maille refers to a loop or stitch. Another theory relates the word to the old French maillier, meaning to hammer (related to the modern English word malleable). One theory is that it originally derives from the Latin word macula, meaning spot or opacity (as in macula of retina). The origins of the word mail are not fully known. Mail continues to be used in the 21st century as a component of stab-resistant body armour, cut-resistant gloves for butchers and woodworkers, shark-resistant wetsuits for defense against shark bites, and a number of other applications. Herodotus wrote that the ancient Persians wore scale armour, but mail is also distinctly mentioned in the Avesta, the ancient holy scripture of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism that was founded by the prophet Zoroaster in the 5th century BC. ![]() Mail spread to North Africa, West Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, Tibet, South East Asia, and Japan. Mail may have been inspired by the much earlier scale armour. Its invention is commonly credited to the Celts, but there are examples of Etruscan pattern mail dating from at least the 4th century BC. The earliest examples of surviving mail were found in the Carpathian Basin at a burial in Horný Jatov, Slovakia dated in the 3rd century BC, and in a chieftain's burial located in Ciumești, Romania. Fresco of an ancient Macedonian soldier ( thorakites) wearing mail armour and bearing a thureos shield ![]() History The Vachères warrior, 1st century BC, a statue depicting a Romanized Gaulish warrior wearing mail and a Celtic torc around his neck, bearing a Celtic-style shield. A coat of this armour is often called a hauberk or sometimes a byrnie. It was in common military use between the 3rd century BC and the 16th century AD in Europe, while continued to be used in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East as late as the 17th century. ![]() A European mail shirt.Ĭhain mail is the name (also known as chainmail, mail or maille) of a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. For other uses, see Chain mail (disambiguation).
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