Mail (armour)

Mail (chain mail, maille) is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. A coat of this armour is often referred to as a hauberk.

The earliest example of surviving mail was found in a Dacian chieftain's burial located in Ciumești, Romania. Its invention is commonly credited to the Celts, but there are examples of Etruscan pattern mail dating from at least the 4th century BC. Mail may have been inspired by the much earlier scale armour. Mail spread to North Africa, West Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, Tibet, South East Asia, and Japan.

As written by anthropologist and geographer Berthold Laufer,

The origin of chainmail... is to be sought in Iran. The Persian chain mail is an astounding example of the migration and wide distribution of a cultural object over a vast area. Not only is it diffused over India, Tibet, and China, but also over the whole of Siberia... The Arabs and Byzantines transmitted chain mail to Europe; and a share in this movement may be attributed to the cultural exchange between East and West during the crusades.

Herodotus wrote that the ancient Persians wore scale armor, but chain mail is also distinctly mentioned in the Avesta, the ancient holy scripture of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism that was founded by the prophet Zoroaster in the 5th century BCE.

Mail continues to be used in the 21st century as a component of stab-resistant body armour, cut-resistant gloves for butchers and woodworkers, shark-resistant wetsuits for defense against shark bites, and a number of other applications.

The origins of the word mail are not fully known. One theory is that it originally derives from the Latin word, macula, meaning spot or opacity (as in macula of retina). Another theory relates the word to the old French, maillier, meaning to hammer (related to the modern English word, malleable). In modern French, maille refers to a loop or stitch. The Arabic words "burnus", برنوس, a burnoose; a hooded cloak, also a chasuble (worn by Coptic priests) and "barnaza", برنز, to bronze, suggest an Arabic influence for the Carolingian armour known as "byrnie" (see below).

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