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icantfindaname · # ? Feb 9, 2015 08:37

To what extent was Greco-Roman stuff integrated into Arabized societies? What about Persian intellectual stuff?

Adbot · # ? May 15, 2024 16:24

Fizzil · # ? Feb 9, 2015 15:27

the JJ posted:

So way back in the day the 'Persian' Empire and the Roman Empire (at this point, the Western half has fallen and is only now kinda getting its poo poo together, but the East has kept on trucking okay) are scrapping when out of nowhere a bunch of Arab tribes under a new Abrahamic spin off absolutely faceroll big chunks of the Roman's and the entirety of the Persian Empire within just a few years. Then, aside from a quick trip to Iberia, they go about sorting succession issues and have a few civil wars. At this point there is no 'Persia' per say, but the Abbasid (in a rather calculating way, it seems) use Shia partisans and the resentment of non-Arabic Muslims against the Umayyads, and proceed to mostly go back to assassinating Shia Imams, though they are a bit nicer to the non-Arabs under their rule. Again, no Persia as a polity but Persian intellectual traditions keep rolling along with the other Greeco-Arabo-Roman poo poo going on. Eventually the Abbasids cede more and more power to different military groups that nominally follow the caliph but really ran the show. Of these the Buyids and the Seljuks are the most famous. These were Turkish folks but they set up their main power base in Persia so you might call them a Persian Empire. Eventually some Seljuk vassals were powerful enough to take the title Shah, (the Khwarezm Empire) so you might call that a Persian Empire. Again you have a sort of Turkic military/ruling class, but lots of Persian intellectual traditions (and geography), with an Arabic religion thing going on, then the Mongols roll in and it's the same situation. Some of the most elaborate Shahnameh illuminations were made for Mongol rulers, for instance.

Persia really gets 'restored' later though, with the Mongol states tearing each other to bits post-Timur an actual honest to god Persian (... kinda) Sufi/Shia leader comes and sets up the Twelver Shia Iran more or less as we know it. Their decline relative to the Ottomans was probably a bunch of things (tm), general imperial rot, trying to hold territory in Afghanistan, have more, angrier neighbors, being more easily bypassed via ocean trade, that sort of stuff.

The first persian polities after the Islamic conquest were actually the Saffarids and then the Samanids, Also the Shia were still a largely Arabic sect exclusive to Iraq, the Abassid revolution came from Khorasan (not really a traditional Shia area). The Samanids are interesting, because alot of early medieval iranian pottery is attributed to them, and they evoke alot of artwork from the Sassanid era (including depictions of cataphracts).

icantfindaname posted:

To what extent was Greco-Roman stuff integrated into Arabized societies? What about Persian intellectual stuff?

Alot, the Ummayads adopted alot of Greco-Roman administration practices and were only outclassed by a much more complex system when the Abassids came with a bunch of Iranian practices (up to their fall by the Mongols in the 13th century, they had a proper army that actually held its ground pretty well because of some sort of salary system that was quite ahead of its time).

the JJ · the JJ Mar 31, 2011

Fizzil posted:

The first persian polities after the Islamic conquest were actually the Saffarids and then the Samanids, Also the Shia were still a largely Arabic sect exclusive to Iraq, the Abassid revolution came from Khorasan (not really a traditional Shia area). The Samanids are interesting, because alot of early medieval iranian pottery is attributed to them, and they evoke alot of artwork from the Sassanid era (including depictions of cataphracts).

Yeah, I guess I should have made that more clear, those two were under nominal Abbasid control, but very nominally. The Samanids went after the Saffarids on orders/with permission from the Caliphate and, of course, promptly became strong enough to quietly ignore any more requests, so they went off and did their own thing. The Samanids have a very similar problem to the Abbasids though, in that they ended up relying too much on a Turkish warrior class that eventually ended up running the show, often as 'governors' supposedly under the big dynasties actual rule. I guess I was answering the 'what role did the Iranians play in the Caliphate' question, and there it was mostly social and intellectual.

And yeah, the Abbasid revolution had Sunni Arab supporters and the Abbasids were themselves Sunni Arabs, but the revolt supported in particular by Shia Muslims and non-Arab Muslims who felt iced out by the Umayyads, and of those two only the non-Arab Muslims got what the wanted, as the Abbasids moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad and generally emphasised a more Persianized cultural outlook than before.

Power Khan · # ? Feb 9, 2015 16:05

The Ottomans warring with the neighbouring Persians is a constant throughout the 14th to the late 17th century. Timur was really the last ruler to pose an existential threat to them, but from then on, it's a steady grind. The different persians dynasties stirr often when the Ottomans are invested in Europe, so it's a common move that every time a greater campaign in Europe comes up there, the Sultan goes east first, to slap them around and then going to the west for the actual business.

One has to keep in mind that the persian plateau was largely depopulated by the Mongol invasion, with the population only reaching pre-invasion levels in the late 19th century. Iran is mostly windy cold rear end arid mountains (with some cold desert sprinkled inbetween), with lush valleys where most people live and spots with mediterranean climate. Their north is covered with woods and the south around the gulf is the hot type of desert. A persian friend told me, when you think of Iran, think of mountains, lots of mountains.

Nomad tribes are a constant power factor for the period that we speak of, and far beyond, until the first Pahlavi shah breaks their influence for good in the 1920s. Look at all the different dynasties that they had.

There's also some famous cities, maybe somebody can effort post on how the relation of tension between the nomads and the settled parts of the persian society played out?

Iranian metalworking seems pretty famous, nearly every high quality damascene shamshir that you find on an ottoman or mughal noble comes from the forges of Iran.

Other interesting stuff

Schenck v. U.S. · # ? Feb 9, 2015 16:58

JaucheCharly posted:

One has to keep in mind that the persian plateau was largely depopulated by the Mongol invasion, with the population only reaching pre-invasion levels in the late 19th century. Iran is mostly windy cold rear end arid mountains (with some cold desert sprinkled inbetween), with lush valleys where most people live and spots with mediterranean climate. Their north is covered with woods and the south around the gulf is the hot type of desert. A persian friend told me, when you think of Iran, think of mountains, lots of mountains.

Another thing to remember is that until the Mongol invasion Mesopotamia and Central Asia were also very populous, hugely wealthy, and very much Persian in culture. In the 12-13th century several of the wealthiest and largest cities in the world were Persianate cities along the Silk Road, most of which were largely destroyed in the Mongol invasion.

Politically speaking, the rise of the Abbasid Dynasty was a win for Persianized Arabs and their Persian elite allies, which was why they built Baghdad as their new capital, located in Mesopotamia, and planned out after the fashion of Sassanian urban design. As a result of the Abbasids winning out, Sassanian Persian culture became really hugely influential on the development of what we construe as "Islamic" culture. The practices of the Sassanian aristocracy represented wealth and sophistication to the Arabs who had conquered them, and they had a ton of influence over the Abbasids. A lot of things that are associated with Islamic culture were adopted from Persian, like veiling of women, domed mosques, libraries, etc. And a lot of the major cultural and scientific figures of the so-called Islamic Golden Age, like Bukhari, Khwarizmi, Avicenna, etc. were either Persians or had been born and educated in Persianate areas of the Islamic world.

As the JJ said, their military strength declined and they were increasingly reliant on Turkic peoples to supply muscle, and eventually they were politically displaced by them and the area was under Turkic rule. But, again, the rulers were Turkic but ruling class and elite culture relied a lot on Persian forms. This is true even down the line to the Ottoman Empire, and even moreso the Mughal Empire. At the same time this is going on, other areas of the Islamic world are splitting off from Baghdad and going in different directions politically and culturally. North Africa, Spain, and Egypt are not nearly as influenced by Persian culture.

Railtus · # ? Feb 9, 2015 19:09

EvanSchenck posted:

I was mulling over a couple armor-related questions.

First, my rough understanding is that the Western/Central European standard was padded cloth and mail, with increasing incorporation of plate components beginning in the 13th century until the adoption of suits of plate in the 15th century. To what extent were other types like brigandine or lamellar used? Were they transitional forms, were they used for special purposes, were they more/less expensive than the more widespread mail/plate? How do their protective characteristics compare to mail and plate? From my limited reading it seems like both types were commonly used in Eastern Europe, Russia in particular, and lamellar was very popular farther afield in East and Southeast Asia.

Second, were different kinds of armor preferred for very warm climates? From looking at Iranian and Mughal armor it looks like the same kind of thing; mail worn over a quilted coat, with some plate components (mirror armor). It seems like it would be impossibly hot considering average temperatures of 90-100 degrees in many areas during the summer. Were there alternative varieties of armor to avoid heat prostration? Or did they just avoid fighting when it was very hot?

Lamellar was very rare, at least in West/Central Europe. All of the examples I feel confident about are eastern armours. There are some suggestions of early period scale-like armours that may or may not be lamellar.

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/media/cache/manuscriptminiatures.com/original/921-28_large.jpg

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3474/3362444613_5b5a34d399.jpg

I do not know of any confirmed western lamellar armour, so I would say it was something maybe known about but not really used.

Brigandines and jacks-of-plates did become pretty common, although are fairly late-period armours. Often they were made using recycled pieces of other armour.

http://www.royalarmouries.org/what-we-do/research/analytical-projects/the-jack-of-plates-evidence-of-re-cycling

A nice video on late-period armours in general from scholagladiatoria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9fHmXxaXqQ

One thing he suggests is brigandine worn over a mail shirt was fairly common, which implies that piercing through a brigandine is deemed fairly possible. On the other hand, brigandines have had �proof marks�, meaning they were at least expected to stop various weapons. This means a lot of room for interpretation.

A jack of plates (like a brigandine, though plates sewn rather than riveted inside the cloth) is mentioned. The one I have heard of I remember being able to resist arrows, but was �cut to pieces with swords and axes.�

So the evidence I am familiar of varies extensively. Part of it is the thickness of the armour varied, although I get the impression it was seen as very dependable and protective. I think the actual differences in protection between a brigandine and a breastplate would be pretty difficult to notice against most threats.

I found one discussion of the topic here - http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=263411

The term brigandine is occasionally associated with �brigand� � although this refers less to a robber than it does to a foot-soldier. So it was probably the typical infantry armour of the period, maybe even more common than munitions plate. It was probably less expensive, though still very protective, and honestly probably needs more depiction in media. Brigandines can also have lance-rests, which implies lance-armed cavalry, normally a knightly or high-status role.

Also brigandine combined with plate is not unknown in artwork, even with high-status figures:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Saint_Michael_and_the_Dragon.jpg

As for warm climates, I do not really tend to notice a difference being ascribed to the heat. However, this is not my area. I can say that I know people who wear full plate in areas that get that hot, and they do not find it unbearable.

Rodrigo Diaz · # ? Feb 10, 2015 18:16

Railtus posted:

Lamellar was very rare, at least in West/Central Europe. All of the examples I feel confident about are eastern armours. There are some suggestions of early period scale-like armours that may or may not be lamellar.

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/media/cache/manuscriptminiatures.com/original/921-28_large.jpg

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3474/3362444613_5b5a34d399.jpg

I do not know of any confirmed western lamellar armour, so I would say it was something maybe known about but not really used.

We have a number of examples of Western lamellar. The latest is probably the piece found at Wisby, but according to Guy Halsall's Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450-900, there has been lamellar found at numerous Merovingian-period sites.

quote:

Also brigandine combined with plate is not unknown in artwork, even with high-status figures:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Saint_Michael_and_the_Dragon.jpg

What makes you think this is brigandine and not a cloth-covered breastplate or coat of plates?

Railtus · # ? Feb 10, 2015 20:55

Rodrigo Diaz posted:

What makes you think this is brigandine and not a cloth-covered breastplate or coat of plates?

Thanks for the info on the lamellar.

Also, for a better look at the original picture: http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/437742

A few reasons:

Mostly the buckles at the front, implying it opens and closes there, which rules out a breastplate.

As for whether it is a brigandine or a coat-of-plates or a jack-of-plates, I would consider �yes� the appropriate answer. Based on the shape and the placement of the rivets I would say corrazina-style.

For the benefit of those wondering.

Interior construction of a corrazina-style coat of plates; http://s180.photobucket.com/user/iaenmor/media/Corrazina/0003-1.jpg.html

Interior construction of a brigandine; http://nadler.us/photos/armour/brigandine-Bob-Reed/brig_bob1_4.jpg

I might be getting less pedantic in my old age.

HEY GUNS · # ? Feb 11, 2015 12:23

Paging JaucheCharly

Power Khan · # ? Feb 11, 2015 12:44

Good job letting it sit there pointing at somebody, cocked and loaded.

Railtus · # ? Feb 11, 2015 13:16

JaucheCharly posted:

Good job letting it sit there pointing at somebody, cocked and loaded.

Yeah, I thought it was Crossbow Safety 101 to not have the crossbow ready to shoot unless you are also ready to shoot.

https://beckettcrossbows.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/ultimate-guide-to-crossbow-safety/

http://www.bestcrossbowsource.com/crossbow-safety-security/

�If your crossbow is cocked, and especially if an arrow is seated, do not ever place the weapon on the ground, as the trigger could engage by accident. If you need to rest your crossbow somewhere, remove the arrow and manually de-cock your weapon.�

On that note, what is the best way to de-cock a crossbow?

Power Khan · # ? Feb 11, 2015 14:09

No idea. For a heavy one, just shoot the bolt.

Ashcans · # ? Feb 11, 2015 17:43

Preferably not into your face, though.

Power Khan · # ? Feb 11, 2015 18:37

Shooting the bolt might really be the most comfortable option. De-cocking 300 pounds with your hands seems uncomfortable, let alone a historical weight. Can you imagine what will happen if you dry-fire something like that? I'd totally watch somebody try. On liveleak :stare:

Grand Prize Winner · # ? Feb 11, 2015 19:04

Wait, is dry-firing a bow or crossbow bad? I just kinda pictured the string going TWANNNG.

Railtus · # ? Feb 11, 2015 19:24

Grand Prize Winner posted:

Wait, is dry-firing a bow or crossbow bad? I just kinda pictured the string going TWANNNG.

From one of the links:

"Never dry fire (shooting when there is no seated arrow), as this will generate a lot of vibration in the limbs and damage them, simultaneously voiding your manufacturer warranty. It will also shorten the life of your string and the mounting between the prod and stock."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzdTUQuBY_g

Some further information about a dry-fire here: http://uncockcrossbow.weebly.com/crossbow.html

I imagine dry-firing an arbalest would be an elaborate form of suicide.

Grand Prize Winner · # ? Feb 11, 2015 19:28

So what happens if you shoot consistently underweight allows/quarrels? Do the same things happen, only slower?

Power Khan · # ? Feb 11, 2015 19:39

Yes. That's why you have these steel prods and crazy thick strings. Too light arrows or bolts can be felt when you shoot. You get excessive handshock (which can also mean that the ears are too heavy). It just tells you that the surplus energy that isn't transfered into the projectile whacks back at the limbs, damaging or destroying them eventually.

A short composite bow of 120# can kill you or amputate hands and fingers when it breaks. You get the an idea what happens when something breaks that has +1200#. These materials aren't so secure and tolerant like the modern stuff that you can see in videos.

Many of the guys had a bow get loose when they put it on the asa gezi, which is a kind of tillering stick. The bow is just opened a little by then, but it can knock out teeth and can cut you badly. I'm seriously contemplating of wearing a motorcycle helmet for that step.

http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1425&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=315

Power Khan fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 11, 2015

Vincent Van Goatse · # ? Feb 11, 2015 22:29

HEY GAL posted:

Paging JaucheCharly

So the crossbow "suddenly and inexplicably discharged", eh? Bullshit it did. That's right up there with "I was cleaning my gun and it went off" in terms of Obvious Lies.

Fuckers were probably horsing around with the thing and it did what it was made to do. Right into that dude's face. Speaking of which, did you come across any accidental deaths/maimings/whatevers through absurd negligence of firearms safety in your researches, Hegel? Considering you're working on drunken German mercenaries I suspect the answer is "gently caress Yes."

Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Feb 11, 2015

Power Khan · # ? Feb 11, 2015 22:39

Right, but the string doesn't sit to 100% secure. He might have put it down hard on the table and the string slipped out of the lock, or the mechanism was poo poo.

Vincent Van Goatse · # ? Feb 11, 2015 22:40

JaucheCharly posted:

Right, but the string doesn't sit to 100% secure. He might have put it down hard on the table and the string slipped out of the lock, or the mechanism was poo poo.

Fair enough. I was just assuming there's a lot of details wrong because it was the Daily Mail.

Tomn · # ? Feb 11, 2015 23:11

ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:

So the crossbow "suddenly and inexplicably discharged", eh? Bullshit it did. That's right up there with "I was cleaning my gun and it went off" in terms of Obvious Lies.

Fuckers were probably horsing around with the thing and it did what it was made to do. Right into that dude's face. Speaking of which, did you come across any accidental deaths/maimings/whatevers through absurd negligence of firearms safety in your researches, Hegel? Considering you're working on drunken German mercenaries I suspect the answer is "gently caress Yes."

I'm pretty sure I recall her retelling a story of a guy who accidentally blew out his friend's head once while horsing around, and later on accidentally shot another dude (non-fatally, and not even all that seriously) while horsing around again. The experience of the first mishap traumatized the poor dude so much that he bugged the guy who got injured about whether he was hurt or not so much that the injured guy went from "No, it's fine, I'm all right" to "SHUT THE gently caress UP," resulting I think in a fistfight.

Siivola · Siivola Dec 23, 2012

That guy had the most amazing name. I just can't remember what it was.

HEY GUNS · # ? Feb 11, 2015 23:24

Hieronymus Sebastian Schutze/Schutzer/Schuetze, Bastian to his friends. And he didn't shoot the second dude, his horse kicked him in the chest.

HEY GAL posted:

7 August, 1625. Somewhere in Southern Germany or Switzerland.

At roughly eight PM, as Fendrich Hieronymus Sebastian Schutzer and his friends--including our bro, Julius Caesar van Breitenbach, whose descendant will also join a Saxon army in the 1680s--were finishing supper, Schutzer was shooting his pistols out the window, like you do. At his direction, two of his eating companions followed him with their long guns and a drummer accompanied them by beating his drum with each volley.

Before he did this, there is the lovely touch that he had forgotten his winding key and sent his servant to get it and bring it up. A soldier named Andreas Gauning had put it in his room, it turns out.

When Schutzer finished one set of shots, he loaded one of his pistols again, but when he leveled it out the window, it didn't fire, so he wound it again. Either when he pulled the hammer back or shortly before he made to pull the hammer back, the pistol went off, hitting Hanns Heinrich Tauerling "through the head into the right eye and directly out the back." (These people give very precise descriptions of injuries.) Sadly, this is probably the best act of marksmanship Schutzer will accomplish in his life.

In an interesting illustration of how casually everyone took this act up to the part where it killed a guy, one of the witnesses said later that he didn't know exactly how Tauerling got shot because he had been talking to someone else at the time. But he saw Tauerling fall, and thought the tube had exploded.

Schutzer fell upon the dead man screaming. He tried to lift him up and called to him. "Would to God I lay in your place," he said, and begged the witnesses to shoot him or stab him, "so he could abandon the pain of his heart, because the one who was dead by him whom he loved as himself and had received nothing evil, except suddenly he was shot, so he desired no longer to live on the earth."

The witnesses made it very clear that Schutzer and Tauerling had nothing against each other, and the regimental court decided that it was, in fact, an accident. Since this was due to carelessness, Schutzer was not punished with his life. However, he was still held responsible, and had to take an oath:

"I swear by God the Almighty and by the praiseworthy Imperial German War Law that there was to him from me no hate or envy either against him or between us. Except it was the case that the pistol went off against my will. So it was, as God help me, and his holy pain and suffering AMEN."

Furthermore, since he was an officer, Schutzer should handle his weapons more responsibly, because it will further the aims of His Grace The Graff von Mansfeld, Oberst and proprietor of this regiment.

The Fendrich was deprived of his office for nine days and remained in his quarters under arrest. Finally, since he had payed for his crime, he was called free once again and put back in his Fendel as an honorable cavalier.

The pistols they're talking about are usually about the size of your forearm, incidentally. The detail about the winding key is so...humanizing. Reenactors who have wheellocks often wear their keys around their necks so that exact thing doesn't happen to them, but I don't know if that was a common practice in the period.

Also note that this house is full of soldiers--Andreas Gauning had left Schutze's winding key "in his room," which was downstairs from "Schutze's room" where he and his friends/retinue had been eating. It's also significant that Schutze was hanging out with drummers--Fendriches and drummers are supposed to live near one another, since they work together.

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Feb 11, 2015

Schenck v. U.S. · # ? Feb 12, 2015 18:22

Thanks for the answers. As a followup, I was wondering why lamellar was commonly used in Russia and East Asia but very seldom in Europe and the Middle East. Does it have any specific advantages or disadvantages of protection, flexibility, or weight compared to mail, plate, and brigandine? Were there production factors? For example, I think I've read that a major reason for the adoption of plate wasn't necessarily that it was more protective, but rather improvements in smithing technology made it faster and cheaper to produce than mail.

Power Khan · # ? Feb 12, 2015 18:44

We've talked about this a while ago and me and Rodrigo pointed to water powered hammerworks as one of the great improvements. Steel was produced in bloomeries (Rennofen in german), which resulted in lumps of steel with lots of slag that needed to be hammered out and folded over and over so that the Carbon ratio is spread evenly throughout the piece. So it's obvious that a powered hammerwork is great. Mail is super labour intense and you can't whip out a shirt in a week or something. Check this this out and do the math

Here's such a hammerwork: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frohnauer_Hammer

While you look at the inner diameter of the rings, it is interesting to note that Ottoman bodkin heads had a diameter of 6mm.

Power Khan fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Feb 12, 2015

Railtus · # ? Feb 12, 2015 19:29

EvanSchenck posted:

Thanks for the answers. As a followup, I was wondering why lamellar was commonly used in Russia and East Asia but very seldom in Europe and the Middle East. Does it have any specific advantages or disadvantages of protection, flexibility, or weight compared to mail, plate, and brigandine? Were there production factors? For example, I think I've read that a major reason for the adoption of plate wasn't necessarily that it was more protective, but rather improvements in smithing technology made it faster and cheaper to produce than mail.

I do not expect there to be such a dramatic difference, because to my knowledge, the lamellar or plated mail (a hybrid of lamellar and mail, where the mail connects the metal plates together) were used in the East. While Europe did not adopt Ottoman armours, to my knowledge there was no widespread adoption of European armours among the Ottomans. So whatever the differences they were probably not that major.

I do believe brigandine is typically stronger than lamellar, just because riveted onto a sturdy cloth backing (and often riveted together) seems more robust than lacing. Although I suspect the main advantage is to do with care and maintenance.

On the plate replacing mail for economic reasons, I know Dan Howard�s Mail Unchained article addresses that in detail. After the Black Death, labour costs went up, so labour intensive armours like mail would be more expensive to produce.

Power Khan · # ? Feb 12, 2015 20:55

Take my posts about armor with a grain of salt. I don't know much, but these are examples of a suit that's worn by Qapikulu (Janissaries that are trained as heavy cavalry)

I'm pretty sure that these are worn with some kind of cloth armor, but it's a good question if they're worn over or below the mail. Note the plates that protect the torso and the sides. It seems that the whole horse gets the same level of protection that the vital organs of the rider get.

Not related to these pics, I have been to the H�fische Jagd und R�stkammer a few times now, there's a buttload of magnificient sets or european armor, also horsearmor. There's a set of mail for the mount that has rings with an inner diameter of 5mm or less, with the rings of different color, so that it makes an elaborate pattern.

Power Khan fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Feb 12, 2015

Rodrigo Diaz · # ? Feb 13, 2015 06:33

EvanSchenck posted:

Thanks for the answers. As a followup, I was wondering why lamellar was commonly used in Russia and East Asia but very seldom in Europe and the Middle East. Does it have any specific advantages or disadvantages of protection, flexibility, or weight compared to mail, plate, and brigandine? Were there production factors? For example, I think I've read that a major reason for the adoption of plate wasn't necessarily that it was more protective, but rather improvements in smithing technology made it faster and cheaper to produce than mail.

To put it simply, we don't know for sure. The most convincing argument I've seen is that for making larger plates you need a fairly pure of iron or steel (much like makin riveted mail) and thus without advanced forging techniques lamellar is more or less the best rigid armour you can get.

The cost difference of plate vs. mail is an interesting perspective. The problem i have with this argument is that we have plate at first introduced as a rigid addition to mail, specifically to protect the joints (shoulders, elbows, knees). If plate's advantage was cheapness, why not save yourself some money and use it instead of mail, not in combination? Rigid armour obviously has its own advantages. What makes this doubly confusing, however, is that even when plate armour has come into its own, you still have some soldiers preferring mail. One good example is the extensive use of mail by West Highlanders even when plate was readily available to them in the 15th and 16th centuries, but there are others, such as Pero Ni�o's wearing of mail at the 1397 Siege of Pontevedra.

JaucheCharly posted:

We've talked about this a while ago and me and Rodrigo pointed to water powered hammerworks as one of the great improvements. Steel was produced in bloomeries (Rennofen in german), which resulted in lumps of steel with lots of slag that needed to be hammered out and folded over and over so that the Carbon ratio is spread evenly throughout the piece. So it's obvious that a powered hammerwork is great.

It's not just the trip hammers but the furnace itself that became water-powered, which allowed larger blooms in addition to being more consistent and freeing up workers and all that.

Here's a diagram of one of the Catalan furnaces:

quote:

Here's such a hammerwork: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frohnauer_Hammer

And here's one in action!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAv3hkOQZjg

They're called martinetes in Spanish and maglio in Italian.

quote:

While you look at the inner diameter of the rings, it is interesting to note that Ottoman bodkin heads had a diameter of 6mm.

I've never heard of 10mm inner diameter rings for a Western mail shirt, and I've been given to understand that even 8mm is above average. Looking at the rings found at the Birka garrison, from the Viking period, that seems to be the case:

What size was the shaft on Ottoman arrows?

Power Khan · # ? Feb 13, 2015 11:32

The diameter at base of the shaft (foot) is between 6 and 5mm. I'm currently chasing the precise measurements of the heads. Apparently there is no examination of the metallurgical makeup of the heads published to this day. According to a friend who had the chance to examine the military grade ones in turkey, they follow this layout and size as the most common formula.

Here a cross-section from here

The majority of arrows that are on display here where I live are either prestige works or the small military broadhead type. I have seen at least 3 variations of the bodkin type. 4 side pyramidal, some are 3 side pyramidal and there is one that is round. The edges are sometimes filed down like in this pic, on others they're unbroken and sharp. The prestige arrows have bodkin heads of a larger diameter than the military grade (confusingly they also have these larger heads sometimes):

Prestige stuff

http://turcica.museum-kassel.de/204997/0/3/0/k9/0/0/objekt.html

http://turcica.museum-kassel.de/200379/0/3/0/k10/0/0/objekt.html

Here examples for the larger military grade bodkins:

The bodkin one about in the middle, note the unsually large hunting broadheads as compared to the small military type (that are all over in our museums) in the image that follows this one:

The shape of the wooden shafts is also peculiar, of 6mm diameter at the base of the foot and barreled in a specific manner, which roughly looks like this

The lower 2 are used for war and training arrows, and it seems there is no uniform formula for the taper to length ratio, as can be seen here (the upper arrow is a tartar one for comparison).

Apparently there were only broad specs to what this taper had to look like. For what they all have in common, I've been told that the taper for the foot (5-6mm diameter) increases evenly over 1/3rd of the shaft length to reach max diameter with about 9mm (or more) in the middle section and then staying even towards the nock or tapering in either the same manner as towards the foot or having the taper start 1/6th of the lenght of the arrow away from the nock, depending if it's Tarz-I Has or Kiris Endam.

There is a small ring of horn or brass between the arrowhead and the wooden shaft to act as a spacer and prevent the splitting of the shaft on impact. The horn rings are often gone due to hungry insects. The tang is twice the length of the head. The foot of the arrow is wrapped with sinew and protected against abrasion with cherry bark or very thin leather on quality arrows. Sinew wrapping is surprisingly effective at preventing breakage. It is a good question what was used to glue the head into the shaft, as hidelue et al. doesn't stick on metal. A friend examined mughal and persian arrows that are very much like these and found that the heads were generously glued with some kind of tree resin that also seems to have worked as a buffer to reduce the forces of the impact. The lenght of the shafts is between 26-28" or 68-69cm being the most common length. The majority of the shafts are pine, but there are pieces that are made of ash and also cane shafts (of abysmal quality).

Weight is between 17-22g. That is very light compared to english war arrows with around +100g. What I'm really wondering about is the momentum of this projectile and how they were meant to be used. They deliver alot of KE, but they won't penetrate deep like heavy arrows of comparable KE when there's a thicker layer of material offering resistance, like many layers of cloth or padding, or alot of meat and bone, like a horse's body. Apparently the military saw benefits the use of this weapon system in context with specifical tactics (which must have been more or less shooting point blank at armored opponents), or they wouldn't have gone through all this effort of outfitting so many people with expensive hornbows and this stuff.

Grand Prize Winner · # ? Feb 14, 2015 04:43

What's up with the arrow at the bottom? The one with the big, blunt head.

Power Khan · # ? Feb 14, 2015 06:48

That's for killing birds and small game

Rabhadh · Rabhadh Aug 26, 2007

Ottoman police, less than lethal

FreudianSlippers · # ? Feb 14, 2015 18:02

Where is the boxing glove arrow?

Power Khan · # ? Feb 14, 2015 20:47

The Janissaries are the police force and firefighters. Which makes for a good guess why everything turns to poo poo shortly after they're making the job hereditary. Something related while we speak about the Janissaries or Ottoman Turkey, I really wonder what's up with the whole boylove thing? Is that a muslim thing? Scarcety of whores in muslim countries? I mean these dudes are obsessed with underage boys. They dress them up like women and there's no secrecy about it. Is that also a thing at that time in the rest of Europe?

HEY GUNS · # ? Feb 14, 2015 21:06

JaucheCharly posted:

Is that also a thing at that time in the rest of Europe?

It varies from region to region, culture to culture.

Florence, for instance, used to fine the men they caught. (The people in charge of this were called the Office of the Night.) The fines were high, and the other punishments were severe too...until someone realized that the state would get more money if you lowered the fine, collected it regularly, and allowed the fined to police themselves, resulting in what contemporaries called a tax on sodomy. If you "hear" that you're going to be "denounced," you show up at the Office of the Night yourself, confess, get fined, and are on your way. Michael Rocke estimates that "in the later 15th century, the majority of local males at least once during their lifetimes were officially incriminated for engaging in homosexual relations."

Check out Cellini's autobiography, and every single written thing from renaissance Florence I can think of. I don't think it involves cross dressing or anything though.

http://www.amazon.com/Forbidden-Friendships-Homosexuality-Renaissance-Sexuality/dp/0195122925

Meanwhile, at the same time Venice was gripped by a gay panic, blamed men having sex with men on the perverted influence of foreigners, and worried that the practice would call down God's vengeance upon the galley fleet. They would put you in the stocks or kill you for it.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Boundaries-Eros-Sexuality-Renaissance/dp/0195056965

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Feb 14, 2015

Schenck v. U.S. · # ? Feb 14, 2015 23:34

JaucheCharly posted:

The Janissaries are the police force and firefighters. Which makes for a good guess why everything turns to poo poo shortly after they're making the job hereditary. Something related while we speak about the Janissaries or Ottoman Turkey, I really wonder what's up with the whole boylove thing? Is that a muslim thing? Scarcety of whores in muslim countries? I mean these dudes are obsessed with underage boys. They dress them up like women and there's no secrecy about it. Is that also a thing at that time in the rest of Europe?

There's a couple things at work here.

First, the social ideal for gender relations is that women are kept isolated in the household. This isn't something that the typical family can afford, because to survive they need their women working, but it is affordable and de rigeur for the kind of upper class people who are running things, setting standards, and leaving behind records of their culture. So as a rich young man, in terms of female interaction you have your mother, your sisters, and probably your father's extra wives and some household slaves, and then eventually you get married to one or more women who you really barely know. In that environment homosociality is hugely important. All your friendships are with other men, and the relationships you do have with women are oriented around maintaining family honor, because that's heavily a function of their morality and purity. This is also true going the other direction, concerning the male relatives of any women you might be interested in messing around with. Putting a guy's sister in a compromising position can be a very big problem for both you and her. It seems ridiculous but the consequences of banging his little brother could be much less serious.

Second, the notion that homosexuality is a personal status or an essential personality trait is a modern idea. Before the 19th century in Europe (and somewhat later in most of the rest of the world) people understood homosexuality as an activity that a person might engage in according to their preference. It's also age-structured. Boys and men in adolescence and early-adulthood are supposed to be in the passive role, while adult men are in the active role. Age-structured homosexuality is also related to the mentor principle, which is another reason it was a big deal for military elites. Older men train the adolescent boys who will be the next generation of janissaries, and they're very close emotionally and physically. But you catch until you're old enough to grow pretty good facial hair, then you start pitching. If you keep catching into adulthood, that's not okay and people are going to think you're weird. There's also some suggestion that a marked preference for homosexual over heterosexual intercourse was considered odd and possibly degenerate, so you probably wanted to mix in some evenings with your wives between your boylove sessions, just for the sake of appearances.

Third, Islamic jurisprudence recognized that people were naturally lustful and that the human form aroused sexual desires. This is in fact the reason that women were supposed to be veiled and isolated in the home. There are also rulings, though less frequently invoked, concerning male modesty. You're not supposed to gently caress around because it's socially dangerous, but the law knows that you want to and sympathizes. Homoerotic desire is a recognized part of this, and there are even rulings where the faqih would basically write "look, we all accept that young boys are sexy, but don't gently caress them". There's even a great one I remember, but that I would have to find, where the ruling says that anybody who claims he's not attracted to young boys is a liar or a freak. This is not to say that homosexual acts weren't illegal, because they were, and some of them were punishable by death. However, actually getting punished was very rare. For example, poets were able to write openly homoerotic works with little fear of punishment.

There's been a pretty good literature about this topic in the past 10 or so years. The best-known book is probably Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards by Afsaneh Najmabadi, about Iran. For the Ottoman context there's Producing Desire by Dror Ze'evi. Also Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 by Khaled El-Rouayheb.

HEY GUNS · # ? Feb 14, 2015 23:48

EvanSchenck posted:

Third, Islamic jurisprudence recognized that people were naturally lustful and that the human form aroused sexual desires. ... There are also rulings, though less frequently invoked, concerning male modesty. You're not supposed to gently caress around because it's socially dangerous, but the law knows that you want to and sympathizes.

are you saying these writings and their implied audience exemplify the Male Gays

Schenck v. U.S. · # ? Feb 15, 2015 03:51

HEY GAL posted:

are you saying these writings and their implied audience exemplify the Male Gays

yeah why not

also on a less humorous note, Islam also recognizes the problem of the female gaze, and juridical opinions in favor of FGM usually cite women's uncontrollable libidos as a justification. You see, we have to mangle their genitals because otherwise they'd just gently caress anything with a penis!

Adbot · # ? May 15, 2024 16:24

Goatse James Bond · # ? Feb 15, 2015 07:04

HEY GAL posted:

It varies from region to region, culture to culture.

Florence, for instance, used to fine the men they caught. (The people in charge of this were called the Office of the Night.) The fines were high, and the other punishments were severe too...until someone realized that the state would get more money if you lowered the fine, collected it regularly, and allowed the fined to police themselves, resulting in what contemporaries called a tax on sodomy. If you "hear" that you're going to be "denounced," you show up at the Office of the Night yourself, confess, get fined, and are on your way. Michael Rocke estimates that "in the later 15th century, the majority of local males at least once during their lifetimes were officially incriminated for engaging in homosexual relations."

Check out Cellini's autobiography, and every single written thing from renaissance Florence I can think of. I don't think it involves cross dressing or anything though.

There was a related episode in Florence where the cardinal from there was deeply concerned about excessive dude-on-dude action, so he recommended that lady prostitutes be allowed to display their wares from their windows.