Ancient Kevlar

Silk.... yes,, its strong, but bloomin' expensive, when they wore silk under armour, it was just what they wore to stop the armour rubbing on bare skin?...

Multiple layers of silk, yes, I can see that being very strong.

Cotton based armour, can be dismissed, as we got gunpowder before cotton in many parts of the world...
Linen is a good starting point for a cloth based armour, but, can they also try Wool.
I know woollen garments are mostly seen as fluffy warm things, but can you close-knit wool down to a cloth type garment?...

Rope.... can Hemp made cloth be used for the same purposes.
I can answer the "Money for old rope" saying here, it comes from the use of old rope, that would be picked apart when the rope was replaced, and used as caulking between the planks on ships/boats, then covered with tar to make it waterproof.... old rope was still very tough, and they would pay kids to tease it into workable chunks.
I believe it was recycled into a great many things, how about Cloth of some kind?... can it be weaved?...
Is rope on its own inherently "Missile proof", as in, if you wore several strands of thick rope tied together, would it form protective clothing?... enough to stop arrows, maybe a spear?...
And I already know that hollywood lies, you cannot cut rope with an arrow from 500yds away... well who knew?...

I am just running through a few alternatives to Linen here, can anyone else think of anything else?...

They actually went out and got the local police to shoot at the armour (this time worn by a dummy rather than an undergrad). The armour proved to be totally ineffective against bullets.



Yes, although I'm guessing it was also a status symbol (either of the individuals wealth or of the wealth of their lord).

Pilots in WW1 and 2 used silk scarves for much the same reason. They wore shirts with heavily starched collars which could chaff their necks badly - especially in fighters where the pilot had to move their head around a lot. Silk scarves helped prevent this chaffing. (This explaining the popular image of fighter pilots wearing long scarves)



The first ballistic vests used multiple layers of silk glued together, although that wasn't until the late 1800's I think. Might have been a little later.



Wool was used as the padding under hard-armour in Europe in the middle ages. It was fine for helping absorb energy from blunt force impacts, but unfortunately also absorbed water/sweat and provided a home for lice. So you ended up having a cold damp, scratchy material filled with creatures that liked to bite you (and occasionally pass on typhus) next to your skin.

I've dealt with a lot of different dialects and accents of the English language over the years and have heard a lot of weird and wonderful words. Manky isn't one of them, so thanks for adding a new one to my vocabulary

There is a legend from one of our multi-day SCA fighting events that one particular guy overslept, but his armor got up at its usual time and went out and fought without him.

to give you an idea of the condition of our padding; in a typical tournament, I would be in armor for 4-6 hours, and drink about a gallon of water and gatorade - without ever having a pee.

add that to the fact that personal hygiene was one of the concepts that fell out of favor during the "dark ages," and you have a breeding ground for all sorts of nasties.

addendum: to head off silliness, the legend comes from the fact that his armor was designed to provide orthopedic knee support, and it gave him a very distinctive walk - he had loaned his armor to a friend, and it was making his friend walk like he did. - so people saw his armor out fighting like it normally did while he was standing on the sidelines watching.

Actually bathing fell into disfavour thanks to the Black Death. Prior to that most of Europe had some version of a bath house, where people washed in a communal setting. Naturally this was not a good idea when such a contagious and lethal pathogen was knocking around, so the practice stopped.

And the not washing rule was not complete, nor was cleanliness entirely a result of the Victorians. The real reason for increased cleanliness was the British Royal Navy, who first started to clean their ships with a passion that bewildered everyone else. True, they were trying to get rid of the 'noxious vapours' that were thought to cause disease rather than the dirt as such. But the effect was the same. They also insisted on cleaning the crew, who (weather permitting) were washed once a week and it was common for sailors being brought onto a new ship to be given a good scrubbing. Clothing was, likewise, washed at least once a week.

These were the principal reasons why the rate of infection on British men of war was considerably lower than anywhere else, and why if you were injured you were better off staying on the ship than being sent ashore to recover.



In fairness even if you'd wanted to wash your armour chances where that you couldn't, certainly not while in the field anyway. Even a small army had enough problems with finding enough water to drink and cook with without adding washing to that. (And 'right lads, we won the battle after a long hard day of fighting. Now go wash up' wouldn't have gone over well.)

People who have never worn mediaeval armour (or for that matter armour in general) tend not to realise how physically demanding it is. Nor how much you sweat in armour. Indeed, I recall that one of the presenters on the old Time Team series on British TV was fitted in full plate armour. After being astonished at how light the armour really was and how much mobility he had. His next comment, after doing one or two rolls in the armour, was how hot the suit was getting - and that was without the helm in place.

This seems to have been one of the principal advantages of cloth armour - it was a LOT lighter than metal armours and therefore you didn't heat up as quickly. In the area the armour was used (the Mediterranean) this was a major consideration.

Here is an interesting variation of the original myth.

Back when I lived in Utah, state history talked about Orin Porter Rockwell as basically a hitman for the early Mormon church. According to legend, he had a coat made of three layers of buffalo hide. This coat was a gift to him from the 'prophet' Joseph Smith Jr. and was blessed such that as long as Mr. Rockwell wore that coat, he would be protected. So legend has it that this coat was basically bulletproof to firearms of the day, c.1840's. Legend goes further that in that one time he went out on a raid and getting back to safety, he took off the coat and shook it, causing over a dozen balls to fall out from in between the layers of hide.

How realistic is such a story and could it have a basis in fact?

Ok, so you wish to perpetuate a myth.
How easy would it be to hide several dozen musket balls between the layers of hide, and then "Shake 'em loose" where you know it wont be unnoticed?....


Silk, Have been following the myth part time, and have an interesting possible addition.

Paper Glue.
It has been investigated that layers of paper could be used as bulletproof....
At some point, someone suggested the idea of a glue bond to keep the layers together.
Well, someone I know was messing about and got an idea, so has investigated it.

How old is Fibreglass.... and were we the first to invent that technology....
In fact, who were the first to laminate.
Following on from that,
They are theorising that maybe silk was "Laminated" with Glue in a pattern of alternating layers so that one layer # style on top of another would make a star pattern for extra strength.... repeat until strong, using a pliable glue, and "Mould" to shape.
It cant be solid, that wouldnt allow movement of fibres?... or does that matter?....

Of course, one would ask, if this was true, why havnt archaeologists found this yet.
But then again, we only JUST found out whats under Stonehenge?....

Whatever "state" history source you were talking to was full of hot air.

Rockwell, yes, was an incredibly skilled marksman and frontiersman, and someone of his talents was needed as the church was chased from place to place due to mob persecution.

In 1838, anti-Mormon mob violence broke out in Missouri. The local Mormon population was growing so fast that the locals feared the "outsiders" would soon be able to control the ballot box by raw numbers; since most of these Mormons hailed from New England and Western Europe, it was taken for granted that Mormon political domination of the state would mean abolition. The final spark came when a fiery sermon given by church leader Sidney Rigdon which was aimed at a group of "apostate" members was instead mistaken by the non-Mormon populace as a call to arms against the locals.

The first round of fighting came with the Gallatin Voting Battle, where a mob of men tried to keep Mormons living in Gallatin County from voting on election day. When this failed, mobs began to raid Mormon settlements across the state. Church leader Joseph Smith appealed to both Governor Lilliburn Boggs and President Martin Van Buren, but both men dismissed the situation and so the church was left on its own. In desperation, Smith authorized several members to form defensive militias for the sake of running the mobs to the ground.

One of these militias was the "Danites" and was formed by Sampson Avard. Although their instructions only allowed for them to repel hostile forces, Avard led his men - including Rockwell - on a series of retaliatory raids. When Smith found out that Avard was exceeding his orders, he ordered the militia disbanded and excommunicated Avard on the spot. Rockwell and a few others, however, were rehabilitated back into the church.

Things came to a bloody halt after the Haun's Mill Massacre. A few days earlier, the Battle of Crooked River saw a Mormon militia trade shots with a mob who were suspected of having kidnapped individual Mormons. One of the mob members was killed in the skirmish. Said mob member was, in fact, a Missouri state militiaman who had deserted his post to join in the fighting. When Boggs was informed, however, he was told that the Mormons had assaulted a militia unit.

In response, Boggs issued the "Extermination Order" which called for all Mormons living in the state to be killed or driven out. Yes, folks, we had a religious pogrom here in America. Three days later, a unit of state militia rode into Haun's Mill, shot dead 19 men who tried to stop them, gunned down a boy who was too slow in running (his hip was destroyed by the blast), and executed another boy right in front of his mother.

Some time later, someone tried to assassinate Boggs. Although Boggs did not see his would-be killer, he accused Rockwell of the crime on the basis of Rockwell's religious affiliation and reputation. Rockwell was offended by the prospect of being associated with a haphazard shooting attempt, and demonstrated in front of the court that he was too good to have screwed up a hit so badly. Rockwell was later released due to lack of evidence, but the allegations followed him.

Fast forward to 1858. A corrupt federal judge had just been run out of Utah after his servant nearly murdered a man. Realizing that his career would be over if the folks back East found out, the judge wrote a false report claiming open rebellion. President James Buchanan, for reasons still being debated, took the letter at face value and ordered 1,000+ soldiers to the territory. In his haste, he failed to issue notice of intent. When Rockwell and another man - acting as mail couriers - brought news of the impending invasion back to Utah, a panic swept through the territory. As part of the panic, no one sold or traded goods with outsiders.

This left a group of Missouri & Arkansas settlers known as the Francher Party stranded. In order to make faster time, they decided to only carry enough supplies to make it to Utah and planned to buy what they needed for the rest of the trip to California from there. Their origin already made the locals in Iron County leery, due to both Haun's Mill and the murder of church leader Parley Pratt by a lynch mob in Arkansas. Some of the locals - including the local militia - were getting a little trigger-happy, and the abrasive behavior of some of the Party members didn't help any.

The dam burst when the Franchers traded with the local Paiute band. The Paiutes took ill after eating meat from the cattle the Franchers gave them, leading to the Paiute to believe that the Franchers tried to poison them. Although the local mayor was content to wait for church leader Brigham Young's instructions on how to handle the situation (his response: "The Paiutes will do what they will, but you guys stay out of it."), the head of the militia made a deal with the Paiutes. This resulted in what we now know as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Buchanan's "invasion" of Utah was a bust due to the commander - General Albert Sydney Johnston - being an idiot. In a desperate bid to save face, the federal government desperately looked for anything that they could pin on the church as a means of justifying intervention. They got it when a death row inmate sought to save his skin by penning a "tell-all" in which he claimed to have been one of several assassins - including Rockwell - that the church kept on retainer for dealing with enemies and dissidents.

Although the whole affair was provably ludicrous, the federal government - and later, the church's numerous enemies - took the whole matter at face value. Hence Rockwell's reputation as a hitman.

In reality, Rockwell was on occasion deputized by various law enforcement officials because he was such a "professional" about matters. One account, for example, has him saving the life of a sheriff by making a seemingly impossible shot in order to drop a man who was looking to kill said sheriff.* The only blemish on his reputation as a frequent deputy that I know about was when he was put in charge of a prisoner transfer; he claimed that the two men were shot while trying to escape, but by this time his reputation was such that certain individuals tried to insinuate that he simply murdered them.

And while he was a close acquaintance with Joseph Smith, it had far more to do with a friendship that formed well before Rockwell was associated with violence. Believe it or not, Rockwell was also noted for his pious side and (although only barely literate) would sometimes write letters which expressed devout faith.


*The would-be killer was seated on a moving horse and was IIRC at the maximum effective range for the rifle Rockwell was carrying. Despite this, Rockwell lined up a shot off the guy's belt buckle and dropped him with the first shot. Even a modern-day sniper would be hard-pressed to make such a shot. Source: "Stories From The Life Of Porter Rockwell" documentary.

It would depend upon the adhesive used and the nature of the "paper" as well.

IIRC, one of the reasons why it took so long for the macuahuitl to be rediscovered was because so few survived to the present. The weapon consisted of obsidian bits glued to a wooden handle by way of tree sap, and so over time a number of weapons simply deteriorated as the wood and tree sap gave out.