Palewarden Hand Made Linen Gambeson | Natural Undyed Cloth Over Wool | Channel Quilted Body, Tall Standing Collar and Cord Loop Lacing | Viking Gift | RK-1475

Undyed is the honest colour for an arming coat. Dyestuffs were expensive and a garment that lived under mail was never meant to be seen, so the vast majority of gambesons and aketons in the medieval record were left in the natural colour of the cloth. That is what this one is: a pale, faintly warm oatmeal, quilted in vertical channels through a wool batting, with a tall standing collar and a centre front closed by cord loops running through metal eyelets. It looks the way a working arming coat actually looked before anyone decided armour should be photogenic.

It is cut and sewn in the Czech Republic. The body and sleeves are quilted through in narrow parallel channels, the hem drops to mid thigh with side vents cut in so you can walk and sit, and a small stamped rune tab sits at the throat. The wooden dress stand, the coil of cord and the leather belt in the photograph are studio props and are not part of the order. What Norsemen actually wore, and how the padded layer under it worked, is set out in our piece on Viking armour.

Specifications

What a gambeson is doing under armour

Armour stops a blade. It does not stop force. A sword that fails to cut through a mail shirt still delivers everything it had into the body underneath, and mail rings pressed hard into unpadded skin do a great deal of damage on their own. The arming coat sits between the two and turns a sharp, concentrated impact into a broad, slow one. That is the entire principle, and it is the same principle a modern helmet liner works on.

There is a second job that matters just as much on an event day. Armour needs something to grip. Mail worn against a linen shirt slides all over the torso and ends up bunched at the waist. Plate worn against a shirt rocks on the shoulders and chafes the collarbones raw. A quilted coat gives every piece above it a stable, high friction surface to sit on, which is why a harness that fits over a gambeson feels solid and the same harness over a t shirt feels like it is falling off you.

The tall collar on this one is not decorative. It fills the gap under a helmet, keeps a mail coif off the neck, and stops the top of a breastplate cutting into the base of the throat when you look down.

Cloth, filling and lacing

The shell is a natural cotton and linen cloth left undyed. Undyed cloth shows dirt, and that is authentic and worth saying out loud: a working arming coat looked used within a season. It brushes clean and it takes a spot wash, but it will never look factory fresh after a muddy field, and it is not meant to.

The filling is wool batting rather than synthetic wadding, because wool recovers its loft after being crushed under a mail shirt all day and it stays warm when it is damp. Synthetic filling packs down permanently and stays packed.

The front closes with cord loops through eyelets rather than buttons or a zip. Loops are quick, they are period correct, they let you set the tension differently at chest and waist, and if a lace breaks you can replace it in the field with any length of cord. Every eyelet is set through a reinforced facing so the pull is taken by a doubled edge and not by single layer cloth.

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. On this coat the rune tab at the throat is the piece that carries it, and your text replaces what is shown. Full details are on the engraving page.

Fit and sizing

Send four measurements and we will build to them: chest at the fullest point, natural waist, back length from the base of the neck to the waist, and arm length from the shoulder point to the wrist. Tell us your height as well, because the skirt length is set from it.

Be specific about what goes over the top. This coat is cut to sit close so that mail and plate above it stay where you put them. If you order it loose because loose sounds comfortable, everything you wear on top of it has to grow to match and the harness starts to shift. If you plan to wear it as an outer garment with nothing over it, say so and we will cut a fuller body and sleeve. The cord lacing gives roughly two inches of adjustment across the chest.

Care

Air it after every event before it goes into storage, because a damp quilted coat left folded will mildew and the smell does not come out. Spot clean with cold water and a mild soap and brush the surface with a stiff clothes brush to lift dry dirt. Do not machine wash it: the batting bunches inside the channels and the padding never recovers evenly. Hang it on a wide hanger or lay it flat rather than using a thin wire hanger that distorts the shoulders. Because the filling is wool, store it with a cedar block or a lavender bag rather than sealed in plastic, which traps moisture and invites mildew. Replace the cord lacing with plain cotton cord of the same diameter when it frays. Scale and lamellar fail differently from mail, which we compare in chainmail versus plate versus lamellar.

Made in the Czech Republic

The work behind this piece happens in a Czech Republic workshop that has kept to the old methods. Steel is forged and heat treated by hand, the grind is taken down by eye rather than by machine, and the handle, fittings and sheath are cut and finished one at a time. Because of that, every piece carries small marks of the hand that made it.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import direct, check each piece when it reaches us, and ship from our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse. Engraving is added here in the United States after arrival, so the piece you receive is finished to your order.

A note on handmade variation

This coat is hand made, not machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. Channel spacing, the exact shade of the undyed cloth, the loft of the batting and the stand of the collar all vary a little, because each one is cut and sewn by hand from natural materials. The dimensions, the material and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Will this fit under my mail shirt?

It is cut for exactly that, but it adds an inch to an inch and a half all round. If your mail is already snug over a shirt, it will be tight over a gambeson.

Why is it undyed?

Because that is what most arming coats were. Dye cost money and nobody could see the garment under a hauberk. It will show wear and dirt, which is authentic.

Is the collar too high to wear a helmet with?

No. The collar is set at four inches specifically so it fills the gap beneath a helmet rim and keeps mail off the neck. If you want it lower, tell us at the time of ordering.

Can I wash it?

Spot clean and air it only. A machine wash bunches the wool batting in the quilt channels and the padding does not come back.

Is it warm enough to wear alone in cold weather?

Very. A quilted wool filled coat is a serious winter garment on its own, which is one reason so many soldiers wore nothing else.

How long before it ships?

One to two weeks of processing because it is cut to your measurements. Shipping inside the United States is free and returns are accepted within seven days.

What is in the box

• One channel quilted gambeson in natural undyed cloth
• Cord loop lacing fitted through reinforced eyelets
• Spare length of cord lacing
• Stamped rune tab at the throat, or your own engraving in its place
• Care and storage card
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

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