"Did so many Dark Age/Medieval warriors fight bare handed?" Topic

Just painting up some Conquest Norman Infantry (I like them) and noted that they all seem to be fighting bare-handed (or with extremely thin gloves on). I have noticed it in other figures too. Is that correct? I cannot help thinking leather gloves of some sort – even fingerless ones – would be an advantage. Anyone got any historical evidence?

Leather can get very slippery when covered in sweat – that's why it wasn't used for a sword grip.

Only the negative historical evidence, that the artwork doesn't seem to show gloves nor the written sources to mention them.

What GildasFacit said. Having done more than my share of swinging an axe, chopping wood, bare-handed is the best. Better control, better feel for the work.

The first gauntlets appear as mail reaches the wrist. They were mail mittens, with a leather palm, with a slit in it so that the hand could be removed and the mitten left to dangle if desired. Before that (mid 12th century) it does appear that hands were almost always left bare….

Thanks – that makes sense.

The documentary evidence does seem to suggest that hands were bare until mail mittens were introduced.

Having played around a bit with wooden swords and proper replica shields, I find this strange. The first thing that gets bashed is your fingers! I am sure your Dark Age warrior was far superior in skill to me, but even so I would have thought some sort of protection for the back of the hand was necessary or they would have all been fingerless in minutes!

I get the argument about bare hands providing better grip, but they managed OK in the later Middle Ages when mail, and then plate, hand protection was worn.

I'm with Cerdic. Even a blunt spear can do a lot of damage.

I think that in the "age of shields", warriors used them far more expertly and defensively than reenactors do. Sharp things coming toward your body would utterly change the mentality of taking chances in order to score a "hit"….

Even a blunt spear can do a lot of damage.

I agree. But leather gauntlets such as these that I made are very perishable and not cheap, either in time required or materials, especially for a common warrior who has other RL concerns other than going into battle. Sure, some savvy individuals managed to prepare for that eventuality. But war, when it engulfed the otherwise peaceful lives of villagers, would catch most warriors unprepared in such details. Most would not have effective hand protection. Proper gauntlets are not the same things as work gloves. Without the proper article, the inhibiting aspects of a gloved hand would not be worth the lack of feel and control, and probably invite actual injury thereby.

So there must be a tipping point in this comparison: where a glove of any kind is worse than a bare hand, vis-à-vis inviting possible injury, and a proper gauntlet which reduces sensitivity and control, but more than compensates by providing real protection. As illustration, my gauntlets are of two kinds, the weapon hand, the forward one, and the rear hand, or shield bearing one. Look at the thickness of the weapon bearing gauntlet! That offers real protection even against an acute edge or point….

Its not so much the pierce, its the blunt strike – the one that makes your hand spasm open in shock

My personal experience working with axes etc. has me in favor of gloves in a work environment (once spent 4 hours pounding two 10-inch diameter holes through 10 inches of asphalt using a breaker bar and pick without work gloves and my co-worker and I had the blisters to show for it).

Without a grip surface though based on my experience when the gloves get wet, loss of control and even loosing one's grip on the weapon would be a problem.

Some form of gauntlet on the other hand brings up the question of trading off sureness of grip for protection.

Gloves would be expensive given that most people only owned the clothes they stood up in. Cerdic makes a good point by inference. Reenactors get their hand s hit and it because they are using blunts. Real life Dark Age Warriors must have been much more cautious to avoid crippling injuries to the hands. That would mean hiding behind your shield,bthrowing rather than thrusting a spear and striking when there was an opportunity to do so without being hurt yourself. The Romans whose helmet designs were very protective had very. ineffective protection on their swords. Why did they not inebt quillons? I suggest this is because they stayed behind the curved scutum fending blows until they could dart forward, stab rapidly and retire, If that held they would not be fencing with their swords.nawe know they could have designed protective cover for the hand because gladiator swords had it.

Gloves seem to have been pretty much universal by the 14th Century; Robert I's legislation (which is probably just a re-stating of earlier legislation) requires the men who formed the rank and file of the army to have protective gloves – 'cyrothecas' I think, but I don't have the source material to hand.

Having played around a bit with wooden swords and proper replica shields, I find this strange. The first thing that gets bashed is your fingers! I am sure your Dark Age warrior was far superior in skill to me, but even so I would have thought some sort of protection for the back of the hand was necessary or they would have all been fingerless in minutes!"

This is speculation extrapolating things from the earliest available sources (around 1300), but I think Roland makes a pretty good case. (It takes him about five minutes to get the to shield bit and a bit longer to get to hand protection)

youtu.be/dkhpqAGdZPc