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It's almost the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf! Does anyone have any hypothesises on how an army of guys reputedly lacking in metal armour is supposed to defeat an army of guys who make great use of metallic armour in a stand up fight between shield walls?!
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Apr 13, 2014 23:50
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Rabhadh posted:It's almost the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf! Does anyone have any hypothesises on how an army of guys reputedly lacking in metal armour is supposed to defeat an army of guys who make great use of metallic armour in a stand up fight between shield walls?! Interesting question. The answer is just going by the link you provided but these are my guesses. First of all, it was a close battle. 4000 casualties from a 7000 man army is a lot, especially for the winning side. I would actually expect those losses to cause a retreat in most circumstances, so determination is certainly a factor. How many do you think died in the rout as opposed to the fighting? My guess is the Norse forces fled before they lost 4000 men. One side running away certainly helps decide the battle. :P Second is leaders. The Viking leaders died first, and the Irish leaders were only killed after the fighting. It looks like the Viking leaders that died caused a loss of morale in their area, causing confusion and retreat for those particular groups. Brodir’s forces were fleeing before the rest of the Vikings were, meaning the Vikings were effectively outnumbered and outflanked on one side. You don’t need to outnumber the enemy everywhere, just where the fighting is. Third thought is terrain. At least some of the Norse forces were deployed on the beaches, and I see beaches as usually low ground. From that I suspect at least part of the Norse army was fighting uphill, which is tiring and limits the view, making it a little more difficult for the second/third rank of a shield wall to fight effectively. Conversely, the rear ranks of the Irish could be throwing spears and other weapons downhill at the Vikings more easily. The description of the battle mentions Vikings drowning trying to reach their ships: less men for the Irish to fight.
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Apr 14, 2014 06:10
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That wiki about the battle is pretty out of touch with the most recent thinking. I've seen 5000 men in total thrown around as the agreed upon figure. There is no mention of a the battle taking place on the beach, just that an unusually high neep tide caused the beached longboats to float off into the bay, preventing the fleeing Vikings from escaping and leading to a slaughter there. What my question is really about is the importance of armour is in shield wall combat, and how an army that is largely unarmoured is able to go toe to toe with one which is much better armoured. This of course leads to a couple more questions, of which we can generally take our pick because the battlefield it self has never been found and the sources are not too descriptive on how things really went down. Most of this is going to be a fun little game of conjecture. 1. The Vikings are often referred to as "the foreigners of the armour" by the Irish, but there is probably a note of Gaelic martial pride in this (those cowards need to be dressed in iron etc). The Irish almost certainly had some form of organic armour that they were equipping themselves with, padded or boiled leather or both. So this armour is either good enough to stand in the shield wall and take your blows, or metal armour isn't as big a factor as we tend to assume. 2. The Vikings and the Irish are similarly equipped. Its 1014, and the Irish have adapted to the Viking threat very well. Viking equipment has been adopted by the Irish at this point in time, sources describe axes among the Irish troops, a weapon that was introduced by the Vikings and will go on to be described as the veritable "national weapon of the Irish" by the time of the Norman invasion a hundred and fifty years later. So the nobles leading the Irish army and a portion of their household troops are wearing metallic armour, but are probably outnumbered by the professional Vikings contingents from Orkney and Mann. Personally I feel like a mix between the two is most likely. Boru had defeated most of the kingdoms of Ireland at this point, including numerous forces of Vikings. His household troops and their Munster levies are the best on the island and used to winning, and form the core of his army. I can imagine these household troops being heavily armed and armoured, either through trade (the Viking town of Limerick was long under his control), or loot (the aforementioned defeated Vikings or other Irish kings), but the levies not so much. And it's those levies that I have a problem with. They're probably the worst thing you could put in a shield wall and expect to hold. Agility has always been the preferred defence of the Irish warrior. But they did hold, and then they won.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:39
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Squalid posted:Lol. lol
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Apr 14, 2014 15:51
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I think the difference between metal and non-metal armour can be overstated. There is a lot of variation within each category. The Conquistadors would, on occasion, favour Aztec cotton armour over their own breastplates. For instance, the Ordinances of Louis XI of France, describes a padded jack with “For never have I seen half a dozen men killed by stabs or arrow wounds in such jacks, particularly if they be troops accustomed to fighting.” This is from the 15th century, but it shows that organic armours can still be very protective. This kind of armour would certainly be protective in a shield wall (although the bulk might be a factor). Metal armour can cover a lot of ground as well. For instance, a Viking in metal armour could be just be wearing a waist-length byrnie with T-shirt length sleeves and a helmet, or he could be wearing more complete armour (byrnie down to the knees with elbow-length sleeves, avantail for the neck on his helmet, metal splint forearms as in the picture below). http://weaponsandwarfare.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/dSreatrshyjhn.jpg If the metal armour covers primarily the torso, then it might not give much protection that the shield wall does not already provide. Under some circumstances, a shield wall could help compensate for being at a disadvantage of armour. Those are my thoughts, I hope they are helpful.
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Apr 14, 2014 19:20
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Railtus posted:I think the difference between metal and non-metal armour can be overstated. There is a lot of variation within each category. The Conquistadors would, on occasion, favour Aztec cotton armour over their own breastplates. Armours in shield walls aren't probably that important. Alexander the Great favoured linen or leather torso armours for his hoplites. They did have metal helms and greaves, but those protect the areas not protected by the shield.
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Apr 14, 2014 20:14
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A linothorax isn't exactly weak armor
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Apr 14, 2014 20:31
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JaucheCharly posted:A linothorax isn't exactly weak armor Yeah, cloth armour seems pretty effective.
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Apr 14, 2014 20:39
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Hogge Wild posted:Armours in shield walls aren't probably that important. Alexander the Great favoured linen or leather torso armours for his hoplites. They did have metal helms and greaves, but those protect the areas not protected by the shield. Yes. The shield wall can do a lot to compensate for limited armour. Personally, I still lean towards favouring leadership and morale as the reasons for the Irish victory. To use another example, in the Battle of Barnet, the friendly fire incident was far more effective than the casualties alone would suggest (fears of treachery caused the line to be disorganised, infighting among the men, uncertainty among the soldiers causing some to withdraw, leaving them vulnerable to an enemy charge). In my mind, a few key losses can be far more decisive than losing a larger number elsewhere. Then again, I like the idea that success in battle is measured by more than casualties.
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Apr 14, 2014 22:01
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Railtus posted:Yes. The shield wall can do a lot to compensate for limited armour. Indeed. It's very hard to get the specifics down for any battle this poorly recorded but luck, organisation, positioning and morale count for an awful lot in any war. I'd love to see if there was more concrete information but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot in this case.
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Apr 14, 2014 23:56
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Since it's come up, I've been told that leather armor was rarely, if ever, used in Europe, and that mail or padded cloth were pretty much the only things used for armor until plate came along. Is that true?
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Apr 15, 2014 02:02
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Jabarto posted:Since it's come up, I've been told that leather armor was rarely, if ever, used in Europe, and that mail or padded cloth were pretty much the only things used for armor until plate came along. Is that true? On leather, I have heard that as well from Dan Howard, who I generally trust when it comes to information. I do not remember seeing any leather armour in medieval artwork, and a quick search is not finding any. Generally speaking the best sources I know that argue for leather armour being used were an Osprey book on the Knights Hospitaller (those vary in reliability a lot), and a throwaway comment by Mike Loades commenting on it in the Talhoffer Fightbook documentary (no detail provided). But, the artwork might be explained by the Osprey book depicting it under the armour. On balance, I would say leather armour was very rare in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe it might have been used more: Realm of St Stephen mentions the Hungarian cavalry during the first Mongol invasion wore essentially leather armour. As for general kinds of armour, mail and padded cloth seem to be the primary forms of armour pre-plate. Variations of splinted armour does appear in Germany, and there are coats-of-plates that could sometimes be similar to scale. Oakeshotte in The Archaeology of Weapons (p. 124) notes that splint armour has existed very early on as well. I have read (but can’t remember the source) that some scale armour has been found in Scandinavia, but it doesn’t seem to be common. There is also a discussion of possible Carolingian scale armour in early France - http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=9561 I do remember one picture that showed what maybe looked like ‘bezainted’ (coin-covered) armour on a knight’s legs; that could be mail, but is depicted differently to the mail hauberk the knight was wearing: http://imagesonline.bl.uk/en/asset/show_zoom_window_popup_img.html?asset=82 So the overall answer is yes, but not 100% yes. Generally the variation in armour was more often thickness, quality, or perhaps the exact cloth used in the padding and so on, rather than different styles of armour. Eastern Europe used different kinds of armour as well. For instance, there are beautiful hybrids of mail and lamellar, or plated mail, that I find very stylish. I have not found more reliable information on them, but I have been looking more in the direction of Moorish armour for this (in fact, if anyone has sources on medieval African armour in general, I would love to see them).
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Apr 15, 2014 04:31
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Railtus posted:Eastern Europe used different kinds of armour as well. For instance, there are beautiful hybrids of mail and lamellar, or plated mail, that I find very stylish. Thanks for the detailed reply. I just wanted to agree with this part and note that plated mail is probably the most beautiful armor I've ever seen, especially the kind in this picture - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Ottoman_Mamluk_horseman_circa_1550.jpg
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Apr 15, 2014 05:00
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Jabarto posted:Since it's come up, I've been told that leather armor was rarely, if ever, used in Europe, and that mail or padded cloth were pretty much the only things used for armor until plate came along. Is that true? I mentioned leather earlier, because some of hoplite cuirass armour was made from it. Romans also used some, but Medieval and Modern Europeans didn't use it almost at all.
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Apr 15, 2014 06:35
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When you say leather, you will most likely mean rawhide. Rawhide is very, very tough. To the touch it's comparable to hard plastic. The downside is, that it gets soft and supple when it gets wet (you can submerge a strap of rawhide in water for a few minutes and it's completely soft, like rubber) and also starts to rot if not kept dry. It's the same problem as with the linothorax - it isn't resistant to prolonged exposure to moisture. There aren't many ways to make things completely waterproof prior to modern varnishes. Tung oil and urushi laquers are available in east asia, but in the mediterranean, there's nothing quite as effective that would work reliably in central european climate. Linseed oil, animal fats, wax and resins (e.g. mastic) are available, but they aren't foolproof. You need stuff that gets deep into the material or that polymerizes on the surface. You can apply many, many coats of linseed oil to wood, but it will still take damage if left outside in the rain for too long (also some woods are quite resistant to rot and moisture). I wonder if it would work with rawhide? When I last checked, I saw that the source where I get my leather and tools also sells rawhide for shields and armor. Leather is different, the material soaks up liquids readily (at least the vegetabile tanned kind). You can also harden leather by heating it up and then brushing liquid wax on it. The leather will accept a surprising ammount of wax. Anyway, that's a technique that's more useful for shaping leather than really hardening the material in a sense that it will be more resistant to cutting and stabbing. I don't know when people came up with it, but you can cook varnishes from linseed oil and beeswax for example. This works well for wood, but other surfaces might be problematic, especially when flexibility is needed or the material doesn't accept liquids well. Other varnishes that use mastic and dammar are more complex and need prolonged boiling and other ingredients and solvents like turpentine. It's fairly complex and you probably heard about how readily available mastic is even today. All these varnish types aren't especially impact resistant. If you were in the military, you know how stuff gets thrown around and punished while marching.
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Apr 15, 2014 09:42
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The Tain comes to us through 3 texts, the earliest of which is from the late 11th/early 12th century, though given Ireland's monastic tradition its almost certainly a copy of an earlier work again. Cuchulainn's armour is described as "twenty-seven tunics of waxed skin (mistranslation, most likely linen), pleated and pressed together, and fastened with strings and straps against his clear skin...". "Over them he put on his heroric deep battle-belt of stiff, tough, tanned leather.....covering him from his narrow waist to the thickness of his armpit; that he wore to repel spears or spikes, javelins, lances and arrows..." "Then he drew his silk-smooth apron....up to the softness of his belly. Over this silky skin-like apron he put on a dark apron of well-softened black leather....with a battle-belt of cowhide to hold it."
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Apr 15, 2014 11:33
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JaucheCharly posted:There aren't many ways to make things completely waterproof prior to modern varnishes. Tung oil and urushi laquers are available in east asia, but in the mediterranean, there's nothing quite as effective that would work reliably in central european climate. The Japanese used lacquer to make rawhide lamellar, so it certainly exists. There's also cuir bouilli which is lamellar or scale of hardened leather. quote:Leather is different, the material soaks up liquids readily (at least the vegetabile tanned kind). You can also harden leather by heating it up and then brushing liquid wax on it. The leather will accept a surprising ammount of wax. Anyway, that's a technique that's more useful for shaping leather than really hardening the material in a sense that it will be more resistant to cutting and stabbing.. Wax in leather acts as a lubricant which makes it more susceptible to blades, so whatever you do, don't do this. This discussion had some good information on the subject: http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.8011.html
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Apr 15, 2014 16:07
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:The Japanese used lacquer to make rawhide lamellar, so it certainly exists. There's also cuir bouilli which is lamellar or scale of hardened leather. That laquer is urushi. You can buy it now, but there's nothing comparable around at that time. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Apr 15, 2014 |
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Apr 15, 2014 18:27
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Squalid posted:Lol. Discussion moved on, thankfully, so my apologies for butting in but just in case you assume that a lack of reprimand means you can keep being a doof, well, you cannot keep being a doof in here so you need to stop yourself. Thank you.
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Apr 16, 2014 03:24
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I know I saw a question about this earlier in the thread, but I can't find it for the life of me now that I'm interested. I just finished doing a lot of reading about Rome, and I'm now curious about the Early Medieval Period (Dark Ages) in general, primarily from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 until the crowning of Charlemagne. Could anyone recommend a good book for me to read on this subject? I'd like a book that takes a more moderate approach toward the Dark Ages. To clarify, I don't want a book the inaccurately portrays the time period as entirely worthless with the absence of Roman power, but I also do not want a book that is just trying to prove to me that everything was honky dory and probably better than things are now. I want an accurate portrayal somewhere in the middle!
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Apr 21, 2014 01:16
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I'd be interested in a book/article/web page/post that covers the historiography of that period, because it's bounced all over the place.
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Apr 21, 2014 17:14
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SoldadoDeTone posted:I'd like a book that takes a more moderate approach toward the Dark Ages. To clarify, I don't want a book the inaccurately portrays the time period as entirely worthless with the absence of Roman power, but I also do not want a book that is just trying to prove to me that everything was honky dory and probably better than things are now. I want an accurate portrayal somewhere in the middle! While in this particular instance it's probably good enough, it's not always rigorous to simply look for the answer 'in the middle somewhere'. To be more helpful - and I'd certainly appreciate people chiming in with better sources than this but it's just what I have sitting in front of me - there's a wonderful translation of a 19th century German text called 'History of Chivalry and Armor' ISBN 0486457427 (this book names its source 'Der Rittersaal' - the Knight's Hall by Franz Kottenkamp, though I can't find references to that online anywhere) about the rise of chivalry that at least has a primer on the fall of the Roman Empire, the influence of the Normans and the rise of feudalism. Being a text written in the early 1800s by a German scholar, I'm not sure how reliable it might be, but it certainly takes a more 'in the middle' approach to the early Middle Ages than other Victorian-era texts. As a bonus it has some gorgeous plates of jousting arms and armour, combat, and even various absurd siege contraptions, including some that appear in Talhoffer's manuscripts. e: used the ISBN for the 1988 version of the book. My mistake! Makrond fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 18:13
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I have a question about the use of poisoned weapons. Poison applied to a weapon is a common feature in modern fiction, but were there any poisons that were actually used in battle in Europe or Asia? I would like to distinguish poisons from infections - I know it's easy to get tetanus from any penetrating trauma, or a whole host of other infections. While infections will kill someone at a later date, they aren't going to make a difference in a fight where the outcome may be decided in seconds or minutes. I know there are plenty of effective poisons if you can slip them into someone's food or drink, and I know that true weapon poisons were used in the New World (the muscle relaxant curare being the chief one, I believe, and of course the famous poison-arrow-frog toxins). Are there any equivalents from the Old World?
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Apr 27, 2014 19:41
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I think Hercules and the hydra definitely show that the idea of adding some oomph to your arrows was at least not totally foreign to the Greeks. His ultimate fate, of course, also serves as a bit of a warning as far as proper handling goes. I think the Chinese used poison on their machine gun crossbows, but that's one of those pop hist 'facts' that is probably true but I've never actually seen sourced. Generally, I think the idea that, given the lethality of infections and the (relatively) long time it would take a poison to kill or disable someone, it's a lot of bother for not a lot of benefit. Making incidental wounds more deadly in an attritional situation makes a little more sense, hence the poison on arrows and not, you know, swords or some poo poo. I'm trying to thing of other examples. Punji sticks and the like fit the bill, again, as a sort of nasty doubling up of injuries in attritional situations.
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Apr 27, 2014 21:14
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Railtus posted:On leather, I have heard that as well from Dan Howard, who I generally trust when it comes to information. I do not remember seeing any leather armour in medieval artwork, and a quick search is not finding any. Generally speaking the best sources I know that argue for leather armour being used were an Osprey book on the Knights Hospitaller (those vary in reliability a lot), and a throwaway comment by Mike Loades commenting on it in the Talhoffer Fightbook documentary (no detail provided). There is evidence for leather armour in medieval europe, particular for the limbs. Consider the following: - Extant vambrace found off the coast of the Netherlands: http://beeldbank.cultureelerfgoed.nl/alle-afbeeldingen/weergave/search/layout/result/indeling/detail/start/3?searchfield=scheldevondst+1937 - Extant vambrace discovered in Tartu, Estonia: Thesis [english pg 42]: http://arheo.ut.ee/theses/BA10_Pruus.pdf - Extant rerebrace, British Museum: https://www.flickr.com/photos/roelipilami/6840030630/ - In art: painting by Lorenzo Veneziano: http://armourinart.com/8/11/ - In art: BNF NAF 5243 f. 46r: http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4365/16764/ There are lots of other examples as well, especially in art.
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Apr 27, 2014 22:07
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the JJ posted:I think Hercules and the hydra definitely show that the idea of adding some oomph to your arrows was at least not totally foreign to the Greeks. His ultimate fate, of course, also serves as a bit of a warning as far as proper handling goes. I think the Chinese used poison on their machine gun crossbows, but that's one of those pop hist 'facts' that is probably true but I've never actually seen sourced. Generally, I think the idea that, given the lethality of infections and the (relatively) long time it would take a poison to kill or disable someone, it's a lot of bother for not a lot of benefit. Making incidental wounds more deadly in an attritional situation makes a little more sense, hence the poison on arrows and not, you know, swords or some poo poo. I don't think there's any evidence of the repeating crossbow being used with poison, somebody just assumed that it must have been because the bolts were too weak. I don't think that's a strong conclusion.
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Apr 28, 2014 03:11
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Kylaer posted:I have a question about the use of poisoned weapons. Poison applied to a weapon is a common feature in modern fiction, but were there any poisons that were actually used in battle in Europe or Asia? I would like to distinguish poisons from infections - I know it's easy to get tetanus from any penetrating trauma, or a whole host of other infections. While infections will kill someone at a later date, they aren't going to make a difference in a fight where the outcome may be decided in seconds or minutes. Yup. plenty.
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Apr 28, 2014 03:19
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Wasn't it fairly common to just dip arrowheads in feces so wounds would get infected?
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Apr 28, 2014 03:22
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I have this, and most of the examples are from the ancient world. There's some on asbestos-suited Islamic flamethrower troops and Greek fire of course, but at least in the Middle Ages poison was a very rare weapon. In no small part this was likely the result of the common adoption of ransom.
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Apr 28, 2014 06:10
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:I have this, and most of the examples are from the ancient world. There's some on asbestos-suited Islamic flamethrower troops and Greek fire of course, but at least in the Middle Ages poison was a very rare weapon. In no small part this was likely the result of the common adoption of ransom.
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Apr 28, 2014 06:34
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I think it was Herodot, who said that the Skythians poisoned their arrows by sticking them in rotten meat.
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Apr 28, 2014 06:51
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Regard the Chu-ko-nu poison, I'm working off this as a source, which says that the poison is based on this kind of Aconitum species of plant. I have no idea how toxic and fast acting it is on intramuscular injection, and the sources are imprecise. Not to mention that stuff is a part of TCM, and it clutters up the pubmed literature making it nigh incomprehensible.
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Apr 28, 2014 07:30
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So how effective was the repeating crossbow? Wiki says 80m effective and 120m maximum range. A few sites agreen with this. Others say it was more like 10m effective range and pretty useless against any armour. Videos of replicas firing certainly have an impressive rof, but they also look like they don't have that much power.
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Apr 28, 2014 19:56
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It still shot fast enough to seriously wound or even kill someone. An archer with a bow or a regular crossbow might be more lethal, but they shoot at a much slower rate and in the case of a bow, it often took years of training to be really proficient at it. You can theoretically slap a repeating crossbow in a recruit's hands and train him for a couple hours and he's good to go. To me it seems like a quantity vs quality thing. Your soldier is not as lethal as a bowman, but you can essentially field as many soldiers as you have weapons, and with so many bolts firing someone is bound to get lucky. It's introduced to China during the Warring States period and most of those states had standing armies. As a result most soldiers would have had some armor, but they would not be heavily armored. Chinese armor was typically lamellar or leather, which is still good, but not as protective as metal. Mail/scale armor was relatively rare too and if you had it you were probably a noble. Anyway, with lightly armored foes you just need to hit a few unprotected areas with a few bolts and even if it doesn't kill him, he's still out of the fight. A soldier trained to use the repeating crossbow could empty the clip of 10 bolts in ~20-25 seconds, so with a ton of bolts flying that seems possible. I'm not sure if the poison theory is true, but even without poison it would probably be a useful weapon for covering a withdrawal or as a close quarters defensive weapon (like during a siege, maybe) since you would be able concentrate a lot of firepower on a small area.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:42
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I had always heard that the repeating crossbow was a more of a civilian home defence weapon and fairly useless in actual warfare.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:03
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Deptfordx posted:So how effective was the repeating crossbow? All you have to do is look at the spanning mechanism to realize it's significantly less powerful than European crossbows or self-bows of the type you'd see on the battlefield in most places. Not only that but the bolts lacked fletching, making them much less accurate and prone to destabilize in flight.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:07
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Huh, i noticed in the video none of the quarrels had flights. I thought that was because he was more demonstrating the mechanism and hadn't bothered to much with the replica ammo. Combined with the fact there doesn't seem to be much way to aim when you're operating those things, mass fire seems like the only way you'd hit anything with them.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:44
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Actually, could you even shoot a relativly short, non-spinning, no fletching quarrel a 80-100m without it starting to tumble? I'm increasingly doubtful about that range claim by the way. Having found a few more short videos (nothing with any definitive analysis), the 10m(or a little beyond)range looks way more plausible.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:52
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Quarrels for a heavy crossbow? They have very thick shafts, they look like broomsticks. First time that I saw one of these in a museum, I was surprised how large they actually are. This is a picture of the ones on display that I meant, they are thicker than my thumb: A few rooms away, there's a hunting crossbow with fitting quarrels on display. Figure the difference. Slim and small. You don't need a 600 pound crossbow and quarrels with overkill mass to take down a gothic plate wearing deer. If you buy a starter crossbow today, you might be surprised that the given drawweight is something around 100#. Well, this sounds alot, right? It isn't. Those perform like a 30# bow for beginners. As for fletching, try to shoot an unfletched set of arrows. It works, but not really well. There are alot of factors that will make consistent shooting over a greater distance than 20m pretty random without fletching. The further you shoot, the more noticeable small errors in technique (or variance in equipment) will be. The fletching corrects alot of those. A crossbow will eliminate unclean release obviously, and also differences in spine in the quarrels can be ignored as they're so short and stiff. Actually, crossbows are pretty interesting. 80-100m are most likely just as far as they will fly with such a weak shooter, very short range and just randomly spraying bolts is more likely. What I really want to build someday? A crossbow with a horn&sinew prod.
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Apr 29, 2014 11:09
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Stormtrooper posted:There is evidence for leather armour in medieval europe, particular for the limbs. Consider the following: Thanks! I really love some of those images. I notice an interesting detail, the flickr artefact mentions they had a very short period of popularity (1320-1350). Do you find that pattern with the artwork? Does it all seem to be concentrated around a certain stage of transitional armour? I am also curious about the one picture where a guy appears to be wearing boiled leather vambraces and rerebraces (forearms and upper arms for readers unfamiliar with the terms), but he seems to have splinted leg armour and I think a coat-of-plates or corrozina on the body. Do you have any thoughts why he might use hardened leather for arms in combination with splinted metal for legs? IronicDongz posted:Wasn't it fairly common to just dip arrowheads in feces so wounds would get infected? It was fairly common to stick arrows in the ground before shooting, and soil in the wounds would cause infections too. French saw this as the English archers poisoning their arrows, although it probably has more to do with being slightly more convenient to draw. I will be brutally honest though – I tend not to read up about what people do with excrement. My thought is using excrement would be less common than other options, and causing infections was not generally a priority.
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Apr 29, 2014 21:13
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