And the young messenger said: “Look, This is a shirt: sleeps in it from dawn to dawn
My lady. And you take away
Shield, chain mail and helmet, and soar with your soul, And work wonders in this linen shirt, You fight like heroes fight, Cover yourself with glory or … die."
The knight takes the shirt without hesitation.
He pressed the gift of the young maiden to his heart: “Ladies order
I will do it, - said, - and show it to everyone, I will fight without armor, fearing nothing, But if I don't die this time, The hour will come for the lady."
Walter Scott. The ballad of bloody clothes
Clothing culture. We continue our story about the clothing culture of different peoples of different historical eras. The theme of Japan will continue. Only now it will not be about kimono, but about how samurai were equipped for battle. This topic is interesting in itself. But it becomes even more interesting if we compare the Japanese and the Europeans, that is, we look at how the knights of the West were equipped for the battle, and only after that we turn to the samurai. After all, the most interesting information is of a comparative nature. Indeed, where there is nothing and nothing to compare with, correct conclusions simply cannot be expected. Well, as illustrations we use drawings from the book by David Nicolas "Medieval knight" (L., Reed Educational and Professional Publication Ltd., 1997), illustrations from Mitsuo Kure's monograph "Samurai" (M., AST, Astrel, 2007) and photographs from the funds of the Tokyo National Museum.
How do we know what knights wore under chain mail and armor? But we know, although it is clear that the underwear did not reach us, and very few chain mails from the same XII century have come down to us. But there is embroidery of the famous Bayesque canvas, there are miniatures of the "Bible of Matsievsky" (all of them have already been cited in my articles on "VO" devoted to knightly weapons, so we will not repeat them), and from them it is clear that at first there were no special clothes under the knights did not wear chain mail. Apparently, the very wearing of chain mail had a certain magical meaning for them, which came from the depths of centuries.
Well, now let's look at the first two drawings by D. Nicolas, just referring to the knights of the XII century, the era when in the same Japan the plate armor o-yoroi, most of all similar to a four-sided rigid box, already dominated.
The XIV century came, the era of chain-plate armor, extremely well reflected on the effigies (there was also about them on "VO", and more than once!), And it became more expensive and at the same time more difficult for the knights of Western Europe to dress.
Well, now that we have looked at the Western European knights, let's be curious about how mountain samurai were equipped for battle. And here everything will turn out to be not at all as simple as it is written about it on many sites, and even in books. And there it is written that the armor of the samurai was much lighter than the European ones, that the samurai could easily put on and take them off without outside help, in a word, he gave his European counterpart a hundred points ahead! However, was it really so? Let's see…
However, this was not all, although it can be said that with a short sword the samurai was already actually dressed!
Their characteristic box-like shape is evident. It was difficult to get a mortal wound in such armor. Of course, they defended better than the European chain mail worn on the gambison, but putting on the armor was a long and difficult business, requiring several people to participate in this process. In addition, the battle of warriors in such armor often ended with the fall of one of them to the ground. Then the enemy's foot soldiers rushed to the fallen one in order to hit him with short wakizashi swords in the unprotected parts of the body. It is clear that his retinue was in a hurry to help the fallen man, a fight began "for the head" of a still living person, and in this situation, bulky box-like armor only prevented him from getting up, and even about throwing them off and saving himself in case of something light, even and there could be no question. But for the soldiers of Europe, throwing off their chain mail was as easy as shelling pears!
Since the moment firearms began to be used in Japan (and this happened in the middle of the 16th century), armor has also changed. Now they began to be called tosei-gusoku ("new armor"), and they also had to be worn somewhat differently than the old o-yoroi. Let's look at the most important differences of this "process", and at the same time at the most intimate parts of the clothes of the then samurai.
Here is a samurai putting on an etchu-fundoshi loincloth. Its length could have been 1.5 m. Now (on the left) a lower kimono is put on, then (in the center) hakama pants with a length slightly below the knees. This was followed by tabi socks and kahyan greaves. The shoes were now completely different - waraji straw sandals, which were beneficial in that they did not slip on soggy ground (1). Over the windings, suneate leggings made of metal strips connected by chain mail were fastened. Then they put on haidate legguards, which were also fixed under the knees. True, now they were buttoned up there. Now (in the center) it was necessary to put on the yukage glove, but then only one - the right one! The kote bracers are now two. And often they were connected to each other by a kind of armored vest - manju-va (on the right). But to protect the neck and chest, an uva-manjira collar (left) was worn (2). Then they put on a cuirass with shoulder pads (the samurai himself could have done this), and it was tied on the side, so that here, too, it was possible to do without a servant. The mask was also worn by the samurai himself, as was the helmet, which was the last to cover his head. It turns out that those who consider Japanese equipment more convenient than European equipment of the same time are wrong. The abundance of cords led to the fact that they were packed with dirt and insects that annoy the samurai, and it was not easy to clean the lacing. Armor with cords (even tosei gusoku, where they were used to a minimum) got wet easily, froze in the cold, and the cords broke. It was impossible to take off the frozen armor, just as it was impossible to put it on! And without the help of servants, it was almost impossible for a samurai to put on classic Japanese armor.
If you really want to undress a samurai or dress him … Today, a lot of samurai figures are produced in a scale of 1:12 and 1: 6. There are a lot of firms that produce such "soldiers": Hot Toys, Damtoys, Coomodel, Soldier Story, DID, Phicen and others. The bodies of these figurines, especially the latest releases, are made of silicone and look real, as do their faces and hair. The hands are removable, and there are several of them in sets in different versions. The clothes are beautifully sewn, but the most wonderful thing about them is the weapons and armor. Their weapons are metal, with a hardening pattern on the blades, and the parts of their armor are somewhere plastic, but painted like metal, and somewhere they are metal. Horses in full equestrian equipment, typical for noble samurai, are also produced for the figurines. True, the price of people and horses is not at all a toy, but there's nothing you can do about it.
P. S. Photos of samurai figurines are provided by gsoldiers.ru.
