# hauberk
## English
### Alternative forms

* hawberk

### Etymology

From Middle English hauberk, from Old French hauberc, from Frankish *halsaberg (“neck-cover”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈhɔːbɜː(ɹ)k/
* Rhymes: -ɔːbɜː(ɹ)k
* Hyphenation: hau‧berk

### Noun

hauberk (plural hauberks)
* A coat of mail; especially, the long coat of mail of the European Middle Ages, as contrasted with the habergeon, which is shorter and sometimes sleeveless.
** 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 14:The hauberk was a complete covering of mail from head to foot. It consisted of a hood, joined to a jacket with sleeves, breeches, stockings and shoes of double chain mail, to which were added gauntlets of the same construction.
** 1896, William Morris, chapter 29, in The Well at the World's End‎, volume II, London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., book IV, page 258:Ursula wore that day a hauberk under her gown, and was helmed with a sallet; and because of her armour she rode upon a little horse.
** 1909, Charles Henry Ashdown, European Arms & Armor, page 65:The hauberk was to the Norman what the byrnie was to the Saxon, the chief method of bodily defence.
* (less common) A similar shirt of scale armour, plate, leather, or other armor material.
** 1898, John Starkie Gardner, Armour in England from the Earliest Times to the Seventeenth Century, page 40:The habergeon is the mail in this case, and the hauberk is of plate or splint armour, while the cote-armoure is the surcoat, possibly thickly padded, as in the still-existing surcoat of the Black Prince.
** 1929, Yale University, The Excavations at Dura-Europos: Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters; Preliminary Report of 1st- Season of Work ..., page 451:One, which was destined later to usurp the field completely, consisted of a sleeved mail or scale hauberk, probably of eastern, Iranian, origin, descending to the knees.
** 2001, Angeliki E. Láiou, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History Angeliki E Laiou, Angeliki E. Laiou, Roy P. Mottahedeh, The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, Dumbarton Oaks (→ISBN), page 277:
    In Demetrios ' portrait, the saint wears a lamellar hauberk and a long surcoat over ornately patterned leggings. The painter has added an unusual element to the composition - a scarf tied around the horse's head […]
** 2008, Robyn Young, Crusade, Penguin, →ISBN, page 460:Because the call to arms had come so quickly, he'd not had time to don his chain-mail armor, only a light, plate hauberk that covered his shoulders and torso.
** 2012, Martin Parece, The Cor Chronicles Volumes I, II & III, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 240:The plate hauberk did not restrict his movements in the slightest, and he didn't feel weighed down as he did in Taraq'nok's chain mail.
** 2014, Martin V. Parece II, Gods and Steel: The Cor Chronicles, Vol. IV, Parece Publishing, page 77:
    Fitted perfectly for her, it consisted of a simple plate hauberk and legguards, plate armguards and sabatons with chain mail underneath. She had discarded the chain mail early, much to Parol's consternation, […]

#### Coordinate terms

* byrnie, habergeon, haubergeon

#### Translations
## Middle English
### Alternative forms

* auberc, haberke, hamberk, hauberc, hauberghe, haubrec, haubrecke, haubrek, hawbarke, hawbergh, hawberk, hawberke

### Etymology

From Old French hauberc, from Early Medieval Latin (h)alsbergum, from Frankish *halsaberg.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈau̯bɛrk/, /ˈaːbɛrk/, /-rɛk/

### Noun

hauberk (plural hauberkes)
* hauberk (coat of mail armour)

#### Related terms

* hauberjoun

#### Descendants

* English: hauberk

#### References

* “hauberk, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.