# You vs. a medieval knight **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 28, 2014, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804 "2014-09-28T21:18:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/141 "2014-10-03T07:47:03Z")
BTW, One thing SCA/HEMA fighting has taught me is that just bated fighting can seriously fuck up your joints even if you stretch and warm up. So this whole “charging at me full throttle then adroitly dodging all my blows” thing looks a little different in my head, actually. Also, people who spend large parts of their life on horseback walk…differently. ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/142 "2014-10-03T08:21:34Z")
Depending on the weather, I’d wait for him to rust. Or get bogged down in the mud. (Assuming we’re talking about England). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/143 "2014-10-03T09:25:27Z")
Here’s another thing - knights got taken out by peasants or infantry all the time. So that about tells me all I need to know about how leet their lifelong training was… ---
**Author:** ![GoodOmens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@GoodOmens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodOmens)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/144 "2014-10-03T11:17:54Z")
Easy choice for me…if he gets in arm’s reach, I’m a dead man. No questions asked, I’m confident he’d kill me. I’ll take the short bow. I’ve done a fair amount of target shooting, which I know has little to do with hitting a moving, angry person, but it’s more experience than I have with any other weapon. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/145 "2014-10-03T15:10:57Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Here’s another thing - knights got taken out by peasants or infantry all the time. So that about tells me all I need to know about how leet their lifelong training was… But not in one-on-one encounters. 100 serfs could dismount a knight, if they worked together. 20 serfs could easily overwhelm an unarmored, unarmed knight who was on foot, if they worked together. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/146 "2014-10-03T18:35:50Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > But not in one-on-one encounters. 100 serfs could dismount a knight, if they worked together. 20 serfs could easily overwhelm an unarmored, unarmed knight who was on foot, if they worked together. …and one maid could…_scans the TV plot of Outlander_…do something, I’m sure. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/147 "2014-10-03T21:21:05Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > But not in one-on-one encounters. 100 serfs could dismount a knight, if they worked together. 20 serfs could easily overwhelm an unarmored, unarmed knight who was on foot, if they worked together. Who’s to say one-on-one encounters always went the knight’s way? We do know one English peasant archer could take out _several_ French knights…it’s not always simply numbers. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/148 "2014-10-04T00:22:51Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Who’s to say one-on-one encounters always went the knight’s way? We do know one English peasant archer could take out _several_ French knights…it’s not always simply numbers. Which movie did that occur in? ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/149 "2014-10-04T00:58:41Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > You’re making a _big_ assumption about _me_, here. One that turns out to not be true. I’m not making any assumptions about you. I never directly addressed you. I am making assumptions about the average person. If you were a soldier (or criminal) then yes, you’ve probably killed people. The vast majority of people have not, and I’m pretty sure the proportion of people posting on this board skews even lower. Regarding my assumptions about knights, well, they’re not that assumed. We know the hoops they had to jump through to become knights, and we know what the job entailed. If they’re an actual knight, as in they’ve gone through squiring and acquired their spurs, they’ve almost certainly killed people in combat before. There were very few periods of peace anywhere in Europe. And outside of combat, there were no police, there was no other law enforcement. It was part of the job of men at arms and knights to keep the peace. > [@](#): > > Neither do I - but the training I see in the Fechtbücher don’t scream “martial arts badass” to me.I think you may mistake the purpose of a lot of the Fechtbücher - the ones I’m familiar with are not training manuals for _war_, they are for fencing schools or personal use, and I don’t think you can rightly extrapolate what the _average_ Teutonic knight’s training regime was like from manuals geared to prepping people for judicial duels. Plus they’re all from a different cultural setting from the frontier Teutons, at least. It’d be like imagining the training of a Scottish Highland warrior in 1600 extrapolated from _Paradoxes of Defence_ The pictures and comments shown in those are very similar to the typical _makimono_ handed down in Japanese martial arts. So if they don’t scream “martial arts badass”, you probably wouldn’t think such a person exists anywhere. Yes, they were advertisements for schools. Here’s the thing: all of the martial arts anywhere in the world are and have been taught in such schools. All of them were originally founded by people who actually knew how to fight since 1) Most people who could afford to pay a teacher probably knew what real fighting looked like, and 2) it was pretty damn hazardous to your health to start a fighting school and not know your shit. Particularly in the old days, teachers would get challenged. In Japanese history, it’s documented that often people got killed in such duels. Sometimes, it was the (former) teacher. > [@](#): > > I think this seriously overestimates the abilities of an unarmed, unarmoured, out-of-control man against an armed opponent who is ready and prepared for him. If you’re armed, and prepared, _and trained_, then you might have a chance. Mindset is important. Most violent criminals are not highly trained fighters. They still manage to hurt and kill a lot of people, including police who are specifically trained to deal with violent offenders and who have direct experience in doing it. You might be a true badass with experience in real fighting and even killing. You are not most people. So what’s your point? That you, _el señor de culo malo_ can probably take down a knight with your hands tied? Congratulations. I salute your virility. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/150 "2014-10-04T07:32:26Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > Regarding my assumptions about knights, well, they’re not that assumed. We know the hoops they had to jump through to become knights > [/quotes] > “Being born noble” does not strike me as a particularly hoopy activity. > [quotes] > , and we know what the job entailed. If they’re an actual knight, as in they’ve gone through squiring and acquired their spurs I think you’re confusing the chivalraic romances for history - to be a Teutonic knight, you need to be a German of noble birth, and take the oaths of the order. That was it. > [@](#): > > The pictures and comments shown in those are very similar to the typical _makimono_ handed down in Japanese martial arts. So if they don’t scream “martial arts badass”, you probably wouldn’t think such a person exists anywhere. Like I said, they’re mostly manuals for judicial duelling. That’s not war - its more stylized than that. And yes, I don’t think such exists - at least, not just as a product of some training manual. I’m not doubting individuals will, from time to time, display great martial prowess. I’m saying the average knight was not such a person. > [@](#): > > Yes, they were advertisements for schools. Here’s the thing: all of the martial arts anywhere in the world are and have been taught in such schools. No. Knights, proper war-fighting knights like the Teutons were not taught in these schools (which did not exist at the time of the Teuton’s peak - they’re a Late Medieval /renaissance phenomenon). They learned on the job, in an apprenticeship role. > [@](#): > > All of them were originally founded by people who actually knew how to fight …in the particularly stylized fight form of duelling… > [@](#): > > If you’re armed, and prepared, _and trained_, then you might have a chance. That’s what I’ve been saying. And I think you overrate the value of training. > [@](#): > > Mindset is important. A weapon and prep time, orders of magnitude more so. > [@](#): > > Most violent criminals are not highly trained fighters. Most Teutonic knights resembled violent criminals more than highly-trained fighters, IMO. Like I said, genocidaires, not paladins… > [@](#): > > They still manage to hurt and kill a lot of people, including police who are specifically trained to deal with violent offenders and who have direct experience in doing it. Gosh, it’s almost like there’s some difference between having some training and actually being a martial arts badass… > [@](#): > > You might be a true badass with experience in real fighting and even killing. I never said I killed anyone. But the implication was that anyone who hadn’t killed “dozens, even hundreds” of people would _never_ have been in a fight and would somehow just freeze up or flail wildly. That’s just pure martialist bullshit propaganda. If I’m armed and some ragebeast is coming at me from across an entire field, I am not going to freak out, I think most people wouldn’t. Weapon in hand _gives_ confidence. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/151 "2014-10-04T07:40:49Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Which movie did that occur in? Agincourt was not a movie… and now you’re going to say there were thousands of archers - yes, but there were thousands of knights too - but it was always one peasant killing one knight, all the same. And the knights’ training and killer mindset didn’t help them at all. In case anyone hasn’t picked it up yet, I’m the rare SCAdian who has no truck with any notions of chivalry or nobility on the part of actual (Flesh+Blood!) knights. They were well-armed gangs, the Mexican cartels of their day. That is the true picture of knighthood I get from history, not the propaganda they paid the troubadours and Minnesänger to write to get into non-peasant ladies’ braies (we all know how they got into peasant women’s skirts, and it wasn’t poetry) ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/152 "2014-10-04T08:57:37Z")
I will just gather my skirts, bat my eyelashes, appeal to his chivalry, his mercy and his appetite for a ransom. I will outlive you all. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/153 "2014-10-05T14:37:05Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > If the guy is pissed off and running at you, you are fucked. The OP specified that you have a quarrel, but that the crossbow isn’t spanned yet. > > Good luck with that. The draw weight is higher than a longbow because: physics. You’ve got a smaller spring and you have to store roughly the same energy. That means that you’re looking at over 100 lbs. to span it, and I doubt any of you happen to have a belt hook to help with not cutting your fingers half-off with the string for a stirrup model. You’re going to have to sit your ass down on the ground and pull back the arms until the string seats itself. A windlass model would take even longer to span. When done straightforward, [it takes about 20 seconds](http://youtu.be/41jit1MDIU0?t=9s). I’ll personally claim a few seconds off of Olympic record time, but that’s just my modesty talking. OTOH, if he is running that fast at me, I’ll use the crossbow to beat him to death after he collapses at the finish line. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/154 "2014-10-05T20:24:14Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I think you’re confusing the chivalraic romances for history - to be a Teutonic knight, you need to be a German of noble birth, and take the oaths of the order. That was it. Forget it, Dibbs. This is no ordinary knight. He’s the Teutonic Bruce Lee. The rootinist, tootinest Teuton that ever tooted a root. He’s Superteuton, and he shoots death beams from his eyes, powered bloodlust, while no modern human–except for certain specially conditioned and probably genetically engineered military killing machines–can muster the strength, skill, or will to kill someone with a sharpened chunk of metal. If you can’t tell, I still say he’s probably fucked against anyone with even modest training in their chosen weapon. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/155 "2014-10-05T20:58:37Z")
I have a basket-hilt Scottish broadsword much like the Liam Neeson incarnation of Rob Roy used. So I have a feel for it and voted that way. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/156 "2014-10-05T22:30:28Z")
How long would it take him to run at me? That’s how long I’d last. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/157 "2014-10-07T00:36:00Z")
Look, the reason I’m so dismal about people’s prospects in this situation is precisely because I have experience both with martial arts training and with real fighting. It’s hard. It’s much harder than most people think. Most modern martial arts are not particularly good fight training, either. Training makes a difference, but experience in actually fighting trumps it much of the time. Thankfully, I’ve only had a couple of real fights; ones where someone wasn’t just trying to beat me up but was probably trying to actually kill me. It’s horrible. If you’ve never experienced that, you have no idea what it’s like. Training and specific preparation _might_ keep you from freezing, but an overwhelming number of people who have been involved with real life-or-death violence have reported the same as my personal experience; you spend at least a couple of useless seconds thinking something along the lines of, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! What the fuck is going on? Why is he doing this? Oh, shit, what am I going to do?” Unless you’re a sociopath. Then you probably are just thinking, “How can I hurt this motherfucker the most?” I’m not just picturing some Platonic ideal of a knight. The realities of being in that position in _any_ feudal society would far better prepare them for a fight than anything short of modern equivalent training. Even if they were essentially born into it, they would have fought and probably killed before. Even if they were nothing better than medieval “thugs”, they were certainly more capable of killing someone with either hands or weapons than virtually all modern people. Hell, they were more capable of it than most in their society. All levels of nobility put together, including only nominally landed classes like minor knights, made up only about 1–2% of the population, depending on when and where you’re talking about. If you’re weighting things toward the “thug” side of the scale, that still implies that they were rather more adept at violence, considering that was their main way of holding onto power. Most people living in a modern society have no idea how casually brutal many past societies were. Sudden violence was the rule, not the exception, in just about any time up to modern days. Despite wars that have killed millions, the 20th-21st century has been far more peaceful than nearly any other time in the past. If you’re a martial artist, you have a much better chance than the average person. If you’re an active duty soldier, you have an even better one. If you’re used to fighting, like an MMA fighter or someone who gets into fights on a regular basis, you’re also better prepared for this kind of scenario. But like I said, unless you’ve actually fought someone who is trying to kill you, you are far less prepared than you think you are. Take a look at [On Combat](http://www.amazon.com/Combat-Psychology-Physiology-Deadly-Conflict/dp/0964920549), by Dave Grossman for accounts on what combat is like for people raised in our society. His other book, _On Killing_ is reportedly more focused on the kind of violence proposed here, personal small-scale violence, but I haven’t read it myself yet. For another book on fighting with edged weapons, [The Secret History of the Sword](http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-Sword-Adventures-Ancient/dp/1892515040/) has some sections about how training often broke down when people were presented with the real prospect of death or harm, such as dueling. Only experience with that kind of fighting really prepares you for it psychologically. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/158 "2014-10-07T00:51:51Z")
[QUOTE=Sleel] Look, the reason I’m so dismal about people’s prospects in this situation is precisely because I have experience both with martial arts training and with real fighting. It’s hard. It’s much harder than most people think. Most modern martial arts are not particularly good fight training, either. Training makes a difference, but experience in actually fighting trumps it much of the time. [/QUOTE] I think this is the part that most here are missing, even the ones who have trained in martial arts or SCA type groups. These guys (i.e. medieval knights and the like) weren’t supermen. That’s true. They weren’t necessarily better or stronger or faster than some of the folks in this thread. What they were, however, and what most in this thread aren’t is killers. These guys were killers…they were trained to kill, and they had practice doing it, especially in the early and middle medieval period. That’s what a knight was, when you strip off all of the chivalric horseshit and fluff…they were killers. That makes a huge difference. And their training was focused on killing other people, and staying alive themselves. The GAMES they played, fencing, hunting boar, jousting (in the later period) were dangerous…much more dangerous than anything we do today. It’s a completely different mindset we are talking about here, even different than soldiers are trained with today in modern armies. It’s a lot harder to kill someone than people think it is, even if they have familiarity with the weapons and armor from the past they still don’t have the psychological training and mindset of your average, run of the mill knight or fighting man from those times. (BTW, I totally missed that the crossbow wasn’t spanned in the OP. I’m still thinking I’d take that, since if I’m unarmored and he is, I’d run like a little girl and hide, then span the thing later and shoot the bastard when he goes to take a crap or rape the local village female, though having the crossbow unspanned is a serious drawback in the situation given by the OP. I might rethink using a quarterstaff instead, since I have actually hit someone with one before, and even sparred against someone with a live blade, and my own training might be ok to bash someone on the head or wrap them on the knuckles a few times, hit them on the knee really hard, then go for a groin shot…and THEN run away screaming like a little girl) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804/159 "2015-01-16T01:58:01Z")
MOOOOOOoooooooo! I’ve always liked halberds, but I suspect a warhammer is probably my best bet in this situation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-vs-a-medieval-knight/699804.md?page=7)