Maille, or mail, or chain mail (as popular culture and web search engines call it) was the #1 armor from Roman times up through the 14th century, and was still used on the battlefields of eastern Europe and central Asia well into the 20th century. The term "chain mail" is a Victorian misnomer that comes to us from Sir Walter Scott's 1822 novel 'The Fortunes of Nigel'. Many academics and reenactors and academically-minded reenactors prefer to simply refer to linked-ring armor as "mail", but many (myself included) prefer to use the French spelling "maille" just to differentiate the armor from the postal and e- systems. Wikipedia has a good article on maille armor here.

TherionArms is proud to present a wide variety of riveted maille armor: hauberks, haubergeons, coifs, aventails, standards, voiders, and skirts in various types/styles/grades. The various grades are name-ranked with historical titles for convenience, but this does not in any way reflect upon the historical usage.

Aventail(s) are a hanging neck guard of maille mounted to the sides of the face opening and bottom of a bascinet or similar helmet to protect the throat, neck, collarbones, shoulders, and upper chest.

(this is an old discontinued and sold out style of bascinet with aventail, but it's a great picture and it gives you an idea of what aventails look like when mounted on a helmet - and the picture helps break up this descriptive wall'o'text, too).

Here are our currently available riveted aventail styles:

King grade - flat rings, dome riveted, 9mm titanium

Count grade - flat rings, alternating rows of solid and wedge riveted, 9mm 17ga mild steel

Earl grade - flat rings, dome riveted, 9mm 17ga mild steel

Baron grade - flat rings, alternating rows of solid and dome riveted, 9mm 17ga mild steel

Knight grade - round rings, dome riveted, 8mm 16ga mild steel

The crude stock photos above of this aventail will be replaced with fresh pictures soon. If you want to get an idea of what the aventail really looks like, take a look at this butted version (and picture it riveted as described above): Butted maille aventail

Earl grade aventail
discontinued