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Samuel D R
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 Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Samuel D R wrote: | | Have you read my posts? I posted the Battle of Maldon as evidence for the very thing you're trying to refute o.o. |
What am I trying to refute?
From the text of Maldon, they threw spears, and they used them as hand-to-hand weapons. Don't cherry-pick; read the whole thing. Don't ignore the many cases of spears being used as hand-to-hand weapons rather than throwing weapons! (Lines 77, 124 (using spears in the shield wall), 138, 226, 262, 296 (spears in the shield wall again), 322 (probably).) |
I didn't cherry-pick, never said spears were just throwing weapons. Spears were used in every rank except the front in the poem, which has Brythnoth and his gesithas drawing their swords. Have you read the poem?
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | Enemy grabs spear
Yanks it
You die. |
This is often given as the "reason" why spears are such bad weapons. It doesn't work quite so easily in practice - a good spearman will take advantage of the opening you give him (by attempting a grab) and use it to hit you. In a shield wall, it's even worse - the spearman's neighbours will kill you.
Try it against somebody who knows how to fight with a spear (a staff or other suitable pole with a padded end works as a practice weapon for this).
And as already said, grabbing the spear doesn't kill you.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Samuel D R
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| Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Samuel D R wrote: | Enemy grabs spear
Yanks it
You die. |
This is often given as the "reason" why spears are such bad weapons. It doesn't work quite so easily in practice - a good spearman will take advantage of the opening you give him (by attempting a grab) and use it to hit you. In a shield wall, it's even worse - the spearman's neighbours will kill you.
Try it against somebody who knows how to fight with a spear (a staff or other suitable pole with a padded end works as a practice weapon for this).
And as already said, grabbing the spear doesn't kill you. |
Stumbling forward does. You'd leave your sides exposed to enemies with broadswords, axes, knives and spears.
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Philip Dyer
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| Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | | Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Samuel D R wrote: | Enemy grabs spear
Yanks it
You die. |
This is often given as the "reason" why spears are such bad weapons. It doesn't work quite so easily in practice - a good spearman will take advantage of the opening you give him (by attempting a grab) and use it to hit you. In a shield wall, it's even worse - the spearman's neighbours will kill you.
Try it against somebody who knows how to fight with a spear (a staff or other suitable pole with a padded end works as a practice weapon for this).
And as already said, grabbing the spear doesn't kill you. |
Stumbling forward does. You'd leave your sides exposed to enemies with broadswords, axes, knives and spears. |
And what makes so damn sure that even you spear is sucessfully yankied that you are guarenteed to be pulled hard enough to get hit by wielding weapons hrter than yours? You could also make the of dropping a weapon or moving in range to able to grab a spear get in tug of war so make a spearmen stumble forward would expose more to the sides as well. Again, if that was so obvious and easy to do, why whre shield and spear phalanxes ever used in the first place? Also, in order to grab the spear you could exposing you arm and armpit to either being cutt or stabbed.
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | | Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Samuel D R wrote: | Enemy grabs spear
Yanks it
You die. |
This is often given as the "reason" why spears are such bad weapons. It doesn't work quite so easily in practice - a good spearman will take advantage of the opening you give him (by attempting a grab) and use it to hit you. In a shield wall, it's even worse - the spearman's neighbours will kill you.
Try it against somebody who knows how to fight with a spear (a staff or other suitable pole with a padded end works as a practice weapon for this).
And as already said, grabbing the spear doesn't kill you. |
Stumbling forward does. You'd leave your sides exposed to enemies with broadswords, axes, knives and spears. |
So don't stumble forwards. The grabber/puller has no mechanical advantage - just as easy to pull them forwards as they yank the spear, and let them die instead. More likely, neither pulls the other forward.
To repeat, try it. Try it against a competent spearman and see what happens.
The spear works well in a shield wall, including in the front rank. The Greeks and Romans weren't stupid, and they both used spears in the front rank(s) of shield walls. The spear would still have worked well in the Dark Ages.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Craig Peters
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| Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: |
That's not really an argument. You used a 14th century longsword to pierce things. That doesn't have any links to a 6th century migration period spatha. Not to mention the dimensions, heft and usage (not to mention point) of the blades were different.
I'm not theorising, I'm building off what real martial artists have said (Matt Easton, etc...) from their own experiences. |
You are theorizing Sam. I've done the same thing myself. I used to argue online with other people about HEMA based upon what "experts" said. The whole thing was rather foolish, because at the time I did not have enough personal experience to evaluate arguments meaningfully or to come to my own conclusions. That is no longer the case.
By the way, the Tritonia is not a long sword, which, as you may know, is a sword that has a grip long enough to accommodate two hands. It's a single-handed sword. I chose the Tritonia as an example because its point is actually rounder and less acute than many Migration Era swords. Because of its shape, it will actually have a harder time penetrating a target than most Migration Era swords.
When the Tritonia dates to is mostly irrelevant to our discussion. The profile taper and blade cross section of the Tritonia are the two greatest factors in contributing to how it thrusts, and this is true regardless of what time period the sword dates to. Therefore, my experience with the Tritonia and its especially broad and not so acute point is a meaningful way to evaluate how easily a narrower point might perform against a target when thrusting. Further, having thrusted with a variety of other swords including Type X blades, I have never found one that is "isn't very effective". This argument simply does not stand.
Regarding the movies you have shown with Fiore, it is possible to use the long sword at a closer range than shown here “without dancing around” as you put it. More to the point, even in a battlefield situation with comparatively little maneuverability, it still makes sense to try to bind your opponent's weapon with your own weapon. It's simply safer to do so. On a battlefield there might be greater restrictions and limitations in terms of what you can do from the crossing (although actions from the crossing can be shorter and tighter than the initial attack prior to it) but the principle still works. It simply does not make sense to allow your opponent free control of his weapon to strike at you, unless you want to be struck and killed. So whether or not the later manuals show battlefield fighting not germane to this discussion because binding the opponent's weapon with your weapon is a principle that makes sense in all situations, unless perhaps the weapon is too short to easily bind. As previously mentioned, the moment you have weapons being used to bind, then skill and dexterity become crucial. So, on the basis of what actually makes to stay alive when fighting, Migration Era warriors would have certainly used binding, and therefore the claim that the swords relied on strength as opposed to skill or dexterity does not make sense.
One more thing for me to add. I have been aware of the HEMA community since 2002, although I started to be more serious about my practice in 2012. I now teach students, and we meet twice a week; in fact, we will be meeting tonight to practice. I've done many of the strikes into the thousands of times in solo work, not to mention spending time refining various techniques to make them tighter and more efficient. I will not say that I am comparable to Matt Easton, because I am not. However, if you think I am not a martial artist, you are very sadly mistaken.
Last edited by Craig Peters on Wed 08 Mar, 2017 11:59 pm; edited 4 times in total
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | Enemy grabs spear
Yanks it
You die. |
Well, I was starting to leaf through a few books for some sources, but this had me laughing out loud. And crying a little. I'm truly sorry, since I had hopes for the discussion, but there's no way I can discuss something like this with any hope of convincing you.
Enjoy,
Matthew
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Stephen Curtin
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 5:09 am Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | To use your own terms, the burden of proof is on you for that one. Everyone in history has had some form of armour. We know from Procopius and Jordanes the Franks used boiled leather armour, fur armour (otter fur), and even cloth armour. The poorer Saxons were similarily equipped against Charlemagne a few centuries later.
There's no reason that other Germans didn't either. The Romans had the subarmalis, which is easy enough to make. |
Samuel I have to say that I disagree with just about everything you said here. The "burden of proof" is most definitely on the person arguing that migration period peoples used body armour other than mail. There has been dozens of threads here that cover this topic, but at the end of the day what would it take to absolutely prove that people didn't use such armours. It's impossible, no-one can prove such a thing beyond doubt. Even if you are able to provide a piece of evidence, remember evidence and proof are too different things. For example, let's say that a particular culture were known to have rode horses, it's also known that they used bows and arrows. Someone could say that these people were horse archers. Another person could argue that they were not horse archers. If there's no definitive proof either way, it's safer to assume the negative rather than the positive.
To say that everyone in history wore some form of armour is a bold statement, and easily proven wrong. For example, the laws of Magnus VI of Norway (1238-1280) dictated that a man who had 6 marks worth in goods was to have a spear, a shield, and a sidearm (either sword or axe), a man with 12 marks was to have all of these plus a helmet, and a man with 18 marks was to have all of these plus body armour (hauberk or gambeson). You see, even in a time when we know that an alternative to mail (gambeson) existed, not everyone could afford or was expected to wear it.
You say Procopius and Jordanes reference boiled leather armour used by the Franks, could you please share this reference? Also I don't see how otter fur could be thought of as armour.
As Matthew has pointed out the Roman subarmalis is by definition worn under armour. We have no evidence of Roman soldiers using armours other than mail, scale, lamelar, or plate.
| Samuel D R wrote: | | Quote: | | Not everyone would have been able to afford these armours. |
Yes, everyone could. People at the very least owned animals (or they'd have no food and die). If one of those was a pig or sheep/goat they could shear it and use the wool to stuff a subarmalis*. If one was a cow, they could make leather. |
Just because a people had access to textiles and leather, doesn't mean that these materials were used for armour. Also not all leather would be suitable for making armour, only the thickest pieces. The only sources that I know of that might discribes the use of textile and leather armour before the 12th century come from Ireland. I say might because although these sources were based on oral tradition, they weren't written down until the 12th century. The Irish hero Cú Chulainn for example, is said to have worn 27 linen shirts and a battle girdle made from the choicest parts of seven ox hides. This much linen and leather would have been very expensive, and so not accessible to everyone.
I hope that you don't take my or anyone else's comments negatively. If you search these forums you will find that this topic has been discussed many times, so some of the members here have made their minds up on the subject, and so might seem dismissive of people who bring it up again.
Éirinn go Brách
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Samuel D R
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 7:23 am Post subject: |
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There's no other way to take these comments other than negatively- they're negative.
I never said that they would be used for armour, I was arguing against someone who said people didn't even own textiles. There were certainly such people, they were called slaves.
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Samuel D R
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 7:26 am Post subject: |
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Using 12th century Irish laws for 6th century Germanic armour is ridiculous. That's like saying we can guess what Caesar's armour was from Romulus-era Romans (who wore a bronze plate circle on their chest).
We can't say that chainmail wasn't commonly used, since we have only found one suit from the 6th century. There's no evidence to disprove that every single man from the same period had chainmail that just wasn't buried with him.
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Stephen Curtin
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | | I never said that they would be used for armour |
I'm not sure what you're referring to here, but I assume that you mean textile and leather armours. You may not have said it directly, but you did say this;
| Samuel D R wrote: | We know from Procopius and Jordanes the Franks used boiled leather armour, fur armour (otter fur), and even cloth armour. The poorer Saxons were similarily equipped against Charlemagne a few centuries later.
There's no reason that other Germans didn't either. |
I wasn't using Irish sources to prove anything about migration period Franks. I only brought that piece of information up because it gives us an idea of what textile and leather armours would probably be like, if they were used that is.
Just so we are clear. Are you trying to say that every warrior in a migration period army had a mail shirt?
Éirinn go Brách
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Philip Dyer
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 10:07 am Post subject: |
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| Stephen Curtin wrote: | | Samuel D R wrote: | | I never said that they would be used for armour |
I'm not sure what you're referring to here, but I assume that you mean textile and leather armours. You may not have said it directly, but you did say this;
| Samuel D R wrote: | We know from Procopius and Jordanes the Franks used boiled leather armour, fur armour (otter fur), and even cloth armour. The poorer Saxons were similarily equipped against Charlemagne a few centuries later.
There's no reason that other Germans didn't either. |
I wasn't using Irish sources to prove anything about migration period Franks. I only brought that piece of information up because it gives us an idea of what textile and leather armours would probably be like, if they were used that is.
Just so we are clear. Are you trying to say that every warrior in a migration period army had a mail shirt? |
I also am wondering why he thinks that Migration era Franks are somehow richer than 12th century Norse that they could afford to oufit more men with cloth, leather and mail armor. Seems to running counter what we know from later eras, that armor weapons tend to get cheaper because of increasing surplus.
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Sebastian Goriesky
Location: Vinland Joined: 17 Sep 2015
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 11:20 am Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | | Quote: | Granted, those are Byzantine sources, I suspect they might get neglected! Or are these "Franks" the 12th or 13th centuries, perhaps? I don't know the dates for Procopius or Jordanes.
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You're off by 700 years. And sure, here you go.
"At this time the Franks, hearing that both the Goths and Romans had suffered severely by the war ... forgetting for the moment their oaths and treaties ... (for this nation in matters of trust is the most treacherous in the world), they straightway gathered to the number of one hundred thousand under the leadership of Theudebert I and marched into Italy: they had a small body of cavalry about their leader, and these were the only ones armed with spears, while all the rest were foot soldiers having neither bows nor spears, but each man carried a sword and shield and one axe. Now the iron head of this weapon was thick and exceedingly sharp on both sides, while the wooden handle was very short. And they are accustomed always to throw these axes at a signal in the first charge and thus to shatter the shields of the enemy and kill the men."
-Procopius
"The dress of a Frankish noble was a narrow tunica of soft material. it reached just above the knees, was striped or plain, with a bright colour as a border. Over this would be worn sometimes a short jacket of fur, without sleeves. A belt with a buckle was fastenedr ound the waist, set with precious stones and studs of gold, and from it was suspended as mall sword on the right side. A larger sword hung on the left side, by a baldric of leather, ornamented with studs, crossing the breast."
-Merovingian costume history
5th century Frankish warlord
5th century Frankish warrior
Old English contains words like leðerhelm. |
I'm going to point out a few glaring flaws in your arguments here. First off, the Battle of Maldon is a poetic recounting of the mentioned battle. As the original manuscript was destroyed in a fire in 1731, we have no way of finding out when it was first written down, let alone recounted orally. This of course means we can't trust it as a completely factual source. I'm not saying that you can't use it, it just means that you should take it with a grain of salt. Next, Your usage of the provided quotes provides no information to the armor of a common fyrdsman beyond a shield. In fact, your second quote only describes the dress of a Frankish nobleman. I'd also caution you from using Wold4.eu, as it doesn't post any references for its assertions and appears to be using drawings from the late 18th century, an era not well known for the accuracy of its artistic representations of early Germanic warriors. Case and Point, the attached image (source http://world4.eu/frankish-merovingian-costume-history/) and the Hermannsdenkmal, finished in 1873.
 Attachment: 26.24 KB
Away from his arms in the open field
A man should fare not a foot;
For never he knows when the need for a spear
Shall arise on the distant road.
-Havamal, Stanza 38
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Samuel D R
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 11:58 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Just so we are clear. Are you trying to say that every warrior in a migration period army had a mail shirt? |
-> The point
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-> Your head
No. I was saying that it's just as accurate to say everyone had a mail shirt as it is to say no one did. There is no proof.
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Samuel D R
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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Don't bother replying, there's no point. I'm not going to argue with people who think absence of evidence is evidence of absence, or that one guess is objectively true and another guess is not.
Since that is what talking about armour for the period is: guessing.
You can't say "you're wrong" anymore than "you're right". It's a guess.
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Samuel D R
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 12:04 pm Post subject: |
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"People didn't wear armour commonly" is backed up by zero evidence, just absence of evidence. It's on par with "Bush did 9/11" or "Kubrick faked the Moon Landing", and at least those do have facts to back them up, rather than "we've not found something so it doesn't exist". We've yet to find the Sun (could be a mirage), Black Holes (largely theoretical and hard to observe) or the skeleton of Aethelred the Unready. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't believe all three of those exist(ed).
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Stephen Curtin
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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That attitude really isn't necessary.
If you don't want to discuss this further then that is fine, but if you change your mind, why don't you share with us what exactly are your views on migration period body armour? Call me stupid if you want, but I'm can't figure out from your posts what exactly your point is. Do you believe that body armour was common? If so what kind(s)?
Éirinn go Brách
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Max L
Location: Philly Joined: 29 Dec 2013
Posts: 85
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | | "People didn't wear armour commonly" is backed up by zero evidence, just absence of evidence. It's on par with "Bush did 9/11" or "Kubrick faked the Moon Landing", and at least those do have facts to back them up, rather than "we've not found something so it doesn't exist". We've yet to find the Sun (could be a mirage), Black Holes (largely theoretical and hard to observe) or the skeleton of Aethelred the Unready. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't believe all three of those exist(ed). |
This is pretty absurd. The reason you shouldn't believe "Bush did 9/11" is because there is no evidence that he did. And on the other hand, the reason people believe in the sun is because there is observable evidence of it's existence.
Likewise, there is no reason to believe that armor was common in the Migration period until there is evidence otherwise.
Do we have proof either way? Of course not. But its a much safer, and more reasonable assumption, to not believe in the existence of something unless you have evidence of it's existence.
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Stephen Curtin
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Max L wrote: | Likewise, there is no reason to believe that armor was common in the Migration period until there is evidence otherwise.
Do we have proof either way? Of course not. But its a much safer, and more reasonable assumption, to not believe in the existence of something unless you have evidence of it's existence. |
My thoughts exactly.
Éirinn go Brách
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Thu 09 Mar, 2017 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Samuel D R wrote: | | "People didn't wear armour commonly" is backed up by zero evidence, just absence of evidence... |
That's flat-out wrong. It is in fact supported by archeological, literary, and pictoral evidence.
Mail is an uncommon archeological find, while shield bosses are quite common. We're talking 1400 graves from Denmark alone, dating 100 BC to c. 400 AD, which is a little earlier than your focal point but simply an illustration. No mail or helmets in any of them, but shield bosses in most. Of course, that may simply reflect burial customs. Very similar sort of ratio in England. The big bog finds like Illerup and Vimose contain hundreds if not thousands of spears and other weapons, dozens of shield bosses, but only a few mailshirts. They are believed to be deposits of equipment captured in battle, so they should be a better cross-section of what was actually used by someone.
As I said earlier, militia requirements state that mail was for men above a certain wealth limit. Those below, presumably more numerous judging by what we know of medieval economics, were not required to have mail. No other types of body armor are mentioned until the introduction of the quilted gambeson/acketon in the 12th century. Other common items like spears and shields are always listed. You may even find historical accounts of men in combat without armor, though I certainly agree that if it doesn't state whether a man was armored or not, it doesn't help either way.
Open any relevant book and you'll find illustrations from the Bronze Age through the 11th century showing any number of men in combat without armor. Including things like the Bayeux Tapestry.
Is any of this *proof*? Of course not! But it's all EVIDENCE and must be considered accordingly. That's how history works.
Is there a shortage of evidence? Always! But there are also situations in which we actually have *evidence of absence*.
Well, I said I wasn't going to post on this any more, but you said we shouldn't bother, so I guess that's okay.
Matthew
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