| Helm vs Sword |
| Helm |
|
52% |
[ 49 ] |
| Sword |
|
47% |
[ 44 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 93 |
|
| Author |
Message |
J. Helm
Location: WA, USA Joined: 17 Jun 2011
Posts: 33
|
 Posted: Fri 18 Dec, 2015 2:55 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
I'd have to go with a helm as well. Mostly because I wouldn't want to disgrace my surname by not wearing one.  But I figure it would also be easier to find a spare weapon that I could wield in a pinch than a helmet that fits well.
|
|
   |
 |
|
Mike Ruhala
Location: Stuart, Florida Joined: 24 Jul 2011
Posts: 335
|
| Posted: Fri 18 Dec, 2015 3:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Interesting. While still expensive the mail wasn't as out of proportion as some modern sources suggest. I'll guess the astronomical valuations are inferred from the relative scarcity of mail in an archaeological context. Based on the best numbers I can put together it looks like a mail shirt was worth 1.7 troy ounces of gold which adjusts to around $20,000 US dollars. These figures a little loose(+/- 20%) but roughly,
spear and shield: $3,334
sword and scabbard: $11,669
helm: $10,002
mail shirt: $20,004
everything: $45,009
I'm unclear as to whether "spear and shield" is the price for *both* or the price for *each.* I would have to assume both together because it's hard for me to imagine a shield costing that much but maybe the vast majority of the value was in the iron.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Matthew Amt
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 7:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Mike Ruhala wrote: | Interesting. While still expensive the mail wasn't as out of proportion as some modern sources suggest. I'll guess the astronomical valuations are inferred from the relative scarcity of mail in an archaeological context. Based on the best numbers I can put together it looks like a mail shirt was worth 1.7 troy ounces of gold which adjusts to around $20,000 US dollars. These figures a little loose(+/- 20%) but roughly,
spear and shield: $3,334
sword and scabbard: $11,669
helm: $10,002
mail shirt: $20,004
everything: $45,009
... |
The question that springs to my mind is, What was the average income/worth of the typical farmer? Because if 80 percent of the population is only making (just as a wild example!) $5000 or $6000 per year, most of that stuff is completely out of reach. Because that income has to go to feeding the family and providing clothing, not to mention rents, etc. There aren't any savings accounts, and a bad harvest can wipe you out.
So the cost of a mailshirt doesn't sound insane to us modern middle-class folks, but we're from a different world altogether. A fighter jet is still not something we'd put on our Christmas list! Bill Gates could buy a couple without selling a mansion off.
Matthew
|
|
|
|
|
|
Philip Dyer
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 8:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Matthew Amt wrote: | | Mike Ruhala wrote: | Interesting. While still expensive the mail wasn't as out of proportion as some modern sources suggest. I'll guess the astronomical valuations are inferred from the relative scarcity of mail in an archaeological context. Based on the best numbers I can put together it looks like a mail shirt was worth 1.7 troy ounces of gold which adjusts to around $20,000 US dollars. These figures a little loose(+/- 20%) but roughly,
spear and shield: $3,334
sword and scabbard: $11,669
helm: $10,002
mail shirt: $20,004
everything: $45,009
... |
The question that springs to my mind is, What was the average income/worth of the typical farmer? Because if 80 percent of the population is only making (just as a wild example!) $5000 or $6000 per year, most of that stuff is completely out of reach. Because that income has to go to feeding the family and providing clothing, not to mention rents, etc. There aren't any savings accounts, and a bad harvest can wipe you out.
So the cost of a mailshirt doesn't sound insane to us modern middle-class folks, but we're from a different world altogether. A fighter jet is still not something we'd put on our Christmas list! Bill Gates could buy a couple without selling a mansion off.
Matthew |
^Excellent point. Comparing a person's income to an item makes allot of things seem cheap, but there are alot things now and then that person simply can't afford to not spend money on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pieter B.
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 11:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Mike Ruhala wrote: | Interesting. While still expensive the mail wasn't as out of proportion as some modern sources suggest. I'll guess the astronomical valuations are inferred from the relative scarcity of mail in an archaeological context. Based on the best numbers I can put together it looks like a mail shirt was worth 1.7 troy ounces of gold which adjusts to around $20,000 US dollars. These figures a little loose(+/- 20%) but roughly,
spear and shield: $3,334
sword and scabbard: $11,669
helm: $10,002
mail shirt: $20,004
everything: $45,009
I'm unclear as to whether "spear and shield" is the price for *both* or the price for *each.* I would have to assume both together because it's hard for me to imagine a shield costing that much but maybe the vast majority of the value was in the iron. |
I have to agree with Math here.
Gold, silver and grain prices can be compared across the earth in a similar time period but it just doesn't translate to the 21st industrial century.
This is a bit unrelated but I once tried to work with the US minimum wage and compare those ratios with English medieval wages and incomes. It's not very scientific but it puts things into perspective.
1 pound = 240 pennies
An English man-at-arms was expected to turn up as a man-at-arms if he had an income of 20 pounds a year. Something which works out to a daily wage of 13,15 pennies a day. The actual wage a man-at-arms received when in France was a shilling (12 pennies) a day.
An archer on foot was paid something to the tune of 3 pennies a day which would result in a yearly wage of 4,56 pounds. I believe a few documents called for everyone who had a yearly revenue of 5 pounds to be armed like an archer although some call for the archer to be mounted at that income. The mounted archers in the 100 years war seems to be paid 6 pennies a day which would result in a wage near 10 pounds, documents call for a person with a revenue of 10 pounds to be armed like a hobeler. Someone with a bit more knowledge on English armies could perhaps explain this discrepancy or maybe the documents are not contemporary.
The lowest paid soldiers were welsh infantry who had a daily wage of 2 pennies a day or 3 pounds a year.
Of course few of these soldiers would be employed for a full year but it provides some interesting data in the form of 'pay-factors'. A men-at-arms would only be equipped thus if he had twice the yearly revenue of a mounted archer/hobeler and was paid a wage in similar proportion. An archer on foot would earn a fourth of what a men-at-arms would earn in wages. The least paid soldier was paid a sixth of what a men-at-arms was paid.
I don't have trustworthy academic sources on civilian wages but some numbers I've heard been tossed around were that a master carpenter could also earn 3 pennies a day while an unskilled laborer could earn between 1-2 pounds a year. It seems your average foot archer was in the same income class as the medieval young urban professional. The lowest paid welsh infantry guy still earned 300-150% of what the lowest paid laborer was.
In my little (very unscientific) thought experiment I placed the wage of that unskilled laborer at the level of the US minimum wage (15.000 dollars). If highly doubt those two are really similar since the minimum wage is a rather artificial income. Household income is also not the same as personal income. The medieval laborer could actually paid below what we consider minimum wages because it's artificially set high or the medieval laborer could earn more than today's minimum wage because the group of beggars or people with no income was higher in the medieval period therefore placing him higher on the scale.
For the medieval laborer I've decided to take an average of 1.5 pounds per year.
If we take 15.000 dollar to be a 1.5 pounds then each pound would represent around 10.000 dollars
The modern man worth (5 x 10.000) 50.000 a year would be required to turn out as an archer
The modern man worth (20 x 10.000) 200.000 would be required to turn up with a full set of plate armor and a war horse.
The one pound and a half/15.000 dollar man would sit near the 28% percentile which seems to be still quite high but it's possible the medieval unskilled laborer was still well above the poverty levels of the lower 20-25%.
An income of 5 pounds/50.000 dollars would put you 72% percentile which does sound a lot like a modern college educated young urban professional
An income of 20 pounds/200.000 dollars would put you in the 98.5% percentile, that would place medieval gentry in the top 1.5% or 2% of today's society, something which doesn't sound too wrong when you look at medieval society.
The median income levels of Knighthood in 15th century England sat around 100 pounds making such a person five times as rich as the average man-at-arms, though people could be expected to take up knighthood at an income of 40 pounds. One can obviously see that a medieval knight as hero would be more of a Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark rather than a poor noble who has to sleep under hedges.
The welsh infantry guy with 3 pounds/30.000 dollars would be in the 51.0% percentile.
overall it would seem the bottom half/50% of society never really participated in offensive war, that kind of destroys the whole untrained peasant levy image doesn't it? Another thing we know is that a pound of pepper could be bought for around 13 pennies that would translate to around 541 dollars for a pound today.
A good warhorse has been listed in a few secondary sources I read at 10 pounds or around 100.000 dollars, of course a man-at-arms could require multiple. I've seen some armor listed in the 8-16 pound region so that would be around 80.000 - 160.000 respectively. The initial cost of armor + warhorse + riding horse + page horse + riding tack + valet/page wages could probably run up to 300-400k. I believe Gorden Frye once said a well trained modern dressage stallion is around 100.000 dollars so in that regard the price conversion isn't to far off.
Anyways I have derailed myself quite a bit. I've gone on about 14th and 15th century stuff and not Frankish armor. Thought it might be important to remember that 20 pound income is around what a single manor could provide and I think that a single manor income has been the baseline income throughout the middle ages for various professional soldiers. I believe an anglo-saxon Thegn also needed to own something in the region of 5 hides of land, old scholarship suggested a hide of land was in the region of 120 acres but this has been challenged recently.
Sorry for going so off-topic. Id be interested in learning what 15th century mail would cost.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mike Ruhala
Location: Stuart, Florida Joined: 24 Jul 2011
Posts: 335
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 12:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Pieter B. wrote: |
Gold, silver and grain prices can be compared across the earth in a similar time period but it just doesn't translate to the 21st industrial century. |
It should be immediately obvious I wasn't using modern commodity prices in my figures. As of right now 1.7oz gold is ~ $1,800, a fraction of the relative value of the mail shirt. Per the OP the mail shirt is listed as being worth 6 times what the spear/shield is worth. Does anybody want to argue a spear and shield cost the equivalent of $33,000? And that's conservative compared to some of the figures being tossed around here. If we go with Matthew's example of Bill Gates(~79 billion) buying a jet fighter(20 million) that spear/shield cost the equivalent of $3,333,333.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Matthew Amt
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 12:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Mike Ruhala wrote: | | It should be immediately obvious I wasn't using modern commodity prices in my figures. As of right now 1.7oz gold is ~ $1,800, a fraction of the relative value of the mail shirt. Per the OP the mail shirt is listed as being worth 6 times what the spear/shield is worth. Does anybody want to argue a spear and shield cost the equivalent of $33,000? And that's conservative compared to some of the figures being tossed around here. If we go with Matthew's example of Bill Gates(~79 billion) buying a jet fighter(20 million) that spear/shield cost the equivalent of $3,333,333. |
Hoo, that'd be a pretty nice spear, eh? No, I wasn't trying to make *real* comparisons, partly because I don't think we can. And I agree that it's curious that a mailshirt is only worth that much more than a simple shield and spear. I don't have a good answer! I'm just saying that we shouldn't think of the "average guy" in early medieval society as anywhere NEAR as wealthy as the "average guy" in today's society. I was just grabbing for an example that would be morally equivalent: A Carolingian farmer would be no more likely to be able to buy helmet, mail, and sword, than most of us would be able to buy a fighter jet. Sure, that may be a little over the top, it's just the effect I was reaching for.
Matthew
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kyle Eaton
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 12:54 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
Too many variables and factors to even correctly compare modern society to that of a medieval one. It is far easier to math the ratio of what is affordable to that of the types of units in medieval armies to which the monetary system and the army both belongs to one date of a year and both originate from the same community and social environment (good luck).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pieter B.
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 1:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Mike Ruhala wrote: | | Pieter B. wrote: |
Gold, silver and grain prices can be compared across the earth in a similar time period but it just doesn't translate to the 21st industrial century. |
It should be immediately obvious I wasn't using modern commodity prices in my figures. As of right now 1.7oz gold is ~ $1,800, a fraction of the relative value of the mail shirt. Per the OP the mail shirt is listed as being worth 6 times what the spear/shield is worth. Does anybody want to argue a spear and shield cost the equivalent of $33,000? And that's conservative compared to some of the figures being tossed around here. If we go with Matthew's example of Bill Gates(~79 billion) buying a jet fighter(20 million) that spear/shield cost the equivalent of $3,333,333. |
I don't think anyone as rich as Bill gates lived back then.
Using the ratios I used for pound to dollar Henry V would "only" have an annual income of 800 million while his predecessor Richard II had 1100 million (That's 1,1 Billion)? This probably illustrates well how hopeless it would be to attempt to keep a standing army.
Anyways what we really need for this period is the price of armor in oxen/cows/horses or the annual income derived from land.
From the Osprey book on Carolingian cavalrymen
12 solidi for a war horse
12 solidi for mail armor
6 solidi for a helm
7 solidi for a sword and scabbard
3 solidi for a sword without scabbard
3 solidi for a riding horse
1-3 solidi for a cow
And there is more
Lex Ribuaria
| Quote: | | Si quis weregeldum solvere debet, bovem cornutum videntem et sanum pro 2 solidis tribuat. Vaccam cornutam videntem et sanam pro 1 solido tribuat. Equum videntem et sanum pro 7 solidis tribuat. Equam videntem et sanam pro 3 solidis tribuat. Spatam cum scogilo pro 7 solidis tribuat. Spata absque scogilo pro 3 solidis tribuat. Brunniam bonam pro 12 solidis tribuat. Helmum conderecto pro 6 solidis tribuat. Bainbergas bonas pro 6 solidis tribuat. Scutum cum lancea pro 2 solidis tribuat. |
| Quote: | | If someone must pay wergild, than a horned, sighted ox counts for 2 solidi. A horned, sighted and healthy cow counts for 1 solidus. A sighted and healthy horse counts for 7 solidi. A sighted and healthy mare counts for 3 solidi. A sword with scabbard counts for 7 solidi. A sword without scabbard counts for 3 solidi. A good breast plate (or chain mail byrnie) counts for 12 solidi. A usable helmet counts for 6 solidi. Good greaves count for 6 solidi. A shield and lance count for 2 solidi. |
Source: http://www.keesn.nl/price/en2_sources.htm
http://www.keesn.nl/price/en1_intro.htm
Really the numbers are all over the place but it appears a sword with plain scabbard could be got for less than a helmet. It would be great if we could get the revenue of land or the wage of certain people expressed in solidi or cows. However the fact that the Franks were still slave owners is going to distort the whole minimum wage then, minimum wage now thing a little.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Timo Nieminen
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 1:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The median "worker" spent a much, much larger fraction of their income on food (often, the median worker was a subsistence farmer, and almost everything went on food and taxes).
Price comparisons like the above are useful since they let us compare prices. They can be misleading if we think about modern wages. If most of your income/work goes for food, there's little left for extras. Consider a worker who eats 2kg of bread per day, and 250g of meat/fish. At my local bakery and supermarket, buying cheap, that can be $10 per day, translating to an income of under $4000 p.a. in modern terms. A $20,000 mail shirt doesn't look very affordable.
Where we have lots of subsistence farmers doing outside work to earn some cash, wages can be lower than subsistence. That is, the cash per day isn't enough to buy 1 day's food requirements. This can make it even harder to earn the extra money to buy arms and armour (or whatever luxuries you might want).
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pieter B.
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 2:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Timo Nieminen wrote: | The median "worker" spent a much, much larger fraction of their income on food (often, the median worker was a subsistence farmer, and almost everything went on food and taxes).
Price comparisons like the above are useful since they let us compare prices. They can be misleading if we think about modern wages. If most of your income/work goes for food, there's little left for extras. Consider a worker who eats 2kg of bread per day, and 250g of meat/fish. At my local bakery and supermarket, buying cheap, that can be $10 per day, translating to an income of under $4000 p.a. in modern terms. A $20,000 mail shirt doesn't look very affordable.
Where we have lots of subsistence farmers doing outside work to earn some cash, wages can be lower than subsistence. That is, the cash per day isn't enough to buy 1 day's food requirements. This can make it even harder to earn the extra money to buy arms and armour (or whatever luxuries you might want). |
That's another thing I noticed, some of those unskilled laborers got their wages halved if their employee gave them food. I'm not really sure about the subsistence thing, Broadberry examined historical GDP per capita levels and found that the average British person was earning around twice the bare bone subsistence level in 1990 dollars. Of course wealth was spread a little different.
However I still think the whole factor thing stands, as in: A man-at-arms was at least four times as wealthy as an archer if you look solely at wages given in indentured contracts and armor owning requirements set out in laws. Taking the US minimum wage as the lowest wage earned back then by unskilled laborers is a bit arbitrarily but it illustrates the relative wealth of those persons if they had lived now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mike Ruhala
Location: Stuart, Florida Joined: 24 Jul 2011
Posts: 335
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 2:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I would kind of like to see that spear, though! 
I think part of the miscommunication is the "average guy" thing. I couldn't tell you what the average income for any given era was and to me it doesn't really matter, because we are discussing arms and armor I automatically assume we're talking about middle class or wealthier individuals. If the discussion were more along the lines of "the middle and upper classes represented a minority of the Iron Age population and only they were likely to be able to afford to maintain an armory" I could understand that a lot better than what seems like declarations that "shirts of mail cost the equivalent of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and only superstars had them" which doesn't seem to be the case based on the historical information we have.
Another part might be that I'm not a reenactor so I look at some of these things differently. It is my understanding that there is a tendency in the reenactor community to over-represent very wealthy individuals, probably because they have the best stuff and are doing the coolest things. Let's not exaggerate too far in the other direction while addressing that distortion though or we'll end up with essentially the same problem.
| Pieter B. wrote: |
I don't think anyone as rich as Bill gates lived back then. |
That seems likely to me, as well. Currency can be thought of as energy tokens since it represents work or the product of work, with a much lower population and level of technology they simply weren't throwing around as much energy back then as we do today so there was less to accumulate.
| Quote: | | Anyways what we really need for this period is the price of armor in oxen/cows/horses or the annual income derived from land. |
Agreed!
As an additional point of reference I can tell you that a solidus was 4.5 grams of gold.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stephen Curtin
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 3:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Interesting conversation gentlemen. I'm glad I resurrected this old thread.
Éirinn go Brách
|
|
 |
|
Roger Hooper
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 4:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
My automatic answer is to go for the sword, but in this case, as others have said, it is a secondary weapon in the shield wall. I need that helmet first. Maybe I can pick up the sword from the battlefield detritus.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mike Ruhala
Location: Stuart, Florida Joined: 24 Jul 2011
Posts: 335
|
| Posted: Sat 19 Dec, 2015 5:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
That's more or less the way I see it. If I mostly expected to find myself in group combat I'd want the helm first but if I was more concerned about individual combat or daily self defense I'd opt for the sword.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Baard H
|
| Posted: Thu 24 Dec, 2015 12:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Personally it's not much of a question. Let's say you own the bog standard Norwegian equipment of axe, shield and spear.
The axe is roughly the same length of the sword, it has similar techniques and serves overall the same function as a sword. Logic says the helmet is higher on the list than a sword, especially if you're required by law to own a helmet if you can afford it.
At kveldi skal dag leyfa,
konu, er brennd er,
mæki, er reyndr er,
mey, er gefin er,
ís, er yfir kemr,
öl, er drukkit er.
-Hávamál, vísa 81
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Anthony Cannarella
Location: Medford, Oregon Joined: 02 Sep 2013
Posts: 15
|
| Posted: Fri 25 Dec, 2015 9:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Sword.
If the Fates decide the time I die, It's not up to me. A helmet would be nice to have, but ultimately a sword in hand is something I can use and prove my prowess.
Populus stultus viris indignis honores saepe dat.
-Quintus Horatius Flaccus
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stephen Curtin
|
| Posted: Sat 26 Dec, 2015 12:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Baard H wrote: | Personally it's not much of a question. Let's say you own the bog standard Norwegian equipment of axe, shield and spear.
The axe is roughly the same length of the sword, it has similar techniques and serves overall the same function as a sword. Logic says the helmet is higher on the list than a sword, especially if you're required by law to own a helmet if you can afford it. |
Hi Baard. The original question was, assuming you had only a spear and shield, which would you buy next, a sword or a helm? The Norwegian laws were only brought up to show that, contrary to what most here think, a secondary weapon was a higher priority than helm.
Éirinn go Brách
|
|
|
|
|
|
Niels Just Rasmussen
|
| Posted: Sat 26 Dec, 2015 5:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Stephen Curtin wrote: | | Baard H wrote: | Personally it's not much of a question. Let's say you own the bog standard Norwegian equipment of axe, shield and spear.
The axe is roughly the same length of the sword, it has similar techniques and serves overall the same function as a sword. Logic says the helmet is higher on the list than a sword, especially if you're required by law to own a helmet if you can afford it. |
Hi Baard. The original question was, assuming you had only a spear and shield, which would you buy next, a sword or a helm? The Norwegian laws were only brought up to show that, contrary to what most here think, a secondary weapon was a higher priority than helm. |
It is important to remember that the Scandinavian "leding laws" (both Norwegian, Danish and Swedish) are minimum requirements for a campaign called by the King (or local leader of the Ting).
If you don't have this minimum set you will get fined. [So in effect these are taxes on the population].
So the early Norwegian laws are concentrated on weapons as armour apparently was the individuals own problem.
Later Scandinavian medieval laws gets more and more minimum-set-requirements, which also includes helms and armour.
See thread: http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=32114&highlight=
The point is that the individual Norwegian didn't have any choice in the early laws in settling for a helmet before any of the other weapons if they wanted to avoid a fine. Maybe the law is in fact worded this way to take the choice away from people!! So it was the King which had weapons as the higher priority, not necessarily the individual farmer.
The minimum requirement is MINIMUM - you could bring all the extra stuff you wanted if you could afford it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stephen Curtin
|
| Posted: Sat 26 Dec, 2015 6:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Niels Just Rasmussen wrote: | | So it was the King which had weapons as the higher priority, not necessarily the individual farmer. |
Fair point.
| Niels Just Rasmussen wrote: | | The minimum requirement is MINIMUM - you could bring all the extra stuff you wanted if you could afford it. |
Well the premise behind this thread was that you could only afford one of the two (sword or helm) , which according to Frankish sources were close in price.
Éirinn go Brách
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
All contents © Copyright 2003-2024 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Basic Low-bandwidth Version of the forum
|
This is a standard topic
