the.com/camail
chainmail's neck-cape, draping from your helmet so nobody beheads you on a technicality
means A protective curtain of chainmail hanging from the bottom rim of a helmet to cover the neck, throat, and shoulders.
from From Old French 'camail,' which likely traces back to Latin 'caput' (head) plus 'mail' (the chainmail itself, from Latin 'macula,' a mesh or net's spot/loop) — so literally a 'head-mail.' Some trace the first element instead to Provençal 'capmalh,' a cousin of the same idea. Either way, the word carries the sense of armour spilling down from the head, just as the thing itself spilled down from the helm.
- origin
- From Old French, roughly meaning head-cover
- job
- Guarded throat and shoulders below the helm
- aka
- Also called an aventail in English
- clergy twist
- Names a short shoulder cape some bishops wear
- era
- Peaked in 14th-century European armor
for instance
camail of henry viii — mail hood worn by english king, housed in tower of london armory