«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 90 n David Nicolle The Geographical Spread of Leather Armour Clearly leather armour was used in many parts of the world during what Europeans know as the Middle Ages. This includes the pre-Islamic and Islamic Middle East. Leather armour and helmets are also said to have been common in T’ang China 1 . According to early medieval Byzantine sources some, and perhaps in reality almost all, Central Asian Turkish or Magyar peoples used leather horse armour. The 13 th century Mongols clearly used leather armour, almost certainly in the form of a hardened leather cuirass according to Carpini who also reported that this armour consisted of “three layers” 2 . Within the Byzantine Empire the new term klibanion seems to have re- ferred to a new form of armour, or at least to an armour which was perceived as “new”. 3 It is understood to have been a lamellar cuirass, first mentioned in the 9 th century AD, which was probably of Islamic or Persian origin, and could be made of iron, horn or hardened leather 4 . Byzantine horse-armour could simi- larly be made of lamellar klibanion 5 , suggesting that the term referred to a form of construction rather than a specific item of military equipment. It is, in fact, widely assumed that there was an increase in the use of leather armour in Byz- antine armies from the 8 th to 10 th centuries as a result of Islamic technological and tactical influence, but that the use of leather armour declined again after the 10 th century. The most visible and undeniable use of hardened leather armour in Western Europe, though not in the form of lamellar, was in late 13 th and 14 th century southern Italy. To a rather less obvious degree leather armour was similarly used in Christian Iberia. Both these regions were in close contact with either the Byzantine or Islamic worlds or, in the case of southern Italy, with both. Further north, hardened leather was used to a lesser degree in France, England, Germany, Poland and perhaps elsewhere. Finally it is worth noting that the earliest western European chamfrons , or armour for a horse’s head, seem to have been of hardened leather and were recorded in the late 13 th century, again probably as a result of Mongol or Islamic influence 6 . 1 Laufer B. Chinese Clay Figures, in Prolegomena to the History of Defensive Armor, part 1. Chicago, 1914. P. 292. 2 Stocklein H. Arms and Armour, in A. U. Pope (edit.), A Survey of Persian Art, vol. III. London, 1939. P. 2558. 3 Haldon J. F. Some Aspects of Byzantine Military Technology from the Sixth to the Tenth Centuries, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies I. 1975. P. 26–27. 4 Ibid ., p. 33. 5 Ibid ., p. 34–35. 6 Nicolle D. Jawshan, Cuirie and Coat-of-Plates: An Alternative Line of Development for Hardened Leather Armour, in D. C. Nicolle (ed.), A Companion to Medieval Arms and Ar- mour. Woodbridge, 2002. P. 179–221 & plates XIII-1 to XIII-45.