Kote (籠手) of the late Heian and late Kamakura period

Kote (籠手) of the late Heian and late Kamakura period 

A famous pair of kote of the early 14th century wrongly attributed to Minamoto no Yoshitsune. Despite the late age of the example, this type of kote was the main style of arm armor of the 11th and 13th century. Sadly, this is the oldest type of kote we have.

In this article I would start to explore the various types of arms defenses employed by the Japanese warriors from the late Heian to the late Kamakura period.
To add a little bit of ramblings before getting to the topic, I was thinking for month before writings about limbs armors on how to tie the variations of different styles and their historical evolution, so I decided to talk about these armor pieces within different time periods.

So here we will talk about the armor used to protect arms & hands from the 10th to the late 13th century. This might seems a long period, and indeed different styles of arm armors were used throughout the different wars of the Heain and Kamakura period.
However, I chose this period because these items were usually worn by the mounted warriors of the period rather than by their foot counterpart, and so they had to favour the hard skill of mounted archery.
In fact, I would argue that many of these designs were based on the fact that the main weapon of the Samurai of this rather long period was the bow (and his horse as well); this long form fitting sleeves were introduced first and foremost to keep the bowstring from snagging on the sleeves of the warrior’s under robe, which were usually very large in traditional Japanese fashion of the period. Adding plates to defend the arm on the outside as it faced the possibility of being pierced by arrows was the next logical step.
Moreover, it is important to consider the defense of the upper arm and shoulder in conjuction with the large shoulder-shields of the period, the Ōsode (大袖).

The term kote (籠手) was in use at the latest from the time of the Genpei War and in later times the term was also written with the characters 小手.  The kote consisted of sleeves with a teko (手甲), a sewed-on ichi no zaban (一の座盤 ) and ni no zaban  (二の座盤) metal plates, an upper plate called kanmuri no ita (冠板) on the top and usually (but not always) mail in between these elements. This is pretty much the general feature of Japanese arms armor.


The main styles of arm armor of the period could be divided into shinogote (篠籠手), tsutsugote (筒籠手), ubugote (産籠手) and namazugote (鯰籠手) which are also known as Yoshitsune kote.
Let's start with Heain period kote, that despite the efforts of Edo period scholar to create a rigorous system of nomenclature and categories, as always with Japanese arms and armors, we have a lot of exceptions.

Reconstruction of Heain period kote 11th to 12th century style by Y.Sasama. It is assumed that the plate could have been covered by clothes as well. No upper plates nor mail was used in this period; the defense of the upper region was granted by the Ōsode.

In fact, we lack any type of archaeological artifacts from the period and we only have extremely few depictions of armors in general when it comes to the entire Heian period, although we still have something towards the 11th and 12th century.
Looking at the Bandainagon ekotoba (伴大納言絵詞) we can see kote which protects the arms up to the back of the hand, but it seems that they don´t feature any zaban, so no plates on the arms.
However, it has been speculated that this kote actually have plates sewn on the inside and hidden under the clothes that envelop the arms, so we can speak of ubugote (産籠手).

The Bandainagon ekotoba. Despite being the main reference for arms and armors of the 12th century in Japan, it is very hard to gain small details such as how kote look like in the period.

From the late Heain period we can also ubugote in the Nenjugyôji emaki and what seems to be identical kote interpretations are also seen in the Kokawaderaengi emaki (粉河寺縁起絵巻) as well as in the Shôgunzukaengi emaki (将軍塚縁起絵巻). So it is assumed that zaban were introduced somewhere from the late Heian to the early Kamakura period ( in the 11th and 12th century).

The Shôgunzukaengi emaki; the depiction is rather basic but what can be seen on the arm is likely to be a ubugote.

Not surprisingly, this is what we have for the 11th and 12th century given the low number of depictions that could be used.
It is fair to assume that this kote protected quite well the lower arms and the hand especially from arrows, which were the main threats of the battlefield for mounted archers of the period.

We don't see kote being worn by the foot soldiers in these depictions of the 12th century, and we could immagine that those plates would have not been superb to prevent swords or polearms strikes given the fact that as far as we know they only protected the lower arms. Moreover, these kote didn't protect the inside of the arm, to facilitate archery and most likely because those areas were less exposed to incoming arrows for the Samurai whom wore them.

Moving towards the Kamakura period, we have more depictions to work with and better details.
In this period we have the introduction of the upper zaban as well as the hijigane (肘金), a small circular plate that should at least deaden the impact of blows in the elbow region.
In this context, the Heiji monogatari emaki is one of the best source of information and details on Japanese kote of the period. Although it is dated 13th century, the artwork should depict arms and armors from 12th century.

A scene from the Heiji monogatari emaki depicting various types of kote

It is also very popular and still quite widespread to assume that Japanese warriors of the period only wore one kote on the left arm, in order to facilitate archery.
There is one major issue with this argument, that derives from the fact that Japanese kote were already optimized to facilitate archery! So there was no point in wearing just one although to be fair we do have depictions of what seems to be free of armor right arms. It might be that the right arm kote was covered by the baggy sleeve of the under robe worn under the armor.
Karl Friday states that the elite bushi of the period,  more often wore kote on both arms (rather than on the bow arm alone, a practice widespread among less affluent warriors).

Other very usefull depictions of the mid and late Kamakura period (13th century) are to be found in the Moko Shurai Ekotoba (蒙古襲来絵詞), the Gosannen Kassen Ekotoba (後三年合戦) and the Tsuchigumo Zoshi Emaki (土蜘蛛草紙絵巻).
In this scrolls we could find all the aforementioned styles of kote, but most importantly a step towards higlhy decorated ones and the usage of mails use to connect the plates, which could be seen already by the 13th century.

A close up of the Gosannen Kassen Ekotoba showing details of kote armor.

Another important aspect that could be gather from this scroll is the fact that mail seems to have been used to cover the inside of the arm as well, although we enter in the realm of speculations since we are only dealing with these kind of depictions as no physical evidence remain from the period.

In this frame it is possible to see the inner portion of the arm which seems to be covered by mail.

We can also see various types of lacquerware applied to the kote; at this point in history, the Samurai of the period had already established their power and we can see a trend in arms and armors as well, from rather crude and minimalistic to embellished armors with various forms of decorations.
The kote depicted in the Heiji monogatari emaki seem to be black-lacquered whereas those depicted in the Moko Shurai Ekotoba look more as if of kondō, or of a black-lacquer finish with either kondō ornaments or suemon inlay in the form of crests.

Toward the late Kamakura period we also see the development of tsutsugote, probably derived from the shinogote as at this stage seems to be very closely related. It is assumed that the plates in the tsutsu style were hinged together in the same way as suneate (shinguard) of the period were hinged.

We also see decorations in the gauntlets of the period which up to this point didn't procted the fingers, again a design choice dictated to allow and facilitate archery.
Black-lacquered tekō with a sukashibori ornamentation in the form of waves, chrysanthemums on a branch and butterflies are also called Yoshitsune-gote (義経籠手).
As such roundish tekō resemble the head of a catfish (namazu, 鯰), the entire kote were also called namazugote (鯰籠手). They were in use up to the Kamakura period and it seems that they formed quasi the default shape of tekō for that era.

Handsketch done by me for the various styles of kote of the Kamakura period; from left to right, ubu gote, early namazugote, late namazugote, shinogote and tsutsugote.

Ubugote seems to have remained in usage during the early kamakura period, but later disappeared as other styles emerged.

The most popular one for wealthy Samurai from the 12th to the early 14th century seems to have been the namazugote style, which was made of larger plates exposed and highly decorated; later versions also used mail to connect the plates as well.

Details of yoshitsune kote and sode.

Shinogote seems to have been a choice for foot soldiers or less wealthy samurai up until the 14th century, when they started to be adopted by the elites as well given the widespread usage of mail armor. Variations without mail existed as well and in this timeframe the shino gote were usually made of 3 or 4 long and narrow flat plates stichted to the textile frame of the kote, usually linked with mail.

A 14th/15th century kote very likely to be assembled in the same way of those 13th century ones according to the depictions of the scrolls.

Tsutsugote seems to have emerged quite late as a result of the merging of shino and namazugote design, although evidence of such construction existed well into the 13th century. They differ from later period ones as they only defended the outer arm, while later versions encased the arms a little bit more.


For this article it's all, I hope you enjoyed the reading! Most of the emaki listed here are available online through various platforms and I invite you to check the details through high quality close up of the pictures. I might consider adding more depictions as well in the future, but this article should give you an idea on the style of armor used for the arms of the period.
Thank you so much for your attention, please feel free to ask question and share the article!

Gunbai