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pulphero posted:This is my favorite sword fight is from the Polish movie Deluge. Since most saber systems are a 2 time system it lends it's self more to of a theatrical style of fighting. That was bad rear end. A question from someone who knows nothing about actual swordsmanship: Would it be common for a fighter to swap his weapon from hand to hand in the middle of combat like that? I always imagined that anyone who depends on the sword as a practical day-to-day weapon would practice and fight equally well with either hand, but I also figured that you would probably not risk losing your weapon by switching during a fight. Is the unpredictability worth the risk?
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Apr 28, 2013 21:56
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I'm slowly making my way through the thread so, sorry if this question was already addressed: Can you talk about helmets? How they evolved over time, the function of certain shapes and do-dads, etc. For knights who had their own customized suit, would surviving examples be unique to that knight or pretty typical examples of widespread designs? Thanks
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Apr 29, 2013 02:42
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MrYenko posted:That was bad rear end. I'm not exactly an expert, but when I used to train knife, people that did that basically always immediately got shanked : "unpredictability" isn't worth much when it takes you the same amount of time to switch hands as it does for me to just stab you. If you practiced the hell out of it so you could switch hands smoothly, maybe? The vast majority of time you're either in range which means that the other person is just going to stab you, or you're out of range and then they have time to adjust. I think it'd only work on someone who didn't know what they're doing.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:52
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MrYenko posted:That was bad rear end. Going to say extremely uncommon for a few reasons. Any time spent training your non-main hand is time that could be spent training your main hand. If this is a dual usage style (rapier/dagger, sword/shield, etc) there's no way you're switching both in any amount of time to make it useful. Finally, I don't know how common this was in the medieval period, but it's possible for weapons to be designed to be used by only one hand or the other, rather than either. I think there might be some examples in relatively modern cavalry sabers and I know that's the case in modern sport fencing.
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Apr 29, 2013 04:10
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Railtus posted:The Duellists seems to be smallsword fencing, which I know less about. However, the overlarge movements are from the guy backing away nervously (clearly the less skilled fighter), while the confident one is using very economical movements. Their guard is good, they are both making sure they are not easy targets. One of the fighters panics, and you can actually see when his technique falls to pieces, and as soon as he overcommits to the attack he gets killed for it. Overall it is very realistic, assuming both fighters are erring on the side of defence (not unreasonable). I was in small-sword fencing for three years, and the scenes from Rob Roy and Deluge were favourites among the members of my fencing club. I just watched that scene from The Duelists, and it was well done. Both fighters were clearly concerned about their own protection, and using the point-in-line (or line) heavily - this is where you extend your sword so your opponent can't simply charge towards you. Foil fencing heavily emphasizes priority and the right of way, and attacking into a line is recognized as a terrible idea that would get both fencers killed. It's rarely used long in high-level fencing because it's tiring and easily beaten once your arm is presented, but it's common to see less experienced fencers stymied by a good line and unable to attack into it. The bald guy is clearly less experienced and doesn't know how to use the strong part of his blade (the forte) against the opponent's weaker part (the foible), so he resorts to big swashing attacks. When he charged in at the end his opponent was forced to make some awkward parries, but a running attack like that is fairly easy to hit with a solid counterattack. Sabre fencing was pejoratively called "jousting" in the 90's because the priority rules made it beneficial to do rushing attacks past your opponent, as it was illegal to hit a fencer after they passed your body. Now the priority rules have been changed to discourage this, and it's a really bad idea to run at someone for more than two steps.
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Apr 29, 2013 06:52
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MrYenko posted:That was bad rear end. Here is my clubs attempt at polish saber based off some latter documentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nca_yucQi_A I don't think that there is much practical reason to do so and I don't know of any historical source that recommends it. I would guess that it would only serve as a showoffish stunt. I fought a very good side sword fighter that could make the exchange between hands very quickly and change up the lines of the fight but it was a high risk move. With single handed weapons I try to train both hands but my left hand is still very clumsy. In a non life or death situation stunts or off hand fighting can be useful for keeping it interesting when fighting less skilled opponents.
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Apr 29, 2013 07:22
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pulphero posted:This is my favorite sword fight is from the Polish movie Deluge. Since most saber systems are a 2 time system it lends it's self more to of a theatrical style of fighting. I was hoping someone smarter than me would jump on this, but no dice, so I'll do it. No, this just made me angry. It's entirely blocking with the blade and attacking out of range and all sorts of bullshit stuff. It is literally just saber fencing with a budget. I'm really sorry, but I disagree and think it is an awful fight-scene. (Also, there's probably context or it'd make sense if I knew Polish, but I just kept thinking, "Surely there's somewhere they could do this out of the rain, right?")
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Apr 29, 2013 07:30
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Xiahou Dun posted:No, this just made me angry. It's entirely blocking with the blade and attacking out of range and all sorts of bullshit stuff. It is literally just saber fencing with a budget. I'm really sorry, but I disagree and think it is an awful fight-scene. I don't understand the context either, but it's clearly a fight between a bad fencer and a good fencer who's holding back for some reason. The dark-shirted man is holding back in all kinds of ways and occasionally showing off, and then when the white-shirt says something to him he stops playing around and just cuts him open. It's a bit like Rob Roy where you see two very different styles in competition, where one is a Flynning bullshit style and the other is economical and not aggressive.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:14
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In the clip I posted it is a duel between the rebellious and rash young noble and the older badass trying to stop the bloodshed by proposing a one on one fight. The little guy doesn't want to kill him because the king probably will and that saves him trouble with the Church and avoids lawsuits. In dramatic fashion it happened to be raining at the time, in some shots. Watching it again there is some movie silliness and stunts but most of the attacks are within range and to my knowledge almost every European saber system revolves around blade blocks as part of a two time system. There are reasons to attack just at the edge of range. One of which is to make an action that the opponent must respond to in a predictable way. You throw a cut to to the opponents head. If they disengage it didn't cost you anything but if they respond by covering you have created a meeting of the blades where the options are more predictable than in a waiting guard. The advantage of being at just the edge of range is that it is safer to disengage if the person is reckless.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:58
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Well since we're all just posting movie fights now what do you think about Polanski's Macbeth fight scene. It is pretty cool about showing that you can't just cut a dude through plate armour but it also seems really clumsy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr6VrmOQY1M It verges desperately between really brutal and really comical. Within the context of the fil its pretty brutal, but divorced of context it does look kind of silly.
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Apr 29, 2013 17:30
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Squalid posted:Yeah in the 13th century European castles and siege technology were probably the most advanced in the world and in Hungary represented a huge barrier to Mongol conquest. In order to break the six year siege of Xiangyang in 1273 the Mongols imported European designs for counterweight trebuchets more sophisticated than the traction trebuchets existant in China at the time. Then again the siege of Xiangyang is one of the reasons I don't buy some of the Mongol revisionism that claims Mongols really didn't murder the Hungarians that bad. Xiangyang was a fortress besieged for years by 10s of thousands of troops, and while I couldn't find any sources going into detail on the invasion of Hungary in 1284, my guess is it was more about plunder than conquest, considering that the golden horde was also at war with the Il-Khanate in the 1280s and contemporaneous raids against Poland lacked siege trains. Nothing you say backs up your assertion. There were two campaigns in Hungary, neither of which ended with the subjugation of the kingdom. The claim that 'their hearts were not in it' for the second invasion needs a little bit more than your gut feeling to substantiate. It's worth remembering that the invading army of 1241 was absolutely tremendous, and represented the culmination of the push across Siberia and Rus'. Nogai's campaigns of the 1270s and 1280s were much more limited both because of other wars and because the Sarai Khanate was just plain smaller. The example of Xiangyang would be hugely relevant if it represented either the Sarai khanate's capabilities or the Europeans', but it doesn't. Kublai was not Nogai and Xiagnyang was definitely not anything like the castle system of western and central Europe. It's also worth noticing that Nogai wasn't bribed/submitted to get him out of Hungary. His army was defeated. Besides that, the only serious assertions of political control were in realms that were either much smaller than his own (Serbia), or terribly crippled by internal strife (Bulgaria) or both (Constantinople). Even then, I wouldn't really call Sarai's influence over Serbia 'serious', but I'm being generous here.
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Apr 29, 2013 21:58
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Nothing you say backs up your assertion. There were two campaigns in Hungary, neither of which ended with the subjugation of the kingdom. The claim that 'their hearts were not in it' for the second invasion needs a little bit more than your gut feeling to substantiate. It's worth remembering that the invading army of 1241 was absolutely tremendous, and represented the culmination of the push across Siberia and Rus'. What was the military, rather than the strategic outcome of the campaign? I had been under the impression that it was an enormous slate of casualties for the Hungarians.
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Apr 29, 2013 22:37
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All this talk of dueling is making me wonder, not so much "Why is it always swords" (although I do wonder about duels with other weapons), but were there any duels fought unarmed? To the death, even? It just seems like something more, personal, I guess, beating each other to death with bare hands. Also, the dueling talk reminds me of Blackadder "We fight with cannon! Only girls fight with swords these days."
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Apr 30, 2013 00:58
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swords where a sign of social status. but there where duels and trial by combat with all kinds of goofy stuff sepecialy when it came to the lower classes.      
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Apr 30, 2013 02:19
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 That was an amazing read. If you start a website where you review movie swordfights I'll click your ads and donate money. Rob Roy is a lot of fun, not sure how historically accurate it is. It's definitely got problems but overall it's a really engaging and compelling movie with really, really good characters. And all the sword fights are like that: physically brutal and kind of terrifying. Archie posted:“Love is but a dung heap, Betty, and I am but a cock that climbs upon it to crow.” Anyway if any of you haven't seen The Duellists and you like to watch people hack at each other with swords in a way that conveys verisimilitude i.e. the pain and horror and plain physical exertion involved in trying to kill a man with a large edged weapon in a fair fight, do check it out. It's loving brutal. One of Ridley Scott's early films, back when he had good scripts and had stuff to say. The cinematography is amazing. The saber duel is... hard to watch. It's a dark, almost blackly comic tale of two men who inexplicably hate each other and force each other to fight many duels over a span of decades. Set during the end of the Napoleonic wars. Rockopolis posted:All this talk of dueling is making me wonder, not so much "Why is it always swords" (although I do wonder about duels with other weapons), but were there any duels fought unarmed? To the death, even? Because it's awesome.   Also because a cannon only has limited utility as a weapon, early cannons especially taking 4 hours or more to load. Cannons are great for knocking down walls, but against soft targets a volley of gunfire is much more effective.Fighting with swords is a test of skill and mettle. In a hand to hand fight the larger and stronger opponent almost always has the advantage. Strength is certainly a factor in swordfighting, but skill is vastly more important. The parties would have to agree on the weapons used before hand. There probably were duels fought with bare hands. I like the balloon duel: (article has spoilers for the end of The Duellists, don't read #1 if you plan on watching it.) http://listverse.com/2007/11/08/top-8-remarkable-duels/
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Apr 30, 2013 02:53
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Rockopolis posted:All this talk of dueling is making me wonder, not so much "Why is it always swords" (although I do wonder about duels with other weapons), but were there any duels fought unarmed? To the death, even? Well duels with pistols became quite in the 17th and 18th centuries too. I think the straightsword became the prestige weapon of Europe because of the ancient and advanced European armor industry. In other countries other swords continued to have relevance but in Europe the straightsword form became totally dominant, probably because a straight sword is the best compromise form between utility and armor piercing.
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Apr 30, 2013 04:11
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Are those Bat'leths?
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Apr 30, 2013 14:24
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^^^ From earlier in the thread, those are dueling shields. The idea being that since neither combatant is familiar with such a weapon, that ensures a more level playing field. Also the 4th picture down (or 3rd one up) is a murder stroke and not something that's goofy. Even though it sure as hell looks silly.
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Apr 30, 2013 15:10
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Why are some of the disputants standing in holes? Is that some sort of handicapping mechanism?
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Apr 30, 2013 16:57
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pulphero posted:swords where a sign of social status. You're telling me that "I will fight with a half-brick in a sock, your weapons will be a mace and a hole" happened more than once?! Phy fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 30, 2013 21:07
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The idea was to make it a fair fight between a woman and a man or something like that. Right?
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Apr 30, 2013 21:13
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MrYenko posted:That was bad rear end. The technique is not mentioned in any sources, although most medieval sources tend not to have a free hand normally. The longsword was a primarily two-handed weapon, and though you could release one hand to give you extra reach for one strike (hopefully surprising your foe) it was not something often switched hands with. With single-hand weapons like those depicted in the I.33, you normally have something in the other hand such as a buckler. In later rapier manuals there was normally a dagger or cloak or something in the other hand. An interesting note from the Towton Graves is that the men-at-arms seemed to have (the impression I got from Dr Alan Williams) more developed right arms than left, which suggests they probably did not train equally with both hands. They probably could not fight equally well with either hand. I am sure they did train with both hands, but had a dominant hand. Saint Sputnik posted:I'm slowly making my way through the thread so, sorry if this question was already addressed: Can you talk about helmets? How they evolved over time, the function of certain shapes and do-dads, etc. For knights who had their own customized suit, would surviving examples be unique to that knight or pretty typical examples of widespread designs? Thanks Sure! Before 1000 helmets tended to be mostly a round metal bowl, often made with a spangenhelm construction – that roughly amounts to made of several pieces of metal joined together rather than from a single piece. Add-ons were common, you might have hanging cheek-pieces (a bit like Roman helmets, but less elaborate?) and Norse helmets were sometimes ‘spectacled helmets’ which had guards around the eyes. The common helmet around 1000 AD was a conical helmet with a nose-guard or nasal, essentially a big piece of metal from the rim that extends to cover the nose. It was quite popular, the bridge of the nose was probably the first place to get struck by many large blades striking the face, so it is an economical use of metal. It did not seem to interfere with vision that much either. However, it did have a problem in one case where someone could grab the nose-guard and use it to pull you around. An English king (whose name escapes me) was captured that way. Around 1100-1200 conical helmets often got rounded instead, possibly for structural strength. The cone was intended to provide a glancing surface to blows from above, meaning a strike to the head did not deliver full force. However, it probably did not work as well against blows from the side. I think the rounder helmets were pretty deflective too, but I do not know which one was necessarily better. Kettle hats were known, these essentially were helmets with a hat-like brim. The brim was excellent against threats from above, such as falling arrows etc. It seemed to be an excellent design. The nasal started extending into a full faceguard. Originally it was just a fixed metal plate over the face with eye-slits and lots of small holes called breaths (for ventilation). At first it did not enclose the full head, which was perhaps less of a priority as a mail coif or ventail could cover the neck instead. This is called an early great helm. This later took the barrel/bucket shaped helm or great helm. This is the stereotypical Crusader helmet. Sometimes they were kept on chains with a smaller helmet underneath, so you could do a lance charge in your great helm and then throw the helmet off for better vision and breathing once in close-combat. The great helm was often flat-topped, maybe because it was easier to make. Sugarloaf helms were essentially conical great helms, but never became that popular. Possibly because they started appearing late enough that the bascinet was competing with it. Bascinets were an expansion on metal skullcaps. These were often pointed or conical again, although the point seemed to point backwards more often. These were also more often made from a single piece, perhaps because metal technology was making large single-piece steel easier to make. This extends down at the back and sides, covering the ears. It also had a movable visor most of the time, and was worn with a mail curtain or camail to protect the throat. Visors for a bascinet were sometimes the klappvisor design, the word mostly gets used referring to bulbous-shaped face-guards but I think what klappvisor refers to is more a hinge at the top of the face. The other popular visor-style was called the hounskull or dog-face, which was essentially a conical face-guard. The vision slits could be smaller than the great helm since you could move it. Another interesting feature is a second vision slit at the bottom of the cone to look down. These visors were typically pivoted at the temples. Often breath-holes would be more common on the right rather than the left side of the face, since the left was more likely to be struck. Bascinets got more and more pointed at the back, and neckguards called gorgets were added, although this often limited mobility, so the design was not universal. Barbutes were similar to Ancient Greek helmets, though with a slightly more open face. German styles of helmets called sallets or salades were popular (meaning ‘shell-like’ as they resemble sea-shells). These were similar to bascinets, but with some extensions on the sides at the bottom and a flange at the back to protect the neck. These were often worn without camails, so the extra neck protection was a big deal. Often they had only half-visors, which did not cover the chin. Instead, a piece called the bevor was often attached to the breastplate and was a scoop-shaped throat & chin defence. This did not need ventilation holes, because the overlap between the bevor and visor at the mouth allowed some breathing room. Armets were what we saw in Dressing In Steel, a more complicated helmet with hinged sides. Mostly it is just really thorough coverage for the head. The key difference between the armet and the close-helm seems to be how it was put on. You needed to open the armet at the bottom. Often you see reinforcing ridges in the centre of the helmet. In some cases they become fins, it gives a little more distance between your head and the blow that lands on the fin. Surviving examples varied. There were parade helmets, but most war helmets tended towards standard-ish designs although with some decoration. Obdicut posted:What was the military, rather than the strategic outcome of the campaign? I had been under the impression that it was an enormous slate of casualties for the Hungarians. The 1241 campaign was significant casualties for Hungary; they did not have any other field armies capable of meeting the Mongols. Instead the remaining forces were withdrawn into the fortifications, but judging by the success of those fortifications they seemed to have sufficient garrisons for their defence. There was also an immense civilian death toll. Maybe 20% of the population, though economically Hungary seemed able to recover from the loss. It depends on how you judge damage done to the country. Rockopolis posted:All this talk of dueling is making me wonder, not so much "Why is it always swords" (although I do wonder about duels with other weapons), but were there any duels fought unarmed? To the death, even? Does biting someone to submission count? Because there is a legend, surviving in a letter from a 15th century scholar/physician (Julius Caesar Scaliger), about a judicial duel or trial by combat in which one of the fighters was not given a weapon. On account of being a dog. It later got made into a play called The Dog of Montarges. I do not know for sure if it is real, but the play was not based on nothing. That said, generally a duel was supposed to involve serious danger. The idea is you risk your life to prove your courage or your case, so they used weapons. Some could be quite weird. Another theme of duels is the weird and wonderful weapons (see the images in pulphero’s post) is supposed to ensure a fair fight. For example, the man in the hole fighting the woman was supposed to mitigate any physical strength advantage the man is assumed to have. Those strange outfits were greased to stop fighters grabbing each other, and so on. The idea was to make this truly in the hands of God. Vivoviparous posted:
Thank you! That is a fabulous compliment, I will try to get a few more swordfights reviewed if you enjoy it that much. For that I’ll do another review of Polanski’s Macbeth then. For starters I am going to name them Blue (MacDuff) and King (Macbeth, for the crown). The opening strike at 0:20 I have mixed feelings about. I like that the armour works, and actually does its job. It is very satisfying when armour actually stops a weapon. On the other hand, there is so little effect here I wonder what Blue was expecting to accomplish with that cut. Then at 0:23 King does the exact same strike to Blue. This is sillier on the grounds that Blue actually has to move his shield out the way for the sword to strike his breastplate with no effect. It establishes that their armour can stop sword cuts, which is nice, but it also had both characters start with hits that seemed too obviously ineffective. Then Blue clears King’s blade by cutting down at it. Note the position at 0:24, Blue has his back completely exposed to the axe King has in his left hand, which would have been the perfect opportunity to brain him or hack into his shoulder or do something likely to slow him down. It is kind of glaring why he is not using it. In fact, they stop, clash blades, and do some kind of mutual belly-bounce before King spins away. At 0:29 Blue essentially tries to fence with his right leg forward, which completely misses the point of carrying a shield. Normally a shield should lead to stop blows or to be used to aggressively crowd your opponent. It seems like Blue is going out of his way not to do this. In fact, I think this scene would have worked better if they just had their swords, because neither fighter is using their left hand at all so far. Even at 0:31 when King spins, his left-hand axe is still doing nothing, probably for safety reasons. Again, what stands out to me from 0:30 onwards is the amount of effort Blue is putting in to not using his shield. Then the scene starts to redeem itself at 0:36, catching on your opponent’s armour was a very real risk, and in fact there were techniques based on it. A sword is not the ideal weapon for it, and Blue should have had a better idea what to do in that situation (and could have pushed with his shield to topple King), but it does show that there were ways to get an advantage other than directly injuring each other. However, King recovers quickly and wastes no time taking advantage of his opponent falling over. That is quite appropriate, as knights had no hesitation about taking advantage of a downed opponent. Then we get to 1:18 and the wrestling begins, which is neat. You see them struggling and gripping the sword. That King is using a half-sword grip to avoid losing leverage is accurate. Yes there is a risk of cutting your hands in this kind of struggle but it is a grip used. It also works, as he is able to lever his sword free and follow up with a pommel strike at 1:20. It does not do significant damage, but it succeeds in unbalancing Blue and giving King time to adjust and regain the initiative. The brawl starting from 1:20 does not have much heart in it. The kicks and punches are very restrained, probably to avoid injuring actors when hardened steel is involved. At 1:25 the blow that removes the crown looks more like an attempt to ruffle his hair than to do any meaningful injury to him. It is certainly entertaining, but is perhaps not what they were going for. The overlarge swing from 1:30 is realistic, even if not the kind of thing one is supposed to do. It looks like a dazed man swinging blindly because he’s just had his head rammed into logs. Then he puts the guy in a headlock and you notice that King suddenly has his sword again in his left hand, whereas before he had lost his sword. You never actually see him regain his sword. Nice pommel strike at 1:34, followed by pressing the advantage on his dazed opponent. Then another headlock, when really this would have been a much better time to cut behind his legs or stab into his armpit or something similar. It starts to get really clumsy around 1:40, but the thing in its favour is the knights look tired and dazed and generally not able to fight at full coordination. Then at 1:50 Blue grabs a log, and they take swipes at each other trying to dodge back out of range. The funny thing is the log from 2:00 to 2:10 shows better swordsmanship form than the rest of the fight. In fact, using the log for pommel-strikes around 2:07 shows a good example of how weapons were still useful in a grapple. Why king is so determined to grab his crown while staggering away at 2:10 I am not sure. Interesting priorities. However, when he pushes his unbalanced opponent down at 2:20 and pulls out a dagger, that is exactly the right thing to do. It misses, but it was a good time to go for a dagger, and a good opportunity to finish him off. The dive was a little carried away, and honestly sacrificed an advantageous position. The long thrust at 2:26 was not the most effective move against armour, but the way Blue deflects the thrust aside does look quite skilful. This is certainly a good moment of the fight, it looks like what it is supposed to – a skilled fighter who is tired and battered, so he is using technique but his form is not necessarily great. The grapple and struggle has little to necessarily comment on. Ideally wrestling or throws should be far quicker, but fights are rarely ideal, so I am happy with it. Then king uses a smart takedown around 2:37, pushing the upper body while pulling the legs. Certainly consistent with the principles of wrestling in the fechtbuch even if I cannot think of a specific technique that matches it. Immediately follows with a pin to stab into the joints of armour. Again, the right thing to do. They overemphasise kicking around 2:48, but that is not unreasonable. At this point it makes sense that Blue is not sure what to do next. However, once he gets his sword he wastes no time stabbing from behind with his opponent stunned in the gap of his armour. Ideally to pierce mail he should have used a half-sword thrust, but it looks like from his position on his knees he might not have a good angle. Normally a mail shirt stopped sword thrusts really well, but the video still shows him attacking a relative weak point in the armour, thrusting from behind while his opponent is dazed. So it made a nod to realism. Overall, the scene is nowhere near as good as Rob Roy or the Duellists, but it does show some smart moments. Generally the swordsmanship was the weak point, because they tried to make it far too based on later sports fencing, and the stronger points were when the grappling began and they made it into a fight. Railtus fucked around with this message at 00:31 on May 1, 2013 |
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May 1, 2013 00:09
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Grand Prize Winner posted:The idea was to make it a fair fight between a woman and a man or something like that. Clearly this is an early precursor to Whack-a-MoleTM. Seems they haven't quite got it figured out yet but they're trying.
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May 1, 2013 04:27
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Phy posted:You're telling me that "I will fight with a half-brick in a sock, your weapons will be a mace and a hole" happened more than once?! It seems like a hell of a waste of quarters. e: Isn't that more of a slungshot anyway? Frostwerks fucked around with this message at 15:00 on May 1, 2013 |
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May 1, 2013 14:50
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Grand Prize Winner posted:The idea was to make it a fair fight between a woman and a man or something like that.
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May 1, 2013 16:22
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I read this as "a man and a frog" and was confused for a minute. Now I'm only slightly less confused.
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May 1, 2013 16:29
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Arglebargle III posted:I read this as "a man and a frog" and was confused for a minute. Now I'm only slightly less confused. It probably happened at some point. Putting animals of various sorts on trial was probably not something that people did all the time in the middle ages, but it was by no means unheard of. I think the most celebrated case of this was from the 14th century when a village in the Tyrol was devastated by a swarm of locusts, and the villagers sued them in ecclesiastical court. The locusts failed to appear and had to be tried in absentia, but they had an appointed defense counsel and everything. The verdict was that they were to confine their activities to a certain area which was set aside for their use, though the villagers maintained mineral and water rights to the parcel. The idea was supposedly that by settling the "dispute" in ecclesiastical court, God would cause the locusts to obey the verdict. When that didn't happen (obviously), it was explained away by the supposition that the villagers were sinful before God and he wouldn't enforce the verdict until they shaped up. These kinds of stories are sometimes read in a mocking fashion, "look how dumb people were!" It's important to keep in mind that people weren't stupid, they just operated under a radically different understanding of how the world worked. This particular thing is actually a pretty useful demonstration of that. The practice of trying animals in court just indicates that they didn't make a clear distinction between human and animal. If you see people and animals as existing along the same continuum instead of being sharply distinct, to the point that animals can also be held responsible for their actions, it makes perfect sense to put a horse on trial if he killed a man by kicking him in the head. The life experiences, cultural background, and worldview of people in distant historical periods can be so different at times that it actually seems very difficult to see things through their eyes.
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May 1, 2013 17:25
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^^I think it is just another way of dealing with uncertainty and tragedy. In the case of condemning corpses to death it makes sense because Christians used to believe that your body had to be intact in order to be resurrected on Judgement Day. We find putting animals on trial cruel, but the fact that the animals would also get a lawyer to defend them and could actually win a case shows that they were not just taking revenge on defenseless animals but really considered them to be their equals in a sense:quote:In 1587, a gang of weevils, accused of damaging a vineyard, were deemed to have been exercising their natural rights to eat – and, in compensation, were granted a vineyard of their own.  Halloween Jack posted:Supposedly there was a judicial combat in France between a man and a dog. I saw a documentary which covered the incident, and said that the man was obliged to stand in such a hole, armed with a club. Inanimate objects, animals, corpses... Anything could be put on trial for its crimes and would get the full treatment up to and including torture until they "confessed". The last animal to be put on trial was a circus elephant named Mary, who was hung from a huge crane ("the law says the punishment is hanging so we goddamn will") in New York for trampling someone to death. Bugs and Beasts Before the Law by E.P. Evans is a good read with lots of tragic/funny stories, stuff like a rooster being burned at the stake for laying an egg or a Russian church bell being exiled to Siberia for ringing too cheerfully when a prince had just died. BBC podcast about animal trials: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20110315-1513a.mp3 PiratePing fucked around with this message at 17:52 on May 1, 2013 |
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May 1, 2013 17:31
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Someone asked this question and it was partially answered by a poster, but I don't think the OP covered it (apologies if I missed it): What was medieval footwear like? Sabatons was the partial answer I saw, but I'm thinking every day shoes or boots. I have the nagging suspicion that the knee-high boots seen in shows like Game of Thrones were uncommon or reserved solely for nobility, if they existed at all. Also, if anyone gets there, the Les Invalides museum in Paris has a great display of medieval weaponry and armor. One of the things I remember most too was a full suit of plate for a prince (dauphin?) who was like 10 or 12.
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May 1, 2013 17:50
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:What do you think of George Silver's assertion that the pike was a better weapon for single combat than the two-handed sword?
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May 1, 2013 22:29
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PiratePing posted:The last animal to be put on trial was a circus elephant named Mary, who was hung from a huge crane ("the law says the punishment is hanging so we goddamn will") in New York for trampling someone to death.  Theres a joke about the GOP in here somewhere...
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May 2, 2013 00:04
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More stories about medieval peoples rigidly applying the law with no thought for the context. Please.
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May 2, 2013 02:27
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I was surprised to read that fat was really expensive. Out of boredom I once read a random passage in a history book which pointed out that the cost of many goods varied regionally, and that along the (I think) French coast a slice of salted fat was a cheap substitute for meat in porridge and soup, hence the phrase "Advice and salt are free for the taking." (I wish I was not That Guy going "Well I read in this book once that...")
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May 2, 2013 03:30
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Fat was not expensive because the supply was low, it was expensive because demand was extremely high. A large number of industrial processes required fat at the time, so eating it was a luxury. This is before refrigeration and good transport networks though, so local variations in market price are hardly surprising for a perishable commodity like fat.
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May 2, 2013 03:40
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Halloween Jack posted:My understanding of Crecy was that the English were on the retreat from their campaign of chevauchee, weary and by that time subsisting on looted provisions, and didn't really want that battle. "Subsisting on looted provisions" is an essential part of the chevauchee, or any ravaging campaign for that matter, but certainly the English foodstuffs were running low. The English did want the battle to some degree, else they would not have stopped. The site was carefully chosen, the army was well-rested and provisioned, and Edward and his son in their own letters said they sought to end the war "by battle". I side with Clifford Rogers in saying that the English were manoeuvring into a highly advantageous position rather than retreating. Although we cannot know the circumstances with complete certainty, Rogers makes a very convincing case. I don't have "War Cruel And Sharp" on-hand, so this is partly from memory and partly from other stuff written on Crecy.
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May 2, 2013 03:41
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MoraleHazard posted:Someone asked this question and it was partially answered by a poster, but I don't think the OP covered it (apologies if I missed it): I did, but it was only a short answer as it is really outside my area: For medieval footwear the turnshoe was pretty popular. I have never really looked at them in depth, but I found this about their construction - http://www.threeriver.org/marshal/shoes_1.shtml Turnshoes are just very simple, straightforward, typically soft leather that I have heard likened to tennis shoes. They would not be unreasonable for a knight to wear. I first heard the term ‘turnshoe’ from a swordsmanship book. Anyway, for armoured knights they would also have mail stockings (chausses) or later on plate armoured coverings called sabatons. Occasionally you might just tie a mail sabaton over the shoe instead. I have heard some suggestions that mail stockings had the soles of the feet mailed but I am sceptical of that. Adding on from that: I found this possible source as well, but I am really going outside my area of expertise - http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/shoe/SHOEHOM1.HTM Boots were certainly not all that common. Particularly as boots were leather and leather was not the cheapest material. For nobles it is possible, but they seem to be mostly calf-height or shorter. Boots also seem counterintuitive, as a lot of guys would wear honest-to-goodness stockings or hose in later eras (separate legs that were tied to the belt or a drawstring at the waist), or people might wear leggings of cloth strips around the legs, which could serve the same purpose. I think the leg-wrappings would probably serve the same purpose as tall riding boots now. Some more realistic medieval boots, from Christian Henry Tobler's book Fighting With The German Longsword:  Landsknecht (German mercenaries from around 1500) are often portrayed wearing what look like broad, flat slippers.  A good picture is here, though I should say I disagree with some of the views of the webpage I got it from (on unrelated stuff, but just a small caveat).  The shoe was more or less cut to fit the foot and wrapped around it, rather than having a solid shape of its own. In that regard, you could probably make shoes out of other forms of cloth as well, but I do not know if they did. An important exception. Clogs made of wood were around since at least the 1280s. They look more or less the same as modern Dutch clogs. I have no idea how common they were, they do not survive very well, but they would probably be cheaper than leather.
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May 2, 2013 13:52
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Railtus posted:helmets Thanks! One of my favorites is the frog-mouth helm, because of how a sensible function lead to such a weird and distinctive design. Has some obvious drawbacks though which is why it's limited to a specific time, place and purpose (14th-ish c. German jousting)  Would a knight vary his armor or helmet depending on what he expected to go up against, e.g. a hounskull if he was facing a lot of archers?
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May 2, 2013 15:09
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Saint Sputnik posted:Would a knight vary his armor or helmet depending on what he expected to go up against, e.g. a hounskull if he was facing a lot of archers? Yes and no. Not all knights would necessarily have more than one helmet to choose from for an encounter, on the other hand, those who did certainly varied their equipment to the situation. For example, underneath the great helm (barrel-shaped), a knight would often wear a metal skullcap, and once he had done the initial charge he might throw off the great helm and rely on his coif and skullcap for head protection. Another thing was the visor on helmets was often detatchable, so if you took the pin out of your hounskull bascinet the visor would come free and you could fight with an open face rather than risk the visor shutting unexpectedly (which does not get mentioned often, so I suspect they may have had a latch or something to stop that from happening, but that's speculation). Most royalty had multiple sets of field armour, so I suspect there was a meaningful difference between the different suits and that it was not just vanity. On the other hand, most battlefields tended to have a wide enough range of weapons that I suspect armour was chosen for its general qualities rather than with a specific weapon in mind.
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May 2, 2013 22:34
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Arglebargle III posted:More stories about medieval peoples rigidly applying the law with no thought for the context. Please. quote:It is said that Bartholomew Chassenée, a distinguished French Jurist of the sixteenth century, made his reputation at the bar as counsel forsome rats which were put on trial before the ecclesiastical court of Autun on the charge of having feloniously eaten up and wantonly destroyed the barley of that province. On complaint formally presented by the magistracy, the official, or bishop's vicar, cited the culprits to appear on a certain day, and appointed Chassenée to defend them.  that day. quote:A priest excommunicated an orchard because its fruits tempted the children and kept them away from mass. The orchard remained barren until, at the solicitation of the Duchess of Burgundy, the excommunication was removed. quote:Egbert, bishop of Trier, anathemized the swallows which disturbed the devotions of the faithful by their chirping and chattering, and sacriligiously defiled his vestments at the altar. quote:St. Bernard excommunicated a a countless swarm of flies which annoyed the worshipers in the abbey church of Foigny; and lo, on the morrow they were, like Sennacherib's host, "all dead corpses". quote:In 1457 a sow was convicted of murder and sentenced to be “hanged by the hind feet from a gallows tree”. Her six piglets, being found stained with blood, were included in the indictment as accomplices. But no evidence was offered against them, and on account of their tender age they were acquitted. quote:In 1750 a man and a she-rear end were taken together in an act of buggery. The prosecution asked for the death sentence for both of them. After due process of law the man was sentenced, but the animal was let off on the ground that she was the victim of violence and had not participated in her master’s crime of her own free-will. The local priest gave evidence that he had known the said she-rear end for four years, that she had always shown herself to be virtuous and well-behaved, that she had never given occasion of scandal to anyone, and that therefore he was “willing to bear witness that she is in word and deed and in all her habits of life a most honest creature.” There was also some discussion about whether Clerus beetles counted as laity or clergy. I don't think people really expected Chassenée's rats to be able to read the signs by the way, it seems it was important that the whole procedure was done by the book. They had discussions about the subject of whether non-humans could be tried in this way back then too, Chassenée for example cites a passage in the Bible (about a fig tree that looks healthy but upon closer inspection does not have any fruit) where Jesus says "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire". He interprets this as a punishment, and later scholars have backed him up by saying that the tree wasn't punished for its lack of fruit, but for being a lying dick who pretends to be a nice juicy fig tree. V  VPiratePing fucked around with this message at 13:58 on May 3, 2013 |
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May 3, 2013 13:31
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I wonder what happened to the vineyard those weevils got.
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May 3, 2013 15:08
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