Norman chain mail and 1066 armour/dress in general

[Big Insect]

Sorry to spoil your reverie but 'cirtle' (or kirtle) was a unisex garment originally, only becoming solely associated with female attire in the late middle ages/renaissance.

So in answer to your question re cross dressing - almost certainly not.

I tend to go by the fact that a 'cirtle' (or kirtle), is often erroneously referred to as the 'cote-hardie' by modern dress historians and some re-enactors, which is more correctly the male garment from the same period.
Very rarely is the woman's gown referred to as other than the kirtle in contemporary historical documents, wardrobe accounts and wills. When it is mentioned by another name, it is usually simply, gown or gowne.

The French tend to use the word 'cotte' as the underdress and 'gown' for the outer, whereas the Wardrobe accounts of Edward II (1284 – 1327) have already ceased to use kirtle in favour of the term gown.

I suspect that we may end up having to agree to differ about this ... as this is a much argued/debated issue. Wiki is notoriously poor with regard to this type of thing unfortunately - but Colins and Oxford dictionaries have clearer deffinitions 

On the issue of self-cleaning mail ... I am doubtful - my own mail rusted regularly and it probably saw more action over a 10 year reenactment period than most historic mail would have seen in a lifetime.

[Gwydion]

I suspect we will too (but I'm right )
I wasn't relying on Wikipedia, indeed Oxford, Collins and Merriam-Webster (although it is American) dictionaries all have both men and women's garments named kirtle - both archaic, gown and tunic.

But I was going more on Chaucer in the Miller's Tale where the clerk Absalom/Absolon is

'Y clad he was ful smal and properly
Al in a kirtel of fine/light watchet'

or Aurelius in the Franklin's tale who says
'For sikerly my dette shal be quyt
Towardes yow, howevere that I fare
To goon a-begged in my kirtle bare.'

Bale in his 'Actes of English Votaries' uses the word 'Kirtle' to refer to the gown of a monk.

Then there is the surcoat of the Knights Garter, referred to as the 'Kirtle' by Elias Ashmole, Windsor Herald in a work ordered to be compiled by Charles II. A 1715 copy is available at the University of Oxford TCP pages: here

There is also Janet Arnold's 'The Kirtle, Or Surcoat, and Mantle of the Most Noble, Order of the Garter Worn by Christian IV, King of Denmark and Norway' 1992 which builds on this use of the word for the male attire.

Also see: 'A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words: Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs and Ancient Customs from the Fourteenth Century' 2 Vols, James Orchard Halliwell Phillips 1865. 'Worn by both sexes'.

There are obviously many sources where the 'kyrtle' is used to denote the female garment, but I think it is clear from contemporary sources as well as later interpretations that it was used to denote a male garment like a tunic as well as a female gown.

But I don't feel strongly about it one way or the other.

[FierceKitty]

On the issue of self-cleaning mail ... I am doubtful - my own mail rusted regularly and it probably saw more action over a 10 year reenactment period than most historic mail would have seen in a lifetime.

The group in question were trying out the full routine - other than actual combat, decimation, and the like - of a Roman march, so were wearing the stuff daily. Maybe that's the key?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

The romams used a barrel full of sand, and two sets of armour, which was kicked around to clean the armour.
Primative dry cleaning...

[Gwydion]

Out of interest, genuine question I have no idea, is there a contemporary Roman source for any of the sand/vinegar, sand/oil, sand in a barrel/sack cleaning treatment?
I had a quick google and found the idea repeated a lot but no-one suggested how they know this.
Any pointers?

[Heedless Horseman]

'Gunmetal'... dark metallic, probably best for 'look'.
But... was rather surprised to see C16 Border armour in rather 'Brownish' hue. Beeswax or Sheep grease patina!
So...

[Big Insect]

But I don't feel strongly about it one way or the other.

Likewise 

[Big Insect]

'Gunmetal'... dark metallic, probably best for 'look'.
But... was rather surprised to see C16 Border armour in rather 'Brownish' hue. Beeswax or Sheep grease patina!
So...

Might be that C16 trendy 'rust' look

[Ithoriel]

I'd guess the main things that kept metal armour rust free were servants or slaves in the Ancient world, squires and pages in Medieval Europe and so on.

Vinegar, olive oil and elbow grease .... lorica vinaigrette?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Vinegar, olive oil and elbow grease .... lorica vinaigrette?

Tasty! Does it come with garum?

[Last Hussar]

But it would not have bothered Last Hussar, he can be a bit of a old woman   

Orcs never starts an argument.

Because that would imply he wasn't already in one...

[Gwydion]

Out of interest, genuine question I have no idea, is there a contemporary Roman source for any of the sand/vinegar, sand/oil, sand in a barrel/sack cleaning treatment?
I had a quick google and found the idea repeated a lot but no-one suggested how they know this.
Any pointers?

I take it that's a 'No' then?

[Big Insect]

As a some mail was made with a single solid 'stamped' central ring, to which was attached 4 riveted links, it might have been possible that this type of mail was originally fire-blacked.

That was that it was heated to a temperature that wasn't hot enough to anneal it (or to harden it if quenched) and then quenched in oil. With chemical oils (e.g. petroleum oils) this produces a black-blue sheen. With vegetable oils (most likely in medieval and ancient western Europe) it produces a black-brown sheen (& both stink hideously whilst the process is underway!).
This will (in theory) stop the links & rings from rusting, except where they rub up against each other, as that exposes the iron to the atmosphere.
This quenching technique would not work with butted or soldered links for obvious reasons.

[Gwydion]

Thanks for that.
I sort of assumed some sort of treatment like curing iron cooking pots as a preventative measure - oil coating and heating or the quenching.

It's the idea of rolling it round in barrels of sand+ whatever to clean it that intrigues me.

It's stated so confidently on line that Roman(and medieval) troops cleaned mail in this fashion, but I haven't been able to find a source for this (apart from the fact that modern metalsmiths tumble material with shot in drums). I'm not suggesting it's wrong, but I just wondered if there was a contemporary Roman source, or a medieval one we can extrapolate backwards from.
Or is it one of those things that everyone just 'knows'?

As for painting mail clad figures I'd definitely go for the less shiny finish myself (unless I felt like a Hollywood version - and why not! ).

[Big Insect]

I'll do some research on the sources for medieval armour polishing. I have a few 'learned' sources still from my Company St. George days (although I am not sure that messrs Howe, Embelton and Richards are still alive even).

I'm aware that a lot of what we know about C15th armour production comes from the Nuremburg 'Firework' book.
It talks about water driven hammers and polishing wheels (where oil/fat and pumice were used to polish larger areas of hammered steel), but that was all to do with the initial manufacture, not the ongoing maintenance.
I suspect that the Roman stuff may well be reenactor 'myth'. It's a bit like the extensive and learned piece I saw on a well known Roman reenactment site about how C1st AD Roman helmets were 'spun'. When all the known examples are all hammered and peened out of a solid cast blank. Spinning metal (even bronze) didn't in fact come into existence until the late C14th apparently.