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Ascetic Crow posted:Yeah, go gently caress yourself man. I asked a real question with a lovely Da Vinci code joke, and now you're being a dick. Lol ok there big man. The fact that you didn't know their actual role but did know some conspiracy bullshit and some trivia made me think you were trolling, especially because this kind of question is one of the few questions to which 'go read wikipedia' is a reasonable answer. They were a religious order of knights (indeed, the first). They fought chiefly against Muslims, but I'm pretty sure they hosed up various Baltic pagans too. What else do you want to know? edit: oh hey you changed your avatar Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 22:13
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:What's wrong with them? Dead? Went back in time? Polack? Could be number of things.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:54
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CreepyGuy9000 posted:What do you consider to be most well executed or the most glamorous siege of a town/castle/fortification in the medieval time period ? Well-executed sieges tend to be UNglamorous. Indeed, the most glamorous events in my view occur when sieges fail, especially successful sallies by outnumbered defenders. Give me a minute to think on this, though, and I will come up with an answer for each. Unzip and Attack posted:What are the various advantages of different weapon types? I mean, it sounds like the spear was the most common weapon used pretty much up until the advent of muskets, but why would an individual choose to wield a sword vs. an axe. vs. a mace in battle? The spear was used well after the invention of musket (thus pike-and-shot formations) and there were dudes running around on horseback with literal lances into the First World War. The choice of weapons was partly down to personal preference. Robert the Bruce carried an axe at Bannockburn, Wace describes a French mercenary knight carrying a 'cudgel' at Hastings. In both these instances the majority of knights around them would be armed with swords. There were also many practical reasons for weapon choice. Axes, hammers, falchions and maces are all weighted toward the top end of the weapon, enabling them to strike harder than you would with a sword (discounting halfswording for a moment). However, this distribution of weight puts more leverage on the hand and thus such weapons were typically shorter than swords, or lighter overall. There are also practical reasons. The Eastern Roman Kataphraktoi carried 'iron maces' in part because they expected to come up against other heavily-armoured opponents. It is for this same reason that we see the popularity of hammers, axes, and maces in the 15th and 16th centuries. Swords, however, were the more versatile weapon, and in many cases proved adequate for defeating armour. Additionally, something that has been suggested to me is that there was a kind of inherent resistance to change that kept weapons we might see as 'antiquated' in use, essentially the notion that 'if it was good enough for my father, why shouldn't it be good enough for me?' But this is speculative. INTJ Mastermind posted:A sword is basically a long pointy piece of iron. It's quality is almost 100% dependent on the quality of the iron. But not only is the material relatively rare, it's usually full of impurities that must be removed. They didn't really have scientific metallurgy back then, so a lot of it was trial and error. Each individual smith had his own secret recipes that were closely guarded family secrets, but unless you had an electron microscope handy, you can't reliably assess the quality of your blade until you swung it at someone else's and see whose snapped first. There is a lot in this post that is wrong. While many swords contained iron components (such as those made by pattern-welding or wrapped construction) the cutting edge, was almost always made of steel. The quality of metal has something to do with the quality of the sword, but the heat treatment is very important, I would say equally so. Steel without heat treatment cannot keep an edge anywhere near as well as treated steel, nor can it flex, and is much more liable to break. It seems that this particular confusion continues to your understanding of spears. 'any poo poo piece of scrap iron' would not do 'just fine'. Aside from the fact that spears have sharp edges (something that wrought iron cannot maintain after first contact with wood or linen or a butterfly), wrought iron is prone to bend far more than steel. I don't know by what rationale you can say the point is not intended to be the 'load bearing component' when the point is where force is applied to the target. Kaal posted:"Professional soldiers" or no, they're still levied peasants and they're still poorly armed compared to a knight. That doesn't mean that they're wielding farm tools, but a spear and shield isn't comparable to armor. It is not only knights that wore armour. Indeed, by the time of full plate harness I would say a quite small minority of armored men had been knighted. Additionally, while the levying of peasants did sometimes occur (Louis VI's use of the 'commune' system is one example) these men did not tend to fight in major battles, nor were they the vanguard in siege assaults. We also do not know how the commune system worked, exactly, and whether the men that it brought were wholly amateur, semi-professional, or professional. But in these earlier times, the ownership of a horse was the key point of distinction between 'well-armed foot-soldiers' (super armatos pedites) and knights (milites, miles, or equites). These armoured foot-soldiers, who are explicitly non-knightly, are seen in the 1128 siege of Bruges, at the battle of Bremule in 1119, to look at early 12th century examples. They only become more common as time goes on and the cost of iron, and of armour, go down. By the time of the full plate harness a foot-soldier who did not come to battle with some kind of metallic armour would be a rare sight indeed. Beyond that, however, a shield, spear, textile armour in a defensive position could prove quite difficult for an armored knight to overcome, despite what you seem to think. The Battle of Hastings, the initial stages of the Battle of Falkirk, and other examples all show that body armour was not essential to defend against knights, no matter how well-armoured those knights were.
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Aug 1, 2013 21:09
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Kaal posted:Well-equipped mercenaries were common in certain areas and periods, but they were by no means the majority. And we're launching into a semantic argument at this point. Perhaps a soldier is a landless freeman, rather than a peasant, and is motivated by payment rather than feudal obligation, but that doesn't make him particularly different than a peasant levy when it comes to fighting a knight. Training and discipline, however, do make the mercenary different, and quite significantly so. I also do not know how you can say with confidence that the vast majority of combatants in any given battle would not have been wearing armour when at Fornovo in 1495, for example, nearly all combatants were, and at Bremule in 1119 ALL combatants were, quite explicitly. Additionally you have not addressed my given examples of lightly-armored but professional soldiers aptly resisting well-armed knights. Your initial claim that such men could not resist a well-armed knight is utter nonsense. edit: I double-checked my sources, and interestingly at Hastings it seems a majority of the men on the English side were professional or semi-professional troops: housecarls, mercenaries, and thegns, all of whom seem to have been at least somewhat armoured. There were, however, some fyrdmen (literal peasant levies) who were not. So I retract my earlier use of the Battle of Hastings as an example of poorly armed professionals, and instead throw it in as an example where the armoured men outnumbered the unarmoured. Mea culpa. Let us instead use the example of Pero Niño's battle with the governer of Jersey, where Don Pero's crossbowmen and archers, 'ill-armed men' and 'soldier's boys' (pillartes) defended against a charge of well-armed English foot. Keep in mind I am not saying armour is not an advantage, as that is not up for debate. I am saying that under certain circumstances (in good defensive position, against a disordered charge, and/or with the advantage of numbers for example) men with less armour (sometimes significantly less) could defeat men with more. Kaal posted:I don't think that someone's title had very much to do with how well they do on the battlefield. Getting into that kind of distinction only muddies the discussion. The reality is that having armor is a significant advantage over folks who don't have it, whether or not they have the proper heraldry and royal title to be "technically called a knight". Well, you see, language is important. In the same way that you make no distinction between professional soldiers and levied peasants when the two are really quite different, I try to distinguish between belted knights and men-at-arms. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 1, 2013 21:36
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Squalid posted:I'd imagine during a route the pursuing forces might get a few opportunities to body check an opponent, which is when I think a large proportion of casualties occurred. Say if someone falls behind the rest of his comrades or gets cornered and forced to turn and fight. It is possible, but this tournament is designed (unsurprisingly) to mimic the tournaments of the 14th and 15th centuries. As far as I can tell it does not do this with terribly great fidelity. I actually checked the rules, and grapples of greater than 7 seconds are stopped by the judges. This seems quite ridiculous. That said, I am no expert on tournament, and I know some of them had quite unusual rules and bouts. For example I know of one type where a single competitor would defend a narrow pass from multiple opponents. Because of the terrain he would only fight them one at a time, but in series. Still, the seemingly complete lack of organisation on the part of the competitors strikes me as ahistorical, and as EvanSchenck points out the preference for body checking does not bear out in documentation.
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Aug 1, 2013 21:52
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Squalid posted:Oh yeah I wouldn't dispute that. I don't know why you'd even want to grapple in a free-for-all melee though, not too much you could do if a third opponent starts wailing on you. Although I guess you could just ban that kind of cherry-picking. I have no clue what rules a melee would have had. I know it is hard to tell, but I am 95% sure that video shows 5-on-5 bouts, not free-for-alls.
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Aug 1, 2013 22:36
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Steel is iron with a small amount of carbon. Thus making it a different material (an "alloy" as those in The Biz call it). It is general custom that when people refer to iron they mean either pure iron or wrought iron unless they are referencing Livy, or if they have turned into Livy because they had been bitten by a Classicist and a full moon is out. quote:The problem with early steel was the large amount of impurities, which disrupt the crystal-structure of the metal and weaken it. Heat treatment is absolutely important in that it changes the crystalline structure of the material, but I lumped it all under "quality". You said 'quality of the iron'. Even with material terminology aside, hardening and tempering are some of the last things done to blades before they are finished. By referring to the raw material it seemed to me you were referring to it before it had been forged by a bladesmith. quote:So I guess I should clarify my "quality" as 1) having the right percentage of carbon for the task 2) removing all impurities 3) properly heat treated for the application at hand. Unfortunately for Ye Olde Smithe, judging all 3 basically came down to experimentation and secret family recipes, without any hard objective data to work by. The venerable spark test is fairly effective at determining carbon content. While I do not know if it was used in that period, it would certainly have been available to the smith. Even without this, the simple act of forging (including welding) a given piece of steel or iron will give you some idea of its qualities. The fact that ALL of the ULFBERH+T swords tested by Alan Williams contained crucible steel shows that there was certainly SOME general knowledge. To source steel, especially to source it from as far away as India (the only place known to make crucible steel at the time) means that the makers of the ULFBERH+T swords must have understood that it was superior than locally sourced steel. quote:In a spear, the metal blade provides the cutting edge, while the shaft supports the force of the blow. This has two advantages: 1) a harder (and thus brittler) steel can be used for better edge retention because 2) the more flexible wooden shaft allows it to absorb a lot of force. This composite weapon allows both materials to be used to their respective strengths. Here, again, you seem to be confused. You called the shaft "the load bearing component" (my emphasis). While the flex of the wood certainly took a lot of the load of impact, it did not take all of it. In addition to the blade of the spear, the neck would also need to be able to resist the load of impact if the spear was to last more than a single strike. You now talk about the advantage of being able to use a harder steel. I do not know here if you mean one with more impurities or one with higher carbon content or one that is simple hardened but not tempered. None of these, however, feasibly provide the advantage you speak of, especially within your own reasoning. More slag does not make steel significantly harder, but it does make it significantly more brittle. Steel with higher carbon content is, to the best of my knowledge, not more brittle than low-carbon steel. Even if it is, however, the tradeoff for increased hardness and toughness is clearly worthwhile, considering the preference for high-carbon steel for blades both in the Middle Ages and today. Hardening but not tempering does not make sense either, as there is no reason to take a weapon to a full quench but not temper it when a slack quench provides less risk of cracks from thermal shock and is easier to do besides, while still leaving you with a weapon that can take an edge. But in your own words there was no 'hard objective data to work by', so it seems a mystery to me how a smith could identify a particularly hard piece of steel in the first place. However, the keen observer would notice that in none of these examples are we using 'any poo poo piece of scrap iron' as you originally wrote. Rather, we are using steel or, if we allow your liberties with the term 'iron', a quite narrow range of iron and not just 'any poo poo piece'. quote:On a sword, the blade has to be sharp enough to hold a cutting edge, AND be strong enough to withstand the force of repeated strikes. That's a lot of demand to put on a single material, which in addition to the difficulty of objectively making "good" steel, makes creating a quality sword kind of a crapshoot. You seem to operate in this peculiar realm where the laws of physics do not apply to spear points. They must never blunt in the slightest where you are. Or perhaps, by some method beyond my kenning, the force of an impact completely surpasses a spearhead and goes straight into the shaft? I do not know. HEGEL CURES THESES posted:
That's 'Rodrigo loving Diaz de Vivar, El Cid loving Campeador' to you. quote:I'm going to let him do the heavy lifting here unless he wants help, but this: This is true, but there was still a lot that was developed over the age, and there is an argument to be made that even skilled craftsmen had significant gaps in their knowledge. This article in particular shows what I am talking about. That there were swords whose average edge hardness does not even register on the Rockwell C scale strikes me as indicative of inconsistent methods of hardening. The transition, which Alan Williams describes in Knight and the Blast Furnace, from the use of a slack quench to a full quench and tempering over the course of the Middle Ages is also a serious advancement in bladesmithing. Though his data is not a complete set it does seem to reliably show a trend. However, one of the problems with using an article like that is that we cannot see the original blades. (Edit: by this I mean we cannot see the blades cited in the papers in their current state. Of course, it is also problematic that we cannot see the blades as they first came out of the shop either) It is possible, for example, that some of the blades have been re-shaped enough that their hardened edge has worn away partially or completely. The blade that has no evidence of heat treatment whatsoever I find particularly confusing, and is what prompts this comment to begin with. Of course, we are also operating without fully understanding what a customer might desire in a blade. Perhaps the lower hardness was a desired feature. In any case, contemporary swords were clearly good at their jobs. Secondary edit: Can anyone recommend some entertaining biographies or other primary sources, preferably with cheap English or Spanish translations? I've got Suger, Joinville, Diaz de Gamez and might be getting Alonso de Contreras soon, but I would love some other suggestions. Early modern is ok too, and non-military is just fine. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 14:52
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at you historysplaining to Rodrigo loving Diaz.
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Railtus posted:I find this very likely, according to this - http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_bladehardness.html That very article is linked in the post you are quoting. edit: Thanks for using my full title. double edit: Also while your characterisation of my arguments with Kaal are largely correct, I was also making the point that even troops that were comparatively lightly armed (the Scots at Falkirk) could withstand armored combatants at least some of the time and men-at-arms would not simply sweep them from the field by default as Kaal implies. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 19:26
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Railtus posted:Another good example of less armoured men defeating armoured knights is the Battle of Golden Spurs. I think it is safe to say that if fully armoured men-at-arms get careless and cut off from support they would be in deep trouble. Were the Flemish at Courtrai significantly less armoured though? I have not examined the battle closely, but I know from early 12th century sources that Flemish foot-soldiers tended to be well-armed, at least in that period. They might, by the 14th century, have maintained the mail shirt and helmet dynamic when the French knights had moved on to heavier equipment (chausses, great helms, some plate reinforcement on the limbs etc) but I honestly do not know. By the way, don't know if you saw the tail end of my last post, but do you have any suggestions for affordable primary sources? I'd like non-fiction or semi-fictional. So no Arthurian or Dante type stuff, but something like Njall's Saga would be fine. Also welcome back
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Aug 6, 2013 03:55
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:Dysentery and cholera aren't the same thing, and neither one is the only thing that can cause diarrhea. This fact actually makes me suspicious of historical accounts of dysentery. Much like leprosy, the bubonic plague, and other things, without germ theory and microscopes you can't actually know what is affecting someone at a certain time except by judging their symptoms, and without the comparatively rigid systems of classification that are constructed around the 18th century, even this does not get you very far, especially when trying to look back. Thus when we talk about an army or individuals having 'dysentery', that may just be what contemporaries called it, without being the exact same thing that we today call dysentery. The chief example which causes me to question this assumption of terminological continuity in this instance is Louis VI's reported death, essentially of the disease. To quote from the Cusimano & Moorhead translation of the Deeds of Louis the Fat, quote:That summer was very hot, even more punishing than usual, and we found ourselves exhausted, weakened, and completely worn out by its all-consuming heat. The lord King Louis himself suffered another severe attack of dysentery and diarrhea in Paris, and the summer's unbearable misery totally wasted him away. While according to the Dunbabin translation: quote:At that time the hear of the summer was even more oppressive than usual, and for a while I was wearied, wasted and broken by it. The unbearable lassitude it produced exhausted King Louis who was in Paris, and brought on a very serious attack of dysentery with diarrhoea, which wore him out. I unfortunately do not have the original Latin to reference. Two things strike me about this. The first is the terminology, that Louis was suffering dysentery and diarrhea, while today we consider dysentery to be a type of diarrhea, meaning that Suger could have been using the term to simply describe rectal bleeding. The other is that Louis' dysentery is not presented as part of a larger trend, which means that he could have had something like colorectal cancer (which can be accompanied by bloody diarrhea) rather than dysentery. It's a tricky thing.
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Aug 21, 2013 19:08
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:He also takes pains to say that it was really hot, which means the first thing I jump to is food poisoning. But historical medical diagnosis, as you mentioned, is always hosed up and vague. People describe symptoms more or less at random, they have weird names for things--and bacteria themselves evolve, which means even if it's the exact same disease we get now, the symptoms might have been completely different. Look at the history of syphilis, for instance. The point about the heat could be Suger trying to exaggerate conditions in order to make Louis seem mightier or more heroic, which is very much a key point of the Deeds. Of course, Suger could be absolutely correct, but being more interested in the martial value of the text than in Louis' death I haven't looked at other sources to corroborate. Regarding disease, one of the most controversial subjects right now is the Black Death, which I won't really go into because I haven't done a whole ton of research on it. That said, the case, as it was presented to me, that it did not transmit by fleas seems fairly conclusive.
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Aug 22, 2013 06:39
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:Yep, pneumonic plague is airborne; we've known this since forever. I read a really good book on the Black Death a few years ago--I'll try to remember the title and get back to you with it. It's still a matter of some debate exactly how the Death manifested, with some folks still contending, like Michael McCormick in 2003, that it primarily spread by fleas. The fact that articles like this need to be published in 2011 show that 'we' is a very limited group. Hell, whether or not it's even Yersinia Pestis is debated, though recent archaeological stuff seems fairly conclusive that it is. Basically this all reinforces the fact that historical diagnosis is HARD and weird.
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Aug 22, 2013 15:59
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Maybe it's just because I'm a modern historian and this isn't my subject but I don't really see why the plague couldn't have been transmitted by both the rat-flea combination and human-human interactions. I mean on the face of it, they don't seem mutually exclusive. Notice I used the word 'primarily'. That it spread both ways is the normal narrative, but determining the primary form has a lot of implications for climate and hygiene and other things. Also, the archaeological evidence we have suggests it did not transmit by rats and fleas at all (at least in Britain), while the modern version of bubonic plague transmits exclusively by this. It is also worth repeating that the actual disease responsible is still debated. There is a lot unanswered. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 14:45
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Railtus posted:At all? I would be interested in any links you have so I could follow that up, because it sounds intriguing. The best works I know of on the subject are Sam Cohn's Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance and 'Epidemiology of the Black Death and successive waves of plague' in Medical History Supplement 27, but see also the Guardian article I linked up-page.
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Aug 29, 2013 20:38
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:I realize I forgot to mention any specific time frame, but I meant after the Arab conquests & before the 13th c. Wouldn't Arab & Turk be synonymous? I think your confusion here is over contemporary Latin (or Frankish if you like) terminology toward their Muslim adversaries during the crusades. Sources like Joinville and the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi. Saracen is a similar term, though that is an even trickier term, as by the 14th c. the Teutonic knights referred to Baltic pagans by that term. Muslim sources did a similar thing by calling all Latin/Western European peoples 'Franks'.
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Sep 2, 2013 22:37
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:Hell, I've heard Saladin called the "King of Babylon," but that's probably intended to be more symbolic (tyrannical enemy of the righteous, comes from over-there-ish) than "realistic," if you can even make that distinction with a bunch of medieval literature. Well considering Baghdad was arguably the most important city of Saladin's empire besides Jerusalem, that's not the most unfair term. This is especially true in an era when classical civilization was revered quite seriously, so France was occasionally called Gaul, Palermo was called "the Panormitan city" by Orderic Vitalis, Galenic medicine was still standard practice etc.
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Sep 3, 2013 03:58
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EvanSchenck posted:I'm fairly certain that Saladin never controlled Baghdad, and the city and adjacent territory was under the Abbasid Caliphate until conquered by the Mongols in 1258. I know they were under Seljuq domination from the 11th century onward, but after looking it up it seems the Caliph was sovereign in Iraq from the mid 12th century to 1258. I'm also doubtful that Jerusalem was a major city in the Ayyubid dynasty after it was taken from the Crusaders, particularly in comparison with Cairo and Damascus. Hah, so it was! Not sure why I thought he held Baghdad. But yeah, I was using an apples-to-oranges 'important' there. Jerusalem because of its value to the Latins, Baghdad for its value to everybody else. And 'arguably' is the key word. Really, I shouldn't be so lazy and loose with terms, but it was labor day.
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Sep 3, 2013 15:02
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Xiahou Dun posted:You can read all about this in Dan Brown's The Frodo Code. It was a requirement in the Hospitallers and the Templars. Don't know about the Teutonic knights but they were modeled on the others so presumably was part of their vows too. quote:How often was it actually carried out? Or well, not carried out, you know what I mean. There is no answer to this question. There is not enough information available to even approach anything statistically usable, and there was serious internal motivation to keep any indiscretions secret. Celibacy was a practice. It happened. The knightly orders were modeled, to a degree, on the rule of St. Benedict. The Rule of the Templars forbids taking a wife while a member of the Order, though it notes that men can leave the Order, marry, and return if they are no longer married. Captain Postal posted:Don't confuse celibacy with "no sex". Celibacy means/meant "no heir", so not having legitimate children. It was a means of ensuring that church property was not passed father-to-son to become family owned property (instead it passed uncle-to-nephew and became family owned property). Where did you hear this? The Rule of St. Benedict states that monks must "love chastity", so I have no idea how one could possibly come to this conclusion. Not only do the Church Fathers, but also St. Augustine (one of the most influential writers for the Latin church) treats sex outside the confines of marriage as sinful. By vowing to a celibate life you are vowing to a chaste one, because extramarital sex is already a sin. So while there were certainly monks who hosed, they were doing so illicitly. Even without the Rule of St. Benedict, which was never really adopted in the Orthodox world, it is plainly evident that by vowing to a monastic life you are vowed to one without sex. Monasticism grew out of ascetic and eremitic practices in the early 4th century, from the likes of St. Anthony the Great and other Desert Fathers, where religious individuals would do their best to detach themselves from the material world and live in religious contemplation. the JJ posted:Yeah, the celibacy rules for priest is , I think, like 13th century or something. Really more modern than you'd expect. Even then, you get all these Popes trying to set their bastards up with cushy deals. It became widespread in the West around the 10th and 11th centuries, in the time of the Gregorian Reform movement. The Western Church at this time was serious about uniformity, and thus you have the serious repression and reform of the English Church immediately following the Norman Conquest.
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Sep 4, 2013 21:15
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Railtus posted:First of all guys, not doing so many quotes. I find I am more comfortable grouping questions together and answering them by heading. Sorry about that. First of all, especially since the original question referred to scholars, this is nonsense. The fact that you haven't run across any sources dealing with the foundation of civilizations strikes me as odd, because I can easily name a half-dozen that do, though many refer to the Biblical Flood for their origins. As for the lack of pre-Roman history, this is because in many cases there is no pre-Roman history about a race (in the sense of "the race of the Normans" as Wace puts it), save the Bible. There were no written records to go by, and archaeology was basically nonexistant. Nevertheless there are many legends of the founding of civilizations, like the supposed Egyptian origin of the Scots. quote:Celibacy among knightly orders? The Templar Rule makes provisions for a man who is married to join the order if his wife joins a religious order herself and becomes a nun, so it was probably something along those lines. No annulment, but the marriage was basically over. quote:Berke Negri & Crusader warfare: Infantry almost always outnumbered cavalry in medieval armies of that size by at least 2 to 1, so I do not know how this is surprising. They almost never served as 'fodder'. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Sep 7, 2013 19:14
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Nektu posted:I like this one: There are a lot of weird choices for this scene. Why are the Saxon (or Angle? are they in Northern England?) shields so TINY? Why is their formation so open? Why are their archers more heavily armoured than their foot-soldiers? Why are swordsmen at the front of the formation? I assume the Vikings are trying to get back to the ship. Why not just burn their boats? They aren't going to be carrying that huge cross if they try to swim. Hell, why not just burn their ship? Why the hell did a bunch of guys not pour through that opening in the shield wall when they spread it to let one man shoot an arrow? So much of this is really stupid. Incidentally, cutting below the shields is a lot harder than you think, especially when you are pressed as close to your enemy and to each other as these guys were. Such circumstance limits angles of attack quite severely. Railtus posted:At 1:08 it seems further away. However, to need such a large arc at those distances would imply a fairly weak bow, and a fairly weak bow would be less likely to penetrate the shield. A combination of direct shooting and arc shooting is possible to make it harder for shields to cover all the necessary angles though, though in the video it looks like they’re shooting at 45 degree angles. Yeah they are more or less, for what looks like less than 100 feet of separation.
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Sep 24, 2013 00:01
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Alekanderu posted:It should be noted that knights often fought on foot as well. During sieges they wouldn't be on horseback anyway, and it was always common for knights to ride to the battlefield and then dismount to actually fight, more so in some parts of Europe than in others. Two things: first, there are numerous accounts of knights fighting on horseback during sieges. It did not happen every time but it certainly did happen. Second, I would not say that it was always common for knights to dismount on the battlefield. This was quite rare in the 13th century in particular. If i was not posting from a phone I would elaborate but there you go.
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Sep 26, 2013 04:28
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Railtus posted:Thanks for the useful info. This is interesting, although I would be cautious about suggesting mail is essentially useless against them – you mention other composite bows being of similar performance, but in Crusaders fought against foes armed with composite bows and their mail armour seemed to defend them quite well – not that it is impossible to pierce mail or even plate with some arrows (Girard of Quiercy was killed by an arrow through both shield and armour, probably resolving the whole “is an arrow getting through a shield realistic” debate) but I’d hesitate when it’s portrayed as quite so easy or reliable. I am downright dismissive about treating mail as useless. We have explicit descriptions of men in mail being unharmed by Islamic bowfire, but even if we did not logical deduction could tell us of its use. Mail persisted as the normal metallic armour both in the Latin East (where composite bows were extremely common) and in Western Europe (where crossbows were extremely common) until the 15th century. As a rule, armour that does not perform a significant protective function does not remain in use for long. Those facts are, in my view, far more informative than reconstructive tests, which are usually fraught with inaccuracy. Your point about padding is an important one, however. Because iron does not have the elasticity of fabric, once the thickest part of the arrow (the head) penetrates it, the shaft can follow through unimpeded, whereas fabric provides more constant friction to the projectile, slowing it down much more effectively.
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Sep 27, 2013 06:35
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InspectorBloor posted:The argument about the armour also works in the other direction. Weapons that do not perform, will not stay in use for long. That is especially true for very labor and time intensive weapons like composite bows. Yes and no. I would clarify the term 'performance'. Penetrating armour was not the only way for a weapon to be effective, and indeed we have evidence that the percussive force of arrow impacts could be 'stupefying', to use Galbert of Bruges' turn of phrase. Additionally, as Railtus has pointed out when discussing the longsword, going around the armour was often the best way to deal with it. We have plenty of record of aiming for the face being a common tactic in archery, and given that combatants would often lift their visors either to talk or to breathe, if they even had them, this could certainly be effective. Psychological effects could also be quite important, and indeed I would argue that the psychological impact of arrow showers was one of the chief reasons for the success of English longbowmen during the HYW. You were the one who said that mail was useless against Turkish arrows, and we know that was not the case. While we're at it, I'd like to address this: InspectorBloor posted:Shots through 2 inches of metal, as well as 1/2 inch plank at 100 yards have been recorded. A wooden mannequin clad in chainmail was completely shot through. Turkish arrows were known to penetrate plate armor of the Austrian Cuirassiers of the 17th c." [Karpowicz, Adam (2008): Ottoman Turkish bows, manufacture & design] Unless that 2" of metal is pure potassium, there is no way in hell an arrow penetrated even half the way through. FMJ .308 cannot even penetrate 3/4" of mild steel, and that carries more energy than a bow-fired arrow can ever dream to. While from that photo alone we have no real way of telling exactly how big the bell is, the presence of the shafts and glasses for comparison suggests that it is quite small, maybe 3" across. Bells of such size, as a rule, are not made of thick metal. We also do not know what the bell is made out of, but given the fondness of Turks for brass instruments that seems probable. The fact that an arrow penetrated such an instrument does not seem much of a surprise at all. Your implication that a more powerful shot will keep the glass whole is something I have never come across. Can you explain how that works, mechanically? Arglebargle III posted:On the other hand, historical armies made mistakes all the time. Why didn't they just X is as valid a criticism of historical people's decisions as it is television. For my tactical complaints regarding the boats, your point is well taken. However, most of the choices I highlight are all very atypical of warfare in the Anglo-Saxon realms at the time, and in the case of the men failing to rush through the breach, explicitly contradictory to the context we are presented with in the same scene. The English pressing forward against the Viking shields, and the press of bodies should have driven men through, yet the spearman is isolated and his comrades immediately behind him are simply standing there. If noticed, this breaks the suspension of disbelief.
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Sep 27, 2013 20:30
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InspectorBloor posted:"We know that was not the case"? From where would you know that? A youtube video, where guys shoot a longbow and a corresponding war arrow with platecutter tip at mail with padding? Or can you give us literature to back that up, where they lay out the setup and material and test both types of equipment? It's documented that both types pierced even plate with bodkin tips. The turkish arrow is better at piercing it because it's faster and is less subjected to friction when entering the material, because of the barrel taper in front (with diameter of the shaft of around 6mm). I'm sure you have no problem googling the formula for kinetic energy and realizing why increased velocity is better than increased mass. Fyi, an arrow of 600grain, shot from am bow of 150# will provide 118J. I'm not sure that I'd want to be anywhere these things wearing mail or plate. If you still point to that experiment, you'll surely realize that the setup is not the same. I don't know what gave you the impression I was using a youtube video as a source when I was expressly critical of reconstructive testing on the very same page that you made this post. As for sources, you would be well served to read Dan Howard's article "Mail: Unchained" which has been referred to by Railtus on the previous page, and by myself earlier in this thread. Here is the link: http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_mail.html Of particular interest in Howard's article is Joinville's account of Walter of Chatillon being shot with Mamluk arrows. The Munyatu'l-Guzat, an Arabic military manual with heavy Kipchak-Mamluk additions, describes shooting short arrows and the use of an arrow guide for this purpose. Archaeological excavations from the castle of Arsuf show the Mamluks used bodkin arrowheads seemingly similar to the Turkish ones you show, and they used cedar and pine shafts, which are noticeably less dense than the ash shafts used with longbows. Russ Mitchell, in his article 'Archery vs. Mail' notes that it was these kinds of short arrows that likely wounded Joinville himself in 5 places, but not so badly that he could not continue to fight. We can also turn to earlier primary sources dealing with the Seljuk Turks. At the siege of Antioch in 1097-98, Peter of Tudebode notes quote:At this time some of the besieged climbed a gate above us and rained arrows into the camp of Bohemond. In the course of this action one woman lay dead from the wound of a speedy arrow. We can also look earlier, at the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097 which lasted six hours overall, and for the majority of it saw the contingent of Bohemond of Taranto under volleys of Seljuk arrows. From the Gesta Francorum: quote:But after this was all done, the Turks were already encircling us on all sides, slashing, hurling, piercing, and shooting far and wide in wondrous fashion. Though we could not resist them, nor withstand the press of so great an enemy, yet we (held out) there together. Further, the majority of the Franks' casualties were among the unarmoured noncombatants, rather than the knights who formed the main fighting front. The one account of the Battle of Nicopolis I have access to is, unfortunately, not much use for analysis. The Turks, according to its author, aimed only at horses. If you could give me your source for your claim of a French knight 'riveted to his helmet', however, I'd be interested in reading it. One last thing: kinetic energy is valuable for armour piercing, but what matters more for penetrating beyond an initial impact is momentum. As Russ Mitchell relates in the aforementioned article, quote:shot by an identical bow, the lighter, faster arrow has greater kinetic energy and should do a better job penetrating armor, but cause relatively shallower wounds than a heavier, higher-momentum that does manage to penetrate armor. I simply cannot believe mail was useless to Turkish arrows, and have provided ample evidence that it was not. It will take more than vague references from some self-published wank piece to convince me otherwise. quote:What about the quote that just states "metal", and yea, it's most likely brass, as the example for wood would suggest? What of it? It's good at shooting holes in things and people. Are you so fussy that you don't enjoy a little theatrality? I have no idea what you're asking with that first question. Please rephrase it. As for the second question, you were using the bell as proof of the power of Turkish archery. My point is that this feat is not indicative of an especially powerful arrow shot. Sexgun Rasputin posted:Horse archers are as legit as it gets, it's just one of those things where you have to go directly from the womb to the saddle to be very proficient at it. Mongol archers were flinging them arrows hundreds of yards and were apparently accurate enough that the generals would order them to only target enemy riders so they could take the unscathed horses after the battle. Like I said, shooting for the face was an acknowledged tactic, and I see no reason why this should only apply to Western bowmen. Strickland devotes a subchapter to it in The Great Warbow. Obdicut posted:I do agree that metal armor needs to always be tested with the fabric component; the Mongols themselves used silk as an important part of their armor, and it worked especially well against arrows. This is absolutely correct unfortunately there have been no adequate tests with period-correct mail, period-correct textile backing. Even the type of wool used to make a garment is important. Arglebargle III posted:The Mongols fought on a strategic scale. They were out of the English army's league. Probably what would have happened is the Mongols would have pretended to retreat 80 kilometers or so, pulled the English army into pre-sighted artillery, cut off their line of supply, disordered them with smoke generators, gunpowder bomb artillery, and successive hit-and-run attacks until they broke and ran, then let them route. Then they would follow the routing soldiers until they were dropping from exhaustion and finally start the slaughter. This exact scenario happened to the Russians, and a couple decades later happened to two European armies with days of each other. Every pitched battle the Europeans fought with Subutai's army turned into a one-sided massacre. I doubt the English would have fared better. The English under Edward III and his successors explicitly tried to fight defensive engagements- that is the key thread from Halidon Hill to 1453, and even beyond. That sort of operational theme means your theory is rather unlikely. Also, 'they fought on a strategic scale' is a useless truism. Everyone fights on a strategic scale. The regulars already know my feelings on the Mongols, but to sum it up: a common narrative is that Ogedei's death is saved all of Europe from Mongol domination, and that cannot be said with anything approaching certainty. InspectorBloor posted:In the link that Hogge Wild gave, there is also the kinetic energy needed to defeat mail and padding at page 17. That test is from Alan Williams' Knight and the Blast Furnace, and it is not a good one. As I mention above, as well, kinetic energy can only tell you so much. However, as I have said multiple times now, I do not rely on reconstructive tests for my proofs.
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Sep 28, 2013 14:51
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This horse archer talk brings to mind a question that maybe someone in this thread can answer: What was the state of Chinese fortification at the start of the 13th century? I mean that both systematically and in relation to the actual layout and defensive measures of particular fortifications. China is somewhere I know almost nothing about.
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Sep 28, 2013 15:42
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hey yall I'm back from purgatory and I've brought you this cool-rear end flickr account where the guy focuses pretty heavily on taking pictures of armour and of tomb effigies and such. http://www.flickr.com/photos/roelipilami/ This carving in particular blows me away because a) its early/mid 12th century and b) the paint is still there, which one of the Vatican councils is supposed to have done away with: 
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Sep 30, 2013 04:15
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Railtus posted:I’m saying if this thread doesn’t fit your preferences, it doesn’t have to be the only thread to discuss medieval history. It more or less does, actually. As per DA RULES: quote:2) Look before you post! There may already be a thread on the subject. Example: If you want to post a thread asking how to clean an animal skull, quickly search through and see if someone has already posted a thread about cleaning animal skulls before posting your own inquiry. Duplicate threads will be gassed and the poster will have their skull cleaned. SEE THE LIST OF THREADS BELOW. edit: Obviously there is some overlap with the milhist thread, and occasionally the classical thread, but Obdicut cannot go off and make his own medieval history thread in this forum, which is what I take your implication to be. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 21:40
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Obdicut posted:Content: Fordham is a great resource, and the translation of Suger they have on there is in some ways better than the Cusimano & Moorhead translation that I usually use. What do you mean by 'behind the times', though, when talking about the Celtic world?
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Sep 30, 2013 22:02
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Obdicut posted:I don't have time to lay out an effortpost on it at the moment, but basically there's been a lot of contention about what Celtic is, especially as to whether certain cultures in Britain were, in fact, Celtic. The language group obviously existed, but that's not really a good proxy for culture or ethnicity. Dr. Simon James takes this to the farthest extreme, but I think at the least "Celtic" is always going to be unreasonably vague and imply a unity that is mostly just a taxonomic invention or a linguistic relationship. Ah, yeah, I can see that perspective. That said, the war-time treatment of Gaelic & Welsh speakers in Britain by Frankish (and I use that term to encompass Norman and Angevin rulers) armies was quite different to how the Franks treated each other. Even if the Celts didn't identify themselves by that collective noun, there is a very strong case that their Chivalric contemporaries did. Specifically I'm thinking of John Gillingham's 'Conquering the Barbarians: War and Chivalry in Twelfth-Century Britain and Ireland’ in The English in the Twelfth Century : Imperialism, National Identity, and Political Values Gaelic speakers in Ireland and the Western Highlands also kept very close contact, so although that is not as all-encompassing as the term Celts suggests, there are still some good groupings to be had under that heading, if only because 'Gaelic-speaking peoples' is a very cumbersome phrase. 
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Sep 30, 2013 22:23
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Captain Postal posted:Real question, how accurate are the carvings in Basilica of St Denis? In particular, the ones that pre-date the statues that started being carved in the mid 13th century. (I assume the more recent ones are very good copies of the real people and the real fashion/armor). Would the faces have been given the marble equivalent of "soft focus" for the post 1250 burials? Is the fashion for pre- 1250 burials reliable? How about facial details? I've never been to St. Denis (one of my greatest shames) and am having trouble turning up pictures of what you're looking for, but I am a specialist on the mid-late 11th and early-mid 12th centuries so if you have some of your own I could look at I could take a whack at them.
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Sep 30, 2013 22:58
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OK so I have a fairly broad question: What caused the decline of Pisa? I know they were fairly hot poo poo in the 13th century, but I know very little about northern Italy in the Middle Ages. It seems like a lot of fun. In fact, any posts about northern Italy would pique my interest.
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Oct 11, 2013 02:11
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the night dad posted:There's a lot of pages so I may have missed out, but why is it so hard to find a book or good info on robber-barons and knights? Did they all get Damnatio memoriae for being dicks or somethin'? The most probable answer is that "robber-baron" is a term that almost nobody in the field uses unless they are referring to 19th century industrialists. But what exactly did you want to know? I'm quite strong on knighthood.
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Nov 3, 2013 21:16
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Edit I'll answer this question when I'm not on a phone^^^^Smoking Crow posted:How do I become a knight Three easy steps: Get the gear (especially the horse) Go back to the 11th century Kick rear end Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 21:48
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ButtHate posted:Can you tell me something about the Rus between the decline of Kiev and the Mongol Invasion (ca. 1100 to 1250) Honestly, I know most about the period of the "Mongol Yoke", because it's when Kulikovo happens (which loving RULES) and I was quite enthralled by the Zadonshchina in high school. However, with my comparatively limited knowledge I can tell you that there was a central problem to any attempt at Rus' reunification, which was the system of inheritance which did not allow the accumulation of complete territories amongst sons. While in its own microcosm this is arguably the fairest and most equitable way to do things, when faced with a foreign power like the Tatars it results in a lot of small, squabbling principalities who can never rally their forces. Not that I believe Rus' would have been able to defeat Subutai at that point, but that's another argument. Given these political difficulties I actually think Galicia-Volhynia had the best chance at reunification. Novgorod, like Venice, was a merchant republic and thus less concerned about controlling territory unless it was for immediate economic gain. Vladimir-Suzdal is a good thought, with excellent princes like Vsevolod the Big Nest, but again the problem of dividing inheritance becomes an issue. Because, however, Galich had more contact with the West, where notions of primogeniture were growing, I think they would have been able to keep the land together and, consequently, win out in the end. Of course, this assumes the Polaks and Litvaks stay a political mess or are kept under control, since Galich is high on their lists of enemies.
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Nov 16, 2013 21:46
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Hogge Wild posted:From here: http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.4.iv.html. That aspect is a story which is typically considered to be real, no salt needed.
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Nov 22, 2013 00:12
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Xiahou Dun posted:Yeah, but they used to be a fully independent order before Schaulen. After that they became a semi-autonomous sect of the Templars instead of their own thing. Yes, I'm being slightly pedantic. What? No they didn't. I think you mean the Teutonic Knights, who are different and infinitely worse.  death to fritz
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Nov 24, 2013 23:50
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Wait...I meant the Teutonic Knights. What did you guys mean? read the post I quoted. or did you mean "who got folded into another order?" that's the Sword Brothers of Livonia, who aren't really a monastic crusading order like all the others.
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Nov 25, 2013 00:07
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veekie posted:Doh, forgot about the supply train. I guess unless you're just there to loot and burn things, you'd have to take the castle on if it has any garrison at all. It should be important to distinguish a baggage train from supply lines. While nearly every serious medieval host (the exception being those made up entirely of cavalry, like Louis VI's at Bremule) had a baggage train of some kind, actual supply lines were much rarer, and are usually only seen in areas where foraging locally would be extremely difficult, either because of risk of piecemeal defeat when your forces are dispersed, or because of a lack of local supplies (bad harvest, enemy destroyed crops before invasion, &c). While harassment from bypassed castles was a concern, it was not necessarily vital to take the nearest first, especially if the invading host was large and had been well-provisioned before the start of the campaign. Castle garrisons could be very small indeed, and that seems to have been typical for the English castles near the Scottish border in the 12th century. Wark held 9 knights and 40 sergeants when William the Lion besieged it, and they held out against him until the English field army drove him off. With this in mind we see deep raids into English territory, such as those made by William the Lion and David I in 1173-74 and 1138 respectively. To give an idea of the depth they could go, David ravaged as far as Durham after Easter in 1138 without any serious opposition. The reality of this, however, is that these either were exclusively raiding expeditions or ravaging prior to a return north to lay siege to a major border fortress. The reason for this is exactly as Godholio has said: castles and knights within them were how medieval governments exercised control over territory. It is no good to have an isolated, unsupported castle in the middle of enemy territory. Cast_No_Shadow posted:So you have a choice. Either you defend your whole baggage train, which is retarded and impossible if you actually want to fight anyone further up front and encourages your enemy to mass troops and hit you hard at the front and roll you up. OK there's a lot in your post that is wrong but this seems to be at the where it all originates from. Protecting the baggage train was hugely important, since the core of much of medieval warfare was control of foodstuffs. With that in mind, you have no idea what you're talking about. Nikephoros Phocas, in his Praecepta Militaria EXPLICITLY, with diagrams and everything, shows us that the marching formation should have cavalry on all sides surrounding the baggage train, which has infantry with it. Richard the Lionheart, on his march down from Acre also protected his baggage train from all sides with infantry and cavalry. This served him well at the Battle of Arsuf. While the baggage train would sometimes trail behind, this would typically be the result of restrictive terrain, incautious commanders or a battle which brought the majority of men to the field and left the baggage lightly guarded. Thus you have things like the assault on the baggage train at Agincourt, or the arrival of the baggage train guards and campfollowers at Bannockburn which the English mistook for real reinforcements. I'd also like to address this: quote:You also leave yourself vulnerable to attack from behind as your enemy has a far more complete information picture of what's going on and you are effectivly blind on all sides. Invading armies were not 'effectively blind on all sides' if they were led competently. Thus Count Helias la Fleche, besieging Le Mans in 1099, heard of William Rufus' arrival in Normandy well before the king could reach him. He received this news early enough that, after quitting the siege, he had enough time to burn his lands and destroy some of his own castles before William's host could arrive and take them. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Dec 11, 2013 |
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Dec 11, 2013 17:51
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Godholio posted:Iron will rust, bronze won't...but iron will hold an edge longer. It won't. Iron, which i distinguish here from steel (and especially from hardened steel) cannot hold an edge nearly as well as work-hardened bronze. Iron is really soft, and I would not make a knife out of it ever. It has no flex, either, so you can warp it very badly and permanently by knocking it against things (shields, other swords, humans) and really it's just not a very good weapon material. I know you're probably just using the terms loosely, but iron and steel are different materials, and steel has to be treated to get a lasting edge on it.
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Dec 16, 2013 05:42
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Baldbeard posted:How did mounted vs infantry play out? Obviously mounted soldiers demolished people on foot, but I've always thought the logistics of it would have to be a messy nightmare. I mean, you are forced to use a single-handed weapon, and your ability to twist and turn would have to be greatly reduced. The biggest thing I'm wondering about though is: Wouldn't horses basically be tripping and breaking legs left and right by stepping on people flailing their weapons around? Losing horses was a regular part of mounted combat. William the Conqueror had three killed under him at the battle of Hastings, William Rufus lost a huge number of horses to missiles the siege of Chaumont, etc. Horses would sometimes be crippled by ditches, especially if they were disguised as at Loudon Hill, but in the absence of such traps they did not regularly break their legs, and it does not seem that this was a viable tactic. One of the ways used by the Byzantines to deal with heavily armored kataphraktoi, for example, was to disembowel the horses, not to break their legs, so you are overestimating the efficacy of such things. We do know horses trampled men to death in war. We also know that they could knock men over, though the exact circumstances of these types of collision are rarely clear. You are misusing the term "logistics", and I'm having trouble understanding what you're trying to express with it. Chillyrabbit posted:Not a direct answer to your question but an example of a modern horse charge, I would presume to be similar to the time period can part crowds as seen in the video and could cause panic. This is a fine example of using horses to scatter a mob of protesters. It is not a good example of using horses in medieval warfare, and should not be treated as analogous to one. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Dec 28, 2013 |
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Dec 28, 2013 22:00
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