This thickly-padded gambeson of cotton and natural cotton felt filler is widely adjustable to size thanks to its leather straps and brass side buckles. The collar is tightened to loosened with the front leather lacing. Due to this gambeson being crafted from organic material it will breathe noticeably better than other artificial poly-fill gambesons.
Gambesons are handcrafted when stitched and constructed so their size will vary slightly – measurements should be understood to be approximations.
A thick, padded jacket common to Medieval and Renaissance warriors, the Gambeson was a protective layer beneath chain or plate armor – it served both as a shock absorbing layer and chafe protection for its wearer. Poorer combatants and lightly-armored archers and skirmishers might wear only the gambeson as their major piece of body armor.
Gambesons first began to be common in the 10th century and were largely intended to be a layer beneath chainmail. By the later years of the Medieval era, it became common for soldiers to wear a substantially thicker gambeson, sometimes called a padded jack, as their main armor. Quilted with many layers of fabric, typically linen, a padded jack could act like a sort of kevlar and give its wearer excellent protection from cuts and slashes. It could even stop arrows in some circumstances. Additional protection could be added to such gambesons with jack-chains, a sort of partial-plate protection which could stop a strong slash from cutting into the shoulders and arms.
SIZING
SMALL
Chest Size: 37 1/4 (94.6 cm)
Length from Neck to Bottom of Coat: 41 (105 cm)
Weight: 6 lb
MEDIUM
Chest Size: 40.5 (102.8 cm)
Length from Neck to Bottom of Coat: 43 1/4 (109.9cm)
Weight: 7 lb 1.5 oz
LARGE
Chest Size: 43 1/2 ( 110 cm)
Length from Neck to Bottom of Coat: 43 1/4 (109.9 cm)
Weight: 7 lb 11.5 oz
X-LARGE
Chest Size: 46 3/4 ( 118.7 cm)
Length from Neck to Bottom of Coat: 43 1/4 (109.9 cm)
Weight: 7 lb 13.6 oz
XX-LARGE
Chest Size: 49 7/8 (126.6 cm)
Length from Neck to Bottom of Coat: 43 1/2 (109.9 cm)
Weight: 8 lbs
Romana –
Great mobility, great protection, great look I am a HEMA enthusiast practicing German longsword fencing. This gambeson (available in black, natural, and red/natural) initially caught my eye due to the side buckle fastening system. The style and the color choice intrigued me, and I bought it nearly on an impulse: the red/while color combination corresponds to the colors of my family and my club. Today I took it for the test fight and loved every minute of it.
To compare with my Absolute Force Pro-Fighter jacket: 1) This gambeson has better padding all over. 2) This gambeson breathes way better due to more natural materials, armpit slits, and poncho-style design. 3) This gambeson offers much better mobility overall. The arms move exceptionally well and the gambeson does not ride up when you go up with your arms. This is the first time I fought in padded armor without having to fight the armor! 4) As it extends down to the knee the gambeson offers great protection for hips and upper legs while allowing unrestricted movement. 5) The high collar offers better neck protection than my AF jacket.
That said, this is what you will need to do if you plan to use it for sparring: 1) Make sure you wear a sturdy belt. It will close the slits on your sides and hold the gambeson tightly together. 2) Replace the token lacing with a strong boot lace. 3) Wear an appropriate standing collar gorget with a bib over the gambeson collar. The collar of my gambeson is 28″ around the bottom seam – you will need to either modify a commercial HEMA gorget with elastic or some such to make it fit (a super easy and cheap modification), or make your own gorget (my leather gorget works really well with the gambeson), or find a steel gorget on this or similar site. Either way you will need to close the collar gap and the lacing. 3) Make sure to wear elbow cups (Spes elbow cups work really well). 4) Forearm protectors and whatever other extra protective gear you would chose to wear for extra safety is up to you. Obviously use a HEMA-grade fencing helmet or equivalent. I found a gorget, elbow cups, and forearm protectors to be quite sufficient additions to the gambeson for steel sword sparring in our club. One thing to keep in mind: Like most gambesons this one has armpit slits. If this feature is a safety concern for you, then look elsewhere. But if not, rock on. I just did and this is why I am writing this overwhelmingly positive review :-)
Klanderud –
Dead mans Gambeson. Side-Buckled Gambeson, makes a very poor sparring Gambeson. The only good point to this Gambeson is its thick. I mean thick, heavy, bulky, almost too thick for adding plate armor on top of it (especially the arms and hands). Since it is heavy you are definitely going to have a nice work out with this and it does cushion a lot of blows.
This is a dead mans Gambeson.
It has too many gaps that will allow a weapon to strike an exposed area. In a standard stance on a side buckle Gambeson exposes your entire side. There is no overlapping.
Underarm is also exposed which is common in Gambeson, there is nothing to protect it. Since it is a side buckle you can’t really add a mail voider set to it.
If you still decide to get this be prepared to rework this Gambeson. But In my opinion just use it to practice your sword strikes on.
Also in a wash the red color bleeds over to the white, which make it look really silly.
It was a headache to rework with but in the end I probably will not use it much longer.