Tolkien was a Philologist and knew/studied languages extensively. He clearly knew what the word mail meant and the fact it came from the French maille, meaning mesh. And the idea that Tolkien just meant "armour" (including plate) is shown to be wrong as mail is clearly associated with armour of interlocking rings. Its why the words Corslet, Shirt and Hauberk show up repeatedly in the text. The word "Cuirass" doesn't show up in any of the texts. Greaves and Vambraces do not constitute plate since they can be leather or splinted (as I showed with the Varyangian Guard). And Tolkien in one of his letters says the styles of The Bayeux Tapestry fit the Rohirrim "well enough". That right there gives you the general idea of how many of the various armies of Middle-Earth would have been arrayed. None of them constitute plate armor, not even the Haradrim with their "corslet of overlapping brazen plates" which is a fancy way of saying Scale armor.
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Dude. Relax.
Not sure why you thought I was starting a flame war with you. I wasn't. I even largely AGREE with you (save for the part about the vambraces being leather - not that such is impossible but that it simply isn't indicated in the quoted text for the reasons I clearly laid out) which should have been obvious if you had bothered to read what I wrote.
Spoiler alert: in order to stop any further frothing at the mouth, I will say that I am not trying to suggest that Aragorn or anyone else ought to be portrayed as marching around in full Maximilian Gothic plate armour, which is what I suspect prompted the previous outburst. The narrow and limited point I was making is that some elements of plate armour were not necessarily beyond the bounds of Tolkien's vision of Middle Earth. I did not, perhaps, make that as clear as I should have.
Counterpoints:
1) I am well aware that Tolkien was a philologist. I'm pretty sure everyone posting on this sub-board is well aware of it, as well. However, it must be remembered that he was writing his books for a
general audience, not for other Old English Literature professors and museum experts in mediaeval arms and armour. Thus, even if HE knew perfectly well what mail was and what it's derivation was, that does not mean it would have been common knowledge to the intended
readers of his books. So it is in fact entirely possible that Tolkien may have had a broader definition in mind (even if, however, he may not have intended it for his Middle Earth).
2) Going hand in hand with the above, I notice that in several of the quotes you provided, Tolkien goes to great lengths to emphasize a "...shirt of steel-rings" or that Bilbo's mail shirt was "...close woven of many rings..." Why? If the only possible interpretation of "Mail" is simply armour made of interwoven rings, as you assert, then there is no need. It is plain that Tolkien realized that most of his
audience might need the added explanation.
3) It should not be assumed that Tolkien was really an expert on arms and armour - familiar with, yes, of course, but not strictly speaking an expert. A good tell is his description of the Barrow daggers, which are mentioned as being "…damasked with serpent forms in red and gold." Another reference states, “He drew his sword and looked at it, and the intertwining shapes of red and gold, and the flowing characters of Númenor glinted like fire upon the blade.” This is in keeping with the understood definition of "damask" at that time, which was "
To decorate, as iron, steel, etc., with a peculiar marking or "water" produced in the process of manufacture, or with designs produced by inlaying or incrusting with another metal, as silver or gold, or by etching, etc., to damask. Damaskeening is partly mosaic work, partly engraving, and partly carving."
Note that this would have been Tolkien's only understanding of "damask" as his knowledge was derived from the dictionary and from Old Norse, etc. literature, which described "damask" blades as "... appearing to be gained with tiny snakes, and here such varied shadows play that you would believe the shining metal to be interwoven with many colours" among other similar poetic descriptions.
Of course, today we know this to be the technique of "pattern welding" (or, for early Iron Age Celtic swords, piled welding) where multiple types of iron and steel are forge welded together to produce a blade - and, yes, such a blade, when polished, can in fact look multi-colored when sunlight strikes it at a certain angle (it's not really, of course, and is only an optical illusion).
But Tolkien knew nothing of this when LotR was written. Professor Anstee did not publish his investigations into pattern welding until 1960, more than a decade after Tolkien wrote LotR. Indeed, MUCH of what we now know about ancient and medieval arms and armour was completely unknown when Tolkien wrote most of his material. Our sum knowledge has advanced by several orders of magnitude since Tolkien died, let alone when he wrote LotR, - so his description of the Barrow daggers, while in keeping with the dictionary definition of the day, was based on an inaccurate understanding of the very common Dark Age/Viking Age practice of making pattern welded blades, which was almost certainly what he had in mind, but lacked a correct knowledge of, and thus provided a somewhat inaccurate description.
4) Your reference to "Varangian" vambraces is wrong - it seems to be a modern "reenactorism" and imaginative artist reconstruction. No archaeological evidence exists for Varangian use of the armour you describe. There are some written references to limb armour used by Byzantine kataphraktoi (cavalry), which in addition to lammelar torso armour and iron helmets, also wore quilted manikelia for the arms, and kremasmata for the legs, respectively, which could be augmented by mail, and in the case of the lower greaves there are archaic references to Ancient Greek bronze greaves (chalkotoubai). Note that infantry of any kind did not appear to have supplemental limb armour, to include the Varangians. (Parenthetically even the Viking use of lammelar, in spite of having been found at a grave site at Birka, has been challenged as being a foreign burial and thus not representative of Viking equipment. I don't have a dog in that scholarly scuffle, but it demonstrates the high level of proof that is required to assert something about Viking wargear - a level of proof your Varangian vambraces fail to clear.)
Now, as I mentioned, such armour as you suggest did in fact exist, in a Vendel/Merovingian period context - the only example being from the Valsgärde 8 ship burial. However, Tolkien could not have know about it, since Greta Arwidsson didn't publish the monograph on the find until 1954 - and it was reconstructed incorrectly to boot (Bless her Heart, but she insisted on using the leg splints for the greaves as a sort of "barrel stave" torso armour, which would have been uncomfortable and difficult to wear, to put it mildly... not to mention ridiculously vulnerable to a spear thrust)
The upshot, here, is that it is astronomically unlikely Tolkien was thinking of leather or splinted vambraces, or greaves for that matter, simply because no published examples were extant when he was writing Hobbit/LotR (or, indeed, early Silmarillion) - the only ones he could have been aware of were those from the Middle Ages, specifically from the mid-13th century onwards. Now, this is not to imply that anyone was wandering around in full plate, as such, but certainly some evidence plainly exists in Tolkien's writings for the use of metallic limb armour as a supplement to full mail - indeed, BoLTvII is even more explicit, regarding the arming of the Gondolodrim: "Now this great work was finished to their mind, and folk were busier about the quarrying of metals and the forging of all manner of swords and axes, spears and bills, and the fashioning of coats of mail, byrnies and hauberks, greaves and vambraces, helms and shields." While the obvious focus is on mail, the mention of greaves and vambraces, along with the reference to late Medieval/early Renaissance bills, is very interesting, and the context clearly suggests the greaves and vambraces are of metal.
5) "Greaves and Vambraces do not constitute plate since they can be leather..." Why, because you say so? This is ridiculous. For starters, just because vambraces can be made of leather, it does not logically follow that they must be. Perhaps it would be instructive to review in detail the quote being obliquely referenced from Return of the King: "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." Sure, it's technically correct to say that leather can be burnished and, perhaps, one might be able to see a little mist. But that is hardly the way 99.99999999% of the rest of humanity would interpret this passage. The words "bright burnished" are practically universally associated with METAL, not leather. Indeed, in one of the quotes you provided, it states, "...their burnished shirts of mail hung down upon their knees." Can we agree that the author intended that the mail was of burnished metal rings, and not woven of burnished leather string? Surely we can all agree that J.R.R. Tolkien chose his words carefully, yes? If he had wanted these vambraces to be leather, he likely would have stated just that, rather than use terms and context that very clearly refer to a metal object.
6) While I agree that the "...corslet of overlapping brazen plates" probably refers to scale, it is not a foregone conclusion. Both lammelar and the lorica segmentata are possible candidates as well. The lorica plumata might work too, though Tolkien almost certainly was unaware of that type of armour, which is not mentioned often in surviving historical records and even more rarely reconstructed.
SUMMARY (a.k.a. "TL/DR")
While Tolkien did indeed intend a general appearance for his wargear that was based on what we call the Early Middle Ages, to include the Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, and their ancestors, it is also a fact that he did include some elements of supplemental plate armour for the limbs, which can be noted in both early and later texts. I would interpret the "tech level" as no later than roughly ca. 1300 A.D. or so - in other words full mail (defined as interlocked and interwoven rings) being the rule, with occasional limb reinforcements in the form of plate armour. Having said that, if someone did a "reconstruction" that featured, say, a segmented breastplate such as the Churburg 13 harness, it might not offendeth my sensibilities all that much. It's when you go from sort of "half mail - half plate" to practically all plate (which is what you start getting ca. 1400 and later) that really crosses the line.
Were I to reconstruct the Prince of Dol Amroth's harness, I would base it on a hauberk with steel vambraces for the forearms and steel greaves for the lower legs. I'm not sure I would have articulated elbows or knees, though, as that tends to be too modern - but I would not frown too greatly upon someone who wanted to do a reconstruction that way. Finally, I'd give him a "karma" type helmet to top it off.