# Anti-knight weapons **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2003, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066 "2003-01-26T17:51:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/21 "2003-01-27T13:57:22Z")
The problem here isn’t just weapons, it’s training and discipline. There are LOTS of ways you can kill an armored man on horseback. You can use spears, lances, projectiles of all sorts, traps, bolas, ropes, hooks, and any number of other things. Theoretically, there’s a hundred ways to knock a man off a horse. You could throw a chair at him. Any number of farm implements could break a galloping horses’s leg like a carrot stick. The thing is, though, that this sort of close-in warfare requires substantial organization and discipline. If you can get a few hundred guys together and train them, they can fight against mounted knights, but peasants aren’t in the business of training for war. To get some idea of how difficult this is, imagine if a dozen mounted knights suddenly burst into your office or school, right now, and started lopping off heads, and YOU had to put together a hundred volunteers to defeat them. Think you could do that? Not bloody likely. Your problem won’t be a lack of weaponry, it’ll be a lack of people who aren’t so panicked that they can be organized. Most people will just run like hell, and will be too frightened to be convinced to do anything else. Even if you can get some people together, without any training or discipline they’re going to break and run the first time they get charged - to be charged by a mounted horseman is a terrifying experience. Peasants in the middle ages were no more prepared to go into combat than the jerks you see in the cubicles around you - hell, maybe even less so. At least the jerks you work.go to school with have seen “Braveheart” and aren’t fearful that God will be angry at them for killing their lords. The death of knights was not so much any specific WEAPON as it was the rise of professional and conscript ARMIES in Europe. The Renaissance brought with it a new professionalization of military endeavour. Men began to apply technology, science, and mass organization to warfare. Right up until the 18th century an armored knight was still stronger than an infantryman; but a knight was terribly vulnerable in the context of an entire BATTLE, because he was facing well-organized, professional armies. Suddenly the infantry were not pseduo-trained rabble; they were disciplined, highly motivated individuals, in the service of a nation-state rather than just the latest feudal lord, who fought cooperatively rather than running and shrieking like girls when things got scary. For a man on horseback, that’s death. If the rabble doesn’t fight together it’s relatively easy to gallop around slicing off melons, but if they stand and oppose you as a group, you’re a dead man. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/22 "2003-01-27T14:15:02Z")
I saw that show as well and was thinking about counters to armored knights. Wouldn’t the full helm be a tremendous disadvantage to situational awareness and sight in general? Those things had a fricking slit for seeing through and didn’t the helm bounce around on the head a bit? Wouldn’t a pole-armed peasant without armor be able to outmaneuver and get behind his opponent relatively easily? I can just see a knight having no idea where his enemy is because of that helm alone not too mention the penalities to agility because of that armor. ---
**Author:** ![Texican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@Texican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Texican)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/23 "2003-01-27T14:17:02Z")
Caltrops are a very effective means of bringing calvary down to the level of the foot soldier. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/24 "2003-01-27T14:36:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Go alien \* > There were lots of god anti-knight weapons available. Longbows, cross bows, spears, pikes to name a few. Crossbows were not present in Europe until they were brought back from the east during the crusades. Even then, they were decried as ‘un-Christian’ weapons, and their use was not prevalent until the 13th century, the latter part of the middle ages. It’s really more of a renaissance weapon. ---
**Author:** ![G.Cornelius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@G.Cornelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.Cornelius)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/25 "2003-01-27T14:37:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KidCharlemagne \* > \*\*I saw that show as well and was thinking about counters to armored knights. Wouldn’t the full helm be a tremendous disadvantage to situational awareness and sight in general? Those things had a fricking slit for seeing through and didn’t the helm bounce around on the head a bit? Wouldn’t a pole-armed peasant without armor be able to outmaneuver and get behind his opponent relatively easily? I can just see a knight having no idea where his enemy is because of that helm alone not too mention the penalities to agility because of that armor. \*\* You are quite right. There was different armour for different situations. If you go to a good museum you may get to see a variety armours. Particularly interesting are the mix and match sets - basic field armour plus a variety of bits intended for tournament. These heavy add on bits sometimes left the arms (especially the left arm) quite imobile. Specifically, the great helm type of defense was a liability in anythig but a jousting situation. They required a head down position to see anything at all and were specifically designed to prevent a lance or fragment thereof gettin in the eyes/face. Later armour introduced the Bascinet. The open face or removable/hinged visor gave the knight the view he needed. See: [Arms and Armour Glossary](http://www.chronique.com/Library/Glossaries/glossary-AA/arms_b.htm) > [@](#): > > Bascinet: The helmet that evolved out of the cervellaire, a small “skull cap” worn under the great helm, by extending the plate down over the neck and cheeks. Gradually the great helm was discarded altogether in favor of the bascinet because of the superior vision, glancing surface, and lightweight design. Early bascinets had no visors, but by the second quarter of the 14th century they were fitted with Klappvisiers, visors, using a centralized hinge system. Many of these hinges were easily removed, possibly meaning that they were intended to be discarded after the battle was joined. During the 1370s visors began to be attached to the side of the helmet, a more secure attachment system that often allowed the visor to pivot completely back around the helmet, meaning that it might not be lost in battle. During the 1390s steel ventails gradually replaced the mail aventail that had been fitted alongside the klappvisier to defend the neck, creating a new kind of helmet, the great bascinet, popular especially in the Hundred Years War in both France and England. Many examples can be seen in funery effigies of the period. This innovation of hinged neck defenses gradually evolved into the Armet, the dominant helmet of the 15th century. The bascinet itself was popular throughout Europe during the 14th century, showing a great variety of forms within the style. It is now the most popular helmet in the SCA because of the pronounced glancing surface, ease with which a grille may be attached and interchanged with a visor, superior defense for the head and neck, and sleek appearance. See Chronique: The Journal of Chivalry #12. ---
**Author:** ![Who\_me\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/958977/32.png) [@Who\_me\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Who_me_1)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/26 "2003-01-27T15:06:38Z")
You can’t forget caltrops in fighting knights. A horse stepping on one won’t be running anywhere. A knight on foot was easy prey. ---
**Author:** ![Who\_me\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/958977/32.png) [@Who\_me\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Who_me_1)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/27 "2003-01-27T15:07:48Z")
Damn, teach me not to refresh before posting after being away for an hour… ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/28 "2003-01-27T15:37:00Z")
To elaborate upon **Waverly** ’s reply, the crossbow actually first showed up in Europe in the 4th Century B.C.E. in Greece, where it was known as the [gastraphetes](http://www.ausbow.com.au/history.html), the “belly bow,” so called because it was cocked by leaning into it with the nose of the weapon pointed into the ground. It [disappeared](http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/oldwrld/armies/crossbow.html) from Greece shortly thereafter, probably for the same reasons it appeared and then largely vanished in Medieval Europe. Like the banning of firearms in Japan from c. 1600 to c. 1850, the crossbow appears to be one of those weapons which was disliked by the knightly classes and was declared off-limits, because it disappeared from European history for large swathes of time. But it doesn’t appear to have ever gone away entirely. When it appeared again right around 1066, it was hated exactly because a lowly, relatively untrained conscript could take out a knight. It was officially [“banned”](http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1987/june/Sa12650.htm) in 1139 by the Vatican at the [Second Lateran Council](http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/8920/churchcouncils/Ecum10.htm). > [@](#): > > 1. We prohibit under anathema that murderous art of crossbowmen and archers, which is hateful to God, to be employed against Christians and Catholics from now on. However, that edict also banned jousting, which didn’t appear to take, and archers, who never went away either. I suspect the crossbow was effectively banned by mutual consent among warring parties, just as chemical weapons were avoided in World War II. I also suspect anyone found using them–and losing–on the battlefield was probably “made an example” in order to further discourage its use. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/29 "2003-01-27T16:16:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Urban Ranger \* > \*\*knights in full plate armour could hardly get up after fallen to the ground. \*\* Not entirely true. You can manage to run wearing half plate armour, and I’m sure anyone used to wearing full plate would be able to shuffle along quite well. And anyone who says that armour impedes a person’s range of motion is not thinking clearly. A fighting man _needs_ to have a full range of motion to swing, thrust, slash, dodge back, etc… The armour doesn’t get in the way (although it’s not as easy as doing it in shirtsleeves). As for helmets-- I’ve worn one. They’re not _that_ bad. Not great, but not that bad. ---
**Author:** ![dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorkusmalorkusmafia/32/7266_2.png) [@dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorkusmalorkusmafia)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/30 "2003-01-27T16:27:22Z")
Urban Ranger said: [/quote] They were bigger targets, and knights in full plate armour could hardly get up after fallen to the ground. [/quote] That is a myth unless toppling the horses broke bones or pinned them under the dead horse too. The myth was propogated by roleplaying games needing to give a bigger disadvantage to more heavily armored opponents. If you have seen an SCA battle, you would have seen them move minorly slower in full field plate. However, you will also see them doing dive rolls and running pretty quickly still. It is more akin to moving around with an extra 70ish lbs. I am sure you can get a 10 year old and put him/her on your back and run around. Now if this weight was significantly more evenly distributed it becomes that much easier. ---
**Author:** ![dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorkusmalorkusmafia/32/7266_2.png) [@dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorkusmalorkusmafia)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/31 "2003-01-27T16:29:02Z")
Woo woo. Simulpost for me anyway. I didn’t refresh it when I was out double checking sources. ---
**Author:** ![rimfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@rimfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rimfire)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/32 "2003-01-27T17:44:03Z")
Molotov coctails would have been possible. They could have used clay pots filled with grease from cooking and straw wicks. Pirates of the day used similar devices against other ships. I don’t think that would have made them a weapon of choice, though. They work well against large, slow-moving vehicles, but not individuals. ---
**Author:** ![Mothchunks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@Mothchunks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mothchunks)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/33 "2003-01-27T20:08:59Z")
If you could put ants in their armor or knock them into a lake… One common weapon used to pull an armored Knight off his horse was the Bec de Corbin, (bird beak) a pole arm with a hook especially designed for that purpose. Once brought down, long slender dagger called a Misericord was used to deliver the coup de grace. There do seem to be a lot of French terms involved in killing knights. Wonder if it had anything to do with Agincourt? ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/34 "2003-01-27T20:38:00Z")
I too was thinking along the lines of \rim fire\ but my suggested recipe would be different. Sulpher, Salt Piter and Honey. Mix in the correct ratios and (VERY GENTLY) heat on a double boiler (dutch oven?) Put in clay jars, light and throw. The chineese had this concoction centuries (milenia?) before gunpowder, although it was for medicinal purposes. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2003, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/35 "2003-01-27T23:59:43Z")
I love how off-topic these things can get. The usefulness of a weapon is partly relative to how reasonable a weapon it is. For peasants to keep jugs of highly flammable mixtures that likely cost quite a chunk for one-time use, and would likely be declared contraband by their lords, and have them be readily available for use near their thatch-roofed towns and fields and forests… they’d have to be pretty unreasonable folks. Homemade incendiaries such as those used in WWII were useful because of the relative surplus of fuels, bottles, oils, and the like. Entirely different story. They would probably be better off with more conventional weapons and relying on their lord to provide protection. ---
**Author:** ![Teebone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Teebone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teebone)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2003, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066/36 "2003-01-28T03:12:20Z")
I would root them in place then either cast a DoT or a DD spell. If you need to use weapons, use a rogue and strafe around and backstab. Teebone [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-knight-weapons/151066.md?page=1)