Before the discovery of the Tatar shells, it was believed that the Tatar-Mongols, except for leather armor, had nothing. Franciscan, diplomat and scout Plano Carpini claimed that the armor was supplied to them from Persia. And Rubruk wrote that the Tatars receive helmets from the Alans. But from another source, we see that the local masters of Ulus Jochi have learned to make armor of their own design, Rashid ad-Din writes about this. All of these authors cannot even be suspected of sympathy for the Tatar-Mongols.
The shells of the Tatars were very diverse, but the most common shells were made of soft materials quilted with wool, cotton wool, etc. Such shells were called "khatangu degel", which means "hard as steel." Stripes and plates were made of metal and hard buffalo leather (backbone). Connecting vertical plates with thin leather strips, lamellar armor was assembled, and by combining horizontal stripes, laminar armor was obtained. All the shells were decorated with various embroidery and painting, the plates were polished to a shine. But the absolute innovation for the West was the carapace, on the soft base of which metal plates were attached, they were sewn from the inside out and attached through the skin to an outer covering of thick, durable colored fabric. The rivets stood out brightly against the background of the fabric and were a kind of decoration. This armor was borrowed from China, where it was invented as the secret armor of the emperor's bodyguards. By the end of the XIV century. it was already spread throughout Eurasia and up to Spain. In the Tatar khanates and in Russia, a shell of this type was called "kuyak". Already at the beginning of the XIV century. in the Golden Horde, ring-plate armor was invented. In it, steel plates are connected by steel chain mail.
Turkish Javshan, invented on the territory of the Golden Horde. XV century
There were three types of such a shell: javshan, bekhter and gogyuzlik … Such armor possessed exceptional protective properties and flexibility. Naturally, it was expensive to manufacture, and only noble and wealthy warriors could afford such armor.
Plano Carpini wrote in his HISTORY OF THE TARTARES notes:
“But everyone should have at least the following weapons: two or three bows, or at least one good one, and three large quivers full of arrows, one ax and ropes to pull the guns. The rich, on the other hand, have swords that are sharp at the end, cut only on one side, and are somewhat curved; they also have an armed horse, shin guards, helmets and armor. Some have armor, as well as horse covers made of leather, made as follows: they take the belts from a bull or other animal, the width of an arm, fill them with resin together in three or four, and tie them with straps or strings; on the upper strap, they put ropes at the end, and on the lower, in the middle, and they do this to the end; hence, when the lower straps are bent, the upper ones stand up, and thus double or triple on the body. They divide the horse's cover into five parts: on one side of the horse one, and on the other side the other, which extend from the tail to the head and are tied at the saddle, and behind the saddle on the back and also on the neck; they also put the other side on the sacrum, where the bonds of the two sides join; in this piece, they make a hole through which the tail is exposed, and they also put one side on the chest. All parts extend to the knee or to the lower leg joints; and in front of their foreheads they put an iron strip, which is connected on both sides of the neck with the above-named sides. The armor also has four parts; one part extends from the thigh to the neck, but it is made according to the position of the human body, as it is compressed in front of the chest, and from the arms and below it fits round the body; on the back to the sacrum, they put another piece, which extends from the neck to the piece that fits around the body; on the shoulders, these two pieces, namely the front and back, are attached with buckles to two iron strips that are on both shoulders; and on both hands on top they have a piece that extends from the shoulders to the hands, which are also open below, and on each knee they have a piece; all these pieces are connected with buckles. The helmet is made of iron or copper on top, and the one that covers the neck and throat all around is made of leather. And all these pieces of leather are made in the above way."
He continues:
“For some, all that we have named above is composed of iron in the following way: they make one thin strip, the width of a finger, and the length of the palm, and thus they prepare many strips; in each strip they make eight small holes and insert three thick and strong belts inside, put the strips one on top of the other, as if climbing up the ledges, and tie the above-mentioned strips to the belts with thin straps, which they pass through the holes marked above; in the upper part they sew in one strap, which is doubled on both sides and is sewn with another strap so that the above-mentioned strips come together well and firmly, and form from the strips, as it were, one belt, and then tie everything in pieces as described above … And they do it both for equipping horses and people. And they make it shine so that a person can see his face in them."
We add that the weight of the gold jewelry of the horse harness reached two kilograms, which indicates the wealth of the Mongol nobility. The archaeological materials found in southern Siberia and Mongolia allow us to judge about the richness of horse harness decorations.
The Tatar-Mongols also had domed helmets with a pointed top. They were riveted or knitted from several metal and leather parts. The neck, and sometimes the face, was covered by the aventail made by the lamellar or laminar method. The masters of the East and Eastern Europe borrowed from the Tatars a high thin spire, a visor, metal earpieces and protection of the center of the face with a half mask (part 1 of this article).
Tatar Misyurka - a light helmet found in the area of the Kulikov field, that on the Don - Tanais
“… It is not hard to guess that it was such a helmet that became the prototype of military caps in subsequent centuries - and even in the armies of Western European countries,” writes G. R. Enikeev.
Since the last decade of the XIV century. folding leggings and chain mail legguards with a disc on the knee (dizlyk) began to be widely used. Folded bracers (kolchak) were especially common.
The design of the Tatar-Mongolian shield deserves a deeper consideration, although they did not always use it. It was they who spread this type of construction from China to Turkey and Poland. It was called Khalkha (Kalkan). Kalkan was made of strong, flexible calibrated rods, laid concentrically around a wooden umbil. The rods were interconnected by threads or thin fibers according to the tapestry principle. The result was a convex round shield, woven according to the principle of weaving and decoration of reed mats, only not rectangularly, but concentrically. An iron one was attached to a wooden umbo. In addition to its aesthetic properties, kalkan had high protective properties. Elastic rods sprung and sharply threw back the enemy's blade, and the arrows got stuck in it. Over time, from the Italians who lived on the shores of the Black and Azov Seas, on the territory of the Ulus Jochi, fetters from iron strips were borrowed, this significantly strengthened the shield.
Thus, the Tatar-Mongol warrior and his war horse were not inferior to the enemy in weapons and armor. Although in fairness it must be said that expensive heavy armor was mainly owned by the nobility, as elsewhere at that time. But leather, not inferior to metal, had almost every warrior of the Tatar-Mongol army.
Sources:
Gorelik M. V. Khalkha-kalkan: Mongolian shield and its derivatives // East-West: dialogue of cultures of Eurasia. Cultural traditions of Eurasia. 2004. Issue. 4.
G. R. Enikeev The Great Horde: Friends, Enemies, and Heirs. Moscow: Algorithm, 2013.
Petrov A. M. The Great Silk Road: about the simplest, but little known. Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura, RAS, 1995.
Rubruk G. A Journey to the Eastern Countries of Wilhelm de Rubruck in the Summer of Goodness 1253. Translated by A. I. Maleina.
Plano Carpini, John de. History of the Mongols. Per. A. I. Maleina. SPb., 1911.
Kradin N. N., Skrynnikova T. D. Empire of Genghis Khan. M.: Vostochnaya literatura, 2006.
