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Nektu posted:Look at modern sport fencing to see the difference: technique still develops in that because people are still using it in earnest (according to its rules). It's why the suicide lunge is a thing in sport fencing but you obviously wouldn't do it in a real sword fight.
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Jul 17, 2014 08:49
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Rabhadh posted:It's why the suicide lunge is a thing in sport fencing but you obviously wouldn't do it in a real sword fight.  Different rules of the game.
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Jul 17, 2014 09:07
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To be fair, there /are/ weapons with approximate hilts that are perpendicular to the blade (the langes messer, for example). However, longswords (and similar weapons) probably wouldn't work with a nagel-like protrusion. Speaking from experience, the blade can be more easily swung parallel to the ground when a thumb is pressed against the flat of the blade ("thumbing the blade"), giving you a platform upon which to rest the sword, giving you a more planar (and thus more effective) cut. Techniques with the messer require this, and a nagel facing in (that is, over the thumb when gripping the handle) would prevent, or at the very least, hinder this. Not to mention how awkward it would be to carry a sword of that profile. Speaking of which, here is a GREAT video (very awesome production quality and technique) on Italian messer/messer and dagger/longsword: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDP2maXCzt4 Nektu posted:
Sport fencing is an entirely different beast, and I really hate it when HEMA-nerds get all butt hurt about it. It's like hunters getting mad at paintball enthusiasts. I joined the fencing club at my school and introduced them to HEMA (longsword, rapier and eventually messer), and probably the biggest hurdle for them is considering the life-or-death implications of true duels. It wasn't a game for points, it was first about making sure you didn't die, and THEN making sure you killed your opponent. I had the opposite problem, where I was too concerned about worrying for my "life" that I didn't get I could just stab someone first and get some points. HEMA is currently struggling with this as well as they work on scoring for tournaments. The issue is that you want to reward someone who is able to not only beat their opponent, but who can protect themselves effectively in the process. At the last tournament I went to, three "double hits" during a match resulted in both fighters gaining zero points for the match. "Afterblows" (a hit landing after someone else's initial effective attack) were allowed, and both fighters would receive points. The problem is that an afterblow is (in my opinion) just as deadly as a double hit. If the goal is to create a life or death simulator, as well as a metric for who fought well in a particular round, then afterblows should be dealt with as harshly as doublehits. In the end you failed to defend yourself and you may have received a fatal wound in the process. The thing is, as with anything, if you build a system around something you are going to get people who will find effective ways to use the system to their advantage. We want to ensure people don't develop tactics that abuse the rule systems and allow them to gain an advantage, even though in a realistic situation they may not have survived. Hitting with the flat of the blade, for instance, was a struggle for a while (before I started in HEMA), but now they have rules against them (hitting with the flat of the blade is a "low quality" hit, that will only generate a minimal amount of points). The big worry is that people will develop bad fighting habits. Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 14:45
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Question relating to the early modern period: Were there any political assassinations in that era? Heads of state or very senior officials killed by foreign assassins or extremists of the kind that concern us today? Paradox games have taught me that everyone was murderin' each other all the time up until 1450 whereupon they finally figured out palace security and then it was totally safe until the industrial era, where it again became murder central.
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Jul 17, 2014 15:54
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I'm not an early modern historian, but I do know there were several attempts to assassinate Elizabeth I of England.
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Jul 17, 2014 16:09
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Thanqol posted:Question relating to the early modern period: Were there any political assassinations in that era? Heads of state or very senior officials killed by foreign assassins or extremists of the kind that concern us today? Paradox games have taught me that everyone was murderin' each other all the time up until 1450 whereupon they finally figured out palace security and then it was totally safe until the industrial era, where it again became murder central. This event led to a moral panic about wheellocks (you can hide a gun that's ready to fire under your clothing! you can keep it ready to fire for a long time! you can sneak around with it at night and nobody will see or smell the burning match to give your position away! etc etc) kind of like the time when we thought Glocks were invisible to metal detectors or something. During their Religious Wars, France was...not very good at keeping their kings alive. When an asset becomes a liability, a prudent head of state should do what's necessary. There was also at least one attempt to assassinate Gustavus Adolphus, but I don't know anything about it. Also, while Europe was having the Thirty Years' War, the Ottoman Empire was having a lot of problems (due in part to the same climate change that may have helped lead to the Thirty Years' War), including rapid turnover of heads of state. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 16:49
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Dirty Job posted:Sport fencing is an entirely different beast, and I really hate it when HEMA-nerds get all butt hurt about it. It's like hunters getting mad at paintball enthusiasts. (  if you cant stand medical descriptions of the effects of bladed weapons. No images or somesuch though).The Dubious Quick Kill, part 1 The Dubious Quick Kill, part 2 The author crossreferenced descriptions of classical duels with modern forensic information about blade wounds and tries to find out if the more gruesome descriptions of duels can be true. The result: people die suprisingly hard, even when hit with a meter of sharp steel. Its also basically impossible to predict the effect a hit will have - be it that the mortally wounded fighter would stay alive and active for a few more seconds (more than enough to counterattack) up to a man that survived and stayed active for several days after he got stabbed in the heart. I guess that means that those discussions that often pop up after a double hit ("Yea, but my attack was totally more deadly!") are completely useless. You could also spin that into an argument to support giving points for afterblows: the attacker has to protect himself not only until he is in the target, but until he is in the clear again.
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Jul 17, 2014 16:57
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Thanqol posted:Question relating to the early modern period: Were there any political assassinations in that era? Heads of state or very senior officials killed by foreign assassins or extremists of the kind that concern us today? Paradox games have taught me that everyone was murderin' each other all the time up until 1450 whereupon they finally figured out palace security and then it was totally safe until the industrial era, where it again became murder central. And of course there's the origin of the term...
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Jul 17, 2014 17:55
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Dirty Job posted:Sport fencing is an entirely different beast, and I really hate it when HEMA-nerds get all butt hurt about it. It's like hunters getting mad at paintball enthusiasts. Dudes get het up about it because a lot of sport fencers, at least speaking from my experience and those others have shared, talk about the sport as if it is a martial art. What's more you've got books like Richard Cohen's By the Sword which is completely disparaging of medieval swordsmanship, and is of course written by a sport fencer. Stephen Hand, one of the best interpreters out there, actually wrote a pretty thorough dissection of the book's flaws in the amazon reviews section, for those who want to read it.
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Jul 17, 2014 17:59
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Blue Star posted:How do we know how old certain stories and stuff are? Many times I'll see someone say that, while the earliest known written copy of a story or poem may be from some specific century, the actual story itself is actually older. But how do they know, if all they have is that copy? I don't really know very much about the medieval period, but my understanding is that a lot of the times the earliest record will give some sort of context. For example, they might explicitly say that they are transcribing it from another text (which did not itself survive). You might in turn know the rough dates when that work existed, from other references, but not actually have a surviving copy of it. For actual first written records, you get similar context - someone might write that they are recording a story told to them by a man who learned it from his grandfather, for example, telling us that it was an existing story at that time. For example, in the 1920s and 1930s, John Lomax began recording American folk songs. This was the first time that these were recorded and, I think, for many it was the first time the lyrics were even written down. But from the context of the collection, we know that this wasn't the first time those songs were sung, as many of the performers had been singing them for years or learned them from their families as children. So we don't know exactly when they were created, but we have a firm record and a good idea that it predates. Hopefully someone with better information weighs in, I didn't want your question to vanish in swordchat.
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Jul 17, 2014 18:02
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Speaking very broadly, sources are usually dated based on references within the texts or evidence from the manuscript. For example, some of the sources I've been working on recently contain references like "in that year, Louis the Pious was crowned," so obviously you can assume that the source must have been written some time after that. For some sources, however, we really have no idea when they were written. For example, Beowulf only survives in one manuscript and scholars have argued for various dates between the eighth century and the early eleventh century. It's actually pretty heated topic for an academic dispute. A friend of mine went to a Beowulf conference and told me people almost came to blows over it. It gets much more tricky when it comes to written sources which are supposed to have originated as oral stories. For example, Etzil (Attila), is a common character in medieval German epics, but you can't really use references to him to arrive at a concrete date. Stories also change over time, especially once people start writing them down, so I think it's sort of futile to try and recover the original story. The Nibelungenlied might trace its origins to a much older tradition, but its still quintessentially a product of the thirteenth century.
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Jul 17, 2014 18:34
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Currently watching a hilarious documentary on the inquisition. Highlights so far include a map of the holy roman empire including well known constituents Turkey and Scandinavia. Looking forward to the bit teased at the start where a wiccan lady talks about the persecution of her religion in the middle ages  I'm no scholar but something isn't quite right here!
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Jul 17, 2014 20:09
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Baracula posted:Currently watching a hilarious documentary on the inquisition. Highlights so far include a map of the holy roman empire including well known constituents Turkey and Scandinavia. Looking forward to the bit teased at the start where a wiccan lady talks about the persecution of her religion in the middle ages Hahaha
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Jul 17, 2014 20:10
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'God will sort them out'. Take a drink. E: ugly dirty Catholic Knights scowling at clean saintly looking Cathars. ContinuityNewTimes fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 20:13
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Baracula posted:Currently watching a hilarious documentary on the inquisition. Highlights so far include a map of the holy roman empire including well known constituents Turkey and Scandinavia. Looking forward to the bit teased at the start where a wiccan lady talks about the persecution of her religion in the middle ages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tym0MObFpTI&t=55s
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Jul 17, 2014 20:24
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Baracula posted:'God will sort them out'. Take a drink. Argh, it's "Kill them, God knows his own." (Caedite eos, novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius). I'm so mad about Latin mistranslations.
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Jul 17, 2014 20:34
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deadking posted:Argh, it's "Kill them, God knows his own." (Caedite eos, novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius). I'm so mad about Latin mistranslations. Literally the least wrong thing in this documentary. E: figuratively
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Jul 17, 2014 20:40
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Baracula posted:Currently watching a hilarious documentary on the inquisition. Highlights so far include a map of the holy roman empire including well known constituents Turkey and Scandinavia. Looking forward to the bit teased at the start where a wiccan lady talks about the persecution of her religion in the middle ages Post the link drat it!
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Jul 17, 2014 20:40
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fspades posted:Post the link drat it! It's on Yesterday right now on actual tv. Inquisition: Cathars and Templars.
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Jul 17, 2014 20:41
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Baracula posted:It's on Yesterday right now on actual tv. Inquisition: Cathars and Templars. quote:A shocking four-part series that sheds new light on a dark and bloody chapter of British and European history, exploring why for nearly 500 years the saga of fear, persecution, torture and death continued. Good stuff.
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Jul 17, 2014 20:52
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fspades posted:Good stuff. Extremely good poo poo. Joan of Arc getting dragged off by scary dudes in crusader tabard things E: dubstep ending credits. ContinuityNewTimes fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 20:55
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fspades posted:Good stuff. Baracula posted:E: dubstep ending credits.
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Jul 17, 2014 21:02
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HEY GAL posted:Anything in there about how the Venetian Inquisition invented the practice of defense lawyers for people who couldn't afford their own? No? It was very important. Huh? Any chance of an effortpost about that? Didn't know defense laywers were so recent, considering lawyers as a profession are old.
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Jul 17, 2014 22:06
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nothing to seehere posted:Huh? Any chance of an effortpost about that? Didn't know defense laywers were so recent, considering lawyers as a profession are old.
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Jul 17, 2014 22:17
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I know some of the inquisitions (did they mention it wasn't just one?) allowed defense lawyers, but if the client was convicted of heresy, the defense lawyer was considered guilty too. Kept down the number of lawyers willing to take the case.
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Jul 17, 2014 23:40
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I think earlier in the thread we were sperging about whether its possible to shoot a bow while moving. Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Lnv9Pr3AWSw#t=97 A bit earlier he is shooting while jumping. Edit: I hope that I did not save that link because I found it in this thread  Nektu fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 19:33
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Murat is good. He also has a bow by Adam Karpowicz that he never shoots. What a waste.
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Jul 18, 2014 19:46
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Wait a minute, why would you wonder how people would transport pollaxes? Those things are tiny.
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Jul 19, 2014 02:01
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HEY GAL posted:Wait a minute, why would you wonder how people would transport pollaxes? Those things are tiny. That depends. Anything about manhigh is kinda uncomfortable in the subway or a small car.
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Jul 19, 2014 07:44
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I've heard that while the Spanish Inquisition was a rather different beast, the Papal Inquisition was rather undeserving of its modern day reputation for being a metaphorical witch hunt, in that while they would execute unrepentant heretics in gruesome ways, if you had heretical beliefs but renounced them you were free to go, and if you were falsely accused of having heretical beliefs all you had to do was give a public declaration that you believed in the orthodox catholic position on the matter you were accused of being a heretic over. Is that true?
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Jul 19, 2014 10:56
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JaucheCharly posted:That depends. Anything about manhigh is kinda uncomfortable in the subway or a small car.
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Jul 19, 2014 11:19
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Reveilled posted:I've heard that while the Spanish Inquisition was a rather different beast, the Papal Inquisition was rather undeserving of its modern day reputation for being a metaphorical witch hunt, in that while they would execute unrepentant heretics in gruesome ways, if you had heretical beliefs but renounced them you were free to go, and if you were falsely accused of having heretical beliefs all you had to do was give a public declaration that you believed in the orthodox catholic position on the matter you were accused of being a heretic over. These are institutions that existed for hundreds of years so it will be hard to give a simple answer about what any of them did or didn't do.
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Jul 19, 2014 11:47
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According to the book ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Albigensian-Crusades-Arbor-Paperbacks/dp/0472064762 ) I just finished on the Albigensian crusades, the inquisition of that period would in fact view reconversion as its primary goal and do everything possible to get a heretic to recant before turning them over to secular authority for execution (washing their hands of the actual execution much like Pontius Pilate). The number of executions relative to the huge number of people processed was small. However, they were absolutely ruthless about getting the heretic to name every single other heretic (or potential heretic or person who once said hello to a heretic) they possibly could before letting them go. They'd have no problem imprisoning people for years on end, which I believe is pretty unusual by medieval standards.
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Jul 19, 2014 12:36
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HEY GAL posted:Oh, that kind of transport. (1) If you're going to do this at least one member of your company needs a car with a luggage rack, and (2) I used to live in Manhattan. Anything is transportable in the subway with enough gumption. Is enough gumption codeword for a gun.
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Jul 19, 2014 17:02
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Frostwerks posted:Is enough gumption codeword for a gun. Rodrigo Diaz posted:Hahaha, this is a pretty accurate description. What made it even more galling was that his presentation (I would not call it a lecture) spent a great deal of time ridiculing eastern martial arts for, among other things, being too prone to sensei-ism. Hauptmann: "I should train HEGEL and the other new guy, or something." *Encounters friend of his he hasn't seen in a while, walks off drinking whiskey with him, isn't seen again for the rest of the afternoon.* Corporal: "So, here are some positions. Try this. And..one more, I guess? Don't actually hurt anyone, they are our friends. Also, if you get tired, feel free to drop the pike and take your enemy down. Grab him by the neck or something. That's about it, good luck tomorrow!" The second day we ended up practicing wheeling and moving into a hollow square for what seemed like hours, but there was still a notable lack of pompous jerks. Even the guy in a fur-trimmed cassock was just, you know, a guy. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Jul 19, 2014 |
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Jul 19, 2014 17:22
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Reveilled posted:I've heard that while the Spanish Inquisition was a rather different beast, the Papal Inquisition was rather undeserving of its modern day reputation for being a metaphorical witch hunt, in that while they would execute unrepentant heretics in gruesome ways, if you had heretical beliefs but renounced them you were free to go, and if you were falsely accused of having heretical beliefs all you had to do was give a public declaration that you believed in the orthodox catholic position on the matter you were accused of being a heretic over. Even the modern and contemporary reputation of the Spanish Inquisition is largely the result of the Black Legend since there were pretty significant variations in the accusation, prosecution, conviction, punishment, and censorship patterns of the Holy Office depending on the jurisdiction, period of time, type of heretical behavior, and the ethnicity of the individual in question. For example, an Indian could not be prosecuted by the Holy Office after it had been established in Mexico in 1571 although the earlier "apostolic" inquisitions could. Likewise, an individual engaging in something resembling witchcraft in New Spain probably would not have even been prosecuted despite the relatively high likelihood that he had would have been accused, but a bigamist or "Judaizer" would likely be less fortunate at least vis-a-vis prosecution. I want an early modern history thread.
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Jul 20, 2014 07:35
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King Hong Kong posted:Even the modern and contemporary reputation of the Spanish Inquisition is largely the result of the Black Legend since there were pretty significant variations in the accusation, prosecution, conviction, punishment, and censorship patterns of the Holy Office depending on the jurisdiction, period of time, type of heretical behavior, and the ethnicity of the individual in question. For example, an Indian could not be prosecuted by the Holy Office after it had been established in Mexico in 1571 although the earlier "apostolic" inquisitions could. Likewise, an individual engaging in something resembling witchcraft in New Spain probably would not have even been prosecuted despite the relatively high likelihood that he had would have been accused, but a bigamist or "Judaizer" would likely be less fortunate at least vis-a-vis prosecution. We actually know a lot about African kinship ties in America through bigamy vouchers (e.g. "This is Tom, he's my friend, and I know he's I married.") Which was kinda a big deal to the church. A lot of these are "he was my shipmate" even for the guys who'd been in he Americas for decades
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Jul 20, 2014 16:45
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P-Mack posted:According to the book ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Albigensian-Crusades-Arbor-Paperbacks/dp/0472064762 ) I just finished on the Albigensian crusades, the inquisition of that period would in fact view reconversion as its primary goal and do everything possible to get a heretic to recant before turning them over to secular authority for execution (washing their hands of the actual execution much like Pontius Pilate). The number of executions relative to the huge number of people processed was small. However, they were absolutely ruthless about getting the heretic to name every single other heretic (or potential heretic or person who once said hello to a heretic) they possibly could before letting them go. They'd have no problem imprisoning people for years on end, which I believe is pretty unusual by medieval standards. Imprisonment for long periods of time was quite unusual all the up to the modern period. Prison was where people were put until their sentence could be carried out basically. The inquisition was known for being quite a bit more squeamish about condemning suspects to execution and other forms of capital punishments than secular courts, which is why you ended up with a lot of people put in ecclesiastical prison or put under hourse arrest rather than actually punished. The Inquisition was quite a bit more interested in actually rooting out heresy than punishing individual heretics. On top of this being imprisoned by the Inquisition usually meant ecclasiastical prison which meant your prison guards were usually unarmed monks, quite a lot of people managed to escape. Witchraft also seems to have been viewed almost entirely as superstition by most inquisitors, the great majority of witch burnings were carried out by secular courts and/or lynch mobs, the Inquisition in general wanted little to do with it. The inquisitor assigned to Jeanne d'Arc's trial(though he might have been replaced towards the end, don't quite remember) was convinced she was innocent, that dressing like a man was entirely appropriate for a woman fighting in a war and that the accusations of witchcraft were preposterous superstition. The Inquisition also operated under certain rules that made them a lot more humane and fair than contemporary secular courts (though still quite shocking to many modern people I'd think), for instance a suspect was not told the details of his heresy only the number of counts of heresy he was suspected of, this was to ensure that a suspect did not give a false confession during interrogation (if his confession did not match the heresies he was on trial he was supposed to have been let go as innocent), use of torture during interrogation was restricted to one session and methods that drew blood were prohibited, a confession under torture would have to be repeated some time later without the torture for it to be regarded as valid. The Spanish Inquisition is somewhat different in that much of its work lay in discovering secret practitioners of Islam and Judaism, but this is still pretty similar to the Medieval Inquisition which was tasked to enforce religious unity by rooting out Christian heresy. The Spanish Inquisition were more directly an arm of the Spanish crown though, rather than answering solely to the Pope.
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Jul 21, 2014 13:13
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People interested in the inquisition should definitely read Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms. Its a case study of a 16th century Italian miller who was accused of heresy and eventually burned for it at the stake. Due to the meticulous record keeping of the inquisition Ginzburg can cite straight from the sources what the accused and the inquisitors said, which is pretty cool.
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Jul 21, 2014 15:54
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Charlie Mopps posted:People interested in the inquisition should definitely read Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms. Its a case study of a 16th century Italian miller who was accused of heresy and eventually burned for it at the stake. Due to the meticulous record keeping of the inquisition Ginzburg can cite straight from the sources what the accused and the inquisitors said, which is pretty cool. The Cheese and the Worms is not strictly about the Inquisition per se, but it is a classic and worthwhile read. His The Night Battles is also excellent. Ginzburg's use of the Inquisition in historical writing has strong similarities to Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's roughly contemporaneous Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324, which has been a major influence on historians of the Inquisition (both medieval and early modern) since the 1970s. Of the early modern (and probably of all) inquisitions, the Roman Inquisition is probably the most difficult to get a grasp of due to the substantial damage its archives endured in riots and the Napoleonic occupation of Rome and the fact that the archives are difficult to access and were not opened until surprisingly recently. As for the Spanish Inquisition, the recommendations are often: Gustav Henningsen and John Tedeschi, eds., The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe: Studies on Sources and Methods Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition (How creative) Joseph Peréz, The Spanish Inquisition Richard Kagan, Lucrecia's Dreams and Inquisitorial Inquiries Benzion Netanyahu, Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain There is also a great deal of exceedingly good scholarship in French and Spanish (if you can read either or both) including Jean-Pierre Dedieu's and Solange Alberro's works. For the Atlantic World and Latin American extensions, role, and significance, Alberro is crucial as are Stuart B. Schwartz's All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World, María Elena Martínez's Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico, James Sweet's Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World, and Richard Greenleaf's work from the 1970s and 1980s. Martin Austin Nesvig's Ideology and Inquisition: The World of the Censors in Early Mexico is pretty recent, but it is kind of flawed (though many of the above works have their own flaws).
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Jul 22, 2014 07:44
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