livinghistory.ie

i have emailed the link from the page in hopes to find out were and when this is from,i really hope i get a response . but if anyone else can find out anything that would be great too

well i have not gotten any answers from the email i sent to the site posted.
i do have another question. was the only difference from kern to galloglaich (in terms of the leine) be the sleeves ? kerns being baggy and open and galloglaich being tight?

Conri wrote:well i have not gotten any answers from the email i sent to the site posted.
i do have another question. was the only difference from kern to galloglaich (in terms of the leine) be the sleeves ? kerns being baggy and open and galloglaich being tight?

Conri,

That appears to be the case from the images available. However, I did post an English source (somewhere on this board) concerning his observations of a Native Irish Chieftan or Lord, who visited court with his Gallowglaich and he describes their clothing exactly as that worn by a Kern (Leine with houplande sleeves and Ionars). Obviously, they were not wearing Actuns and chainmail why visiting England!

thank you finn, so if worn with the drop sleeves i wonder how they put on an Actun or chainmail? made pushed up to shoulders and sleeves tucked in belt maybe?

I think the baggy sleeves are not something you wear under an acton. It just doesn't make sense.

When fighting 'unarmoured', I'll wrap the sleeves around my arms, and close the slit-sleeves of my kern doublet. It stays reasonably flexible, and gives me decent protection on the battlefield (6 layers of heavy linen, plus heavy wool + light lining linen). I'm one of those belivers that the leine was almost a single garment. It wasn't made from underwear-weight linen.

I tried to wrap the sleeves around me, and don my heavy leather aketon. I couldn't really get my arms in, so I slit the arms under the aketon, and re-laced them for more flexibility, room and breathing ability. (seriously, 1.8mm leather aketon + 3cm padding + lining wool + lining cotton == warmth). I still couldn't fight effectively.

Next, I made little buttons on my shoulders, and used that to tie my sleeves to them. Suddenly, my whole torso was cramped and uncomfortable, but I tried anyway. Not smart. Where the cloth bunched, it punched into my flesh during strenuous exercise. Turns out these little buttons work really well in hot weather, when I'm not armoured.

In the end, I just made myself a leine-like garment, without the mad big sleeves. Looks good, is comfortable. And it's my "armoured fighting" leine, so it gets *special* treatment on weekends away - I take it off & air it out immediately after battles, and put on my nice, dry, cool looking baggy leine.

John

the_power wrote:I think the baggy sleeves are not something you wear under an acton. It just doesn't make sense.

In the end, I just made myself a leine-like garment, without the mad big sleeves. Looks good, is comfortable. And it's my "armoured fighting" leine, so it gets *special* treatment on weekends away - I take it off & air it out immediately after battles, and put on my nice, dry, cool looking baggy leine.

John

This seems to make a great deal of sense to me. Good experimental archeology there John.

then why didnt kern have a second leine for battle?
but what you say does make sense

maybe they did!
We don't really know a lot about what anyone from the time period wore, but it is not unreasonable to expect that someone might have more than one set of clothes. Kern (and most soldiers) spent most of their time NOT in battle...

Brendan

Conri wrote:thank you finn, so if worn with the drop sleeves i wonder how they put on an Actun or chainmail? made pushed up to shoulders and sleeves tucked in belt maybe?

That's actually exactly what I do - the voluminous sleeves automatically hitch up to the shoulder and my close-fitting cotún fits on no problem at all - as seen below...

Swifty,very cool, that is what ive thought for a while now, i havent made an actun with sleeves yet but , that looks great man