Actually, in Europe, plate armor continued to be used and improved upon well into the gun powder age.
The reason? It still worked. As metallurgy and the technology of armor improved it kept apace of the advances in missile weapons for quite a while, at least enough to make a difference on the field of battle.
Does the relative strength of the blades figure in? When they cross swords, is one or the other more likely to shatter?
Is swashbuckle a synonym for sodomize? Because pirates were known for their sodomy.
Not really, no. Couple of things: blades crossing tended to be a momentary thing. It’s not the drawn out push/pull you see in movies. The moment your blade is redirected/stopped you move the point or the entire sword to quickly engage another opening.
Also, blades would not shatter in normal use unless there was some sort of a catastrophic failure due to a defect or previous damage. The longsword is the more resilient blade though. Due to the Katana’s blade geometry and construction method, if you bent it, it was likely to stay bent or take a set. A good quality European sword could bend a considerable amount and would then snap back to “true”.
So were Samurai, and since some ninja were invariably samurai…
Actually, I think they were employed as spies more often than as assassins; and, while spying, did not wear black pajamas, but whatever clothing would help them blend in to the crowd.
The our answer is clear: The knight would win because he could kill the samurai while the samurai was engaging in sodomy with a pirate. This question is now officially answered for all time.
George Silver does clearly state one must “keep [ones] rear unobstructed” when in battle. That’s a guy with his priorities, er, straight. 
That’s the answer I’m gonna use if this question ever comes up! Absolutely brilliant 
Ninjas?
Pirates?
Really?! :dubious:
It’s obvious there is only one clear winner.
Zombies
Just to be nitpicky, “Samurai” were not a classification of warriors, but a social caste. The samurai were Japan’s nobility, not its army. While most samurai males trained as warriors, not all soldiers on a Japanese battlefield were samurai, and it was not impossible for a commoner to rise to high rank. Totyomni Hideyoshi was (it is believed) born a peasant and ended up a samurai.
Was that rear ended up a samurai?
Maybe something of his ended up in a samurai.
Uh no, they were NOT. That’s a myth just like the one about knights being winched onto their horses. Medieval Europeans were, on average, just an inch or two shorter than their modern-day descendants. Part of this misconception arose because of the smaller height of doors in medieval buildings (they were built that way to keep in heat) and skeletons of people from the industrial era, who really were stunted (the industrial era was an exceptionally unhealthy time period to live in). Medieval people actually ate very nutritious diets except in times of famine. Here’s some data from Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition (2006) by C. M. Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson, Tony Waldron and from The Great Household in Late Medieval England by C.M. Woolgar:
The food supply fluctuated depending on the season, which is to be expected when methods of curing and storing food was limited. Preserved fruits, such as dried dates, figs, currants, and raisins were popular at Christmas and during Lent (when they would’ve provided a respite from fish). Leeks, onions, and cabbages were also commonly consumed with fish during Lent. Some fruits did not keep well and had to eaten immediately, like **strawberries **in the summer. Others, such as apples and pears, were kept for Christmas delicacies.
In winter, wheat, rye, and winter barley were sown, and from these were made breads, ale, and fodder for animals. In the spring were sown oats, spring barley, beans, and peas. Then as today, wheat made the preferred bread, but cheaper coarse breads were made (from most to least expensive) from rye, a barley/oats mixture, and ground-up peas and barley.
As for fish, cod and herring made up the bulk of fish eaten in medieval England. In Scotland and Northern England, saithe or coalfish were also popular. In southwestern England, hake was more popular than cod. By the 11th century, herring had become by far the most popular fish on much of the island. Whiting made up a distant third of the most popular fish, after cod and herring. Flounder seems to have been favored by the wealthy, as remains are found in the well-to-do sections of Winchester and London.
Cows and sheep were too valuable for their milk, musclepower, or wool to be eaten regularly by most peasants. Pigs, which provided little other than meat, were much more likely to end up in a pot. Peasants were not supposed to take game meant for highborn nobles like deer, boars, and rabbits, but some poached rabbits and wildfowl such as ducks and geese.
Wine was consumed in quantities that seem amazing to us. The Bishop of Hereford’s household in 1289-90 had a DAILY consumption of between 4-14 gallons of wine. At Christmas and Easter this could surpass 40 gallons. Milk for the most part was made into other things rather than being drunk outright: cheese, curds, and whey. Cider from apples and mead from honey were also drunk.
In the households of great nobles, it became common by about 1200 for Wednesday, Friday and Saturday to be days when no flesh was eaten – in other words, fish days. As for a highborn nobles’ diet, Woolgar gives us the example of Eleanor of Brittany, the niece of King John:
Monday: beef, pork, honey, and vinegar
Tuesday: pork, eggs, egret
Wednesday: herring, conger eels, almonds, eggs
Thursday: pork, eggs, pepper, and honey
Friday: conger eels, herring, almonds
Saturday: bread, ale, almonds, butter, eggs
Sunday: mutton, pork, chicken, and eggs
This diet seems to me to have been reasonably healthy; certainly, medieval people didn’t consume the ungodly amounts of sugar we do today. Scurvy and rickets would’ve been the plague of townsfolk, who lacked the easy access to fruits and vegetables that their country cousins enjoyed. Lead poisoning from pewter vessels and contaminated wine was a real danger. To address the myth that medieval people were malformed and much smaller than people today, here’s an analysis of skeletons taken at St. Peter’s Church, Barton-upon-Humber:
950-1149:
Mean height for males: 1.69 (5’5)
Mean height for females: 1.61 (5’2)
1150-1299:
Mean height for males: 1.70 (5’5)
Mean height for females: 1.59 (5’2)
Modern-day British:
Mean height for males: 1.76 (5’7)
Mean height for females: 1.62 (5’3)
From my readings there were a number of samurai that were openly homosexual. It was accepted by others without prejudice, as they judged the man by his skill, not his sexual preference.
Don’t know if it’s true, but I read once that the myth also derived from diminutive suits of armor that can be seen on display in museums or manor houses – those suits being made for the knights as teenagers; they were customarily buried in their full-sized adult suits.
For the last time, medieval European swords only weighed two or three pounds on average, even the biggest ones! I mean, medieval knights were some of the greatest warriors of their era. How stupid would they have to have been to haul around 20 pound swords into battle and hack at people for hours? These were powerful men with great finesse and skill. As Kinthalis pointed out, the katana was actually HEAVIER per inch of length than a comparable European sword.
BTW, I would like to point out to people who judge medieval armor by the examples they’ve seen in museums: that armor tends to be armor that was specially made for ocassions such as parades, etc. They’re not usually good examples of armor medieval knights wore into battle; that stuff got banged up and dented and doesn’t look as good hanging in a museum.
I thought most of the suits of armor found were “samples” made by armor smiths to show off how good they were. Hence they made them smaller, since they didn’t want to waste too much material on them.
Or is that completely wrong?
It wouldn’t surprise me if that were true. Such armor would probably have been packed away when he outgrew it, and thusly would’ve survived intact centuries later when actual battle armor had been dented and rusted into oblivion. Knights, like samurai, began their training as small children and as members of the nobility, would’ve had a steady food supply and the best medical care available at the time. Many of these men could vault into the saddle and do handstands in full armor. I imagine by the time a knight was fully-grown, he probably had shoulders like a fucking linebacker.
I would also like to mention that there were many European swords of comparable quality to the finest katana, such as the famed Spanish toledo.
That doesn’t make logical sense. How is the ninja supposed to aim for a little-bitty slit in the visor through the haze of the smoke bomb he just threw at the knight? Did they have echo-location or something? And that’s got to be the sloppiest assassination attempt imaginable. If a ninja wanted to assassinate a knight, he’d slip something in his food or cut his throat while he slept or something.