[Christian Henry Tobler]

Yes, exactly Bill! That's just what I said to students last night: "much of the stuff on Talhoffer was sooo 1998".

As you say, not only is there evidence of man/woman duels (Galas has records of two, I believe), we see variants of them in other manuscripts; Kal clearly shows a different version of the same idea.

But, again, it all needs to be viewed in the right perspective: the fact that anyone even cared to do a show like this is a victory.

Cheers,

Christian

[Glennan Carnie]

i have to say I only managed a few minutes before I had to stop watching.

The 'archer-versus-siege-bell' segment ruined it for me. Loades comment: "He's shooting a very VERY powerful bow - 80lb!" Heavy bow? Really? My wife shoots an 80lb bow! A very heavy bow is 160lb or more. Using such a bow demonstrates about as much as Bettany Hughes crushing an old sheep's skull with a rock in a bag.

It's frustrating when they use (what appeared to be) a re-enactor with incorrect equipment (a bamboo-backed laminate bow? In the 15th century?) for these demonstrations when there are many skilled heavy bow archers that could have added some legitimacy to their experiments (unscientific though they were).

And personally, I don't care for Mike Loades - or John Clement's - style of delivery: that overly-emphasised, aggressive, punctuated style. However knowledgeable, to me they come across as somewhat over-excitable loonies, rather than professional, skilled martial artists. I would prefer a more measured style.

[Martin Wallgren]

I was on to the same thing about the bow in another forum.

Aaron though is really a good ambassador for the HEMA. In great condition and skillfull.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Owen Bush]

well I really didn't think it was too bad at all . In fact I quite enjoyed it .
The reality is that television that is about anything one cares about is going to fall short in one way or another if you have any expertise at all.
I think that the fact that talhoffer is deemed interesting enough for mass distribution is in its self a +.
I made same comments to my companions about the "powerfull " bow but relatively speaking that is about what I can successfully pull...........
I think our world is expanding to new people and that is a good thing .

[Allen Foster]

I think we should start a campaign across armourdom and the hemasphere for everyone to go onto the NatGeo website and request more programming like this. If they really knew how much bigger and interesting the story really was, they would have to produce a major film.

More programming like this please

[David Teague]

Hello All

I agree with Jean on the war wagon...

those large cannons were just over the freaking top. I have " read" the plate in question as being hand gonnes as that's what they have illustrated in the plate , I have no friggen clue how hand gonnes on a tiller became a battery of breach loading field pieces...

There were many statements that drove me nuts, chain mail, heavy war bow, often husband and wife ( )... at least if you read JC's blog you'll understand why some of it happened. (like the phase "chain mail").

From his blog it sounds like they filmed lots of sword & messer stuff that never made it out of the cutting room.

Cheers,

David

[Hugh Knight]

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

[James Head]

[Chad Arnow]

[A. Gallo]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to catch this. "Ancient Sex Prophecies of Hitler's Bodyguards" made me laugh.

In the typical semi-historical debates you get into on places like YouTube there's always a guy who tells you to "Go watch the History channel". You can never tell whether its a serious recommendation or if he's insulting you by naming you as a viewer, so in a way, it's an effective finishing move.

Either way Clements gets a lot of criticism for pretty much everything he does; in this case if there are quirky historical accuracies I'd more likely attribute them to intentional desire by the shows producers. There are faults in his early attempts to translate fighting manuscripts but if there are really 15th century knights armed in bamboo I'll have to point the finger elsewhere...

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I have to say this though to be fair, John Clements and Aarons part in this were really the best parts, I think overall two steps forward one step back is a fair analysis, most of the problems were from National Geographic channel production team I think. I have a lot of disagreements with John but most of what he presented was fairly accurate. Did the 1459 portray an unarmored and an armoured guy fighting? Maybe, maybe not, but certainly it was possible for an unarmored man to have to fight an armored man and if you did (and couldn't run away) a mortschlag is probably one of your best bets. The free-play with him and Aaron was useful because it showed good HEMA techniques and demonstrated the high level of agility one can have in a decent harness, in fact I think that is the first time I've ever seen someone on commercial TV fighting for an extended period in full harness doing actual KDF techniques. So that is a fairly big deal.

He put his own politics in a little ("Talhoffer was a KNIGHT!!!") but I think 90% of what he said and demonstrated was pretty accurate compared to what we know as a community (and lets face it, nobody is always right in this world, as mentioned upthread most of what all of us thought in 1998 was pretty far off the mark), whereas most of what the rest of the production presented (like the tank) were fairly ridiculous / not even in the ballpark.

I would really like to see more but I'm not sure National Geographic (or the History Channel) would be the best venue.

Actually did anyone here see the History Channel documentary, I think it was modern marvels ironically enough, which had John Clements and Paul Champagne? It's been a while since I saw it but I remember it being quite good, better done over all than this one.

J

[David Teague]

Hello All,

If you take the time to read JC'c production blog , he covers why some of the "facts" and sword movements are "wrong".

I gigged him on the phrase "chain mail", turns out the director demanded he use it after shooting that same shot with the correct term maille. The director preferred the Victorian/D&D name over the historical one.

The striking with the flat, there was a safety issue so they opted for a safer strike over the historical one.

Really, love him, hate him, best to read his blog for the rest of the story on the show.

Cheers,

David

[Glen A Cleeton]

[Eric Allen]

It was entertaining if problematic. Most of the problems, to me, seem to be those endemic problems to all History Channel/NatGeo/Discovery popular media "documentaries".

Like David Teague just said: Clement's blog clarifies a lot--like why the term "chainmail" was used, why they had to do certain things certain ways, where they had to cut corners.
Though he doesn't call it out directly in his blog, I wonder if him calling Tallhoffer a knight was really him, or what the director told him to say, like with the "chainmail"
(Although, to be fair, even though we all know "chainmail" is inaccurate and redundant, the general populace only knows it by that name and can get confused when you refer to it by just "mail").

I think similar production problems can be inferred for some of Mike Loads's portions. The guns on the battlewagon, for example. Loads might be perfectly aware they look like handgonnes, not cannon. It is possible his breech-loading gun segment was filmed days or weeks prior to the battlewagon scene, and he only had a vague idea the two scenes were related. Maybe not, maybe he developed that whole sequence himself.
But, from what I know of documentary fimmaking from experts in several fields who have been asked to take part, I'd be more likely to blame the director/producer first for much of the inaccuracies and weirdness.

On the "crayfish":
IT seems to be the consensus view here that as presented, these were pretty ridiculous. But if the film got it wrong... they what ARE they? Since it is difficult to conduct tone through this medium, let me clarify: I think there silly, too, but would like to hear other peoples ideas on what there "crayfish" are, how they were constructed, and how they might have been used.

[Hugh Knight]

[Eric Allen]

I'd say the Mordshlag segment wasn't totally worthless.

Sure, the intent of the fechtbuch isn't to show an armored-vs-unarmored judicial fight, and for recreating the art we shouldn't interpret it that way, BUT the illustration does show one guy in harness and one guy not in harness--what it is meant to show is beside the point. Sure, in a judicial duel such a matchup would be extremely unlikely, but such a matchup was not impossible and could very likely be run into outside of judicial combat. In fact, the show explicitly stated as such.

If anything, the armored-vs-unarmored segment did serve to dispel some commonly-held misconceptions about such a matchup, such as that the unarmored man would be significantly faster or more maneuverable than the guy in harness.

[Hugh Knight]

[Eric Allen]

I came away with a quite opposite impression from that segment.
I thought they did a good job showing how a man in armor was nigh-on invulnerable to most threats, then showing how he was not outclassed in mobility. They did show he wasn't invincible, but we knew that anyway.