The armour of the Warriors of Anglo-Saxon England was the same as that used all over Europe: the coat of chain mail. Known probably since the Bronze Age, the principle of chain mail was simple and convenient. Small, riveted rings of metal, usually about 4/10 of an inch in diameter, were linked together to form a long shirt that reached past the knees. Being loose and flexible – unlike later suits of plate armour – a coat of chainmail could be altered to fit different wearers. Many of the coats Alfred saw had belonged to the wearers’ fathers. They were valuable – ordinary foot soldiers could seldom afford them – and treasured accordingly.
But they had two disadvantages. They became worn and torn, and above all, the large surface area of so many links made them very prone to rust. As the most junior apprentice, Alfred was given the tedious job of cleaning them, so that soon, whenever the owners of these garments appeared, a cheerful cry would go up from the other apprentices: “Alfred! Rust!”
Still, he was happy. The other apprentices had quickly accepted him. Not did Barnikel forget him. Every week he was summoned to the Dane’s Hall for a hearty meal, and though he was only a poor apprentice in a rich man’s house, he felt almost part of the family. He also came to know Leofric’s daughter, who was often there, and so admired her gentle simplicity that by Midsummer he was half in love with her himself.
It was towards the end of June that his life at the armoury began to change. They had been told to produce a dozen new coats of mail. Alfred found this prospect exciting, though the master cursed the short notice and the other apprentices groaned. Before each coat of mail could be begun, however there was one miserable task to perform, and this was to make the wire for the links. How he hated it. A long thin and bar was heated in the Forge to soften it, and then it sent was work through a steel drawer plate with a hole in the middle.
How he hated it. A long thin iron bar was heated in the Forge to soften it, and then it’s end was worked through a steel draw plate with a hole in the middle. The heaviest apprenticed would begin, dragging the rod through the plate; then repeating the process again with another plate which had a smaller hole. And again; and again, so that the rod was stripped and stretched as it came through. But once it was reduced, the latest drawing out was done by Alfred. Holding the thick wire in gripping tongs attached to a broad leather belt around his waist, he would haul himself backwards across the workshop floor like a man in a tug-of-war, until his whole body was aching…..
The making of a coat of mail fascinated Alfred. It was so simple, yet so exacting. First the wire was formed into rings with open ends. This was done by winding it around a metal spindle and then making a cut down the length of the coil. The newly formed rings were then pushed through a tapering hole in a steel block to force one of the ends need to lead to overlap the other. The rings were softened in the Brazier and then, while hot, each was put in a mould and given two taps with a hammer to flatten the overlapping ends. Now, using piercing tongs, one apprenticed punched a tiny hole through the flattened ends. “That’s where the rivets will go,“ he explained. After that, another prised to the ends gently apart so that the rings could be linked together, and tossed into a bucket of oil. “Always use oil,“ the master admonished them. “If you put hot iron in water it goes too fast and becomes brittle.” But what astonished Alfred was, how at the end of this process, the work had been so precisely done that he could never see any difference between the rings. In fact the links really varied by more than 12,000th of 1 inch…
Whereas a tailor could cut and fold his cloth, and armourer had to rearrange the rings geometrically, and this arrangement resembled nothing so much as a knitting pattern. Here, a link would be joined to 5 others instead of four, there, one would be left dangling loose. When finished, however, so close and intricate was the workmanship that it was almost impossible to find the different joins. For several hours an hour, Alfred had watched enthralled as the master showed him how this was done, demonstrating the geometry, the lines of stress, the need for ease of movement in the metal shirt that had already protected fighting men for over 1000 years.
As he worked by lamplight, the master explained: “always rivet the same way, from the outside. You can feel why.“ When Alfred ran his hands over the coat, he realised that the outside was rough, while inside, where the rivets were flattened and which would rest against a leather undercoat, was smooth as cloth. On some of the rivet heads the master with stamp is personal mark. And then the coat of mail was complete.
Or almost. One thing still remained. The iron used by the mediaeval armourer was relatively soft. To toughen it for battle, it had to be casehardened. Now, therefore, the master rolled up the finish garment in crushed charcoal, packed it in an iron box, and put it into the forge. Soon it glowed red hot. “The iron and charcoal interact,“ he explained, “and the iron turns to steel. “But you must not heat it up too long” he warned, “or it gets brittle. You want the outside to be hard as diamonds and inside to remain flexible. Then, having shown him these mysteries of his art, he let the boy go home.
Extract from London - A Novel by Edward Rutherfurd.
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