Linen doesn’t sound so impressive with people swinging swords at you does it? Could I at least upgrade to leather?
That’s at least another $1000, if you buy a Honda.
The Greeks made armor with about 20 layers of linen glued together. Kind of like ancient Kevlar.
“Are you not entertained?”
“The frost-sometimes it makes the blade stick!”
“Win the crowd, Spaniard”..,”I will win the crowd..I will give them something they haven’t seen before”
One of my all time favorite movies..
However, properly prepared, cloth can give protection as well. An armor worn by the Spanish during the conquest of Mexico was Aztec quilted cotton armor. In most cases, these common foot soldiers were not wealthy enough to afford European plate steel breast plates and so made do with what was locally available. Aztec quilted armor, Ichcahuīpīlli, was made of multiple layers of cotton toughed by soaking in salt water brine. It was reportedly able to resist the blows of the Mācuahuitl, the Aztec obsidian/flint-edged sword clubs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_warfare#Armor
Maybe it was quilted, with fiber stuffing, like that used to train attack dogs. It’s very difficult for a blade to cut through padded cloth though the linen probably wouldn’t protect you much from blunt force, distributing it nly slightly.