The Celtic warrior of the late Iron Age is often imagined as a heavily armoured fighter, clad in mail from head to foot, and the image of the Celtic warrior in his long mail shirt, the gold torc around his neck, and the crested helmet on his head is one of the most enduring in the popular imagination. The historical and archaeological evidence suggests something rather different. Most Celtic warriors of the late Iron Age went into battle in their tunics, with nothing more than a cloak, a shield, and a helmet for protection, and the heavy body armour of the kind worn by the Greek hoplite or the Roman legionary was the equipment of a small warrior elite. To understand the evolution of Celtic chainmail and body armour is to understand the social structure of the Celtic army, the economics of Celtic warfare, and the practical reasons why most Celtic warriors fought without armour, in the broader context of the equipment of the Celtic warrior and the wider world of Celtic warfare and warriors.
The Earliest Celtic Body Armour
The earliest evidence for body armour in the Celtic world comes from the Hallstatt period of the eighth through sixth centuries BCE, where the rich graves of the warrior aristocracy of the eastern Alps and the upper Danube provide a picture of the equipment of the elite warrior. The earliest body armour was of organic materials — leather, hide, and padded linen — and the famous linen cuirass, a thick padded garment of linen or other vegetable fibre, is described by several classical writers as typical of the Celtic warrior. The archaeological evidence from bog bodies and other finds confirms that padded linen armour was indeed used, and the surviving examples show that the linen cuirass was sometimes reinforced with metal plates or scales sewn onto the fabric.
The scale armour of the Hallstatt period, with small overlapping plates of bronze or iron sewn onto a fabric or leather backing, is also attested. The scale armour of the Hallstatt warrior was a relatively heavy garment, and it was the equipment of the wealthy elite. The princely graves of the late Hallstatt period, including the burial of the Chieftain of Hochdorf in Baden-Württemberg, show that the warrior elite of the period was equipped with elaborate sets of weapons and armour, including scale shirts, bronze helmets, and decorated shields. The use of body armour was, from the beginning, a marker of status as well as a practical protection.
The Development of Mail
Mail armour, the body armour made of interlinked iron rings, was developed in the Celtic world in the late Hallstatt period or in the early La Tène period, and the technique spread rapidly across the Celtic world and into the Mediterranean. The earliest securely dated example of mail from the Celtic world comes from the late fourth or early third century BCE, but the technology was almost certainly in use earlier. The technique of making mail required a high degree of metallurgical skill, and the production of a single mail shirt required the manufacture and linking of tens of thousands of small iron rings, a task that could occupy a specialist craftsman for weeks or months.
The mail shirt, or lorica hamata as it was later known in the Roman world, was the most prestigious form of body armour in the Celtic world of the late La Tène period. The surviving examples from the Celtic world, including the mail shirt found with the helmet and sword at Ciumești in Romania, show the high quality of the Celtic mail-makers’ work. The Ciumești mail shirt, dating to the third century BCE, is preserved with its bronze and iron fittings, and it shows that the Celtic mail shirt of this period was a sophisticated and carefully constructed garment.
The mail shirt was an expensive item. The labour required to produce a single shirt, the iron required for the rings, and the skill of the craftsman all contributed to the cost, and a mail shirt was worth the equivalent of several years’ pay for a common labourer. The mail shirt was, accordingly, the equipment of the warrior aristocracy, and the warrior who wore a mail shirt into battle was a man of rank. The medieval Irish and Welsh heroic literature preserves a clear picture of this social distribution: the heroes of the Táin and the Mabinogion wear mail shirts, while the rank and file of the armies fight in tunics and cloaks.
The Linen Cuirass in Use
The linen cuirass continued in use throughout the Iron Age, in parallel with the mail shirt, and the classical writers describe it as typical of the Celtic warrior. Diodorus Siculus, drawing on Posidonius, describes the Celtic warriors of the third and second centuries BCE as wearing tunics and trousers, and as using a cloak fastened with a brooch, and he specifically mentions the use of the linen cuirass. The Roman writers, who had extensive experience of fighting Celtic warriors, were struck by the lightness of the Celtic equipment, and they noted that the typical Celtic warrior fought with only a shield, a sword or spear, and a helmet for protection.
The linen cuirass had several advantages over the mail shirt. It was cheaper to produce, requiring only the labour of cutting and sewing the fabric rather than the manufacture of tens of thousands of iron rings. It was lighter and cooler to wear, an important consideration in the climate of Gaul and the British Isles. It was more flexible, allowing the warrior a greater freedom of movement. And it was surprisingly effective, the multiple layers of linen providing a substantial resistance to slashing blows and a degree of protection against penetrating thrusts.
The linen cuirass had disadvantages as well. It was less effective than mail against a determined thrust with a good sword, and it was not as durable as mail, requiring repair and replacement after a relatively short period of use. The Celtic warrior who could afford a mail shirt wore it on important occasions, and the linen cuirass was the equipment of the common warrior or of the wealthy warrior on campaign, when the bulk and weight of the mail shirt was a disadvantage.
The Celtic Warrior in Battle
The image of the unarmoured Celtic warrior fighting in his tunic and cloak is the typical image of the Celtic army of the late Iron Age, and the classical writers describe it repeatedly. The Roman writers were struck by the contrast between the heavily armoured Roman legionary and the lightly equipped Celtic warrior, and they used the contrast to characterise the Celtic way of fighting as a matter of individual prowess rather than collective discipline.
The lightly equipped Celtic warrior relied for protection on his shield, his helmet, his agility, and his skill. The Celtic warrior of the late Iron Age was trained to use the terrain, to dodge and weave, to strike from an unexpected angle, and to make the most of his mobility. The unarmoured warrior, paradoxically, was often more difficult to kill than the heavily armoured one, because he was harder to hit and because he could move more quickly on the battlefield. The famous charge of the Celtic war bands, with the warriors rushing forward in a wild rush accompanied by war cries and the trumpets of the carnyx, was designed in part to take advantage of this mobility, and the shock of the charge was often enough to break the enemy line before the warriors had even engaged.
The Roman legionary, with his lorica segmentata and his large shield, was a more heavily protected fighter, but he was also slower and more dependent on the collective formation. The Roman writers, in their accounts of the wars in Gaul, often comment on the fact that the Celtic warrior, even when wounded, would continue to fight with a courage and a ferocity that the Roman legionary, with his formal training and his collective discipline, found difficult to match. The image of the wounded Celtic warrior, blood streaming from a wound, continuing to fight until he was finally cut down, was a stock element in the Roman accounts.
The Disappearance of Celtic Body Armour
The body armour of the Celtic warrior did not disappear with the Roman conquest. The Roman army recruited extensively from the Celtic provinces, and the equipment of the Celtic auxiliary units, including the lorica hamata or mail shirt, was carried into every part of the Roman empire. The mail shirt, in particular, became one of the standard forms of body armour in the Roman army, and it remained in use for centuries.
The Celtic body armour of the post-Roman period, in the early medieval Celtic-speaking world, was simpler and lighter than the Roman-period equipment. The chainmail of the early medieval Irish and Welsh warrior was the equipment of the king and the high-ranking noble, and the rank and file fought in tunics and cloaks. The heroic literature of the period, drawing on the older traditions, preserves the picture of a warrior elite equipped with mail shirts and of a common infantry fighting in lighter equipment, and the social distribution of armour in the early medieval period was similar to the distribution in the late Iron Age.
Related Topics
- The Celtic weapons and armor of the warrior elite
- The battle tactics of the Celtic armies in which the armour was used
- The Celtic metalwork and jewelry of the armour fittings
- The Celtic art and craftsmanship of the warrior elite
- The history of the Celtic civilization provides the broader context