Maille voiders or hauberk?

[AnsalonPaladin]

So, if preparing a gambeson or an arming doublet should someone attach maille voiders or just wear a full hauberk over the padding? Is this something that's more dictated by timeline, personal preference, or what? If wearing a long maille hauberk can that restrict your ability to tie plate to your gambeson or did knights start to forgo hauberks altogether once they started wearing full plate? After spending a few weeks around I've come to learn the massive number of misconceptions I had about medieval armor and this is one thing I feel I must know before I start building my kit. I'm of the thought process that I'd like to start with a coat of plates over a hauberk and then work my way up to full plate eventually but I just want to know whether the use of voiders is for utilitarian purposes when attaching plates or not.

[Ian]

This is more complicated a question than you may realize

It's dictated by a few factors.

Maille sleeves start showing up in inventories around 1325 as a separate piece of kit from a haubergeon (a shorter hauberk).  Maille sleeves would be worn in conjunction with paunces (or a maille skirt).  So the option existed from around the second quarter of the 14th century.  So which would you wear?  Well, it probably depended on what else you were wearing, specifically your torso protection. 

If you had no other torso protection, then you would want to wear a full mail shirt, not separate sleeves obviously.

If you had limited torso protection or only protection for the front, you would still want to wear a full mail shirt.  In my kit for example, I have a breastplate with fauld but not backplate.  I do an impression of a gentleman of 1380 - 1415 depending on the scenario of the re-enactment.  I still wear a full haubergeon under all of my plate because otherwise my back would be undefended.

If you have a full torso protection in either the form of a breast and backplate, or a coat of plates that features plates in the back specifically, then you might just wear sleeves instead since the mail would then become redundant.  Even then you may still opt to wear a full shirt underneath. 

For me personally, until I make a shift to getting a full cuirass I would not swap out my haubergeon for sleeves and paunces.  The reasoning is that a well-equipped man-at-arms should be striving to leave no part of his person unprotected within reason.  So you wouldn't intentionally leave a place that's not defended by either maille, plate, or both if you could help it.  So there's no reason to wear anything less than a hauberk if the rest of your harness doesn't already cover the same portions of your body.

By the 15th century when plate was relatively fully developed in coverage, then sleeves or voiders would be the norm.  However, even then we still have evidence for full shirts of maille being worn beneath plate.

Oh and as far as pointing, if your maille is properly fitted to you armor will point directly to it just fine.  I point my arms directly to my haubergeon and it's no problem.

[Ian]

For clarity mail sleeves differ from voiders in that maille sleeves fully enclose the arm, whereas when using the term voiders specifically it is usually meant to mean mail that covers the armpit and portions of the arm where plate gaps.  If you're talking 14th century you'd likely be looking at sleeves, not voiders.  Although full sleeves would persist into the 16th century at least.  True voiders seem to be more of a 15th century thing, whereas sleeves exist from the early 14th century on, overlapping with voiders.

[AnsalonPaladin]

Thank you Sir Ian for your fast and accurate response.

I actually have another question since we're talking about maille...if I have a long shirt with short sleeves (for some odd reason) could I then wear sleeves separately attached through ties, wear a SECOND layer of maille that has long sleeves, or just scrap the thing and sell it for a new haubergeon altogether? I think mine is a haubergeon rather than hauberk because it reaches past my waist but not all the way to my knees. Why did they ever make a sleeveless maille shirt for sale to begin with? Was it that some maille wasn't fully sleeved? I'm sorry for all the questions it's just that my expensive maille shirt seems almost redundant when I see how prolific sleeves were.

[Ian]

I'm not sure I fully understand what you're suggesting.  I wouldn't wear a maille shirt AND separate maille sleeves if that's what you mean.  It could be possible to *attach* maille sleeves to your existing shirt if your comfortable tailoring mail.  I would choose one or the other based on the rest of my armor, my geographic location, and my specific point in time.  If my armor is not fully covering of my torso, I would wear a long-sleeved maille shirt that comes down to mid-thigh (which is exactly what I wear).  If my armor was fully covering of my torso I would just wear sleeves and a skirt.

There are some other specifics too based on locale.  For example, I do English, which means a fitted long sleeve of maille underneath a plate arm harness.  In Italy it would be common to have a short maille sleeve that's a bit baggier that drapes over the arm harness instead of underneath it.  So geography affects the *typical* mail configurations as well.  So if historical accuracy and cohesiveness is your goal, the best thing you can do is get really specific in when and where you want to be because then other things tend to fall into place.  If that's not your goal, then the options are a lot more open based on your personal aesthetic.