Ringmantle Hand Made Mild Steel Chainmail Hauberk | Butted Round Wire Rings | Short Sleeves and Thigh Length Skirt | Norse Reenactment Gift | RK-1435

Ringmantle is a hand made chainmail hauberk, woven ring by ring in the four in one pattern that has been the standard mail weave in Europe since before the Romans wrote it down. It has short sleeves finishing above the elbow, a wide neck opening and a skirt that falls to mid thigh, split for walking and for sitting a horse. It is built from mild steel round wire rings closed by butting, not by riveting, and the whole difference between those two words is explained plainly further down this page because it matters and because most sellers will not tell you.

Mail is the longest serving body armour ever made. It appears in Celtic burials in the third century before Christ, the Roman army adopted it wholesale, it carried through the entire Viking age and the whole of the medieval period, and it was still being worn under plate harness in the sixteenth century. Nothing else has ever run that long. Ours is woven, closed and finished in a Czech Republic workshop. The belt and the folded gambeson in the photographs are staging and are not included. What was worn over mail and what went under it is set out in our piece on Viking armour.

Specifications

Butted mail and riveted mail, told straight

A mail ring has to be closed. There are two ways to do it. In butted mail the two ends of the ring are simply brought together so they touch, and friction and the tension in the wire hold the join. In riveted mail the ends are overlapped, flattened, pierced and pinned with a tiny rivet, so the join is mechanically locked shut. Historical mail is riveted, almost without exception, and usually alternates rows of riveted rings with rows of solid punched rings.

The difference shows up under a thrust. A spear point or an arrow driven into mail does not cut the rings, it pushes them apart, and a butted ring will spring open under far less force than a riveted one will fail at. That is the whole reason the historical answer is riveted. Butted mail exists because riveting several tens of thousands of rings by hand is enormously more work, which is why riveted hauberks cost several times what butted ones do.

So here is the plain statement. This hauberk is butted. It is not safe for full contact combat, it is not rated to stop a thrust, and it must not be used in any context where someone is going to put a blade into it with intent. It is excellent for display, for costume, for film and stage, for photography and for light reenactment where blows are pulled or not permitted. If you need mail that will take a hit in a fighting line, buy riveted mail and expect to pay for it.

The steel, the ring size and the weight

The rings are mild steel drawn to 16 gauge wire and formed to roughly 9 mm internal diameter, which is the sweet spot for a hauberk of this kind. Smaller rings look finer and drape better but multiply the ring count and the weight of work enormously. Larger rings are quicker to weave but start to look like fencing rather than armour and leave gaps a point can find.

Weight is the thing people underestimate. A hauberk of this cut runs somewhere around 18 to 24 pounds and all of it hangs from your shoulders unless you do something about it. The something is a belt, cinched over the mail at the waist, which transfers a good share of the load onto your hips. That is exactly why every image of a mailed warrior from the Bayeux Tapestry onward shows a belt over the mail, and it is why one is shown in the photographs here even though it is not included.

Mild steel is used rather than a hardenable alloy because mail does not want to be hard. Hard wire is springy and brittle, and rings that shatter are worse than rings that bend. Mild steel rings deform and can be re closed with two pairs of pliers, which is how mail has always been repaired.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the leather. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. Mail itself cannot be engraved, so for this piece we cut your runes or your design into a steel plaque and hang it at the neck, or into the buckle plate of a mail belt if you order one alongside. Tell us which in the order notes, or read the engraving page.

Fit and sizing

Mail has no fastenings and no adjustment. It is a woven tube that goes over your head, so the only sizing that exists is the size it was woven to. This hauberk is cut for a chest of roughly 40 to 50 inches measured over padding, which is a wide range because mail hangs rather than fits.

You must wear something padded underneath and this is not optional. A gambeson or a heavy quilted coat does three things. It stops the rings pinching and pulling your skin and your hair, it spreads the weight across your shoulders instead of concentrating it on two lines of ring, and it does most of the actual work of absorbing an impact, since mail on its own transmits a blow straight through. Order or borrow a gambeson before this arrives. Measure your chest with the gambeson on when you decide whether you sit inside the range.

Care

Mail rusts, all of it, always. There is a traditional answer and it works. Put the hauberk in a stout sack with a few handfuls of clean dry sand or fine gravel, add a splash of light oil, and roll and tumble the sack for a few minutes. The abrasion cleans every ring inside and out in a way no cloth can reach. Shake out the sand and hang the mail to air.

Store it hanging on a broad shouldered stand or laid flat in a breathable bag with an oiled cloth, never in a sealed plastic tub and never in a damp garage. If it does come up with surface rust, the sand tumble takes it straight off. Broken rings can be closed with two pairs of flat nosed pliers and spares are cheap. Our general notes are on the steel care page. The sand tumble and the rest of the routine are set out in caring for chainmail and steel armour.

Made in the Czech Republic

This piece is made by hand in the Czech Republic, in a workshop that still works the old way. The steel is forged, ground, heat treated and finished by smiths who learned the trade from the people before them, and the wood, horn and leather are cut and fitted by hand rather than pressed out on a line. That is also why no two pieces come out exactly the same.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import these pieces ourselves, check every one when it lands and ship from our warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee. Engraving is done here in the United States after the piece arrives, so your runes or your own design go on before it leaves for you.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand made rather than machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. Ring closure, the exact drape of the skirt, the finish tone across the surface and the way the sleeves fall all vary because every ring is closed by hand. The dimensions, the material and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is this mail riveted or butted

Butted. The ring ends are brought together rather than pinned with a rivet. It is the affordable way to make mail and it looks correct, but it is structurally weaker than riveted mail and we will not pretend otherwise anywhere on this page.

Can I wear it for full contact reenactment

No. Butted mail is not safe for full contact combat because a thrust can spring the rings open. Use it for display, costume, film, photography and light reenactment where blows are pulled or forbidden. For a fighting line you need riveted mail.

Do I have to wear a gambeson under it

Yes. Mail without padding pinches, pulls hair, concentrates all its weight on two lines of ring across your shoulders and transmits impact straight through. A gambeson fixes all four problems and every historical wearer used one.

How heavy is it really

Somewhere around 18 to 24 pounds depending on size. That is manageable for a few hours if you belt it at the waist so some of the load goes onto your hips, and genuinely tiring if you let it all hang from your shoulders.

Will it rust

Yes, if you leave it damp or store it sealed. The traditional fix is to tumble it in a sack with dry sand and a splash of oil, which cleans every ring at once and takes surface rust straight off. Do that twice a year and it will outlive you.

How long does it take to ship

Processing is one to two weeks because the hauberk is woven and shaped to order, then shipping is free within the United States. Returns are accepted within seven days of delivery.

What is in the box

• One butted mild steel chainmail hauberk, short sleeved, thigh length
• Care card with the sand tumble cleaning method
• A small bag of spare rings for repairs
• Belt and gambeson shown in the photographs are not included
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

See more in chainmail armor, brigandine and gambeson and viking armor, or read the guides.