Ring armour (ring mail) is an assumed type of personal armour constructed as series of metallic rings sewn to a fabric or leather foundation. No actual examples of this type of armour have ever been found on European archaeological findings. It is sometimes called ringmail or ring mail. In the Victorian era the term "mail" was used for any form of metallic body armour. Modern historians reserve the term "mail" for chain mail and its varieties, specifically an interlinked mesh of metal rings.
The Bayeux Tapestry depicts some of these methods and this has been misinterpreted as different types of armour. It is generally acknowledged today that virtually all the armour on the Bayeux Tapestry is standard chain mail and not "ring mail" or "trellised mail" or "mascled mail" or any other Victorian construction.
Read more about Ring Armour: Theoretical Construction, Schiessjoppe (eyelet Doublet), Ring Mail in Asia, External Images
Famous quotes containing the words ring and/or armour:
“He will not idly dance at his work who has wood to cut and cord before nightfall in the short days of winter; but every stroke will be husbanded, and ring soberly through the wood; and so will the strokes of that scholar’s pen, which at evening record the story of the day, ring soberly, yet cheerily, on the ear of the reader, long after the echoes of his axe have died away.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude,
Nor sorrow discontent:
That man needs neither towers
Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder’s violence.”
—Thomas Campion (1567–1620)