shield

Researchers working in historical disciplines (history, archaeology, art history, legal history, theology) can draw on a source base that has grown in varying degrees. Nevertheless, source material especially for older periods remains incomplete, difficult to access or fragmentary. New insights into performance in a historical context of use - additionally to the fruitfully and carefully conducted ethnological comparison - are to be gained by supplementing, reconstructing and experimentally testing only fragmentarily preserved material or/and described evidence under historical conditions. Beyond the individual object, such reconstructions have epistemological relevance if they are methodologically controlled and verifiable.

This study was undertaken to gain an understanding of the effectiveness of mail armour in protecting horses against arrow shot, and to assess the circumstances in which such armour might play a useful role. Since the protection given by mail is largely dependent on the thickness of the underlying padding, a preliminary step was to estimate the maximum thickness of padding that could be worn by the horse...