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AlphaDog posted:As far as George Silver goes, I was under the impression (from having read Paradoxes of Defense and the Notes on those), that what the books mostly were was an advertisement for George Silver. George Silver from what I've seen of his manuals was an incredibly xenophobic man and his preference for the bill hook probably had more to do with the fact that they were considered English weapons. A lot of his arguments against other weapons that were popular in warfare at the time had more to do with which armies and mercenary companies were well-known for using them. That being said (and to second what Poldarn mentioned), pole weapons between about 5 and 7 feet are quite versatile and were pretty popular because they were cheap to make, easy to learn and someone who was particularly well-trained could be deadly at any range against any sort of opponent. The only real downside is they lack the finesse of a two-handed sword at close range, but you always had the option of dropping it, wrestling your opponent to the ground and/or drawing another weapon at that point. I've met people who were under the impression that if you used a pole weapon against someone with a sword or an axe they'd just cut clean through it and kill you, but I feel like it would be a struggle even with just a pine shaft, let alone the hardwood shafts everyone was using.
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Feb 16, 2013 06:55
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Railtus posted:To be fair, katana were effective swords, and can be quite impressive. What people in the 1940s did not know was any good-quality sword could accomplish the same things. However, people saw a legitimately decent sword (something new to them) and heard the propaganda of it being the best in the world, and took it for granted. It also makes a better story to take home when you bring home a katana as a souvenir. To add to this a little even though pretty much everything important has been said, until quite recently the perception in the West of medieval swords was large, heavy and unwieldy slabs of metal that no man could reasonably swing around. A lot of this is a direct result of Renaissance propaganda being rediscovered during the Victorian era, with a healthy dose of romanticisation of the Renaissance and demonisation of the 'Dark Ages.' Many extant swords were either buried in fields or rivers, or were pristine ceremonial swords covered in jewels and filigree, weighing up to twice what a similarly-styled sword intended for battle would. The weight of these ceremonial swords was extrapolated and as a result actual scholars have written about 20 kilogram swords being swung around by people more like gorillas than men. The upshot of all of this is that when people were presented with actual swords intended for battle (even if they were just drop-forged from relatively cheap steel), they were amazed to find that they were quite light and could cut all kinds of things rather than just being used as clubs. This combined with the mystique and mysticism surrounding the traditional forging methods, propaganda, the introduction of kendo to the rest of the world and the general lack of accurate information about medieval European techniques and you end up with a perception that the katana is the greatest thing in the history of slicing things.
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Apr 20, 2013 11:39
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Arglebargle III posted:Nice piece of fish has seen fit to criticize the swordsmanship on display in the Game of Thrones TV show. And so, Medieval History & Combat thread, what do you have to say about the fearsomely beweaponed combat therein? And most importantly -- should it be more like Ong Bak? My biggest complaint from the bits I've seen is that they made a big fuss about how they'd brought in William Hobbs and were going to be using realistic techniques and blah blah blah. The problem is the choreography they've settled on isn't anywhere near realistic enough to be interesting to anyone who's watched SCA heavy combat, let alone full-speed reconstructed techniques, and it's not well-choreographed enough to be fun to watch on its own merits. Somehow in trying to make the combat more realistic, they managed to make it the most boring and awful thing. It's also worth noting that William Hobbs was the choreographer for The Three Musketeers in 1973, which has some of the best fight choreography I've ever seen, even if it's not the most realistic. It's not like the guy doesn't know how to make a fight scene look good, but I guess he's either gotten a lot worse or doesn't get to have fun with things.
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Apr 23, 2013 23:49
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EvanSchenck posted:People have already addressed this pretty well but I would add a few practical things about fight choreography in media. I'm certainly aware of the problems with fight choreography in media. It's just kind of weird to watch Game of Thrones' fight scenes because I've seen William Hobbs' previous work and it manages to be really entertaining to watch. As an example, the final fight scene from The Four Musketeers (1974) has several nods to realism (though of course much of it is flynning), particularly with respect to grabbing blades, parrying with a dagger and so on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9uGy3LlNeI
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Apr 25, 2013 10:13
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I've always been kind of curious as to what parts of Liechtenauer's teachings Fiore considered more important and which he considered less important. We've had some dudes in our own school who have done a bit of Fiore and they have these weird guards and movements that seem to focus a lot on striking at an incoming sword rather than the guards we use which focus more on presenting the point as a threat (and as a result many techniques focus on efficiently clearing a point to close for a strike or bind). I'm not sure if this has something to do with Fiore's curriculum focusing more on this kind of thing or just an odd quirk of the way they're learning.
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May 12, 2013 16:18
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SoldadoDeTone posted:I'd like a book that takes a more moderate approach toward the Dark Ages. To clarify, I don't want a book the inaccurately portrays the time period as entirely worthless with the absence of Roman power, but I also do not want a book that is just trying to prove to me that everything was honky dory and probably better than things are now. I want an accurate portrayal somewhere in the middle! While in this particular instance it's probably good enough, it's not always rigorous to simply look for the answer 'in the middle somewhere'. To be more helpful - and I'd certainly appreciate people chiming in with better sources than this but it's just what I have sitting in front of me - there's a wonderful translation of a 19th century German text called 'History of Chivalry and Armor' ISBN 0486457427 (this book names its source 'Der Rittersaal' - the Knight's Hall by Franz Kottenkamp, though I can't find references to that online anywhere) about the rise of chivalry that at least has a primer on the fall of the Roman Empire, the influence of the Normans and the rise of feudalism. Being a text written in the early 1800s by a German scholar, I'm not sure how reliable it might be, but it certainly takes a more 'in the middle' approach to the early Middle Ages than other Victorian-era texts. As a bonus it has some gorgeous plates of jousting arms and armour, combat, and even various absurd siege contraptions, including some that appear in Talhoffer's manuscripts. e: used the ISBN for the 1988 version of the book. My mistake! Makrond fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 18:13
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