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I am hoping that the vineyard had a pre-existing infestation of Botrytis that filed an injunction to prevent the weevils from infringing on their residence.
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May 3, 2013 15:22
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PiratePing posted:From Bugs and Beasts before the Law: That is hi-larious. Do you have more? Becuase that poo poo is golden.
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May 3, 2013 22:06
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that day.
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Nice piece of fish posted:That is hi-larious. Do you have more? Becuase that poo poo is golden. I second this request, this is one of my favourite parts of the thread so far.
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May 4, 2013 03:04
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If you want to read it, one of his books is actually public domain: http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924021236017#page/n13/mode/2up
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May 4, 2013 14:15
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This is all I have time for right now, I might see if I can find something on objects after the weekend.  quote:In 1572 a pig was sentenced to be strangled and hanged on a gibbet for killing a child. "From time immemorial" the justiciary of the lord Abbot of Moyen-Montier had been accustomed to consign to the provost of Saint-Diez, near a cross, condemned criminals, wholly naked, that they may be executed; but inasmuch as this pig is a brute beast, he has delivered the same bound with a cord whitout prejudicing or in any wise impairing the right of the abbot to deliver prisoners wholly naked." The pig must not wear a rope, unless the right to do without it be expressly reserved, lest some human culprit, under similar circumstances might claim to be entitled to raiment. quote:In 1474 a cock was sentenced to be burned at the stake for the heinous and unnatural crime of laying an egg. The oeuf coquatri was supposed to be the product of a very old cock and to furnish the most active and effective ingredient of witch ointment. When hatched by a serpent or by the sun, it brought forth a cockatrice, which would hide in the roof of a house and with its baneful breath and "death-darting eye" destroy all the inmates.
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May 4, 2013 16:02
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EvanSchenck posted: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... Well, it's not like this is limited to the distant past... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7295559.stm quote:Bear convicted for theft of honey Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 18:58 on May 4, 2013 |
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May 4, 2013 18:48
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Not sure if this is within the scope of the thread, but I've always been interested in medieval combat and there are apparently some groups in my state that practice historical fighting based on old manuals and surviving records, which sounds pretty neat. There are also some reenacting groups, which is something I've always toyed around with trying. Question though: How do people make their own armor and such for those things? I'd love to learn how to do that since I've always done prop-making as a sort of hobby, but I'm not sure where to even begin with something like actually building armor. How do you learn it? Where do you even practice? I imagine most people don't have the space / money to set up a medieval blacksmith's shop in their backyard, but since a lot of reenacting groups seem to have period-realistic metal armor as a requirement, there has to be some way people are doing it. Unless everyone is just spending their life savings on custom-made armor, I guess.
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May 4, 2013 20:49
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From the perspective of peasants; how much presence did, say a local count or duke have? Did peasants usually live their entire lives without seeing their liege lord? Did the lords tend to tour their property on an annual basis or something?
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May 4, 2013 20:57
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Honey Badger posted:Question though: How do people make their own armor and such for those things? I'd love to learn how to do that since I've always done prop-making as a sort of hobby, but I'm not sure where to even begin with something like actually building armor. How do you learn it? Where do you even practice? I imagine most people don't have the space / money to set up a medieval blacksmith's shop in their backyard, but since a lot of reenacting groups seem to have period-realistic metal armor as a requirement, there has to be some way people are doing it. Unless everyone is just spending their life savings on custom-made armor, I guess. You can get quite a lot of work done without a forge. A lot of metal armor can be made by buying cold-rolled steel sheets (between 20 and 14 gauge, depending on the purpose) and shaped using a variety of hammers and forms. You can spend a lot of money getting the perfect tools, but people get a lot done using cheap gear. Generally you start with something that doesn't require a lot of forming, like making a brigandine coat. Then you work on stuff that only needs a simple curve set to it, like a gorget. From there, you work on things that require dishing or raising, like elbow/knee cops. You pick up skills as you go and slowly expand on what you know. As for where you do this, well, it's pretty drat noisy. I used to do it in a shed behind our house, which worked. You probably can't do it in an apartment or anywhere too densely packed. I would recommend a place like Armour Archive, which is a forum/site for this sort of thing. There are tutorials and you can see the tools and projects people are doing.
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May 4, 2013 21:39
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I don't know about your area, but where I live there apparently is a collective of people who make their own medieval armour with a forge and all that. My nephew is part of one and his things tend to look pretty legit, so go ask around I guess if there is something similar in your area. They do it for a sort of larp museum thing where people can see how people lived in the middle ages, so it might be pretty common.
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May 4, 2013 22:20
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Honey Badger posted:Not sure if this is within the scope of the thread, but I've always been interested in medieval combat and there are apparently some groups in my state that practice historical fighting based on old manuals and surviving records, which sounds pretty neat. There are also some reenacting groups, which is something I've always toyed around with trying. Ashcans covered this question far better than I could. The group I used to know had a few guys in mail shirts and one guy who worked in leather, and their skill with mail shirts was limited to just moving bits from the sleeves to reinforce the split in the skirt. Another point is the group might have one armourer between them. And we all just go over to his place and assist him. Another benefit of using off-the-shelf armours is you can collect them over time. I could spend £200 on a brigandine I like, then pay the extra £130 for the vambraces later. That way I spread the cost into multiple smaller purchases. The total for a full set might still be around £800 or $1200, but not all at once, and not all medieval troops were covered in full body armour. Namarrgon posted:From the perspective of peasants; how much presence did, say a local count or duke have? Did peasants usually live their entire lives without seeing their liege lord? Did the lords tend to tour their property on an annual basis or something? Depends on the rank. Duke tended to be a little too high up for the common labourer to meet, which might explain why tradition in fiction is for the good-guy noble to be a Duke – he was too far removed from the general population to be seen oppressing them personally. On the other hand, the negative reputation of Counts in the English-speaking world (why is Count Dooku a Count?) is possibly linked to the fact that England tended to have Earls or Barons rather than Counts. I am leaning towards saying not too much direct presence in many cases. The Normans mostly spoke French after the English conquest, and there did not seem to be a strong drive to raise their children to speak English until much later. On the other hand, later on, knights or esquires and other low-nobility or upper gentry were portrayed in English country as fulfilling active roles in the community such as Justice of the Peace. Essentially I am going to give the incredibly unhelpful answer of "it varies." I think a knight might have about as much contact with his tenants as a modern landlord. More powerful nobility would have a more distant relationship, unless than lord chooses to be especially hands-on in managing his fiefs. Railtus fucked around with this message at 00:11 on May 5, 2013 |
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May 5, 2013 00:00
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I included dukes with counts here because I assume if you are a peasant living in the castle town it doesn't really matter much whether the guy on the throne inside is a count or a duke. Assuming that the Duke of X didn't have a Count of X in his own court but I wouldn't be surprised if there were at least a few who did that. You make an interesting point about the negative portrayal of counts in popular culture though. It's a very tempting line of thought.
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May 5, 2013 00:05
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If you want a suit of armor you can pick up stuff from people getting out of the hobby cheep on craigslist or if your part of a group. I bought a suit a few years ago for $150. I only wanted the steel gantlets so I sold the rest cheep. Another option is to get involved with a HEMA group. http://hemaalliance.com/?page_id=686 They tend to focus on historical technique more so that most reenactment groups and most are primarily doing unarmored combat so that start up cost is a lot less. A lot of groups have loaner gear. My club only asks new people supply there own cup.
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May 5, 2013 03:53
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pulphero posted:If you want a suit of armor you can pick up stuff from people getting out of the hobby cheep on craigslist or if your part of a group. I bought a suit a few years ago for $150. I only wanted the steel gantlets so I sold the rest cheep. That sounds ridiculously affordable to me. What kind of armor did you get for $150?
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May 5, 2013 22:49
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leather with metal studs for the torso and the arms and legs were the same with steel shoulders, elbows and knees. The only thing I ended up keeping was the clamshell gauntlets.
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May 5, 2013 23:04
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You can get really good deals on people leaving the hobby, because honestly what else are they going to do with it? Unless you have a really nice set, it's not like you can prop it up in your living room as a display. So you are stuck hauling it around forever, throwing it out, or selling it cheap to someone in your community. Not a hard decision. When I got out of the hobby I sold off a bunch of tools to people cheap, and ended up giving away stuff that was shabby to people who were starting out. Also an anvil, because seriously who wants to move an anvil if you aren't going to use it?
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May 6, 2013 00:29
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Arglebargle III posted:If people have any questions about medieval militaries or combat in China I can try to answer them; I don't have a history degree but I do have a related degree that required taking a lot of Chinese history and Asian history in general. Thanks for the offer; I've got a few questions and I'm particularly interested in the Sui/early Tang period. 1. What was military medicine and surgery like? 2. How did armies communicate on the field and between armies - was it all couriers or did they have pigeons or use smoke signals or something? 3. I get the impression that infantry were basically armed with either a spear and tall shield, or a bow. Is this right? 4. Did priests or monks ever come to battle, either as chaplains or a regiment (I think Japanese monks did this?) 5. The Chinese castles I've seen photos of are square with a single tall keep inside, and serve as purely military structures, unlike the European "armoured home" deal. Is this correct? Railtus posted:Depends on the rank. Duke tended to be a little too high up for the common labourer to meet, which might explain why tradition in fiction is for the good-guy noble to be a Duke – he was too far removed from the general population to be seen oppressing them personally. On the other hand, the negative reputation of Counts in the English-speaking world (why is Count Dooku a Count?) is possibly linked to the fact that England tended to have Earls or Barons rather than Counts. Cos he's played by Christopher Lee, although that's still related.
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May 6, 2013 15:30
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House Louse posted:Thanks for the offer; I've got a few questions and I'm particularly interested in the Sui/early Tang period. Re 4: Yeah, the Japanese monks at periods were able set themselves up in various ways as political/militarily significant factions. One of my favorites: temple owned land was exempt from a lot (all?) taxes, so sometimes people would 'donate' their land to orders and then 'rent' it at, of, say, a few % points lower than their regular feudal/imperial obligations. So 'warrior monks' could sometimes be less, well, DnD Clerics (Buddhists, at least nominally, shouldn't even eat meat much less kill people...) and more, I dunno, Papal employed condottiero, if put into European terms. I'm not so up and up on the Chinese history, but I think the famous Shaolin monks had a similar deal, militarized over taxation conflicts between temple and state lands.
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May 6, 2013 15:52
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House Louse posted:Thanks for the offer; I've got a few questions and I'm particularly interested in the Sui/early Tang period. I have no idea, sorry. This is a specific enough question about an early enough time that I feel like you would have to check with an expert on whether there are even any extant primary sources that deal with the subject. House Louse posted:2. How did armies communicate on the field and between armies - was it all couriers or did they have pigeons or use smoke signals or something? They had couriers and a variety of ingenious ways to hide messages on them, because the Chinese had access to much better writing substrates than the Europeans. Writing on silk was durable and very easy to hide on a courier. One thing the Chinese did that Europeans didn't was use kites as signals. Paper made kites cheap and they were used often as emergency signals. They could also tie whistles to the kites, though I'm not sure how much extra application that would have. Apparently some of the kites were designed to look like birds, but I don't know if that was merely aesthetic or an attempt to make a very obvious signal less so to any enemies that might be watching. House Louse posted:3. I get the impression that infantry were basically armed with either a spear and tall shield, or a bow. Is this right?  Well, there would be some soldiers with a spear and a tall shield, and some soldiers with a bow, but the Chinese military changed considerably with the times. Around the Sui/Tang dynasty the compound bow and horse archery had been introduced to China and had a pretty big effect on Chinese military ideas. Unfortunately China had a chronic problem with the quality of its horses; domestic horses were considered by historical sources to be too small and slow for military use. China's government was constantly trying to get its hands on central Asian horses, so they definitely used cavalry they just couldn't get enough horses for their massive military to have a large cavalry contingent. The crossbow had been in use for a long time in China even by the 600s, so they would have had both crossbows and composite bows.I don't know that much about the actual weapons used at that particular time, but I can talk a little about the Sui Dynasty military. The Sui Dynasty used something called the fubing (literally home soldiery) system, which was basically a yeomanry system in which soldiers would sign up for years of military service in return for land to farm. The Sui didn't invent this system, it arose in the years of disunion before the Sui. The soldiers were required to do training and that sort of thing but they basically had their own land in exchange for marching off for about ~3 year tours when the government wanted to go to war. Anyway, the point was that this was a pretty good deal for tenant farmers and their sons, and as a result the Sui and early Tang had a ridiculously huge professional army that was trained, disciplined and motivated. They probably did use cheap weapons like spears and bows because when you have that many infantry you need cheap weapons, but when you've got 500,000 spearmen and archers who have been training regularly for years you probably don't need better weapons! The Sui also reorganized the military into a very clear and very broad hierarchy, with a war department with dedicated logistics branches, divided the country up into hundreds of small military districts and sent a local military commander to manage each district, and the Tang improved on this system by setting up China's first official military academy. The impression one gets is that by the early Tang the Chinese military was very large, very organized, and very loyal, and indeed they marched around conquering things. The places they weren't able to conquer were Korea, Champa (now South Vietnam) and Tibet, which all have formidable natural barriers and problematic supply lines from China proper. The Sui Dynasty, according to their own records, expanded the army to a peak of about 1,200,000 men for their campaigns in Korea, but the Sui Dynasty also bankrupted the empire with their military expenditures so that was probably not a sustainable number. This is the late 6th century so that was probably the largest army the world had seen or would see for some time. House Louse posted:4. Did priests or monks ever come to battle, either as chaplains or a regiment (I think Japanese monks did this?) I don't know. What we see today in Chinese priests and monks is pretty different than what we would have seen 1,400 years ago. All that martial arts stuff is fairly recent; and I honestly don't know what came before. China definitely has a more chillaxed attitude towards religion than most of the world; you don't really see the religious conflict that you do in Europe and the Middle East or even in Japan. There were arguments between the emperor and the temples over taxation but I don't recall any from the Tang period. House Louse posted:5. The Chinese castles I've seen photos of are square with a single tall keep inside, and serve as purely military structures, unlike the European "armoured home" deal. Is this correct? Feudalism never caught on in China, so the European idea of a castle didn't really exist, even though fortifications certainly did. The gentry wouldn't live in an armored home and wouldn't really want to or know why you should. Forts were for the military and there was never the idea that the military class and the landowning class were somehow the same people. Cities had impressive fortifications certainly; in many cities you can see parts of Ming dynasty walls that have been left standing in city centers and restored, and they're as impressive as any castle. The Ming Dynasty gatehouse of Xi'an is probably the easiest one to see. It's a gatehouse with the double-wall setup you would expect and the gatehouse shape, and it's dominated by a large rectangular keep like maybe you describe. But it's not a castle, it would be part of the city defenses. What you're thinking of are probably forts controlling borders or some crucial military junction, that would be simpler than a European castle with just a wall and a keep like you described. Chang'an, the Tang capital, was a heavily fortified city and probably more impressive than any European castle of the time (7th century was hardly the heyday of castle building) but the Chinese just didn't build these big elaborate castles, especially not in the Tang dynasty. Why would they? The castle is a manifestation of a political and economic system as much as it is a defensive structure. So basically, that's a very long "yes." Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 06:25 on May 7, 2013 |
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May 6, 2013 19:11
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House Louse posted:Thanks for the offer; I've got a few questions and I'm particularly interested in the Sui/early Tang period. I can say a bit about this, not about that period in specific though. From what I know professional physicians mostly stuck to treating the royalty and higher ups, so not much for the ordinary soldiers. It was based on the concept of Ch'i, sometimes translated as influence. It was based on natural influences on the body and blood flow. The measurement of blood circulation was a separate and specialized medical discipline. They measured both wrists. This is all taken though from what the Mongols found the good parts of Chinese medical procedures so no doubt there were folk remedies as well unrelated to what I know. It was noted though that medicinal procedures in China were extremely slow to change so it probably was like this during most of the time pre Mongol invasion.
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May 7, 2013 23:40
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I have always been curious about the formation of the Papal states.
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May 8, 2013 00:53
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Question about that picture of the "murder stoke": So I'm guessing the idea behind it is that in plate armor, a cutting blade isn't all that useful so holding it by the blade lets you use it kind of like a long hammer. From this I am also assuming that thrusting with the point of the sword was insufficient to penetrate plate armor as well? If people had to resort to that, why even use swords in the first place? Also, wouldn't holding a sword by the blade and smashing it against someone in armor risk, like, cutting your fingers off? With gauntlets I guess it's not an issue (though I imagine that would make actually holding onto the thing a bit tricky) but the dude in that artwork appears to be holding it with his bare hands. I mean I can see the reasoning behind the technique, but it seems like such an impractical solution.
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May 8, 2013 02:46
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From what I gathered earlier it's only sharpened at the sweet spot of the blade. As for the feasibility of it I think in halfswording was that it was something you could incorporate as a very quick bash to follow up an attack or something. Despite the impressive name it was definitely a non-lethal blow for anyone with a helm. http://youtu.be/2bdMfaymGlk This link, gotten from someone earlier in the thread shows you just how quick you can be with halfswording
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May 8, 2013 02:57
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Ok, that makes a lot more sense in the context of half-swording. I thought it was just swinging around the sword by the blade like a warhammer or something, which seemed kind of dumb. I'm still not clear on how effective it would be against anything but unarmored / lightly armored peasant domes, though. Is that illustration just from like an exhibition, or is that supposed to be a duel to the death? That half-swording video is pretty cool, I haven't seen much of that. Now I'm really considering checking out the HEMA group in my area.
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May 8, 2013 03:38
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Honey Badger posted:From this I am also assuming that thrusting with the point of the sword was insufficient to penetrate plate armor as well? If people had to resort to that, why even use swords in the first place? The longsword's dominance is interesting because it's a compromise form. The tip can pierce chainmail, and the blade can make big wounds in unarmored opponents. Other forms would be better for either job, but the longsword can do both.
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May 8, 2013 03:38
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pulphero posted:I have always been curious about the formation of the Papal states. The Emperor Justinian, who ruled the remaining eastern part of the Roman Empire in the sixth century CE, wanted to reconquer the west and devoted considerable forces to the effort. In a series of wars Justinian's forces were able to recover Italy and a good portion of North Africa and Southern Spain. The campaign for the Italian peninsula is called the Gothic Wars because it was the Goths who they beat for it. This was quite a long time before the split between Western (aka Catholic) and Eastern (aka Orthodox) Christianity, and the pope wasn't nearly as important as he later became. Justinian himself set something up called the Pentarchy, in which five patriarchs established in the five most important Christian cities functioned as the leaders of religious affairs in their general areas, with himself over them as emperor and head of the faith. Each of these five had a fairly good claim on preeminence. The Patriarch of Constantinople was seated in the capital and principle city of the known world, close by the Emperor himself; Alexandria had been effectively the first significant city in the Roman Empire to become Christianized; Antioch had been a major center of early Christian leadership; Jerusalem was the holy city where Jesus had died; finally the Bishop of Rome occupied the same position as once had the Apostle Peter, whom Jesus had designated the leader of the faith after his death, and also claimed the title of Pontifex Maximus, which had been the highest religious title in the Roman Republic and later the Empire. Compared to the eastern Pentarchs the Pope was probably the least important, because the area designated for him to lead was poor, wrecked, mostly outside Roman political control and ruled by barbarians, most of whom were Arian heretics. EDIT: This is most evident by the fact that 4 out of 5 patriarchs were based in the East, whereas responsibility for the entire West fell on one guy--clearly the West was a bit crap. At any rate restored Roman rule in Italy wasn't in a great position, partly because the Gothic Wars had left the area completely trashed. It was organized as the Exarchate of Ravenna, with the northern city of Ravenna as capital. Later in the sixth century another Germanic group, the Langobards or Lombards, made their way into Italy and began to take parts of it from the Byzantines. This process took a long time but by the middle of the 8th century the Lombards were in control of all but a few areas on the fringes like Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, and so on, which the Romans were able to keep hold of for the time being. Part of the reason for this is that there was a certain amount of distraction occasioned by the Arabs appearing out of nowhere and conquering half the known world, including the better part of the Eastern Empire. The Lombards finally dismantled the Exarchate altogether around 750 CE. This all put the pope in a difficult position because he had little power of his own and could not count on any support from Constantinople. After getting pushed around by the Lombards a bit too much for his liking the Pope sought other allies. At the same time in what is now France, the Merovingian dynasty was in decline and their chief adviser, a man named Pepin, had become king for all intents and purposes. In order to legitimize his rule he appealed to the Pope, and they cut a deal where the Pope would recognize Pepin as King of the Franks and Pepin would recognize the Pope as the the secular leader of Rome and with it some adjoining areas that had been the last remaining bits of the Exarchate of Ravenna when the Lombards had finished it off, basically a strip of land running across the middle of the peninsula although the exact dimensions tended to vary a bit depending on what year this was. This was called the Donation of Pepin, and it formed the basis of the Papal States and also the close working relationship between the Pope and the King of the Franks. This culminated a bit later when Pepin's son Charles or Carl--better known as Charlemagne--came down and finished the Lombards off for the Pope and confirmed the Donation, and in exchange the Pope Hadrian I declared him (Holy) Roman Emperor. Or not in exchange, because I think there are some suggestions that Charlemagne had no idea that Hadrian was going to do that and he had just sprung it on him as a surprise power grab. That is, by crowning Charlemagne, Hadrian was asserting that he had the authority to do such a thing in the first place, which he probably didn't. In fact the whole arrangement was pretty illegitimate--Pepin/Charlemagne probably didn't have the right to grant that land to the Pope, and the Pope probably didn't have the right to crown somebody King of the Franks, and definitely didn't have the right to crown somebody Roman Emperor. But in the absence of anybody to stop them it all worked out. And this is how we get the Papal States. This is also more-or-less how we get the Pope as the most important single man in the Christian religion. Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria are all lost to the Muslims, and although they continued to have Patriarchs in some capacity representing the Christians living under Muslim rule there (still do, actually a whole bunch of them for the various sects involved) they were isolated. The Patriarch of Constantinople remained but he was directly under the thumb of the Emperor. The Bishop of Rome--the Pope--was politically sovereign and in possession of his own kingdom, and furthermore had a fairly close and influential partnership with the King of the Franks/Holy Roman Empire. This was parleyed into further concessions throughout what had once been the Western Empire, which the church winding up in control of large landholdings all over the place. They also effectively assumed control of a lot of the old Roman political apparatus, which sort of morphed into the church hierarchy, and set up ecclesiastical law courts in parallel to the secular legal system, really all kinds of stuff. As an aside as I'm writing this I realized that the history of the papacy could be interpreted as an empire-building narrative, with te empire being the powerful religious/financial/political structure that developed under the Pope between the 8th and 14th centuries, which makes me curious if any medievalist has written it that way. Schenck v. U.S. fucked around with this message at 04:49 on May 8, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 04:45
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Arglebargle III posted:The longsword's dominance is interesting because it's a compromise form. The tip can pierce chainmail, and the blade can make big wounds in unarmored opponents. Other forms would be better for either job, but the longsword can do both. Is that why daggers (rondels?) were so important, so that soldiers had an option against plate mail as well, or was a dude with a sword going up against a dude with plate armor just hosed? I suppose single combat between someone in chainmail and someone in plate armor probably wasn't exactly common, though.
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May 8, 2013 04:51
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A guy with plate armor versus a guy with no armor is pretty unfair, yeah. That's kind of the whole point. As for what people intended to do with their armor-piercing daggers someone else will have to answer. In my mind going up against an armored knight planning to take him down with a dagger sounds like a terrible plan. However the daggers existed. Maybe they were a backup weapon. Not everything in military history works particularly well. There are examples from every age of concepts and weapons that people thought were a stellar idea and turned out not to work so well. For 10 years they built ironclad warships with ramming spikes. Trench knives and punching daggers exist. Hell practically every fancy Indian weapon goes into this category. Maybe daggers were really good in real combat, maybe they were just carried as backup weapons, maybe they were considered a good idea but not in fact so great. I don't know.
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May 8, 2013 05:46
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Arglebargle III posted:A guy with plate armor versus a guy with no armor is pretty unfair, yeah. That's kind of the whole point. In the famous duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, they both fought in plate armour with a lances, axe, sword, and dagger. Le Gris stabbed Carrouges in the thigh, who then wrestled him to the ground, and picked up his sword to try and slash through Le Gris's armour. This didn't work, so Carrouges kept his opponent pinned and used the dagger to pry open Le Gris's mask and then killed him with a stab through the gorget. This tells me that a dagger was probably not very useful in fighting an opponent until you have him in a position where you need to penetrate the armour fatally. A lightly-armoured combatant could use the mordhau against plate armour to stun his enemy, and then use a dagger to actually penetrate the armour. In the fencing club we've talked a bit about knife fighting, if a dagger is your only weapon against a sword the best chance (other than fleeing) is to do a flying tackle and try to pin and stab your opponent in a single move. The tactics for knife fighting look very different from sword fighting because the chance of surviving the fight is lower for both combatants.
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May 8, 2013 06:12
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pulphero posted:I have always been curious about the formation of the Papal states. I have exams this week, so I will get to your question next week. Sorry for the delay. The reason I am able to answer the other questions and not this one is because I know them from memory but this is a subject I would have to research. Honey Badger posted:Question about that picture of the "murder stoke": You are correct; thrusting with the point would not pierce plates directly. At least not with any kind of reliability. You could attack gaps in the armour, and bashing them on the head with a murder-stroke will daze them, and then stab the weak spots while they are stunned. I should add this was not a particular failing of swords. Essentially nothing directly pierced plate armour reliably. Firearms and extremely powerful crossbows had a much better chance than most, a pick-like weapon might do under ideal circumstances, but generally getting through armour will be difficult with almost any weapon. So using a sword under those circumstances is not really a major handicap. For why swords, not everyone on the battlefield was in full armour, and swords excelled in those circumstances because they were fast, versatile and generally very difficult to defend against (as well as relatively easy to defend with). You might not have the option of changing weapons when fighting a man in armour; a judicial duel or trial by combat might require men to fight in full armour with swords, on the battlefield your opponent is not going to give you chance to choose the ideal weapon against him. How you grip the blade of the sword can mitigate the danger. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rqP1F36EMY However, I have not seen it tested when using a murder-stroke with a sharp blade. I think people are understandably reluctant to test it. Frostwerks posted:From what I gathered earlier it's only sharpened at the sweet spot of the blade. From what I can tell, most swords were sharp for most of their length. Ricassos (blunt portions near the bottom of the blade) were not that common until the 1500s. You occasionally get specialised swords like the Type XVII’s and an interesting blade described by Fiore Dei Liberi with a blunt section, but I would not call it normal for longswords. Honey Badger posted:Ok, that makes a lot more sense in the context of half-swording. I thought it was just swinging around the sword by the blade like a warhammer or something, which seemed kind of dumb. I'm still not clear on how effective it would be against anything but unarmored / lightly armored peasant domes, though. Is that illustration just from like an exhibition, or is that supposed to be a duel to the death? It definitely has an effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi757-7XD94 The illustration is from a fightbook, which is supposed to teach techniques for a potentially lethal duel. It is essentially an advertisement, but an advertisement of how to duel to the death. :P I am sure those swords are blunt to minimise the risks though. He does not seem to be taking any special care with it. Honey Badger posted:Is that why daggers (rondels?) were so important, so that soldiers had an option against plate mail as well, or was a dude with a sword going up against a dude with plate armor just hosed? I suppose single combat between someone in chainmail and someone in plate armor probably wasn't exactly common, though. Rondel daggers (so named for the discs in place of a normal pommel or crossguard) were important for when grappling. It is difficult to use your sword or polearm when so close, but you can pull out your dagger quickly. For how changing down to a shorter weapon might be helpful in a fight, try this video, look at 4:05 for an absolutely beautiful example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ea5-nMpJL0 The longsword being able to pierce mail (chainmail) is important because most suits of plate armour had areas only covered by mail. For example, the armpits were very difficult to get solid plates under without limiting your arm motion, and the groin was normally only defended by a skirt-like defence, meaning it was vulnerable to an upwards strike from beneath. Armour was definitely a tremendous advantage against swords. Fiore dei Liberi once said he would rather have three fights in armour than one fight unarmoured, because a sharp sword would be so instantly lethal on the first mistake in unarmoured combat. However, there was a great deal you could do with a sword against plate armour. It normally goes under the heading of Harnischfechten. For examples of the range of techniques used with swords against armour, try this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4k-vjdeZO4
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May 8, 2013 06:44
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Anyone know much about the splintered Germany period? What led to it and whats the fallout?Arglebargle III posted:I don't know. What we see today in Chinese priests and monks is pretty different than what we would have seen 1,400 years ago. All that martial arts stuff is fairly recent; and I honestly don't know what came before. China definitely has a more chillaxed attitude towards religion than most of the world; you don't really see the religious conflict that you do in Europe and the Middle East or even in Japan. There were arguments between the emperor and the temples over taxation but I don't recall any from the Tang period. I recall they did martial arts training mostly for fitness and self defense reasons(some of the temples and monasteries are in the rear end of nowhere and can't really expect timely aid against bandits or rebel forces), but as far as I'm aware their military role are all defensively oriented. Other than that I don't know much, except that Taoist priests traditionally use a sword for their rituals and Buddhist monks use martial discipline and hard exercise to keep their minds free of worldly desires. Halberds are seen a lot in depictions of chinese warfare, how much fact is there in that?
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May 8, 2013 08:25
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the JJ posted:So 'warrior monks' could sometimes be less, well, DnD Clerics (Buddhists, at least nominally, shouldn't even eat meat much less kill people...) and more, I dunno, Papal employed condottiero, if put into European terms. Thanks, that's about what I was expecting. Davincie posted:I can say a bit about this, not about that period in specific though. From what I know professional physicians mostly stuck to treating the royalty and higher ups, so not much for the ordinary soldiers. Huh. I was expecting they'd have a surgical corps of some sort, and surgery was what I was really intersted in. Thank you. Arglebargle III posted:You get this idea from movie extras right?  Some, but the books I've been looking at also emphasise them. I actually left crossbows out becaus I thought they were too stereotypical... quote:I don't know. What we see today in Chinese priests and monks is pretty different than what we would have seen 1,400 years ago. All that martial arts stuff is fairly recent; and I honestly don't know what came before. China definitely has a more chillaxed attitude towards religion than most of the world; you don't really see the religious conflict that you do in Europe and the Middle East or even in Japan. There were arguments between the emperor and the temples over taxation but I don't recall any from the Tang period. Well, Jackie Chan stuff would be pretty useless on the battlefield, I think. I was imagining something more like Knights Templar, normal soldiers who's taken some religious vows. I think at least one Tang Emperor persecuted the Buddhist monasteries, but that was more of a taxation issue due to their size and number of holdings, not purely religious. Thanks for your long and detailed answers, especially on castles and the fubing; that was brilliant.
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May 8, 2013 10:55
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veekie posted:Anyone know much about the splintered Germany period? What led to it and whats the fallout? A lot of it is Germany existing as sort of splintered in the first place, it was never conquered by the Romans and its period of integration into once-Latin Europe mostly consisted of a series of overlapping and domino tribal migrations. Also, almost everywhere was splintered until, one way or another, particularly strong crowns brought their frontiers and subordinates inline. Even then, nobody gets a real solid 'nation' until, of, say, around the French Revolution. It's sort of weird how our ex-post-facto view of the 'natural' state of things affects our perceptions. Had, say, the Union of Kalmar stuck we'd probably all be asking 'why'd it take Scandinavia so long to unify?' Or, had, say, Napoleon won and rolled Portugal and Spain into one big ball we'd all probably laugh at how silly the inter-Iberian squabbling over colonies was.
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May 8, 2013 10:56
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veekie posted:Halberds are seen a lot in depictions of chinese warfare, how much fact is there in that? A lot. The Chinese were as far as I know the first civilization to invent the halberd-type weapon. They were casting bronze halberd heads over 3000 years ago. Many examples from around 2,500 years ago are still around since bronze has that nice protective patina and they were common grave goods. You can go to any decent provincial museum in China and see dozens of them. The idea is so old it predates standardization of the ancient Chinese writing system. It's still a basic element of modern characters. 或 to have/to exist is a 戈 guarding a thing, and a country 國 is a wall around a 戈 guarding a thing. It's pronounced gē if anyone cares, although no one knows how it sounded back when they invented it. The first iteration was actually a charioteer's weapon. Its official English name is a dagger-axe or 戈 in Chinese. It's a spear head combined with a piercing blade at right angles to the spear. The idea was that one guy would drive the chariot while the second guy swung the halberd as they went past, making holes in just about anything. The idea is almost a lance designed to work with a chariot, since the stirrup wouldn't be invented for another thousand years. You concentrate an enormous amount of momentum into one point, the point just has to be held out from the chariot because chariots can't charge straight at things without crashing. The guys in chariots were the warrior-aristocrats, so the dagger-axe had a lot of cultural cachet and that's probably why there were so many preserved in tombs. (Literati-aristocrats hadn't been invented yet, the Shang Dynasty were a bunch of violent dickheads.) Anyway the invention was quickly expanded to the infantry because it's nearly as cheap as a spear, only better. As time went on there was the same profusion of forms as you see in Europe. Spear+chopper is an effective combination no matter how you slice it (har) so you can stick a dagger blade on there or a chopper or a crescent blade and it's all going to work more or less equally well. So again, a very long "yes" for you. The halberd was very much a thing in China.
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May 8, 2013 11:38
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House Louse posted:Thanks for your long and detailed answers, especially on castles and the fubing; that was brilliant. I mentioned that Chang'an (Tang capital) was a heavily fortified city. I should add that it made everyone who visited lose their loving minds at how amazing it was. I'm serious, the ancient people of the world gave Chang'an rave reviews and came back to their home countries gushing about how everything Chinese was the best. This was the time when Japan and Korea just decided to convert their culture wholesale to the Chinese model because those guys were so great. It was the place to be in the 6th and 7th centuries up until its sack in the 8th century. Maybe there was this place called Constantinople or whatever but forget that for a minute! We're talking about this place now.  Really, where to start with Chang'an? If one had to describe the urban planning, the phrase "baller as hell" comes to mind. First, it was a planned city. The concept isn't uncommon but where other cities started Chang'an carried through on the execution. The walls were about 5 miles by 6 miles, giving enough space for 500,000 people to live comfortably inside, although about as many lived outside during its heyday. The whole city was laid out in a grid pattern, separated into blocks by internal walls and broad avenues. Water and sanitation was provided by three streams and five man-made canals. The city garrison was divided into a garrison building in each living quarter and spent the majority of their time being police and firefighters instead of soldiers. Any of the hundreds of living quarters could be closed off by gates (and would be at night) which was maybe a bit of a party pooper but was amazing at controlling fires. Chang'an never burned down. EVER. Chang'an experienced its share of serious fires but the fire was always contained by the walls and the broad avenues separating living quarters. How many cities can make that claim? Emperors even sponsored beautification projects from time to time, during the reign of Emperor Gaozu they planted fruit trees along all the avenues just because it looked nice. The city was also ridiculously rich. Remember that gigantic professional army? Well they marched west and managed to subjugate all the rear end in a top hat tribes out in central asia that had been preying on the silk road. Trade was never better and Chang'an sits directly on the eastern end of the silk road. Wealth poured into the city from tribute missions, from the silk trade, from the taxes of a prosperous Empire, and from the sheer number of people who wanted to come live in the paramount city of Asia. Chang'an became famous for lavish displays of public art and festivals featuring public entertainment like acrobats, float-making, lantern shows, etc. etc. There was this one show with dancing horses that gets a lot of press for some reason. I'm not really doing justice to the city here. You have to read the original sources talking about Chang'an. Like I said, the ancients showed up at this city and lost their goddamn minds because they had never seen anything like it. It was this bustling metropolis of rare scale but at the same time orderly and under control and running more smoothly than a city one-fifth its size might. Oh and there was a giant palace or whatever. Map with English: 
Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 12:46 on May 8, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 12:33
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Well drat, no wonder travelers went home to fanboy about it. I doubt even most modern cities are anywhere near as well planned.
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May 8, 2013 15:24
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the JJ posted:Re 4: Yeah, the Japanese monks at periods were able set themselves up in various ways as political/militarily significant factions. One of my favorites: temple owned land was exempt from a lot (all?) taxes, so sometimes people would 'donate' their land to orders and then 'rent' it at, of, say, a few % points lower than their regular feudal/imperial obligations. So 'warrior monks' could sometimes be less, well, DnD Clerics (Buddhists, at least nominally, shouldn't even eat meat much less kill people...) and more, I dunno, Papal employed condottiero, if put into European terms. This was big in the Heian period--after the warrior class took over it was pretty much abolished (the temple owned land donation stuff). It was called the shoen system which was convoluted as hell, but was one of the big factors behind the warrior class takeover. Most of the land was nominally owned by nobles playing around in the court at Kyoto, but they would "donate" their lands to large monastic institutions, who would shave a little off the top but less than he imperial court did. Actual administration of the land was often done by groups of quasi-armed thugs/quasi-minor nobility who in turn paid off the nobles. The nobles got to do their thing in Kyoto, (which is where all the political action was happening) the monastic institutions profited off the back-room deals, and the provincial nobility/armed thugs got to run their own little private kingdoms relatively free from central government interference. That is, until the groups of provincial nobility/armed thugs started banding together, realizing they functionally controlled the land, and eventually took over the country. (Though that's simplifying things a lot) The interesting thing is that toward the end of the Heian, the imperial court got around this loophole--by becoming monks. It became customary for emperors to take sacred vows after "retiring" and control things behind the scenes from their monasteries. And of course, by having shoens donated to them tax-free the same way they would any other religious institution. Emperor Go-Shirakawa, one of my favorite people from the period, is a great example of a masterful manipulator of his status as monk-cum-retired-emperor to play factions against each other. After he died things went to hell for the court though. As for the warrior-monks themselves, they were a rough and tumble bunch. A lot of them were fugitives from justice--temples would grant sanctuary for fleeing criminals quite a bit, so there were quite a few unsavory characters among them. Mount Hiei, right outside the capital, was one such area of particular difficulty, and it wasn't unheard of for heavily-armed monks to carry out what were essentially bandit raids on Kyo, ostensibly under the claiming tribute for the gods and buddhas. They were quite formidable too--in fact during the war that cemented warrior power in Japan, as soon as the ruling Taira faction learned that the Hiei warrior monks had sided with the invading Minamoto faction, they got the hell out of Dodge and fled the capital. After looting it first, of course. ed: About Chang-an, its influence definitely can't be understated in East Asian history. Both Nara and Kyoto in Japan were modeled after it. Though neither of those cities were as large, and neither was fortified either. Genpei Turtle fucked around with this message at 19:25 on May 8, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 19:14
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veekie posted:Well drat, no wonder travelers went home to fanboy about it. I doubt even most modern cities are anywhere near as well planned. It's really amazing. Although I've always felt the off-centre, piano-shaped Imperial Palace spoiled it a little by poking out like that. The ground design was apparently something to also had a huge belltower to sound the city's curfew. I found another reference to Tang conflicts with monasteries; apparently a lot were closed in 845 and the monks/nuns forcibly laicised, who then turned to theft to support themselves. And a story from the Han Dynasty: in 78BC a guy named Liu Ho became emperor. He was in such a hurry to get to Chang'an he rode his horses to death, and then, instead of ritual mourning, began partying. He was deposed a month after becoming emperor, and one of the people who helped was his own mum. He never got an Imperial name.
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May 8, 2013 21:30
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Arglebargle III posted:I mentioned that Chang'an (Tang capital) was a heavily fortified city. I should add that it made everyone who visited lose their loving minds at how amazing it was. I'm serious, the ancient people of the world gave Chang'an rave reviews and came back to their home countries gushing about how everything Chinese was the best. This was the time when Japan and Korea just decided to convert their culture wholesale to the Chinese model because those guys were so great. It was the place to be in the 6th and 7th centuries up until its sack in the 8th century. Maybe there was this place called Constantinople or whatever but forget that for a minute! And then it was all wiped out by barbarian rebels. So not fortified enough.
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May 8, 2013 22:38
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Thanks for the summery EvanSchenck. Since we are talking about grabbing blades I'll post a video to demonstrate that you can grab a sharp blade from the middle bind as show in Fiore delli Liberi's Flower of Battle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwKZorhBLH4  Also from this same crossing I have grasped your sword in this way: And before your sword escapes my hand, By striking I will deal with you like a foul villain. or My Master who came before has taught me that when I am crossed at the mid-sword, I should immediately advance forward and grab his sword (as in this match) in order to strike him with edge or point. Also, I can waste his leg in the way that you will be able to see depicted hereafter by striking with my foot over the back of his leg or under his knee. When it comes to killing a guy in armor you can always do stuff like this  When I see that my thrust cannot enter into his chest nor into his face (because of his visor), I lift the visor up and then I put the point in his face. And if this does not satisfy me, I turn to other plays of greater strength. My group has just started working through Fiore's dagger / roundel. It is very complex with counters to counters. One thing I have found is that with the roundel ounce you are past the tip of the sword it is very difficult for the swordsman to win.
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May 9, 2013 02:17
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