Chainmail is a metal armor made of interlocking rings of steel. It’s very flexible and provides great protection. This armor is very heavy and weighs about 15 to 20lbs for a typical shirt and is extremely time consuming to make, well at least that’s what I read. At least it’s easy to repair after damages are made. Anyway Chainmail was sometimes worn under the armor or worn without a breastplate. No one was exactly sure who invented these great protection but the Romans were the first to largely use this protection.

Here is the origin of chainmail: The word 'chainmail' is a misnomer. The derivation of the word is from the French 'maille' and the Latin 'macula' meaning mesh. It's cognate to the current word, "malliot" as in swimsuits that look a little like mail. Mail is flexible and composed of many individual bits, whether it is the lorica segmentata or the lorica hamata of the Romans.