Q: Was Imrahil’s Vambrace Made of Metal?
ANSWER: There is absolutely no evidence in any published Tolkien text that Prince Imrahil wore a metal vambrace. Nonetheless, people continue to cite the vambrace as proof that some forms of metal plate armor were used in Middle-earth.
Tolkien made frequent mention of metal armor. Chain shirts abound everywhere. And astute readers have pointed out some interesting armor references on non-Numenorean characters.
But 15th century Medieval or Renaissance plate metal armor simply does not exist in Tolkien’s fiction. The vambrace in question was worn over a chain shirt. Chain shirts were developed around 300 BCE, give or take a few decades. The Romans and other powerful empires used them, as did the Celts and some wealthy Germans. Chain armor remained in widespread use up through the 1200s. In the 1300s we start to see transitions to plate armor, although soldiers were not clanking around the landscape in the full suits most people think of (those were used primarily for jousting).
The etymology of vambrace is very simple. It originated with two French words: avant, meaning “before or in front of”, and brace, meaning “arm”.
Metal vambraces did indeed replace leather vambraces in later centuries but the transition was gradual. In some places soldiers started lengthening their brace defenses and adding metal joints. But Tolkien never mentions any such elaborate armor in his fiction. He kept it simple and generic.
Imrahil’s metal plate vambrace is merely a product of wishful thinking on the part of people who have convinced themselves there must be some sort of full plate armor in Middle-earth. They are probably heavily influenced by all sorts of art, not the least of which would be John Howe’s.
While the idea that Imrahil was wearing plate armor over his chain shirt will probably never go out of fashion, Tolkien would have described something so distinctive among Gondorian arms and armor as he had described many different types of weapons and soldiers who went to Minas Tirith. And then there is the armor he mentions for other cultures.
The picture you see above, of an Anglo-Saxon warrior’s kit from the Battle of Hastings (1066), is representative of a collection of pictures from photographer Thom Atkinson the Telegraph published in 2014. You can see a larger version of that picture in the Telegraph’s slideshow here. And this is the original story with which the slideshow is associated.
Atkinson also photographed a kit from the storming of Jerusalem in 1244. In neither collection do you see anything like a vambrace, much less one made of metal plates or even metal strips attached to leather (as I have seen in some fantasy or replica armor collections).
It’s not easy to find authoritative sources on these kinds of topics that people will trust. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of forums where fantasy re-enactors and enthusiasts discuss all sorts of strange and bizarre armor customs. A lot of the people who make replica armor do research the sources for their works but the demand for fantasy-inspired arms and armor is immense. You can occasionally find an older Website like this one that discusses true historical armor in context but not in quite the detail required to settle questions like that about Imrahil’s armor.
The basic replica armorer is just not someone who is qualified to speak for J.R.R. Tolkien. In fact, no one is qualified to speak for J.R.R. Tolkien. He gave us the words he gave us, nothing more, and those words don’t include any descriptions of the kind of plate armor (or plate vambraces) people want to put into the stories retroactively.
You might as well be arguing that Tolkien’s Elves had pointed ears (they did not). There is Tolkien’s fantasy and then there is other people’s fantasy. There are no metal vambraces in Tolkien’s fantasy.
See also:
- What Kind of Armor Did Tolkien Dwarves Use?
- Did the Knights of Dol Amroth Fight with Lances?
- How Did Tolkien Envision Gondorian Armor?
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I’m confused. In “The Return of the King”, chapter “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”, Eowyn is brought back to the city after striking the Witch King. Prince Imrahil marvels that a woman has joined the battle.
“… And he held the bright-burnished vambrace that was upon his arm before her cold lips, and behold! a little mist was laid on it hardly to be seen….”
If Imrahil’s vambrace isn’t made of metal, what the heck other material can be burnished and can show mist from someone’s breath?
Burnished leather. In fact, a lot of different surfaces can show mist from someone’s breath but leather does just fine. I stopped wearing leather watchbands a long time ago because they had an affinity for moisture.
Well, it doesn’t say it’s leather either. An argument that his vambrace is made out of leather is on just as shaky ground (it seems to me) as one that claims it’s metal, or some other material.
My assumption was always that it was metal. But I’m not very familiar with the breath-viewing abilities of burnished leather either.
I didn’t say above that it had to be a leather vambrace. But people are far too easily dismissive of the leather option (which is more historically common).
If you ever have the opportunity to look at polished leather saddles, do so. If you can get close enough to breathe on one, try it. Maybe you will see the moisture, maybe not. But it’s hardly an uncommon thing. I also have some experience with horses and I know someone who used to make saddles. He polished the leather for his elite clients.
As for why the vambrace would more likely be made of leather than plate metal, there is a LOT of evidence of the widespread use of leather in the texts including books, belts, boots, scabbards, flasks, Frodo’s “soft shirt of leather” underneath his mail, Gimli’s cap of iron and leather, Merry’s leather tobacco bag, the leather jerkin that Eowyn gave to Merry, and Frodo’s leather Orc tunic and black leather cap with iron hoops. What were the quivers that the archers from the Green Hills made of? Tolkien doesn’t say they were made of leather but what would you assume they were made of? And what about Legolas’ quiver from Lothlorien? What about the quivers of Mablung and Damrod? Tolkien never says any of the quivers were made of leather or cloth. But ask most people what they think the quivers were made of and they’ll probably tell you leather. In this case the use is equally ambivalent (quivers can be made out of wood, cloth, leather, leaves, and other materials).
There are plenty of iron helmets and caps and yet leather is almost ubiquitous throughout the story. But plate iron armor for other parts of the body? Narry a one besides the helmets and caps is mentioned. There are no visors, no aventails, no mail coifs, no sallets, no barbutes, no armets, no burgonets, no gorgets, no brigandines, no cuirasses, no pixanes, no plackarts, no faulds, no culets, no couters, no spaulders, no pauldrons, no gardbraces, no rerebraces, no besagews, no gauntlets, no chausses, no poleyns, no schynbalds, no greaves, no cuisses, no sabatons, no tassets, nor even any clear and explicit lames (although some people argue there are references to them), no doublets, and no rondels.
It is not enough that Tolkien uses “leather, leather, leather” and “vambrace” to justify the assumption that it must be an iron vambrace. My objection is not to the historical use of the word or Tolkien’s ambiguity; it is to the wholly unjustified certainty with which people point to the vambrace as proof of plate armor in Middle-earth. The vambrace neither proves nor disproves anything. It is a vambrace and so far as we know it only need be burnishable and capable of capturing the moisture from a person’s breath. Both leather and metal can do that.
With so many pieces of “plate” armor to draw upon, why does the vambrace have to be a full plate item? Tolkien’s use is ambiguous. You can equally argue on the basis of the word alone for a solitary leather piece, leather with attached strips of metal, or just metal. And yet everything else in Middle-earth’s arms and armor is simple, generic, and easily fits into historical periods ranging from thousands of years ago to a thousand years ago or less.
So why with this one word do people insist it MUST be a reference to an item of plate armor? Both leather and metal can be burnished to the point it will collect the moisture from a person’s breath.
Greaves are mentioned as part of the armor that the Noldor of Gondolin made.
The Helm of Hador had a visor.
Those are references in the Silmarillion (or The Book of Lost Tales, and anything to do with Gondolin is hugely suspect). What kind of armor do Gondorians use at the end of the Third Age? Mail. Beyond that we have absolutely no references to any type of plate armor other than helms. The vambrace by itself cannot prove anything about the use of metal plate armor in Middle-earth. It’s a vague, ambiguous word and nothing else in the stories qualifies it sufficiently to show that it is or must be a metal plate vambrace. As I mentioned in the article, that is all just wishful thinking. Tolkien did not include that in his story.
Just recalling other references to metal armour pieces -perhaps a mail coif or a gorget- in Tolkien’s works… Did not one of the main Dwarven leaders die in the Battle of Azalnubizar with his neck broken by an axe-stroke though his neck-armour resisted the blow?
I agree with you in full about people being too enthusiastic about metal plate armour abounding in Middle Earth – but in the specific issue of Imrahil’s vambrace I find the most reasonable thing to assume it was a metal one.
Great article as ever, anyway.
Whether you can find an example of something like an aventail in The Silmarilion or not is irrelevant to whether Imrahil’s vambrace was made of leather, leather and metal, or just metal. An equivalent argument would be to say that because Shadowfax was a pale horse Imrahil’s horse must have been an American Pinto. The one has nothing to do with the other. To prove what Imrahil’s vambrace is made of one must find a Tolkien text that speaks of the construction and/or materials for Imrahil’s vambrace, and nothing else.
Thanks for the reply. Coming here again and seeing my comment, I realized it might have an unintended snarky tone. Your logic, of course, is sound, and I’m in total agreement that there’s a bit too much (unfounded) plate in many folks’ imaginings of Middle-earth.
I wonder why that’s the case. I guess there’s a certain popularity to the ‘knight in shining armor’ image. And if nothing else, Tolkien’s language in the Return of the King seems to reinforce a later medieval imagining – no references to material, per se, but talk of fiefs and knights, and the generally more ‘old fashioned’ register, seems to reinforce that type of setting.
Interesting stuff, though – I enjoy all your articles!
I sort of picture The Knights of Dol Amroth as looking a bit like Byzantine katapractoi crossed with Anglo-Norman 1st Crusade knights. As such a metal vambrace (in this case, splinted over leather) would be appropriate with a mail shirt (or hauberk). We know that such metal vambrace and greaves were used by kataphractoi as early as the 8th Century (IIRC). Other cultures that had a kataphracts (like the Sassanids) also used similar armor. The Varangian Guard are sometimes depicted as wearing a similar setup: mail hauberk & chausses/pants with splinted vambraces & greaves.
There is no right or wrong about how one chooses to picture the characters in the text or the way they appear. But to state as a fact that the vambrace is made of metal (which most people do) is completely wrong because Tolkien doesn’t say it’s made of metal. We could just as easily say it was made of some Numenorean hybrid material for which Tolkien provided no name. It’s the fallacy of the logic behind the assumption that is the problem in all this. If you look at the hundreds or thousands of discussions across the Internet about plate (metal) armor in Middle-earth, the vambrace is always mentioned as proof that Imrahil was wearing some sort of plate armor.
Technically, you can make “plate” armor out of leather. The Greeks, the Romans, and their enemies did it for centuries. The underlying assumption that Imrahil is wandering around the landscape with the only piece of iron plate armor in Middle-earth is just absurd. You can no more prove it is a plate of iron or mithril armor than that it is a plate of leather or even pressed, glued linen (which is what Alexander the Great and his Kompanion cavalry wore).
It’s a “vambrace”, which is a generic, ambiguous thing without the precise detail required to inform the reader of what it was made. That Tolkien called it a vambrace in no way implies that it had to be made of metal. It’s forgivable that the majority of modern readers don’t know enough about the history of arms and armor that they would assume, upon learning what a vambrace is used for, Tolkien was somehow implying the thing was made of metal. We are inundated with silly medieval knight-in-plate-armor tropes (although that classic suit of armor stereotype is really from the Renaissance rather than the medieval people) all our lives. But it is unquestionable that Tolkien knew where the word came from and what it was used to describe and that he would have understood and appreciated its ambiguity.
It is also notable that “vambrace” is one of the very few French words Tolkien used in his fiction for anything of significance. We will never know why he chose to use “vambrace” over “bracer” (both mean the same thing and come from similar roots) but his choice by itself without his reasoning or some context provided by the author informs of us nothing because the word has no precise meaning other than “a covering for the arm”.
Oh believe me, I know all too well about the arguments over Imrahil’s armor. If its not the vambrace its the use of the word harness in the description of the Knights of Dol Armroth that is trotted out. Never mind that Baldor’s remains are described as being “clad in mail, and still his harness lay there whole”. People have this tendency to ignore the evidence for mail in favor of plate no matter how much you point to nary a bit of plate being in The Lord of the Rings.
(I refer to my previous commentary). I think you are missing my point here. I was referring to your own commentary about other pieces of metal armour being mentioned in Tolkien’s world, as a gauge of how right or wrong it would be to think that Imrahil’s vambrace said would have been made of metal.
As there are plenty of them (the one I mentioned before, the ones other people have mentioned, and others yet as the famous metal faces in dwarven helms), in my opinion it is not so irrational to think that Imrahil’s vambrace were of metal… Specially, when for the use it was mentioned (mirror for breath) a metal one is far more feasible and plausible than a leather one… After a battle, all dirty, it would have been far easier to use something of metal than something of leather to try and find breath vapor… Why not use your knife and stubbornly clean a leather piece till it can do the same work?
You’re missing MY point. The fact that Gandalf stands outside the gates of Moria and says “Mellon” to open them doesn’t mean any other gate in Middle-earth would be opened the same way.
Worse, you’re using The Silmarillion or The Book of Lost Takes to support an argument about the nature of an ambiguous object in The Lord of the Rings. Imrahil’s vambrace is not found in either of those books nor connected to any of the objects you mention.
There is just no point in mentioning those things. They are irrelevant to the nature of Imrahil’s vambrace. Tolkien did not say or imply how it was made. Without a clear reference from him on the subject none of these arguments can be proven correct or wrong. EVER.
Especially since Eowyn was unconscious and not actively trying to get a mist on the vambrace.
A vambrace made out of metal is still far away from full plate armour.
No doubt about it. And for sure, we all agree that’s the key point of the article.
The only reference to any sort of armor that may have connection is this one:
“His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood.” This is of course description of the Haradrim soldier. There may exist other elements of armor besides the in-famous vambraces, Orcs for instance are said to have some sort of iron collar to protect the neck and iron-shod boots so there may exist among free peoples.