Weaves, Variants, Constructs & Units | Weave Count: 92 Weave Families: 8 Weave Forms: 4 |
According to the Maille Artisans International League (M.A.I.L.), a weave is defined as:
There has been some debate in the chainmail community concerning what constitutes as an actual weave, and the true meaning of the word. Terms such as 'variant', 'construct', 'structure', 'unit', 'web', etc. have come up on different occasions. In all fairness, the stated number of weaves on this website is a bit misleading. For the sake of completeness, this website includes any weave, variant, structure, construct, unit, etc. which contains a distinct ring connection pattern, regardless of whether it is a true weave and where it logically fits in. That being said, there are several of what I consider "junk" weaves, and I will refrain from adding any of these to this website. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter if something is technically defined or classified as a weave, variant, or whatever. It matters that it is a unique ring connection method which forms something beautiful, which, in many cases can be used in certain applications. In order to make this website more intuitive in regards to weave orgainzation, weaves can be sorted in a few different ways, in accordance with certain characteristics that individual weaves possess.
A weave can be classified by any one of a few different characteristics. Two of the longest used classification methods in the study of chainmail weaves include family, and form.
The idea of sorting weaves by family seems to have been around since chainmail became more widespread through the use of the Internet. It started off with the distinction of European and Japanese weave families, which are based on ring connection methods used in armour coming from these areas during the very early days of chainmail manufacture and use. The Persian family of weaves is not known to have roots from within the area defined in the name (currently Iran), it simply defines its own basis of ring connections. Spiral and Hybrid families closed out the 'original five'. The Orbital/Captive family followed a few years later (late 2004). Weave Family considerations have changed a lot since then. As the M.A.I.L. Weave Library has adopted a new tagging system, weaves can now be placed into more than just one family, thus eliminating the need for a Hybrid section. Spiral, Orbital, Captive, and Inverted are considered to be structural denominations instead of families, which is more of an attribute.
On this website, there are currently eight major weave familes, and each weave is listed under one of these families. The Hybrid category contains weaves that don't seem to possess the key elements of any one of the other families. As of April, 2008, I have decided to define a few more families, these being Byzantine, and Celtic Visions. More weave families will be considered/added as needed. This is currently in place of adopting a tagging system, similar to what M.A.I.L. has, as a future consideration. I have been displaying weaves by attribute, but I'm not completely satisfied with with it, so it's on hiatus for the time being.
Weave form refers to a weave's state with regards to the space it occupies, and how it forms when expanded on. A weave can only be of one form. The four weave forms into which weaves are classified on this website include unit (a single entity, which when complete is finished; the weave itself in this state is no longer expanded - because it's not expandable, no unit could ever be an actual weave), chain (a weave which can expand on one plane, indefinitely), sheet (a weave which can expand on two planes, indefinitely), and dimensional (a weave which can expand on all three planes, indefinitely). M.A.I.L. extends the selection to include web, radial, and band. Bands expand on one plane, making them chain-like. Web and radial classifications are here considered sheets.
Because of the fact that a weave can only be of one easily identifiable form, this is logically a good way to categorize them. One observation about classifying weaves in this manner is that there are a large number of potential entries under certain forms, like chains. The percentage of known chainmail weaves that are chains is quite high; the more weaves added, the larger the chain section becomes and eventually it can quickly become rather time-consuming to leaf through. Conversely, the dimensional category will only ever contain very few entries when compared with the others. It's not that these factors create a problem, it just means less balance between the categories.
Each weave family will have members that can be of any weave form, and a certain weave form can have members from any weave family.
Each weave page contains one or more pictures and a summary of the weave, as well as information regarding the weave family and form. Regarding aspect ratios, many entries will have listed minimum, maximum, and sculpture, and general use AR ranges. All listed aspect ratios are actual figures calculated from measured ring sizes.