I did say that I would likely die in my swordfighting attempt. But, which would you rather face: a klutz with a bow or a klutz with a sword? And as the klutz, if running away isn’t an option, would you rather have the bow or the sword?
Just keep in mind, from my perspective, there’s no qualitative difference between a sword or any of the following: mace, big stick, axe, lance, frozen fish, etc. Or, like I said before, between a sword and missile. Except that a sword only works to maim or kill, while you have the potential to reduce the number of deaths when using a missile in a smart or humane way. (I’m not stating any of the obvious realist / cynic caveats regarding missiles and modern warfare.)
[QUOTE=DevilDan]
I did say that I would likely die in my swordfighting attempt. But, which would you rather face: a klutz with a bow or a klutz with a sword?
Just keep in mind, from my perspective, there’s no qualitative difference between a sword or any of the following: mace, big stick, axe, lance, frozen fish, etc
[QUOTE]
Of course not. You’re not a fencer. It’s like asking a blind man how to paint a picture.
Or asking me which of the latest cars are the best. I understand that you are not in a position to see the difference between these weapons.
The feudal system allowed for these people to be the ones who were in power, but the reason it was those specific people was because those specific people were stronger and meaner than any of their neighbors.
Actually, it was always true. The Mafia is, essentially, a feudal system. The original Sicilian Mafia was a left-over from the local version of feudalism practiced in Sicily, which gradually branched into crime after the island was incorporated into Italy and the local princes stripped of legitimate power. In function, the mafia is almost identical to any feudal nation out of medieval Europe.
I’m not talking about every single human living in the time, I’m talking about the ruling elites and the methods they employed to maintain power. I’m arguing out of sympathy for for the bulk of the people living at that time, who were treated little better than chattle.
Absolutely. Things wouldn’t be so good now if they didn’t suck so bad then. I’m not arguing that I’m a better individual than anyone from the 13th century, but I am arguing that modern society is, in every way, superior to medieval society.
How much training did your average pikeman get? Any at all? And, related to your later point, how long does it take to become a “decent” pilot? Historically, it’s been the deadliest branch of the military.
I thought the entire issue behind that was that he didn’t do it at all.
Hang on a second now. How much training did a swordsman have to get before he was sent into battle? How much practice did he get before he was considered “good enough?” I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect it was quite a bit less than the amount of time modern soldiers spend in boot camp. Plus, we have a standing army, even in peace time, which was almost unheard of prior to this century. They train constantly, not just in boot camp. How much of a medieval army spent most of their time working in a field, and how much working with a sword?
It’s exactly the same skill set: Those Skills Needed to Most Efficently Kill the Enemy. It’s just that the skills that make up the set have shifted. And in my view, they have become enormously more difficult, complex, and valuable. The skills learned in the modern military have applications outside of the military. The background of science, math, and electronics required to qualify to be that “guy sitting in a booth pressing a button” have as much value in the civilian sector as they do on the battlefield, if not more. All you ever learn from swordfighting is how to kill other people. This is not an impressive talent, in my view.
Kinthalis:
I didn’t not say I wielded swords, I said I had hefted them.
I didn’t say one type of sword play was more graceful than another; I implied modern epees and foils were more graceful that medieval battle swords.
Your misunderstanding of my simple posts to not inspire confidence in you.
You say they did not take ‘brute strength’ to wield in battle. I wonder which one of use is closer in size to medieval knights.
And fencing is not battle.
And given the choice of defending my life and land with horse and sword or with an Apache, I’d pick the horse and sword; at least I could probably start the damned thing.
[Training with crossbows was started with seven-year-olds.]
When I wrote the poem I was using the sword as a symbol of power in general and pointing out that while the power of the sword is tempting to use, even when the intention is to do good, the sword/weapon does not discriminate and kills all good or bad.
I really wasn’t making a case for the sword as a weapon in general.
Miller, you’re making a lot of sweeping statements about medieval life and I really feel the need to say something about medieval armies. Fighting ignorance and all that.
What I’ve gathered from reading about the medieval period is that knights trained daily with their weapons. There really weren’t swordsmen, per se, there were knights/serjeants, longbowmen, and a variety of assorted infantry, who seemed to mostly have wielded handweapons other than swords. The majority of a medieval English army was made up of longbowmen.
A noble born knight would become a page in another lord’s home at about seven or eight and begin to learn the basics of chivalry, along with wrestling/fisticufss-stuff. At about 12 or 13, he would become a squire, though I do remember reading somewhere that they would begin basic sword combat at a younger age with wooden swords. A few years after that, they would be allowed to follow their mentor-knight into battle. Between 18 and 20, their knight would come to the conclusion that they themselves were ready to become knights. Commoners sometimes became knights, but it was usually for heroic actions, not the culmination of ten or more years of training. Being a knight was more than being proficient with a weapon; it involved the whole chivalric code (not that this was necessarily good; oppression of women, etcetera, etcetera). Even then, they commoner-knights were generally members of the increasingly wealthy middle classes, not Piers Serfington. But as cited below, knights only made up about 10% of the army. What about the lowly infantry, then?
So, if you were a yeoman (id est, infantry), and were found to not be training, you would be fined/punished silly, so that if your liege did need you, you were prepared. One might assume that training constantly would be in your best interest, then.
Actually, I think a standing army was a new thing in America prior to this century, not Europe. See http://www.hyw.com/books/history/regular_.htm “In a modern sense the French had the first regular army, organizing the compagnies d’ordonnance in 1445. These were essentially companies of knights and their supporting squires, archers, and pages kept on the payroll full time, in peace as well as war, to provide the king with a permanent military force, for domestic as well as foreign entanglements.”
These folks would have trained constantly and had regular schedules. Their profession was soldier, not part-time farmer, part-time draftee. Their lives were dedicated to warfare. Also from that site:
(emphasis mine)
So, 80-90% of the English army was comprised of yeoman, land-owning commoners, who were obligated to train throughout the year, predominantly with longbows, but also with the handweapon of their choice. Considering the cost of a sword (though yeoman sometimes brought home ransoms of hundreds of thousands of ducats, easily tripling their wealth; this didn’t happen until AFTER they’d been in battle), it seems more likely that they would have chosen the axe or mallet, especially as they would have had uses on their farms as tools, whereas a sword would not. Consider also that the longbow was originally a hunting weapon. Double-duty. Additionally:
(emphasis mine)
After which, the downed knight would be taken for ransom and the yeoman would be swimming in ducats.
Quite a bit, it would seem.
Swiss pikemen:
(emphasis mine, once again)
From Gervase Markham’s Soldier’s Accidence 1625:
A pike isn’t exactly an unskilled weapon, y’see. It would take a while, with guidance from an experienced pikeman, to be able to move the thing around at all. I’m 5’2". Pikes were up 20’ long. That’s about four times my height. I have difficulty with my broom.
The long and short of it, knights trained from their boyhood with swords. The infantry trained from their boyhood with bows. In addition to being skilled with a bow, they would also train with swords or other handweapons, so as to be able to defend themselves in close quarters, which they did admirably. (Although, admittedly, not as skillfully as someone who trained exclusively with handweapons would.) There’s no telling exactly how much time they spent training, but was sufficient to be efficient, for some corny wordage. Additionally, yeoman were generally well-off, not serfs. They were freedmen, independent land-owners; the upper-middle class of their day. If the recruitment of members of the armed forces is anything like the police force (and it may well be, since many police officers have military backgrounds), the the middle-middle and lower-middle classes are the people who enter the army today.
So there’s some quick and dirty information on European armies during the Hundred Years’ War. See the site where I got most of my info for more detail. It goes into detail about the logistics/strategy of medieval battles, as well as chivalry and the medieval concept of war and its purpose as seen by medieval people. The page on the evolution of medieval combat is especially informative. Incidentally, all my quotes come from this site.
Oh, and Quint Essence, lovely poem. I do have to admit, though, that word “penis” did pop into my head once or twice while reading it. It was all in capitals (PENIS) and had sparkly bits coming off of it. (PENIS) [sigh] Always a danger when writing anything with a sword in it. Ever since Far from the Madding Crowd and Sgt. Troy, I immediately think penis whenever I see a sword . . . maybe that’s why I like Highlander so much.
This is entirely correct. The system worked on a set of principles that were important to the structure of that society. The peasants worked the land, and payed with some (actually much) of their crop and some of their time in military service to their Lord in return for PROTECTION. Without that they’d end up dead.
Did the elites take advantage of this arrangement. You betcha many did. Did they ALL, ALWAYS? I doubt it, otherwise the society would have fallen long before it did. Eventually it did fall, and it was because the peasants got fed up of this abuse, and because, DUE TO FEUDALISM, the worry of rampaging vikings, wondering tribes, enemy soldiers, bands of rogues, etc were not much of a problem anymore. The times grow more stable, a perfect time for the system to change.
Of course. Years. But We’re not talking about the average pikeman, atleast I’m not, I’m talking about the Elite warrior castes: Knights.
A knight started training at around age 10 (sometimes younger). He was a useful swordsmen by the time he reached 18 years old or so. He wouldn’t become a good swordsman until about a decade after that.
Again, I’m talking about the warrior elite.
So Kenjutsu, Easter MArtial artists like Bruce Lee, they don’t impress you? There is more than one way to look at martial prowess. To focus on the killing part of it is a little narrow minded. To focus on the oppsite, is too. I’d like to take a more balanced view.
It is a misconception to thiink of medieval knights as hulking masses of muscle. Fencing in that period required a quick, fit, body to perform properly. I’d expect them to have a physique more closely related to Bruce Lee’s than to Arnold (cannot spell his last name! ).
Againt a trained knight, you’d loose just the same. If you train a few months with an apache you’d probably due better than if you trained with the sword for a few months.
Kinthalis:
Yes, it was.
No, you are not.
‘quick and fit’ still requires a good and consistent diet.
Like Miller, I never said I would survive on a horse with a sword; I am not convinced I would survive any longer in an Apache, even with a couple of months of training.
But I am convinced that there is little spirtually enobling about hacking off some-one else’s limb,
AND that romanticism is the second most dangerous outlook on life.
Go take on lillalette; I am way out-classed there.
I admit I really did not give the poem a chance when I first read it. The second line put me off; I thought ‘the romance of violence’, and got hostile.
Re-reading I see your point; but in a comment on style, the CAPS put me off, too.
Your next assignment is to write a poem about the crossbow in the form of a sonnent. Points will be taken off for the gratuitous use of archaic terms. Extra credit for sparking another multi-page thread addressing the socio-economic and psycho-social ramifications of the object.
This is not how it happened (and I’m speaking as an Orthodox Christian). Palace intrigue in Constantinople unseated an Emperor in favor of his brother. This deposed Emperor went to Venice to drum up support for getting his throne back. The Doge had a big bunch of Crusaders passing through and convinced them it was a good idea to make a side trip. Once the Imperial throne reshuffle was done, the restored Emperor forgot about they payments he had promised. In retaliation, the Crusaders looted the city.
lillette, thanks for the corrections to my understanding of medieval military matters. Dogface, likewise, although your correction doesn’t change the thrust of my point.
Easter Martial arts? What’s that, egg fu?
But, no, they don’t impress me, no more than being a talented football player or track athlete impresses me. Which is really not very much at all.
Dirty combination of my favorites folder and Google. It began with Google when I wanted to know more about the Hundred Years’ War and stumbled across it. I think I searched for “hundred years war”.
The site is actually part of roleplaying game, where you take on the role of a noble during said war and have to keep yourself religiously circumspect in your tactics, otherwise the Pope excommunicates you. It’s all about strategy. I don’t play, as five-year olds can kick my butt at checkers. I bet there would be folks on the SDMB who would like it.
No problem. I’m sorry if I drowned you in information, but . . . misinformation about the middle ages is one of my pet peeves. A stranger could lick me and I wouldn’t care, but if he started saying Longshanks had a nicotine habit, I’d have to tackle him and sit on his chest until he saw truth.
Now, if you want some of the romance surrounding medieval women destroyed, read this (they didn’t all stay at home, slaving away) and this about adultery. Courtly love my ass.
On an episode of Battlefield Detectives (on the History Channel), some guys decided to investigate just what it was about the Battle of Agincourt that caused the English to win despite being heavily outnumbered. Traditional wisdom has it that the English longbowmen mowed down the French with a hail of arrows. However, the detectives’ experiments with the armaments of the time determined that the iron arrowheads of the time were too soft to penetrate the steel body-armor worn by the French. Eventually, they determined that it was a combination of the metal boots the French were wearing (which got stuck in the mud much more easily than the cloth shoes the English troops were wearing), and the fact that the French would have had to charge toward the English down a rapidly-narrowing corridor of land, which resulted in many of them getting trampled by one another.
Alas, fair warrior your doom has arrived
not a sword or a skilled arrow to fairly survive,
instead a cruel bolt, from a skilless young lad
what is the weapon the dolt doth have?
The crossbow my friend, and like nothing in the land
puts the power of death in anyones hand
What’s that, egg fu?