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Kremasmata, Kabadion, Klibanion: Some aspects of middle Byzantine military equipment reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Tim Dawson
Tim Dawson*
Affiliation:
University of New England, New South Wales, Australia
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Extract

The material aspect of the Byzantine army is a field which has always been the poor relation of scholarship on its organisation and logistics, and publications of the last decade have unfortunately confused the issue as much as elucidated it. Byzantium had a rich tradition of military literature, in unbroken continuity with the already sophisticated practice of the western empire of Rome. Manuals from late Antiquity to the tenth century provide considerable detail of the equipment a Byzantine soldier should ideally have, and in doing so show in the armed forces of the empire a pragmatic willingness to absorb useful equipment, as much as effective tactics, from its neighbours and enemies. The quality of its equipment must also have been a factor in the remarkable success of the army and navy in preserving the empire as much as they did against so many foes for a thousand years. In view of this, the relationship between the ideals of the manuals and the reality is an important issue, one which demands a laborious search for evidence beyond literary sources. Economic conditions impinged on more than the amount of manpower to be mobilised. They also influenced the quantity and even the very type of equipment that could be supplied to the troops. We shall look here at three items of armour which were essential elements of middle period panoply, the kremasmata, the kabadion and the klibanion with the aim of establishing their nature more precisely.

Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 22 , 1998 , pp. 38 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1998

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References

1. Cf the Joshua Roll, Harbaville Triptych, a triptych in the Shuvalov Collection (Hermitage inv. no. ω 266: Bank, Alice V., Byzantine Art in the collections of Soviet Museums [Leningrad 1985 Google Scholar] plate 123 and pp. 292–3) and many other such pieces of the tenth century; and an eleventh-century icon of Saint Theodore in the Vatican: Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, Ioli, Byzantine Icons in Steatite (Vienna 1985) plate 7 and pp. 99–100.Google Scholar

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13. Several were found in the great mausoleum complex at Achmim/Antinoe in Egypt and are variously held in the Netherlands, Berlin and Lyons. See, for example, Bénazeth, Dominique and Dal-pra, Patricia, ‘Quelques remarques à propos d’un ensemble de vêtements de cavaliers découverts dans tombes égyptiennes’, in L’Armée romaine et les Barbares du troisème au quatrième siècle (Saint-Germain-en-laye 1993) 367–377 Google Scholar. Together with an ivory plaque in the Bargello Musuem, Florence, these make it clear that they were common wear amongst the Lombards.

14. A most exquisite example is held in the Textile Museum, Washington D.C. (inv. no. 3.166), although I am told it was disassembled in 1948 in order to allow the way it was woven as a single piece of cloth to be exhibited. See Shepherd, Dorothy G., ‘Medieval Persian Silks in fact and fancy’, Bulletin de Liaison de C.I.E.T.A. no. 39/40 (Lyon 1974)Google Scholar. Another survives intact in the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA 85.59).See Blair, Sheila, Bloom, Jonathan M. and Wardwell, Anne E., ‘Re-evaluating the date of the “Buyid” silks by epigraphic and radiocarbon analysis’, Ars Orientalis 22 (1992) 1–41 Google Scholar. CMA 85.59 is illustrated on p. 40.

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20. This pattern of a split only up the front of a long garment is well evidenced in civilian dress. The clearest depiction is the Forty Martyrs of the Serpent Church in Göreme. See Nicolle, and Thierry, Michael, Nouvelles églises rupestres de Cappadoce (Paris 1963 Google Scholar) plate 45.

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27. Working in Australia within a re-enactment society. See, for example, Baker, M., ‘Seljuk Arms and Armour’, Varangian Voice 23 (July 1992) 9–15 Google Scholar and for other comparable re-constructive material Sitch, C., ‘A sleeve and shoulder arrangement for Eastern hanging lamellar’, Varangian Voice 33 (July 1994) 17–19.Google Scholar

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31. These weapons were all sharp reproductions of types in use at the same time as the armour. The arrows were tipped with typical Near Eastern pattern conical armour-piercing points of hardened steel, and fired at 20 metres from a composite recurve style bow peaking at 82 lbs at full 33 inch draw.

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35. Published in Istoria tou Ellenikou Ethnous (Athens 1980) IX, 406.

36. An eighth-century stucco statuette from Mingoi near Sorcuk, in the British Museum, and the tenth century Goliath of Aght’amar, and many warriors in the various mss. of Rashid ad-Din’s World History, all wear long lamellar corselets, and there is a fine Mongolian iron lamellar harness in the armoury of the Tower of London. For collected examples see Michael Gorelik, ‘Oriental Armour in the Near and Middle East from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries as shown in works of art’, and Nicolle, David, ‘An introduction to Arms and Warfare in Classical Islam’, both in Robert Elgood (ed.) Islamic Arms and Armour, 30–63 and 162–186 Google Scholar respectively.

37. A klibanion with scale sleeves is clearly shown in a thirteenth-century Syriac gospel in the Vatican (Vat. Syr. 559) see Gorelik, , ‘Oriental Armour in the Near and Middle East from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries as shown in works of art’, in Elgood, (ed.) Islamic Arms and Armour, 52–3 no. 19 Google Scholar, and another in the 10–11th century Smyrna Octateuch (Vat. Gr. 746f. 455r). See Nicolle, David, Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era (New York 1988) 36 and 650 Google Scholar, no. 85f.

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42. In his otherwise helpful article ‘Some Aspects of Byzantine Military Technology from the Sixth to the Tenth Centuries’, John Haldon profoundly misconceives the constructional and functional differences between scale and lamellar (14–15). The degree of flexibility of both scale and lamellar varies dramatically depending upon which construction method is used, but the commonest form of scale is very much more flexible than any form of lamellar. For a wide selection of scales and lamellae see Thordeman, , Armour From the Battle of Wisby 1361, 243–8.Google Scholar

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44. See manuscripts such as Vat. Reg. Gr. IB and its counterpart in Paris, B.N.P. Gr. 139, the ‘Veroli Casket’ in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and sources cited in note 1 above.