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Somewhat tangently related, but aren't fechtbucher fairly uncommon? I was under the impression that most were commissioned by a lord and were quite expensive, since they were generally put together by a master who had both the time and expertise to create such a thing. Since it's for an audience of one (the lord commissioning it, maybe his sons eventually) and generally focused on reinforcing skills the commissioner already had, I don't see why they would illustrate techinques that were impractical.
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Feb 6, 2013 21:23
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EvanSchenck posted:The rarity and expense of the manuscripts is the exact reason that we can suspect that the techniques were not commonly used, because it would be a waste to devote that money and effort to depicting techniques that were common knowledge at the time. It's the same reason that when studying medieval cuisine, we have lots of recipes for delicacies but none for staple foods. When books are rare and expensive, you don't record recipes for foods that people eat all the time, because everybody already knows how to make them. You write down the recipes for foods that most people don't know, and are out of the ordinary. People remember and record extraordinary things, not mundane ones. Similarly, a master would probably use a fechtbuch to record techniques that were special, rather than the techniques that everybody used and were foundational to fighting. This doesn't mean that what's in the fechtbücher is impractical, only that they were out of the ordinary and most likely situational in their utility. Thanks, that makes perfect sense actually. I had actually read the post about cookbooks and somehow didn't make the same connection to fechtbucher. edit: quoted post for new page
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Feb 6, 2013 21:53
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Alien Arcana posted:While we're discussing weapons again, how about hammers? I believe cavalry hammers were a thing, but were they ever in use by infantry? What did they look like? Infantry used hammers for different purposes, although generally it was a weapon for commoners. Most war hammers would look similar to a modern sledgehammer. One common usage was by longbowmen, who would use their hammers primarily to set up stakes at defensive positions, but also as an improvised weapon if need be. Hammer type weapons would typically be on a longer pole, and used similarly to a poleaxe, that is to knock a rider off his horse either with a blow, by using the spike/hook end to grapple them off (if the hammer had one), or by targetting the legs of the horse. Hammers with a spiked end could also be used to puncture armor on areas where the metal was less thick. Even against heavily armored opponents though the amount of force from a hit could be enough to stun, cause concussions, and break bones.
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Feb 19, 2013 19:33
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It's not especially accurate but it's not completely made up either. The timeframe is correct for when the first Viking raids on England began, I believe it opens in 793, but overall you gotta remember that it's a show and not a documentary. Vikings didn't fight with ninja skills (or completely unarmored), none of them seemed to be using a shield which was a very important weapon for Viking combat, Shieldmaidens are a bit of a fantasy trope, etc. It is an entertaining show though, I like seeing someone's vision of what prompted the first Viking raids to the West, and even if it's inaccurate it's a fun story so far. Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Mar 4, 2013 |
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Mar 4, 2013 20:56
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I wouldn't say they drove off the vikings for good, quite the opposite actually considering many of the later Anglo-Saxon kings were the descendants of vikings. Cnut the Great was king of Denmark, Norway, and England. The son of one of his most important earls was the last king of England (Harold the Second), and obviously William the Conqueror was a Norman, who were also descendants of vikings. A lot of the decline in population of Scandinavia could possibly be because the vikings were TOO good at establishing footholds in new lands and many obviously chose to stay instead of returning home.
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Mar 5, 2013 00:55
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Obdicut posted:I've read that during the Mongol invasion of the 'Russian' states, the Mongols made their arrows in such a way that the Russians couldn't use them after they'd been fired, whereas the Mongols could re-use the Russian arrows fired at them. I don't know for sure but here are a few guesses: 1. I vaguely remember reading in some medieval manual about how some archers (Turks I believe?) fit a small blade in the nock of their arrows. The archer would then have a special ring (bone or metal probably) on his bow which would prevent the blade from slicing his bowstring, but if an enemy picked up the arrow and tried to use it, it would ruin his bowstring. It wouldn't slice it in half or anything, but it would make the bow dangerous to use because the string could snap. Of course this isn't lethal, but I don't think anyone wants to get smacked in the face by their bow/bowstring as it snaps. 2. I know the Sioux and other native American tribes attached arrowheads with a sinew wrap that would loosen or break off after the arrow had been fired and penetrates the target. Whatever you hit has the arrowhead in it, but pulling the arrow out would only yield the shaft. Even if you missed and hit the ground, the head still breaks off. Maybe something similar was done by the Mongols. A pin in the shaft like Hogge Wild referred to is basically the same concept. 3. Not sure how big Mongol bows were compared to the bows the Russians were using, but maybe their arrows just weren't long enough to fit over the Russian bows when they were drawn? This probably isn't likely though. I don't know anything about the specifics of archery related stuff.
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Apr 22, 2013 00:02
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Obdicut posted:The first sounds like it, because it's usually described as having something to do with the notching of it. With the notching, it wouldn't even necessarily have to be a blade in it. It could be something as simple as having a notch which only fits the strings of Mongol bows, but is too narrow to be nocked on a Russian bowstring. The incomplete information thing always bothers me too. Just add another sentence or two and tell us WHY it doesn't work.
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Apr 22, 2013 00:29
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Nice piece of fish posted:What? A siege lasted as long as the defenders had food, until a relieving army arrived, or until the besieging army got tired of sitting around and left. This generally meant several months at the very least. Defenders were also a lot better off than you seem to think, with a supply of food and water the defending party had a significant advantage and could hold off many times their number. Once gunpowder was invented that changed though.
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Apr 25, 2013 21:17
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GunganRevenge posted:Why, exactly, were the Vikings so successful at what they did (Raiding, pillaging, etc)? Not an authority on the subject, but based on what I read it essentially boils down to the fact that they were fast and had a large degree of mobility. Their longships could travel both on the open ocean and in shallower waters, which was a huge advantage. Raiding wasn't a new thing for most people to deal with, but if you're preparing for ocean raiders then generally you're going to focus on protecting the coasts, the Vikings could bypass coastal defenses if they wanted to and head towards less protected areas by traveling on the rivers. That's not to say they didn't raid the coast, because they did, but it gave them more options. When they actually hit their target, the general goal was to kill what little resistance there was, grab as much loot and slaves as they could, and get out of there before organized military resistance showed up. They were also very good at terrorizing people and then making agreements with the victims to pay tribute instead of being raided again in the future. Throw in a warrior-oriented culture and it's a recipe for success. I think another factor is they generally raided in smaller groups. It's not very often that you'd see large scale invasions by Norsemen, and in those cases it was generally for actual control of territory rather than a simple smash and grab. Smaller numbers made them harder to anticipate and stop. One exception I can think of to this is in 885 when several hundred longships carrying thousands of raiders (sources aren't really great on exactly how many) sailed down the Seine and besieged Paris. While they were besieging the city a good chunk of the main force got bored of sitting around and raided all along the Seine instead. Vikings weren't really accustomed to drawn out sieges, and about a year into the siege the Frankish king showed up and persuaded the Vikings to leave by giving them 700 pounds of silver and convincing them to go raid Burgundy instead.
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Jun 25, 2013 14:00
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Frostwerks posted:This sounds suspiciously close to the tactic of ordering a whole bunch of pizzas to somebody you don't like's house. Especially because Burgundy was in revolt at the time.
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Jun 25, 2013 21:29
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Luigi Thirty posted:Is it true that the government of France literally couldn't mint coins fast enough to pay off the Vikings at the peak of their raiding in France? I read somewhere that they completely ran out of coinage at one point but I don't remember where. I think that may simply be related to the story I told earlier, but I haven't read anything about running out of coinage actually being true, if you or anyone else has a source for that I'd be very interested. The peak of Viking raiding in France was the mid to late 9th century, at which point "France" wasn't even a thing but rather a collection of territory loosely held by the Franks. The Carolingian Empire broke up in 843, so the Viking raids coincided pretty well with a century or so of disorder in the area. This period of raiding ends around 911, when Rollo besieges Paris again. Charles, the king of the Western Franks granted him land they had previously conquered in what became known as Normandy in return for fealty, to stop further raiding, and if they agreed to help protect them from any future raids by other Vikings.
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Jun 26, 2013 00:34
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bres0048 posted:I hadn't thought of those other areas. Although I think there would be more emphasis on strictly military buildings and their effect on the local region. Like Krak des Chevaliers for example.At least in regards to Chateau Gaillard. I guess the question I should ask is, following the crusades were military strong points more stressed for defense/offense? Where before some rinky dink motte and bailey would suffice for a region like Normandy. Then you have more emphasis placed on regional strong points. Was that something that was a take away from the crusades or was it more in line with the evolution of medieval military warfare? Or maybe a combination of the two? What do you think gungan? It's funny you bring up Normandy, because the Normans built tons of stone castles as a way to control the countryside and as regional strong points, especially in England since they were the minority ruling over the Anglo-Saxons. I was under the impression that a lot of the changes to castles that resulted from the Crusades were related more to design and how they were built, rather than where they were placed and what their function was.
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Jun 26, 2013 14:00
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Smoking Crow posted:What did the Vikings do when they weren't out pillaging? Were they normal farmers who just happened to be the scariest raiding force in Medieval Europe? Pretty much exactly this. They would be farmers, fishermen, artisans, whatever. Raiding was a way to give a bunch of young men something to do when there wasn't much going on. Smoking Crow posted:Same question, but with knights. Did the knights just kinda chill at their barracks like modern soldiers do when there's no war? Depends. Most knights would generally spend time training. A landed knight would hang out at his holding and govern the surrounding area. Unlanded knights would serve as a retainer for a noble, or just wander around, whatever it is he did. Knighthood was a title, and while they were professional soldiers in a sense, that wasn't the only thing that occupied their lives.
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Jun 27, 2013 23:48
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Did Viking raids die down or intensify as the Little Ice Age began? Were they driven by desperation or just good ol' greed? The high point of Viking raiding was from 850-1050ish, so they large-scale raiding was done about two centuries before the Little Ice Age, although some did continue up until then. By the time of the Little Ice Age, Vikings or their descendants had already conquered Normandy, England, Sicily, and established Novgorod and Kiev (although these ended up becoming highly Slavicized). We're not really sure what the original causes for mass raiding was. Material goods played a factor, but the population was also growing at the time, so the need to colonize new lands was there too. Lots of Scandinavians were already traders, and some historians have theorized that Christians snubbing them for being pagans, or just a general break down of trade between Scandinavians and others led to raiding as an alternative.
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Jun 28, 2013 00:46
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I'd say firearms as well, maybe crossbows. Knights and other professional soldiers hated crossbows because after a week of training a peasant could kill them fairly easily with one, although I don't know if that disdain for crossbowmen translated to fear.
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Jul 2, 2013 14:05
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Litmus Test posted:I take it this is totally unrealistic? As silly as it looks, I would bet good money that a lot of melees may have looked something like that. Try to knock a guy on his rear end and kill him before someone knocks you on your rear end and kills you.
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Aug 1, 2013 04:17
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EvanSchenck posted:In your final example, hockey is played on ice skates, which tends to make it difficult for people to set their stance and maintain a base. It's actually not as complicated as it looks, maintaining a strong base is hockey 101. What's wrong with that example is the sheer speed that these guys hit each other at. I don't think a knight in full armor is going to be able to match the momentum and force of a hockey player going up to 30 mph. Even in hockey you tend to see that if the guy is set to take a hit, he's probably going to shrug it off or at worst get knocked slightly off balance. I'd imagine the same was true for a professional soldier who's been trained to take hits.
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Aug 1, 2013 18:52
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Another fun fact about slingers is that oftentimes you'll find preserved lead bullets (for lack of a better term) with interesting marks on them. Since lead is soft some slingers chose to personalize their ammunition. Some might have drawings on them such as snakes or lighting bolts and others might have the name of the slinger or his unit on it. Most amusing though, in my opinion, are the ones that are found with things written on them like "Ouch" or "Catch!" I believe they've even found some from the Roman period that said "For Pompey's backside"
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Aug 14, 2013 13:53
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Namarrgon posted:I was thinking steppe nomads with slings. Too hard to use on a moving horse and remain accurate, I would think. Swinging a rock near your own head is dangerous enough, but what if you brain your own horse or something on accident? Bows and spears are just easier.
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Aug 14, 2013 16:58
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Railtus posted:The impression I get so far is Ragnar seems like the semi-legendary kind of warrior that does a lot of impossible feats (in the same way guys from the sagas tend to be not-entirely realistic either). If I approach it with that mindset then it doesn't bother me quite so much. The show is actually supposed to be the saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, who was indeed a legendary Viking warrior. For the sake of television they changed history around, such as making Ragnar the first Viking to ever raid England, but it's supposed to be the same basic story as the saga.
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Sep 24, 2013 16:05
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Nektu posted:ANd what the gently caress is that hole with the little lid for? It's what the light shines out of.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:32
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Nenonen posted:I thought it'd be for filling the lantern up. At least it looks just like a car's fuel cap Could be that too! I was just guessing based on where the lantern is placed.
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Sep 27, 2013 20:10
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Obdicut posted:I'm not telling you what's important, I said what I find important. And the comment wasn't taken out of context, I really feel like saying "It was his turn" was pretty rude on your part, so it's weird to me that you're getting irate with me. I do, really, disagree with your basic concept of 'his turn' as you've explained it even in expanded form. It's really, really, funny that someone who is as knowledgeable you is finds an extremely common turn of phrase offensive because you've never heard the expression before. It's like you time-travelled here from 1900 or have never spoken to a human being in real life or something. Bizarre. Anyway, you should stop being such a dick about semantics and post more cool facts for me to read please. Thanks.
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Oct 1, 2013 13:21
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GyverMac posted:Considering the average lifespan of a medieval person (in the dark ages) was like... 35-40, then wouldnt that mean there would be very few masters around? Unless the apprentice ship started from childhood? The average lifespan may have been 35-40, but that's because the majority of children did not live very long. I remember reading somewhere that if your average person survived until adulthood, they would typically live until their 60s or so.
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Nov 14, 2013 17:49
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Now fetch my steed, peasant
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Feb 4, 2014 17:13
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DandyLion posted:If someone wants to badmouth my organization, then they can eat a bag of dicks, and so can you sir. Railtus posted:Very good point, one of the criticisms I have heard of ARMA is that their test-cutting does not match their fencing. Dirty Job posted:This is very true. In our practice we de-emphasize huge wind ups and delivering test cuts with steps because we want our cuts to measure our ability to swing with efficacy. I'm sure my teachers /could/ power their way through the tatami mats (even with a terrible sword), as could the much larger students in my class, but while the end result is the same (a cut mat) it doesn't in any way inform our abilities other than "you are very strong". HINT: Neither of these posts are "badmouthing" your organization you giant sensitive baby, they're just listing some of the criticisms they have heard. As a historian, you should appreciate opposing viewpoints.
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Feb 4, 2014 17:55
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Look I've seen Deadliest Warrior on Spike TV and all I learned is that samurai would kill vikings and that a pirate could beat a knight 1v1. They proved it with science and computers and by hitting dummies with their swords.
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Feb 4, 2014 19:17
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The keyboard is mightier than the sword.
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Feb 4, 2014 19:26
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It still shot fast enough to seriously wound or even kill someone. An archer with a bow or a regular crossbow might be more lethal, but they shoot at a much slower rate and in the case of a bow, it often took years of training to be really proficient at it. You can theoretically slap a repeating crossbow in a recruit's hands and train him for a couple hours and he's good to go. To me it seems like a quantity vs quality thing. Your soldier is not as lethal as a bowman, but you can essentially field as many soldiers as you have weapons, and with so many bolts firing someone is bound to get lucky. It's introduced to China during the Warring States period and most of those states had standing armies. As a result most soldiers would have had some armor, but they would not be heavily armored. Chinese armor was typically lamellar or leather, which is still good, but not as protective as metal. Mail/scale armor was relatively rare too and if you had it you were probably a noble. Anyway, with lightly armored foes you just need to hit a few unprotected areas with a few bolts and even if it doesn't kill him, he's still out of the fight. A soldier trained to use the repeating crossbow could empty the clip of 10 bolts in ~20-25 seconds, so with a ton of bolts flying that seems possible. I'm not sure if the poison theory is true, but even without poison it would probably be a useful weapon for covering a withdrawal or as a close quarters defensive weapon (like during a siege, maybe) since you would be able concentrate a lot of firepower on a small area.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:42
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I think it's just different types of stress. Like you alluded to, in the 19th/20th century it's the constant stress of being besieged, trench warfare, being hit by artillery, essentially a feeling of being unable to escape the violence, that leads to more cases of what we consider PTSD. I think you're right that someone who survived a siege would definitely have those kind of symptoms. However, I think actual combat in the medieval period may have been more stressful for the individual. We have records from soldiers in the American Civil War, for example, of soldiers who intentionally missed, we've found muskets that had been loaded multiple times and never fired, we know some soldiers in WW2 might have never fired their weapon, so there's clearly a certain level of guilt involved with knowing that you are harming or potentially killing another human being. Obviously we can't be certain that it's always been this way, but it seems like natural human instinct to be averse to killing people, even when it's people who are also trying to harm you. More contemporary soldiers clearly struggled with this fact even though they could kill from a distance, relatively anonymously. On the other hand, a medieval soldier would have to maim or kill his enemies face-to-face, or be maimed or killed himself. There's no ambiguity regarding whether or not you killed people, and I'd imagine that's a tremendous toll on the psyche. So while you might not have PTSD in the modern sense, almost every medieval soldier would have had to been desensitized to violence and murder to some extent because of what they've seen and experienced first hand. I don't know if that type of behavior falls under PTSD, to be honest, so if anyone else has more knowledge, or a better opinion, I'd be interested in reading more about the topic.
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Mar 16, 2015 21:05
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I don't really understand how mercenaries enter your question but Acre had a population of roughly 25,000 people during the Crusader era (the second largest city after Jersualem) and it's a major port for a region of perhaps 2 million people. Contemporary England is something of a backwater and most of it's rulers are French who don't necessarily view it as their primary land/title, and that doesn't change for some time. Richard the Lionheart, for example, is probably one of the most well-known English monarchs and the dude spent maybe 6 months of his adult life there and couldn't even speak the language.
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Apr 22, 2015 19:37
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Ok, I get what you're asking now. I got hung up on the Acre/England comparison. Yes, the Kingdom of Jerusalem spent much more money on mercenaries than a contemporary kingdom would. They collected taxes, tributes from their neighbors, and were at a critical juncture of commercial trade so they had a ton of money they could spend. Commercial revenue that wasn't dumped back into trade would have been mostly used to address their manpower problem by hiring more-or-less permanent mercenaries from Europe or even Muslims (like the Turcopoles). Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Apr 22, 2015 |
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Apr 22, 2015 20:41
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my dad posted:I though the Turcopoles were mostly Christian? I remember reading somewhere that the majority were probably Muslim in practice, but yes, nominally they were Christians. The Kingdom of Jerusalem also kind of used it as a blanket term for indigenous Syrians in their service.
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Apr 22, 2015 22:41
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Japan is very mountainous so your right that most armies wouldn't have been able to field a ton of non-noble cavalry. One exception might have been the Takeda clan. What was then Kai province was excellent land for grazing and farming, and they were able to field probably the best cavalry in Japan. Takeda Shingen's propensity for using cavalry charges as a battlefield tactic seems to suggest, in my opinion at least, that they were able to support a large enough number of mounted warriors that they certainly couldn't have all been samurai. Although Takeda Shingen is also notable because he insisted that his mounted samurai fight primarily with lances instead of bows, so maybe not.
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May 4, 2015 05:54
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Maybe it's because I work in a different field, but $195 for registration is actually pretty reasonable for a lot of conferences.
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May 9, 2015 01:44
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deadking posted:I'm late to the party, but a few brief points on the "warrior aristocracy" in the early Middle Ages, specifically the Carolingian period. First, it's often said that the primary social distinction in Carolingian (and in other early medieval societies) is not one between commoner and aristocrat, but between free and unfree people. As seen in Carolingian capitulary legislation, all free men technically had the obligation to serve in the army, suggesting that at least in theory all free people had recourse to a legitimate violence. That said, at least by the Carolingian period we can see the development of a "Christianized" military elite, very similar in character to knighthood, which is usually seen as a later medieval development. Dominic Barthélemy argues for this Carolingian Knighthood in his book The Serf, the Knight, the Historian, which is a good read for anyone interested in the modern scholarly debates over "feudalism." I was thinking about this in relation to Anglo-Saxon/Danish England from that time period, and I'm struggling to figure out who makes up the "knighthood". If I remember correctly, the social ladder is essentially: King Ealdorman/Jarl Thegn Huscarl/household troops Fyrd/commoners Slaves Kings, commoners, and slaves are obvious, but I could see any or all of the other three being considered a Carolingian "knight" social class. The huscarls are professional warriors, but they aren't landed, and thegns, jarls, and ealdormen might not always be warriors but they definitely have the land.
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Jun 19, 2015 17:45
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Thanks for telling me. Seems like romanticism to me. I mean, they wouldn't be slumming it up like commoners, but these are guys who spent their entire life dedicated to martial prowess. They were not above doing some camping. I'm sure wealthier knights brought a few servants, and maybe even hawks/dogs/extra food, but they were definitely not feasting every night and dragging a huge entourage around everywhere just to be comfortable. That would be incredibly expensive even for a rich man, and probably frowned upon by his peers as being excessive.
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Jun 25, 2015 23:43
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HEY GAL posted:
I'm sure they definitely enjoyed a better standard of living while campaigning, I was mostly skeptical about the "Feasting every night and having households worth of servants" part. I had a hard time picturing a medieval knight, even a high ranking one, having those kind of resources available to him.
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Jun 25, 2015 23:52
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I don't know that there's a traditional set number. Weren't they designed to be sung by the entire choir or even the entire congregation?
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Jul 6, 2015 04:21
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vuk83 posted:I Think if the english had crossbowmen instead and the french longbow men the outcome would probably be the same. What? No it wouldn't. The entire French plan was to keep the tired, hungry, and outnumbered English in one spot until more reinforcements arrived and cut off their retreat. At that point the English would either surrender or be slaughtered. If the French archers out-range their English opponents, how do the English force the French to attack them without suffering losses they cannot afford to take? I suppose it's possible, but highly unlikely. I doubt Henry is as aggressive in this alternate history if he knows he not only has to risk advancing against a numerically superior foe, but he has to hope that the French decide not to use their superior archers to check that advance for some reason. Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Aug 31, 2015 |
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Aug 31, 2015 19:52
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