Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXV [Archive] - Page 5

rrgg

2018-05-27, 10:20 PM

http://mikeprendergast.ie/monte/

I've recently been reading through this translation of a series of works by Pietro Monte, an italian soldier who lived at the end of the middle ages, and so far it's been really informative. He talks quite a bit about the advantages of various weapons, the differences between fighting one on one vs battles, and the differences between fighting in heavy armor vs light.

In particular, in the final section where he talks about military tactics and strategy he offers a really interesting take on the question of heavy sword&shield men vs swiss/german style pikemen which frequently shows up in early modern military treatises. Unlike Machiavelli however, Monte did have quite a bit of real-world military experience and presumably had a better idea of what he was talking about.

I'm still not entirely certain about the translation or the descripition (is he talking about pikemen literally crossing pikes with their neighbor to create a row of X's?), but he seems to be claiming that the Swiss/German pike squares had two different methods of fighting, one of which was vulnerable against heavily armored footmen with large shields while the other was vulnerable against other pikemen with longer pikes. His suggestion for defeating this new order then was to combine heavily armored shieldmen and pikemen together in the same formation, forcing the enemy to defend against just one or the other:

"

XIV. ON THE ORDER TO COUNTER THE ORDER WHICH THE GERMANS USUALLY KEEP.

For the sake of setting out some way for universally withstanding many peoples, we shall here place an example against the order and formation of Germans in conflict, for here the German order in our times appears almost untouchable. Even though they may be few and must pass from place to place and have no offensive arms except for lances, riding crossbowmen and soldiers with heavy armour can be very strong against Germans. Indeed when Germans wholly keep their order, they bring all sorts of weapons along with them; they especially have very many kinds of cannons on all sides. Therefore they can very easily go against riding crossbowmen and against weapon-bearers with heavy armour, which in the vernacular are called men at arms. When the Germans want to charge or clash with them, they bring all lances into contact in strength, somewhat like the cross of St Andrew, and in this way horses can pass without great detriment through the middle of the German footsoldiers, and those who remain far away are often constrained by these footsoldiers. And when the whole array or unit begins to retreat, it can be said to be devastated, and therefore, against Swiss or German footsoldiers, another, stronger, order must be assumed. And here it can be said that it will be useful to have some armed carriages against the enemies, since the people can move the carriages all the way to the middle of the enemies and walk safely. But this will take place only on plains, and once in many years. Therefore it is appropriate to devise another formation which is easier and more common, where one must pay special attention in every way to an order which is stronger than the German custom. This can be done, having considered the Germans’ strength, and it is to be done in such a way at first: the units are to be ordered in accordance with the German custom, with lances and halberds, and along the sides one should attach handguns or springalds, and crossbows, and all these things of the side are machines for striking or killing at a long distance. But beyond the German order, a unit of heavily armoured cavalry is to be placed behind, and on the face or the front part, very strong and excellently armoured men, and all first men, for seven or eight ranks, should have very big shields, and at least in the middle some very strong lames of steel, and at the back and in the middle of those who carry the shields, one should insert other men, strong and armed, with longer lances than those the Germans bear. And here the Germans will be forced to choose one of two: either throwing with their lances in a loose or unrestricted way against the shield-bearers, or putting their lances in a cross, to keep the enemies from concentrating in their middle. Against the first choice, as long as the Germans strike loose blows with their lances, the shieldbearers can enter in the middle of the Germans, and there, when all are armed with swords and other short weapons, they can quickly and easily devastate the Germans’ entire formation, and beyond this order, the Germans are less strong; and if they put their lances like the cross of St Andrew, those who have longer lances coming between the shieldbearers, without difficulty, give enormous trouble against the Germans, and in this way they can easily enter in their middle, and when they are divided or rolled back, the heavily armoured cavalry should run against the enemies with maximum force, and men who are fast and sufficiently strong in similar things are sought. For all Germans are by nature slow and so, when they are rolled back together with enemies and are found out of order, they suffer much adversity with little effort because of their slowness or inagility; and this order which we have set out will always oppose the order of the Germans, since it goes against their temperament, and just as we have said about them, one should, against other nations, investigate methods contrary to their own.

"

rrgg

2018-05-27, 11:20 PM

Here's something interesting from page 185 where he talks a bit about how quality armor is made:

"

If someone wants to handle light and safe arms, he should altogether take up iron or steel. In Spruco, a city in Germany, the best iron and steel is found. Therefore the masters there put arms to the test with crossbows, and commonly it is said that such tempering is caused because of one body of water which passes through those places. But in fact they temper with any cold water, and some who had seen the excellence of this iron wanted to experiment to make a corslet resistant to sclopetis, which is a small kind of cannon, and in fact achieved this. Nevertheless, one should wear a silk quilt and a well-sewn cloth over the corslet. And when it becomes wet it is rendered stronger, though such armour is heavy according to the Germans, but not according to the Italians or French, and this armour should be strong through all parts. Now though there are arms made in Italy which are nearly as good as those from Spruco. Although the art recently originated from Germany, and afterwards hands are of good nature and well-equipped, the secret consists in beating the arms a lot when they are already cold, and they should produce strong tempering, though they should not be broken but remain like any iron of an arrow, weapon, or things like these, which are neither broken nor folded.

"

snowblizz

2018-05-28, 03:05 AM

Regarding the cross thing.

I think what may be meant is that that you brace (in the ground) the pike slanted forwards. As opposed to holding it out horisontally for the "loose stabbing".

If the author was modern he would have said "they should put the like back-slashes" :smallbiggrin:

At least that's what I'd say makes sense, as the 2 main methods of holding your pike in combat would be covered.

That would also mean the author is talking about stuff that was used, like the Rondoleros.

Vinyadan

2018-05-28, 05:17 AM

This follows. While the hoplite phalanx is perfectly serviceable, even during its heyday in antiquity it saw defeats at the hands of skirmishers and other formations that could outmaneuver it - IIRC there were scattered successful experiments with using more flexible infantry to defeat the hoplite phalanx during the Peloponnesian Wars. There's some reason to believe the formation's persistence was due as much to social factors as its effectiveness - for the Greeks and their imitators, the hoplite phalanx was an important symbol of citizenship, masculinity, and individual courage.

Greece is as uneven as central and southern Italy, if not worse. This is why there have been a million battles at Mantineia, it was one of the few flat places where two large phalanxes could fight each other. Social factors definitely were a thing. There also was the idea that most fights should be fought with the home city in sight, which maybe made the phalanx somewhat more viable. But I remember seeing the hoplitical revolution in Greece described as an oddity. A rocky land filled with mountains and hills, and chronically poor on natural resources, somehow not only adopted, but actually invented a kind of formation that needed lots of metal and flat terrain. And it was adopted because it still was effective (the Spartans defeated by the Argives at the Battle of Hysiae (669 BC)).

I personally wonder whether the Samnites completely ignored the hoplitical revolution, or simply chose to adapt themselves to the terrain they were living in. In a way, they were what the Greeks could have been. I thought I saw an hoplite in this image from a Samnite tomb, but I guess that it could be a spear-thrower armed with a shield.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Samnite_soldiers_from_a_tomb_frieze_in_Nola_4th_ce ntury_BCE.jpg

I don't think that the rounded scutum made fighting in formation more difficult than flat ones. Actually, I think it was better. And the hoplon itself was rounded. I think that the scutum allowed you to carry the weight of the shield closer to your body, and that it was better at deflecting hits. Keeping the shields in line probably wasn't any more difficult than it would have been with flat shields.

About Roman generals, keep in mind that one of the strong points of Rome was superior know-how and elite formation for its leaders. With this I don't deny the centurion's role, nor do I mean that they were all Scipions. But, after the second Punic war, I doubt that Roman generals could easily meet their equals abroad, the Parthians being the exception.

Actually, it wasn't the terrain of Italy that stimulated the change, the Romans fought in the regular hoplite phalanx for a long time. It was fast-moving, loose-formation Celts and Samnites, who could consistently out-maneuver the hoplite phalanx that spurred it.

According to Mommsen, the ancient tradition was that the rounded scutum was a weapon of the Samnites that was adopted by the Romans (he didn't agree, on etymological reasons that are now outdated). The tradition was that the Romans started out with a quadrangular flat shield, then got the round clipeus from the Etruscans, and finally the curved scutum from the Samnites.

Kiero

2018-05-28, 05:47 AM

People hugely underestimate the social conventions involved in hoplite warfare - and the fact that many of the norms were designed to ensure only a specific and restricted class were involved in war at all. One of the early parts of any campaign in Greece involved road-building by both sides to reach the pre-defined battle sites. Or more accurately, road maintenance, since previous campaigns would have done the same thing in clearing and repairing the roads on the way to the fight.

I think the Samnites simply weren't interested in adopting these conventions, and preferred a simpler way of fighting, involving a lot of raiding and plundering rather than the formal affair of a clash of phalanxes.

The Jack

2018-05-28, 07:10 AM

But I remember seeing the hoplitical revolution in Greece described as an oddity. A rocky land filled with mountains and hills, and chronically poor on natural resources, somehow not only adopted, but actually invented a kind of formation that needed lots of metal and flat terrain. And it was adopted because it still was effective (the Spartans defeated by the Argives at the Battle of Hysiae (669 BC)).

.

I dunno, it's not really an area I'm big on, but hoplites in general seem to make more sense in the mountains and hills. In a shallow and not really complete overview, many cultures famed for their heavy infantry do seem to be from lands of hills,mountains,lakes and which are often islands/peninsulas. Legions, Vikings, Britons.. In comparison, when one thinks of flatlanders, it seems less likely that heavy infantry will get the cake, and if they do it's likely neigbour influence. In contrast, these lands are hardly famed for horsemanship unless it's famous for being awful.

And if you can excuse that over generalization, there's many a reason to make it.
-Less space means the quality of individual troops gains more importance compared to tactics/numbers, In comparison to open terrain.
-Bad terrain means there's a lesser advantage in more mobile troops.
-More Defensive geography (chokepoints, advantageous ground) means you need to worry less about the maneuverability of your own troops/formations.
-Hills- make for strong legs, allow you to destroy the moral of stick-legged flatlanders with your well routed laughter.

Kiero

2018-05-28, 07:13 AM

I dunno, it's not really an area I'm big on, but hoplites in general seem to make more sense in the mountains and hills. In a shallow and not really complete overview, many cultures famed for their heavy infantry do seem to be from lands of hills,mountains,lakes and which are often islands/peninsulas. Legions, Vikings, Britons.. In comparison, when one thinks of flatlanders, it seems less likely that heavy infantry will get the cake, and if they do it's likely neigbour influence. In contrast, these lands are hardly famed for horsemanship unless it's famous for being awful.

And if you can excuse that over generalization, there's many a reason to make it.
-Less space means the quality of individual troops gains more importance compared to tactics/numbers, In comparison to open terrain.
-Bad terrain means there's a lesser advantage in more mobile troops.
-More Defensive geography (chokepoints, advantageous ground) means you need to worry less about the maneuverability of your own troops/formations.
-Hills- make for strong legs.

Hoplites didn't fight in the mountains or hills, by convention they fought on the plains. Most of the battles of the Peloponnesian War that happened in Greece took place on the same spots again and again. Once more, societal pressures are more important here than tactical considerations.

I'd highly recommend Hoplites: the Classical Greek Battle Experience by Victor Hansen, a collection of essays on the hoplite from many aspects, which details just how formalised that style of warfare was. It's more comparable to a duel than all-out total war.

The early Roman experience against the Samnites is more equivalent to that of Greek mercenaries fighting people who didn't do the hoplite thing.

Vinyadan

2018-05-28, 08:37 AM

There's also the fact that Western Europe and Anatolia are somewhat odd, in that there aren't massive open spaces. One of the reasons why the Romans kept being beaten by the Parthians until the Imperial age was that their troops were built for a different terrain on a strategic level. So they could handle fighting on a plain, but, if the whole campaign was set in an endless plain, then they were outmatched by specialised troops, like cavalry.

So, in a way, it made sense for the Greeks to have soldiers with heavy armour, because, on a strategic level, they weren't risking constant harassment by cavalry.

However, this heavy infantry was meant to fight in formation in a plain. This meant that they needed to find a suitable place to fight. I think that Herodotus expresses the surprise of the foreigners when they see that the Greeks don't fight by ambush, and, instead, look for the most suitable place to have the armies meet.

But, if the terrain is mostly mountains, one would expect light infantry to have a much larger role. One would expect armies built around smaller squads of throwers and skirmishers, and that don't need to fight in formation, and thus can fight on most of the territory.

I don't think that the habit of fighting on the plains was a result of the hoplitical revolution. I think that it was the opposite: the hoplitical revolution was a thing because the Greeks were already fighting on open plains before they developed the equipment of the hoplite. And they developed this equipment because it was the best available for this kind of fighting.

I have three theories about why the Greeks were already used to fighting in the open plains.

One is that war chariots were used by kings and aristocrats until shortly before 710-650 BC. If these people were the ones to lead armies, they would lead them where they could use their chariots: on the plains.

The second one is that plains were the richest territories, and the cities fought to control them. So we have the Lelantine war, which was about control of the Lelas Plain. The easiest way to control the plain is occupying it, which leads to fighting on the plain.

The third one is that large cities were placed on plains, Athens being the most important example (in the case of Athens, the oldest part of the city was located on a steep hill, but the city expanded into the plain below); cities built upon a hill and surrounded by fertile plains are fairly common. Since the most important objective was defending the home city, you needed soldiers capable of fighting on the plains. If you wanted to attack a city, you still needed to be able to be able to fight in the plain in which it was located.

The plains would have, in theory, allowed the use of heavy cavalry, but the general look of the territory meant that there weren't enough resources to have large stables. Cavalry also doesn't fare well against tightly packed heavy infantry formations, which are bound to outnumber cavalry simply because of lower price.

The "less space" part isn't as important as "less population". Greek states were fairly small. So you had fewer soldiers. But the more important part is that many citizens were fairly rich. I think of places like Athens and Argos, where commerce was developed on a Mediterranean level. So a lot of citizens could buy themselves an armour. Athens was odd, in that it had citizens with political rights even though they were too poor to buy armour. But many cities required you to be rich enough to own a hoplitical panoply, if you wanted full rights. So there was a huge incentive towards owing them.

Bad terrain gives an advantage to the troops that are more mobile on bad terrain, like light infantry. A hoplite will have trouble running uphill, while the skirmisher can outrun him while throwing inexpensive javelins. Mountains are bad for horses, but mobility is a relative concept.

The chockepoints were important on occasion. The II Persian War was built around chockepoints. Heavy infantry was a huge advantage then. However, I can't think of a case in which war between Greek states was won or lost thanks to a chockepoint. The main problem with chokepoints are alternate routes. There's always an alternate route. One of Alexander's strokes of strategical genius was building new ones by carving stairs in the mountains.

Physical activity sure was good, no doubt about it. I think that Ariosto sent his mountaineers to the Duke and the Duke was very happy about them.

(Are the Britons famous for being good footmen? Never heard of that).

The Jack

2018-05-28, 09:08 AM

(Are the Britons famous for being good footmen? Never heard of that).

I'm probably shaming myself here and shouldn't be posting my dubious theories that aren't well backed, but here's the justification thingy

Not so much famous, but it just popped up as something they seemed to specialize in somewhat. Before the longbow, and I'm unsure what's due to the viking influence, britains were poor horsemen (It's mostly too hilly) and poor at ranged. When you've got **** ranged troops and poor cavalry, you need to be good at at least one thing, right? Well, from limited reading of english battles, and the note that, later, English knights usually dismounted to fight on foot (mostly just using the horses to move to strategic positions quickly.) I've sort of assumed that the english were first infantry and then archer focused, at the eternal expense of cavalry.

I could be entirely wrong somewhere, but theorizing and admiting uncertainty is far more interesting than being right and far less dangerous than acting right...

Kiero

2018-05-28, 09:10 AM

Galloglaich

2018-05-28, 10:41 AM

Vinyadan

2018-05-28, 10:52 AM

No, they fought on plains because that's where the people who dominated the military wanted to fight. The same way they deliberately marginalised the aristocrats who might want to fight on horseback, and the lower orders who might have developed into a more rigorous form of light infantry. The same way all the fighting only took place in the summer, between planting and harvesting, and sieges were avoided for the most part. The same way they didn't do ambushes or look for terrain advantages.

There's been a fair amount of scholarship on the topic, hoplite warfare was a very specialised niche that emerged in a particular time and place because of the power of the hoplite class. Theories based solely on geography or strategy overlook the social reality.

It could function as part of combined arms outside the context in which it was invented (which would be the case in mercenary service), but the form that we saw from the Ionian Revolt until the battle of Chaeronea or thereabouts, didn't require anyone else.

This is a rather oblique way of writing, so let me know if I understand correctly with "landed citizens wielded the power in the city and in the army; since they were hoplites, the battlefields that were chosen were plains, which were best for hoplites; since they owned land, they chose to campaign on time spans that were least likely to interfere with agriculture".

This still doesn't answer why the richer citizens chose to equip themselves for fighting in melee formation, instead of e.g. going for composite bows. Which is why I think that there must have been practical reasons why they chose to fight on the plains. Less training time is a good answer, when it comes to "why no bows?". But the light infantry, the one with thrown weapons, would also have needed lots of time to become good at that. But many of these people weren't hunters, and, instead, lived as wage earners, so time was precious for them, too. The smart thing about the Athenian navy was that they took people whose job already was rowing and paid them to do that, as professionals.

In general, I have read the lack of sieges as due to lack of a siege train, which would have been extremely costly, and therefore would only become available later to larger states, like Macedonia. There are a few recorded sieges I can think of, like that of Melos, and, of course, that of Syracuse. Success would simply have been too unlikely or would take up too many troops from small armies to make them worth it. As Thukydides observed, this means that even a country ruled by a king (so someone with different interests from hoplites) needs to leave a small contingent to perform the siege, or face high costs to supply a larger force (which is what happened at Melos, too: a large force landed, and then left a smaller force to handle the siege). Smaller force = results are more unlikely. I remember that the introduction of bronze as a form of money in Rome was explained as due to the siege of Veii: the citizen-soldiers who were left to besiege the city during the agricultural season received ingots from the State to make up for the value lost in produce from their fields at home.

In general, I assume that time spans were the important thing. Short training for melee, and a big smash for a battle that can be done with within a day. Then everyone can go home and think about his business.

However, I don't really get your last observation: hoplites on their own did get defeated during land battles by enemies they couldn't reach, and they also often needed the ability to move on the sea. While they could sail a trieres, they were known to be bad sailors, compared to professionals, and to suffer in combat.

I also wonder if things were very different for e.g. Thessalians, which had larger cavalry, or cities ruled by monarchs or tyrants; tyrants in particular tended to appeal to the lower classes.

Galloglaich

2018-05-28, 11:00 AM

http://mikeprendergast.ie/monte/

I've recently been reading through this translation of a series of works by Pietro Monte, an italian soldier who lived at the end of the middle ages, and so far it's been really informative.

"

Three other quick points about Monte,

I agree he is a very useful and important source for late medieval warfare in general and the 15th Century in Italy more specifically. He is in the top 5 sources for late medieval warfare on my list. Until recently though I was only able to read his work in fragments.
Though he lived his later years and published in Italy (in the service of the Duke of Milan), he was probably of Iberian (Portuguese, Spanish or Catalan) origin, not Italian. Though certainly he was familiar with Italian ways of war - he is kind of a bridge between the fascinating though mostly untranslated Iberian fencing manuals and those of Italy which are better known to the community.
There is another major translation out, not sure if you have seen this or not. I have been meaning to buy it though it is expensive. Knowing this guys other work (Forgeng is probably the most important translator of Fechtbucher, he did the major translations for Joachim Meyer, Paulas Kal and the anonymous I.33 manuscript among others) I expect this to be very useful.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Pietro-Montes-Collectanea-Techniques-Fifteenth-Century/dp/1783272759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527522567&sr=8-1&keywords=pietro+monte

I haven't bought it yet because it's rather expensive, but most of Forgengs other works sold out very quickly and then became rare and much more expensive so you may want to "act soon" as they say if you are interested in this source. May be hard to get in six months...

G

Kiero

2018-05-28, 11:36 AM

This is a rather oblique way of writing, so let me know if I understand correctly with "landed citizens wielded the power in the city and in the army; since they were hoplites, the battlefields that were chosen were plains, which were best for hoplites; since they owned land, they chose to campaign on time spans that were least likely to interfere with agriculture".

This still doesn't answer why the richer citizens chose to equip themselves for fighting in melee formation, instead of e.g. going for composite bows. Which is why I think that there must have been practical reasons why they chose to fight on the plains. Less training time is a good answer, when it comes to "why no bows?". But the light infantry, the one with thrown weapons, would also have needed lots of time to become good at that. But many of these people weren't hunters, and, instead, lived as wage earners, so time was precious for them, too. The smart thing about the Athenian navy was that they took people whose job already was rowing and paid them to do that, as professionals.

They dominated because they provided the largest and most stable element of the army. It's not a coincidence that little is written about everyone else involved, when you read the accounts from the Peloponnesian War. You could be forgiven for thinking the only fighting that took place was between hoplite phalanxes.

The rich chose to fight in the phalanx because that's where the generals were expected to be (in the front row, ideally). The best-equipped men were supposed to be at the front, it was part of their civic duty and showing their personal commitment to the state. Many of the more affluent men would be hunters, often on horseback, but they didn't fight that way.

Greece didn't have a meaningful archery tradition, but they did have one with javelins. There's plenty of evidence that hoplites usually went into battle with two spears - a lighter dual, role one that could be thrown and a doru, or else with a javelin and doru. Plenty of hunting with javelins from horseback, too.

The light infantry did "train" with their weapons in their lives, poor men (in rural areas) hunted to eat. Hunting is transferable to skirmishing in a lot of ways, though the javelin and sling were more traditional Greek hunting implements than the bow. They didn't have composite bows, they came from the east (though the Kretans had them, but it didn't seem to spread far from their island - their practises of banditry and piracy probably reinforced that adoption).

Note Athens was the exception when it came to mobilising their lowest orders as oarsmen. Most other states weren't willing to make the political concessions necessary in return for getting native rowers. Other states used professionals, ie mercenaries hired from particular communities (like the Cilicians), who often turned their hand to piracy when between employers.

Athenian oarsmen weren't professionals for the most part, though there will have been a certain number who did nothing else since they always kept a certain proportion of their navy active (though that varied hugely over time). Most were the same sort of militia as the hoplites, regular citizens who mobilised to defend the state.

In general, I have read the lack of sieges as due to lack of a siege train, which would have been extremely costly, and therefore would only become available later to larger states, like Macedonia. There are a few recorded sieges I can think of, like that of Melos, and, of course, that of Syracuse. Success would simply have been too unlikely or would take up too many troops from small armies to make them worth it. As Thukydides observed, this means that even a country ruled by a king (so someone with different interests from hoplites) needs to leave a small contingent to perform the siege, or face high costs to supply a larger force (which is what happened at Melos, too: a large force landed, and then left a smaller force to handle the siege). Smaller force = results are more unlikely. I remember that the introduction of bronze as a form of money in Rome was explained as due to the siege of Veii: the citizen-soldiers who were left to besiege the city during the agricultural season received ingots from the State to make up for the value lost in produce from their fields at home.

Note those sieges are all overseas, not on the Greek mainland. They were the actions of the Delian League against people who didn't just come out and fight in the traditional way.

In general, I assume that time spans were the important thing. Short training for melee, and a big smash for a battle that can be done with within a day. Then everyone can go home and think about his business.

However, I don't really get your last observation: hoplites on their own did get defeated during land battles by enemies they couldn't reach, and they also often needed the ability to move on the sea. While they could sail a trieres, they were known to be bad sailors, compared to professionals, and to suffer in combat.

I also wonder if things were very different for e.g. Thessalians, which had larger cavalry, or cities ruled by monarchs or tyrants; tyrants in particular tended to appeal to the lower classes.

I don't think so. Again it was custom, while men trained in their free time - especially in the gymnasion - they wanted a decisive clash so everyone could go back to their farms. Just like the earlier Roman legionaries, fathers trained sons, uncles trained nephews, cousins trained cousins and so on. Then they'd gather on feast days to practise the martial dances in formation to remind them how to stand in a phalanx.

Most of the battles on the mainland didn't really need anyone else. There's no mention of light infantry or cavalry action, just the main clash. Maybe we could assume those elements were still involved, but they don't appear to have been decisive.

Hoplites didn't need to sail a ship, they were the marines for boarding actions (just over a dozen per ship for a trieres).

Thessaly was very different. It's a big open country by comparison to the rest of Greece, and developed it's own style of warfare as a result. The hoplite class never became as powerful there as it did further south, and they had to content with Makedonia on their border, too.

As for tyrants, they made use of mercenaries (Greek and otherwise) for their military needs. People loyal to them, not to the demos.

rrgg

2018-05-28, 02:59 PM

In this section, by the way

Monte is referring to war-wagons.

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bf68ac_fcf702c074c548c8a3a638b43f4960e3~mv2.gif

http://www.medievalwarfare.info/photos/guncart.jpg

These were very popular and important in Montes day, i.e. the 15th Century.

By very large shields he means pavises, like you see here being used by Bohemian troops in the Landshut war of succession:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/22/4a/59/224a59cc13a97d34e62bb90868b77d89.jpg

Both war-wagons and lines of pavisemen like that seem to have become obsolete some time in the 16th Century, mainly due to the increasing proliferation of more mobile, medium caliber field artillery - such as he mentions the "Germans" carry with them in abundance.

Thanks, that's what I figured. He's also pretty clearly describing wagons being used offensively which is cool. Though he does point that they required very flat ground and claims that it was a relatively uncommon tactic.

Defensive wagon forts of course never really went away. IIRC wagons mounted with volley guns or "arquebus a croc" swivel guns were still used defensively well into the 17th century.

I'm not certain it was so cut and dry though they may have lingered a bit longer in the West than conventional wisdom tells us their gradual disappearance may have had more to do with the Socio-Economic changes I have often referred to which took place in Early Modern Europe. They certainly lingered a bit longer in Central and Eastern Europe than in the Western part.

But I think we can say that they were both largely gone from Latin Europe by the 30 Years War in the 17th Century.

Pavises and war-wagons were both part of the Bohemian system, so to speak, and the Bohemians proved capable of defeating German (and Tartar and Ottoman and Hungarian and Polish and Russian etc.) armies repeatedly in the 15th Century. They seem to have lost the knack though by the 17th when they were defeated by the Hapsburgs at the Battle of White Mountain in the early days of the 30 Years War.

G

I've seen illustrations like that before, though my impression was that the pavisers were more for defense rather than breaking up enemy pikemen. Given that the swiss and germans would have frequently encountered opponents using both pikemen and shieldbearers in the late 1400s but were still so successful, presumably Monte is still oversimplifying a bit here.

Something I've learned recently is that according to Spanish sources the "rotela"/"rodelo" was specifically an italian weapon and completely unknown to spain until the Italian Wars. Instead spanish infantry mustered in the 1490s broke down into crossbowman, gunner, "Lancero", and "Escuado"/paviser. (it seems that both had both spear and shield, but the paviser perhaps had a shorter spear and pavise while the lancer had a longer spear and a half-pavise/"medio pavés")

Salazar in his translation of The Art of War apparently went into more detail than Machiavelli's descriptions of la Barletta and Ravenna and claimed that the spanish shieldbearers there were actually armed with a type of pavise from northwestern iberia.

In 1503 both of these were officially replaced by pikemen and the spanish army technically never really had soldiers called "rodeleros". There are examples of individual spanish commanders in sicily or italy requesting some number of "rodelos", usually along with an equal number of partisans. So it might be that the original "rodeleros" were actually based on Italian spear and shield infantry like the ones shown in this illustration of Fornavo:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Albanian_Stradioti_at_Battle_of_Fornovo.jpg

spineyrequiem

2018-05-28, 05:59 PM

This is a rather oblique way of writing, so let me know if I understand correctly with "landed citizens wielded the power in the city and in the army; since they were hoplites, the battlefields that were chosen were plains, which were best for hoplites; since they owned land, they chose to campaign on time spans that were least likely to interfere with agriculture".

This still doesn't answer why the richer citizens chose to equip themselves for fighting in melee formation, instead of e.g. going for composite bows. Which is why I think that there must have been practical reasons why they chose to fight on the plains. Less training time is a good answer, when it comes to "why no bows?". But the light infantry, the one with thrown weapons, would also have needed lots of time to become good at that. But many of these people weren't hunters, and, instead, lived as wage earners, so time was precious for them, too. The smart thing about the Athenian navy was that they took people whose job already was rowing and paid them to do that, as professionals.

In general, I have read the lack of sieges as due to lack of a siege train, which would have been extremely costly, and therefore would only become available later to larger states, like Macedonia. There are a few recorded sieges I can think of, like that of Melos, and, of course, that of Syracuse. Success would simply have been too unlikely or would take up too many troops from small armies to make them worth it. As Thukydides observed, this means that even a country ruled by a king (so someone with different interests from hoplites) needs to leave a small contingent to perform the siege, or face high costs to supply a larger force (which is what happened at Melos, too: a large force landed, and then left a smaller force to handle the siege). Smaller force = results are more unlikely. I remember that the introduction of bronze as a form of money in Rome was explained as due to the siege of Veii: the citizen-soldiers who were left to besiege the city during the agricultural season received ingots from the State to make up for the value lost in produce from their fields at home.

In general, I assume that time spans were the important thing. Short training for melee, and a big smash for a battle that can be done with within a day. Then everyone can go home and think about his business.

However, I don't really get your last observation: hoplites on their own did get defeated during land battles by enemies they couldn't reach, and they also often needed the ability to move on the sea. While they could sail a trieres, they were known to be bad sailors, compared to professionals, and to suffer in combat.

I also wonder if things were very different for e.g. Thessalians, which had larger cavalry, or cities ruled by monarchs or tyrants; tyrants in particular tended to appeal to the lower classes.

Did an essay on this a while back, let's see if I can remember my points.

So one of the most important things to remember about Greece is its geography. It's a load of mountains with relatively little proper flat land and what flat land there is is really rubbish for farming. This means three things, thing one is that Greek cities tend to be absurdly hard to take; it's quite easy to find a nice unapproachable hill to sit on top of if you're surrounded by hills. Thing two is that cavalry are absurdly expensive, as it's a pain to find enough land to keep horses. This means they're both a very small group and rather underdeveloped ('cause there's not many people messing around with horses to find interesting new ways to use them). Thing three is that if your crops get burnt they are very hard indeed to regrow, olive groves in particular take ages to come back.

What does this all mean? Well, if you so chose you could very easily retreat to your polis and wait the enemy out. However, if you do that they'll just take out all your crops, meaning you'll starve within a couple of years. Thus, you want to have the enemy in your lands for the absolute minimum time possible. The best way to do that is go out and meet them in a decisive battle, which they'll probably accept as they don't want to be drawn into a long, bloody and ultimately pointless siege either and they really don't want you getting behind them to go burn their lands. Now light infantry and cavalry are both great, but they generally rely on having lots of space to work in, as otherwise their mobility advantage is totally eroded. Unfortunately, if there's one thing Greece does not have, it's wide-open spaces. Thus, what you really want to do is pack as many heavy infantry as you can into the limited space of the pass and drive them into the enemy until one of you runs out of troops. Light infantry can do some work here, both skirmishing before the main clash and messing about on the flanks once battle is joined in earnest, but cavalry can't really to the same extent. They can skirmish before the battle (and from what I remember they carried javelins for exactly that purpose) but once it's properly started they can't really do much, as if they try to go up the mountains they'll likely fall off (no saddles, stirrups or anything of that nature) or break their absurdly expensive horses' legs. They can also pursue a fleeing enemy, and at least one author claims that's about all they're good for, though of course that would have been the Greek disdain for cavalry (seen as cowardly for being able to leg it more easily than the footsloggers) coming out.

There definitely were other types of battle, from what I remember a lot of the Peloponnesian Wars involved the Athenians holing up and watching the Spartans march around their lands, and light infantry could of course ambush and generally irritate a foe in the runup to a big battle, but the decisive heavy infantry battle appears to be what was expected and what they trained for. A decent book on the subject is Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece, I remember using it a lot.

Galloglaich

2018-05-29, 12:20 AM

Thanks, that's what I figured. He's also pretty clearly describing wagons being used offensively which is cool. Though he does point that they required very flat ground and claims that it was a relatively uncommon tactic.

There are several well-documented examples of war-wagon columns being used offensively, often to make envelopment movements, going back to the first Hussite Wars in the 1420s all the way into Russian battles against the Turks in the 17th Century.

Defensive wagon forts of course never really went away. IIRC wagons mounted with volley guns or "arquebus a croc" swivel guns were still used defensively well into the 17th century.

Yes but as I said - mostly in Central or Eastern Europe. War wagons were somewhat famously blasted to pieces by field artillery in a few engagements in Italy and in the Low Countries (i.e. what you might call 'Western Europe') in the 16th Century and declined in use there as far as I know.

I've seen illustrations like that before, though my impression was that the pavisers were more for defense rather than breaking up enemy pikemen. Given that the swiss and germans would have frequently encountered opponents using both pikemen and shieldbearers in the late 1400s but were still so successful, presumably Monte is still oversimplifying a bit here.

Well, offensive and defensive use often go together, like with the wagons. But I agree military theorists do tend to oversimplify in order to make reality fit better to their theories - which is one of the problems with relying on them as a source.

Something I've learned recently is that according to Spanish sources the "rotela"/"rodelo" was specifically an italian weapon

...

So it might be that the original "rodeleros" were actually based on Italian spear and shield infantry

The Rodolero and the Rotella are two distinct things, but the former was created explicitly in conscious imitation of Roman Legions. They worked for a while, had their moment so to speak in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries, but adjustment to pike squares troop ratios and equipment seemed to 'correct' this opening they were using (in particular against the Swiss) and their moment kind of ended.

It's worth noting though that they had a lot of success as a troop type in the conquest of Meso America (it wasn't just smallpox that won the wars for the Spanish) and in places like the Philippines. The Rodolero seemed to be a good fit for the Conquistador's mission.

The Rotella, along with a variety of smaller laminated pavises which seem to have been developed somewhat organically in the 15th Century separate areas of Europe including Lithuania, Catalonia, and lower Saxony - was of a species of what you might call "bullet resistant" shields. Some rotella might be literally bullet proof.

The Ottomans may have actually been the first to start fielding fairly large (33" or more) tempered steel shields capable of stopping an arquebus ball some time in the late 15th Century. These were used in the front ranks of their Janissaries in a few key battles, originally just in sieges (such as at Rhodes in 1480) but then later as an open field weapon. The Venetians quickly got wind of this and adapted their mercenary armies in Dalmatia to use these weapons, which they started making in the famous Venetian Arsenal. I believe Venetian ally Mathias Corvinus may have also used some of these steel shields in the Hungarian Black Army though they more typically used small laminated wood and textile pavises which also seemed to have some bullet (and bow and crossbow) resistant properties and were being used by Czech mercenaries and Lithuanian and Cossack raiding parties for sure at least as far back as the 1430s, probably back into the late 14th Century.

So the Italians did use Rotella type shields with spears (and with other pole weapons like bills and partisans) both in battle and in small scale engagements like street fights between different factions in a town or between rival nobles and their entourages.

Marozzo even shows you how to fight with a partisan and a rotella, and how to fight against it, in one on one combat.

The specific thing of taking a lightly armored (i.e. textile armor and a steel hat) man with a rotella and an arming sword ( or cinquedea or falchion or cut-thrust or espada ropera or what have you), and deploying these guys either as skirmishers or in their own columns, was I believe a Spanish or Castilian invention which as I said had it's moment, and may have even been copied by some others, but seems to have come and gone in about a 20 year span.

G

wolflance

2018-05-29, 12:38 PM

I don't think that the rounded scutum made fighting in formation more difficult than flat ones. Actually, I think it was better. And the hoplon itself was rounded. I think that the scutum allowed you to carry the weight of the shield closer to your body, and that it was better at deflecting hits. Keeping the shields in line probably wasn't any more difficult than it would have been with flat shields.
Lining up wasn't the issue - curved (as in concave) shield makes overlapping shields more troublesome, as it may slide off from the next shield, especially if something impacted the shield forcefully.

Hazzardevil

2018-05-29, 01:20 PM

Galloglaich

2018-05-29, 02:07 PM

From the Italian HEMA practitioners I know, they mean a large round shield, with a handle and an arm strap when they say rotella.
Here's an image from Capo Fero on the use of a rotella with what I think is a side sword. [Side swords are the transitional sword between the traditional cross-hilted one handed sword and the rapier]

Well, yes, essentially.

Personally based on the length I would call those rapiers rather than sideswords but the fine distinction is basically a modern one, in the period they would just refer to them as 'swords' usually (at least in the period literature) or sometimes 'dueling swords' (especially when cracking down on their use in legal rulings) or 'thrusting swords'.

We have the terms 'spada da lato' (sword of / on the side) from Italy and Espada Ropera (sword of the [civilian] robes) from Iberia (Castile / Aragon / Portugal etc.) which roughly correlate with a specific subtype of dueling or thrusting sword; a (usually) civilian weapon with a slightly shorter and wider blade with a little bit more cutting authority than a 'true' rapier. But there is a lot of gray area and overlap between a civilian 'sidesword', a similar but more robust military 'cut-thrust' sword, and a true rapier. Rapiers even had military variations vs. faster but flimsier pure dueling variants.

Most of the Italian fencing manuals from around 1500 onward have some kind of thrusting sword and also feature rotella; as well as longswords ("Spadone" or "Spada a due mani" when they are being specific) and sword and buckler, sword and dagger, two swords (aka "case of rapier"), sword and cloak, dagger alone, and some kind of spear, partisan or bill. Quite often pike and staff too. you will also see center grip bucklers, 'targets', something like 'mini pavises' and mazzo scudo and other types of shields.

As I mentioned upthread, here is Marozzo depicting Rotella with swords an with spear / partisan, as well as a wide variety of other weapons:

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xaUP3Q3XWQE/VsYuJ-RZgBI/AAAAAAAAHkI/X_DslN0t5Bk/s1600/marozzo_rotella.jpg

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-arlGauSquxQ/VsYuJypkaiI/AAAAAAAAHkM/_Yh59fCKaMY/s1600/marozzo_rotella_2.jpg

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AqfKBHGH9D8/VwLnkq8ENDI/AAAAAAAAITM/-WRsWCMqKsAiALmatmn07_2pwrOF1WQLw/s1600/Marozzo_spear_and_shield.png

http://wiktenauer.com/images/thumb/0/00/Marozzo_31.png/300px-Marozzo_31.png

http://wiktenauer.com/images/thumb/9/9b/Marozzo_52.png/302px-Marozzo_52.png

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-US9hnOi0IXs/VwlF5RK5GDI/AAAAAAAAIUc/vX30hPwGeZI7KJziA_QQY4cJ00Vy1J78w/s1600/Marozzo_spiedo.jpg

https://pallasarmata.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/marozzo_25.jpg

http://wiktenauer.com/images/thumb/c/cf/Marozzo_11.png/371px-Marozzo_11.png

http://wiktenauer.com/images/thumb/6/60/Marozzo_14.png/359px-Marozzo_14.png

http://www.achillemarozzo.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/targone.png

I think the rotella type shields fit on the forearm instead of the center grip because of the potential impact of a high-velocty missile like a bullet or a crossbow from a heavy military grade crossbow. Not to mention a lance or a Spadona.

And I've read somewhere that shield and swordsmen were dropped by the Spanish after it was decided they were too vulnerable to cavalry, despite their use against pikemen.

In part, but they also lost their ability to penetrate pike squares when the latter increased the ratio of halberdiers and two handed swordsmen and re-established pikemen carrying longswords as sidearms. I don't think Rodolero has anything to do with roundel.

Also, we have shields in museums with a number of marks where they've been hit by gunfire. More than once, so it's less likely to be a proof mark, which makes me think there were effective shields to use against guns.

Yep

And weren't something like war wagons used by Americans crossing the great plains when fighting Indians? The impression I get is that they worked well up until the 20th century, providing the enemy doesn't have firepower that penetrates wood, such as artillery. I recall somewhere they were used in the English Civil War at times when artillery wasn't around.

I've never seen a cannon mounted on a wagon in North America though I think yes they would sometimes make a wagon circle and use them as cover against attacks by native Americans or bandits etc.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Taczanka.jpg

The most modern use of something like a war-wagon (which I've mention in previous incarnations of this thread) is the Tachanka, a wagon based machinegun system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachanka) invented by the Ukranian anarchists "Black Army" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Insurrectionary_Army_of_Ukraine) in the Russian Civil War (and probably derived from old Cossack War Wagon traditions dating to the 15th Century)

Of course tanks and APCs also in some way derive from this idea, as do 'technicals' - trucks with heavy machine guns mounted on them used so widely now in war-zones in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

G

Haighus

2018-05-29, 03:16 PM

rrgg

2018-05-29, 04:13 PM

The Rodolero and the Rotella are two distinct things, but the former was created explicitly in conscious imitation of Roman Legions. They worked for a while, had their moment so to speak in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries, but adjustment to pike squares troop ratios and equipment seemed to 'correct' this opening they were using (in particular against the Swiss) and their moment kind of ended.

My impression that the rodeleros were named after the rotella/rodela.

Are you sure that they began as a conscious imitation of the ancient roman legionaries? or was it more like the Swiss pikemen where later observers drew a lot of parallels with the ancient macedonians, but the Swiss and their tactics were still very different from how classical phalanxes were described?

The other popular explanation seems to be that the spanish preference for swords, shields, and darts was a holdover from their experiences fighting the moors. In particular the 1481-1492 Granada war which consisted almost entirely of sieges and guerilla fighting on mountainous terrain.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120307172010/http://www.xenophongroup.com/santiago/apprec.htm

This would seem to fit with the Spain's experiences in the Italian Wars: after their defeat at Seminara in 1495, the Gran Capitan switched to a fairly successful strategy of harassment and guerilla warfare while afterwords avoiding pitched battles with the French or Swiss whenever possible. This would also explain why Cortes brought so many sword and shield men with him to the americas.

According to the Tercios of Flanders blog, it was apparently Salazar who in 1536 suggested that tercios include 1/3rd rodeleros, and it's not clear if that ever went into practice. Instead for most of the later 16th century the rodela seems to have mainly been used by officers and some armored pikemen, who would hire a page to carry their shield around and give it to them for use in a skirmish or a siege.

http://ejercitodeflandes.blogspot.com/search/label/Armas%20defensivas

I agree that the main reason behind the rotella's popularity in skirmishes and battles was probably that it was better at resisting penetration from halberds, lances, and projectiles. In Monte's section on skirmishing he does mention that:

"A leather parma should not be placed too close to our person. For then any weapon would penetrate it and do us harm, if we do not carry other defence underneath, and one should not keep it far away, but at a medium distance and in a neutral place to respond to all parts."

---

On a somewhat related note, I was looking back through that Monte translation and his description of the "partisana" actually does sound a bit more like the ox-tongued spears in that fornovo illustration than it does like later partisans:

"A partisan (partisana), also called this in the vernacular, is a weapon combined with a staff, and is a little longer than the height a man can reach with his arm raised, of which the iron seems to be like the iron of an ancient broad sword. But the iron of the partisana is shorter, though it cuts more widely on both sides, and it has a point"

Monte's take on the partisan and rotella:

"

XXX. ON PLAY OF A SWORD WITH ROTELLA, WHICH IS LIKE A PELTA, EXCEPT THAT IT IS LARGE AND WHOLLY MADE OF WOOD AND A HANDLE. BUT THE PLACE WHERE WE SHOULD HOLD IT IS DIFFERENT FROM THE PELTA, AS IT CONTAINS TWO HANDLES, LIKE A PARMA, AND THE ARM ENTERS THROUGH ONE, TO LET THE HAND TAKE HOLD OF THE OTHER. AND THE ROTELLA IS NAMED FROM ITS PROPERTY OF ROUNDNESS.

When holding a sword and a rotella, one should follow the same blows as if we play with a leather parma, in the way we have said above, and for this it should have handles, like a parma has, that is, one close to the other, by which we take hold of the rotella, since in the way in which it is used, the arm is placed very much inside in the handles. And then it is a great hindrance for us, when it cannot be moved fast and cover the whole person, and also the rotella remains so close to us that, although it passes a little forwards, the adversary’s sword reaches our head or another limb.

"

XXXIV. ON THE WAY OF PLAYING WITH PARTISAN AND ROTELLA. A PARTISAN WE CALL A HAFTED WEAPON SOMEWHAT LONGER THAN A POLEAXE, WHICH HAS A BROAD IRON LIKE AN ANCIENT SWORD, THOUGH WIDER AND SHORTER.

In play of partisan and rotella we must walk above ourselves, until it is possible to see what the adversary wants. And at that time we should do the play of the poleaxe, entering and recovering moderately and often, threatening the face with a short blow. Then we should send forward a long blow to to the lower parts, the hand running along the shaft or, as we would say, rolling the partisan under the hand, throwing at the other’s legs. And we should always parry whatever blows the others can deliver, turning aside head and legs, as we do with the poleaxe, and in parrying we must contrapassare or go on the side, throwing one blow above and the other below. He whoever knows how to cover himself with rotella and sword will be easily covered in an equal way if he has a partisan, especially if he knows the play with the poleaxe. And in this there is indeed not too much need of a rotella, except when the adversary would force the partisan outside the hand against us, remaining very close, and then there would perhaps not be time to parry it. Positioning ourselves around the adversary, if he has a high partisan and goes ahead of the rotella too much, we must meet the point of his partisan with our rotella to make him enter into the rotella. And when he sets about pulling it away, some adversity can happen to him. Therefore we should take precautions, so that our point does not contact the other’s rotella through the coming together

"

XXXV. ON TWO PARTISANS WITH A ROTELLA.

When holding two partisans with a rotella, one should throw one of them, remaining at a medium distance from the adversary, and as soon as it reaches, we must arrive with the other held with both hands, to strike the adversary in another place, which he leaves uncovered, since he rolls around to turn aside our partisan, and in the meantime he remains impeded and uncovered, and even though he does not turn around, he is to some extent impeded, since he is holding the partisan by the middle and with only one hand, and we are holding ours with both hands by the calx. Therefore, before he can guard himself, he is running into the greatest danger. And this blow is principal in the partisan, or whenever we are holding one weapon for throwing and another for keeping in our hand. If the other throws his partisan against us, it is fitting to contrapassare to the side, turning his blow aside. And the rotella should reach under our right armpit and remain fixed there, and immediately we must carefully withdraw a little. For if it happens that the enemy holds his partisan with both hands, we have an opportunity to parry ourselves.

"

rrgg

2018-05-29, 04:23 PM

Galloglaich

2018-05-29, 04:32 PM

Ok, now I am confused. I thought targets and rotellas were the same kind of shield, and that targetiers was essentially the English term for rodeleros.

Are targets different? If they are, I am guessing they are centre-grip, like a large buckler? Thinking some more, are targets similar to the Scottish targe?

I appreciate that definitions were not reliably used at the time, but I have seen target/targetiers appear quite a lot.

I think they are overlapping terms, my understanding is 'target' is a broader and more general term than rotella or rodela. It typically just meant a medium sized shield sometimes round but sometimes of different shapes, whereas a rotella was a round shaped, steel, (usually tempered steel) shield larger than a buckler but smaller than a pavise.

As a general rule late medieval and Early Modern technical terminology tended to be more flexible than modern, not necessarily because they were sloppy in their thinking or imprecise. Sometimes that was the reason. But often particularly in the Renaissance or late medieval period it's just because they were more accustomed to and comfortable with the notion that all things have multiple meanings, even contradictory ones, and also multiple interpretations and names. This is in part due to using multiple languages. An educated person might read and write in 2 or 3 vernacular dialects, and a regional trade language or two, plus at least some Latin.

When discussing technical matters they were also used to quoting many different Auctores (acknowledged Authorities or "Experts") from widely different eras, religions and cultures. Pagan and Christian Greeks, pagan and Christian Romans, Moors, Jews, Arabs and Persians, and early and late Latinized European scholars from dozens of different places across several Centuries (some anonymous or known pseudonyms) were all considered qualified experts on many subjects. One had to be good at juggling these various perspectives to make sense of the world especially in the 'hard sciences'.

I can't remember where I read the bit about Rodelero's being a Renaissance revival of Roman Legionairre (or their slightly odd version of it) I think Machiavelli mentions this and Piccolomini too but I can't remember chapter and verse.

G

Haighus

2018-05-29, 04:41 PM

Ok, thanks for clearing that one up folks :)

I didn't realise rodeleros were lightly armoured- my mental image of one is wearing half-plate...

Galloglaich

2018-05-29, 04:46 PM

Ok, thanks for clearing that one up folks :)

I didn't realise rodeleros were lightly armoured- my mental image of one is wearing half-plate...

I'm sure there were variations as the practice did have it's moment and spread around a little.

But by my understanding, usually just textile armor (aside from a helmet). Maybe sometimes a cuirass.

Their role was basically as light infantry, a type of skirmisher, almost more like an ancient Peltast or Velites than a Legionaire, but the nuance was instead of a light wicker or leather / hide shield, they had that Rotella which could stop bullets and crossbow bolts, so they had a certain extra resistance to ranged attacks.

Probably equivalent though to dealing with the lower velocity but still lethal javelins, darts and sling stones of antiquity.

And with the sword and shield, they could be dangerous close-in.

Also as I think someone alluded, not that different in some respects to earlier medieval Iberian fighters like the Almogavars, (see Catalan Grand Company) and Iberian warriors going back to the era of the Roman conquest. These guys used javelins, including those exceptionally dangerous iron ones (soliferrum etc.) but when the enemy wavered, would also close in (yelling their terrifying slogans) and carve the enemy up with butcher knives and so forth.

G

Kiero

2018-05-29, 05:32 PM

Also as I think someone alluded, not that different in some respects to earlier medieval Iberian fighters like the Almogavars, (see Catalan Grand Company) and Iberian warriors going back to the era of the Roman conquest. These guys used javelins, including those exceptionally dangerous iron ones (soliferrum etc.) but when the enemy wavered, would also close in (yelling their terrifying slogans) and carve the enemy up with butcher knives and so forth.

G

Just on this point, it goes back much earlier still than the Roman conquest. Possibly even before Carthaginian colonisation of Spain, though things get murky as to how much the natives adopted Carthaginian armaments, and how much were their own originating ways of fighting.

Though the notion that Iberians were only skirmishers comes from later Roman authors, by which time there was no longer any need for close order infantry. Before they'd conquered the place, Iberians were just as able to stand in the fighting line as Romans or anyone else.

rrgg

2018-05-29, 06:13 PM

Yeah, I agree that rotella seems to be a more specific term than target.

The other thing to keep in mind when it comes to terminology is that in many contexts the difference really didn't matter all that much. For instance when it comes to the bill and halberd you sometimes see even fencing treatises start out repeatedly using the phrase "bill or halberd" but then eventually switch to just "halberd" since both weapons were used in pretty much the exact same manner.

Targeteers could potentially be either light or heavy infantry. You had for example wealthy soldiers who could afford servants or draft animals to carry around really heavy armor and a pistol-proof shield for them, or you might have poorer soldiers carrying a shield of some sort because they couldn't afford better armor. For instance William Garrard in the 1580s recalled that some light armed pikemen "who amongst some nations for want of brest plates of Iron, vse tand lether, paper, platecoates, iackets, &c. For a gorget, thicke folded kerchefes a∣bout their neck, a scull of Iron for a head péece, and a Uenetian or lether Shéeld and Target at their backes, to vse with their short Swordes at the close of a battaile, and in a throng."

There are a number of examples in Montluc's memoirs where he describes himself or some other officer fighting with just a mail shirt, helmet, sword and target (and the targets back then apparently weren't bullet proof, a fact which nearly cost Montluc his left arm early in his career). Sir Roger Williams mentions that the spanish would sometimes during a siege send forward a small number of trusted officers or other soldiers armed with very heavy proofed armor and a very heavy proofed targets to inspect the enemy wall for breaches.

On the military theorist side William Garrard, Thomas Digges, and Fourquevaux all thought that it would be a smart idea to give all arquebusiers and even all armored pikemen a small, lightweight leather target on their backs which they could use with their sword in close combat when needed.

Overall it seems that regardless of the type of target carried, if a targeteer is expected to assault a breach or fight alongside pikemen in a close-quarters "throng" he ought to wear as much armor as possible. If he's expected to fight alongside skirmishers or climb up ladders or towers then lighter armor might be better, perhaps just a mail shirt.

rrgg

2018-05-29, 06:32 PM

Something I've noticed before on Manuscript miniatures is that a lot of the illustrations from 1350-1450 seem to show a similar sort of infantry as Spain armed with a mix of large pavises and smaller round shields. Maybe the late medieval shift from shields to two-handed polearms was really more of an English/French/German thing for most of the 14th and 15th centuries?

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/media/cache/manuscriptminiatures.com/original/1045-177_large.jpg

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/search/?year=1350&year_end=1500&country=1&tags=&institution=&manuscript=

Vinyadan

2018-05-30, 03:07 AM

Kiero, thank you for your answers and congratulations on your knowledge -- it isn't just deep, it's also clearly built in a systematic way.

Kiero

2018-05-30, 12:43 PM

Kiero, thank you for your answers and congratulations on your knowledge -- it isn't just deep, it's also clearly built in a systematic way.

In fairness, I've literally just read a half-dozen books around a number of topics on antiquity, so this is all fresh. :smallsmile:

The Jack

2018-05-30, 01:29 PM

rrgg

2018-05-30, 03:27 PM

Does he think most medieval people just wore burlap sacks?

Galloglaich

2018-05-30, 04:21 PM

So in another forum I'm discussing medieval dyes.
I believe that there were plenty of common plants available to the lower class. At least Blue and Yellow appear to be easy to acquire for europeans.
The other dude insists blue was difficult to get (based on a source concerning paintings), and really seems to have exaggerated/extrapolated a bit too much from a few dyes being banned for class reasons.

Problem is, the dude waves around sources (I don't think he's great at using them) whilst I sorta just read a hundred not-well-referenced sites that seemed in general agreement. Would anyone know of pretty conclusive sources for the availability of dyes to the masses.

I guess this applies to the dyes armies wore, if it's not military enough.

I'm sorry don't have any sources off hand, and I'm referring here to the high to late medieval period, but your friend is wrong, in my opinion.

By say the 1200's, most fabrics were imported already dyed from places where they made the textiles, just like today. People did fairly often tailor and sew their own clothing at least to an extent, though there were also tailors and people bought off the shelf clothing so to speak. We know this from many records, for example often part of somebodies pay was in textiles. There are many surviving laws and guild statutes dictating that apprentices have to be given so many yards of this or that type of cloth (often specifying the color, as different crafts wore different colors and patterns as a type of uniform) a couple of times per year to make clothes.

There was even by then such a thing as cheap homespun cloth, and even cheap homespun cloth that was undyed, but knights, mercenaries, mid-ranking burghers, and even relatively well off peasants could afford nice quality imported textiles for clothing, including dyes, which far exceeded what most of us wear today in terms of thread count, quality and of course natural fibers.

By the 1400's basic single-color kermes, madder red or woad blue homespun textiles like you might see worn by generic 'villagers' in a TV show or video game (what I call the 'pastel peasants' variant of the 'medieval cavemen' Trope) would be limited to only the most remote and poor rural areas, like way up in the mountains or deep in the woods somewhere. In a town in Latinized Europe, even servants were typically well dressed, as were the servants of nobles. The outfits of the servants reflected on their masters.

(I would post paintings but if your friend discounts the evidence of paintings then it's hard to prove the point... some people think the Earth is flat what can i say...)

Again, even servants clothing was typically far better than what most people wear today. Textiles of black, scarlet and purple (the most expensive colors), beautiful damask patterns, gold and pearl embroidery (as in real gold wire), fancy furs like mink, ermine and sable, and so on, were indeed so common that various Sumptuary laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law) were passed to try to ban commoners from wearing them. The efficacy of these laws can be judged by their serial repetition.

One of the reasons Landsknechts dressed so lavishly with so many layers of so many different colors and patterns (including slashing their overgarments so you could see the linings and undergarment colors) is because of their specific exemption from sumptuary laws. A lot of Landsknechts came from poor areas in Swabia like deep in the Black Forest where sumptuary laws were actually enforced, so it was liberating for them to strut around looking like a kaleidescope.

For sources, try google searches with terms like "textile dying flanders" or "textile dying Milan" or similar. Off hand the main Late Medieval textile centers were Lombardy or Tuscany: Milan, Brescia, Florence, Siena; Flanders: Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, Lille; or Germany: Cologne (Koln), Augsburg, Strasbourg, Nuremberg and Ulm. I do remember reading an article once about cochineal dye in Venice. Cochineal is a bright red dye derived from an insect found in Mexico, and there was a sudden craze for it in the early 16th Century after it was introduced from the New World. Venice, lacking easy access to the Atlantic had to scramble to find a source but they did, and IIRC within a few years they started breeding the bugs in Italy. They eventually kind of cornered the market.

Looks like this book (https://books.google.com/books?id=eegzmDgFoGwC&pg=PT120&lpg=PT120&dq=cochineal+dye+venice+Early+Modern&source=bl&ots=gp3akSAnN8&sig=wtFa3Z3MlGTMzDrxy2XW87YRjvA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd6N-YrK7bAhVGeKwKHU77CIMQ6AEIVDAL#v=onepage&q=cochineal%20dye%20venice%20Early%20Modern&f=false) gets into that whole story a bit.

You can also check out Matthias Schwarz "The First Book of Fashion" - try a google image search for that. He was an accountant from early 16th Century Augsburg who had paintings painted of himself every few months or so throughout his life, kind of like a medieval Instagram.

More broadly, think about the implications of the Silk Road (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road). The vast amount of Silk brought into Europe across thousands of miles century after century gives you some idea of the purchasing power of European people, it wasn't just nobles buying all that. The pull was strong enough that Marco Polo and family (first among many other Italians) made their way all the way to China. And as soon as that route was cut off by the Ottomans, they found their way across the Ocean to find a new route... ;)

G

The Jack

2018-05-30, 04:21 PM

"Landknecht in medieval times had the authorisation to wear fancy and bright colors (normaly only reserved to nobility) to appear as an elite warrior troop (which was the case)."

Is some weird thing he's got in his head. I pointed out that banned dyes tended to be the expensive ones, not the bright ones, but the dude needs a source.

Also he had weird ideas about using leather to look wealthier/more elite, to which I responded with an argument about anyone elite and wealthy would use mail and nobody'd be fooled by leather, to which he pointed out that mail was heavy and... then I pointed out we were discussing an almost-corset over a gambeson, and mail's fine. He conceded but concluded that leather was easier on the legs than mail (dude was wearing trousers/gambeson) and... Well, I think he's a bit of a quack.

But I like debate so a source is a source...

Haighus

2018-05-30, 06:13 PM

Lemmy

2018-05-30, 06:22 PM

Maybe they mixed blue and red dye? ^^

Epimethee

2018-05-30, 08:01 PM

Hello

I was lurking for quite some time and decided just yet to join the conversation. I must add that i really enjoy this thread and the deep knowledge of the people that post here.

So to the point. The great french historian Michel Pastoureau wrote a few books about the history of colors in medieval Europe. I read them some years ago so my memory may be foggy but to resume shortly: Blue was not really well considered during antiquity and the beginning of medieval time. It was effectively rare.

The promtion of the color took some time but the main change was between the XII and XIII century, what Pastoureau call the «*Blue Revolution*». I cannot remember exactly why (and a good friend borrowed the book)so i won’t risk a blunder but here is a serie of lectures from Pastoureau himself:

louvre.fr/les-couleurs-du-moyen-agemichel-pastoureau

(Sorry for the shabby link, i’m new here and have yet to prove myself to the power above)

The fifth is specificaly about Blue.

Obviously it is in French. And i just discovered it, looking for some sources. I will watch and come back with better informations as soon as possible.

So to be short blue was rare in early medieval time, albeit more for cultural reasons than availability ( but IIRC Blue is harder to fix than other colors).

Galloglaich

2018-05-30, 11:40 PM

Clistenes

2018-05-31, 12:35 AM

rrgg

2018-05-31, 12:43 AM

Haighus

2018-05-31, 03:53 AM

Like Lenny says there were other ways to get purple such as mixing red and blue dyes. Tyrian dyes however produced much richer hues.
Ah, so it was simply the best purple, and others were not great.

I was aware it was very colour fast, which helps too.

Epimethee

2018-05-31, 04:15 AM

Bright blue dyes were rare. They were rare and expensive, made of crushed turquoise or similar semi-precious stones. During some periods bright blue was reserved for paintings of the Virgin Mary, for her mantle...

Blue dyes for clothes were kinda greyish and boring, hence the association of color blue and sadness...

I think french king Saint Louis was the first to popularize bright blue colour for clothes (maybe they dicovered cheaper dyes?)

Well not exactly. The King of France was important in his adoption. But it was Philippe Auguste and not Louis IX. And it seem that the better dyes followed in this case the growing symbolical importance of the Color and not the other way around like in XIXth Century with prussian blue and the american indigo.

The association between blue and sadness has more to do it seem with the romantics who made blue their favorite color (think of the blue vest of Werther from Goethe or the flower of Novalis.)

And the Color blue for the Virgin Mary is typically coming from the XII-XIII century.

So i have to speak about theology but i think it is art history here and not a religious topic... The XII century saw the «*theology of light*», a kind of new vision of the faith with emphasis on the lux, the divine light from above as opposed to the lumen, the light from terrestrial sources. The lumen was expressed with yellow or golden. But the lux saw the use of the blue more and more. So the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, used more blue in her representations ( it should be noted that her liturgical color is white). To the point when it was the convention to use blue as her color.

Then came the King of France, who used blue in his coat of arms because the king of France does nothing like the others( and Philippe Auguste was the first, those who came before were king of the french.)

Saint Louis was important too, he seem to have liked the color and effectively his clothes were often blue but Philippe Auguste did it First.

The Jack

2018-05-31, 04:17 AM

Sometimes you guys really disappoint me. I gave you everything you needed. Go reread my last post.

We are glad to help in here but you can't expect us to hand everything to you on a silver platter. That is reserved for kings and princes, like purple supposedly was ;)

G

Honestly, I never saw your post, and thought I was replying to the only person at the time who had replied to me.

Forgive me...

snowblizz

2018-05-31, 04:46 AM

We are glad to help in here but you can't expect us to hand everything to you on a silver platter. That is reserved for kings and princes,
Aluminium platters!

It's like you didn't read your own posts...
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbi ggrin:

(no I don't remember now if you've brought those up just recall they were mentioned recently inthread)

snowblizz

2018-05-31, 05:22 AM

I was under the impression that purple was basically unheard of in medieval Europe (outside of Byzantium), and had an almost legendary status as the colour of Emperors, due to the only available dye being Tyrian purple. Tyrian purple being famously expensive.

Also, I thought crimson/carmine could be produced prior to the introduction of cochineal from the Americas- cochineal is superb for producing the dye, but I thought there were closely related indigenous European species of beetle that could also be used to produce carmine. Presumably cochineal was far more effective and economical if this was the case.
Why would it be unheard of when Medieaval Europe would still remember Imperial Rome? Not to mention how the Catholic church retained many of it's trappings, not in the least the purple robes of bishops.

Bright blue dyes were rare. They were rare and expensive, made of crushed turquoise or similar semi-precious stones. During some periods bright blue was reserved for paintings of the Virgin Mary, for her mantle...

Blue dyes for clothes were kinda greyish and boring, hence the association of color blue and sadness...

I think french king Saint Louis was the first to popularize bright blue colour for clothes (maybe they dicovered cheaper dyes?)
Bright blue pigment for paints were rare, blue dyes are much easier to make.

There is however a grain of truth to the rairty of blue. It's a fact that nature itself has few blue pigments occuring naturally. I saw a documentary about it showing how most blue things in nature are a property of fragmenting lightwaves and not an actual pigment. IIRC there are precious few animals you could get a blue pigment off if you tried. They showed this enormously brigt blue butterfly that turned grey id dipped in alcohol and thne as it dried turn blue again. Fascianting stuff.

Ah, so it was simply the best purple, and others were not great.

I was aware it was very colour fast, which helps too.
One of the major issues with colouring was to make the colour stick. I think that's part of the "pastel peasants" which am not entirely sure if G is joking about or not.

There's an intersting youtube video answering the question why so few flags have purple in them and the answer basically boiled down to when the national colours were largely adopted the expense of needing so much purple was prohibitive.

Then came the King of France, who used blue in his coat of arms because the king of France does nothing like the others( and Philippe Auguste was the first, those who came before were king of the french.)

I was watching a show about rebuilding a medieval French castle and the British historians there (because obvisouly) this episode dyed cloth blue and mentioned the French propensity for blue and that it was adopted as a royal colour. The fun part is that France was the biggest producer of woad it seems. But even then it wasn't exactly cheap or commonly available as you have to farm it on an almost industrial scale, I think they said 1-2kgs from a hectare or something after the complex process (there were quite a few steps, most labour intensive) to render down the plant into a usable dye.

I also wanted to point out that there's a difference in dye and colours. E.g. clothing and paintings can't use the same thing to produce colours, blue was indeed very expensive as a paint for pictures as the best and brightest was ground semi-precious stones. But that cannot be used to dye clothes. Liekwise the owad used for textiles as I understand isn't very good for paintings. So basically blue can both be extremely expensive and rare while much cheaper and commonly available at the same time, just for different applications.

The other thing to point out is that it's one thing to dye/colour stuff, another to get to stick around. For paintings you need to mix colours with a medium which means they need to be rather brilliant as somehting will be lost in the paint. Clothes on the otherhand need to be able to soak in the colour and get it fixed. In both cases the colours risk degrading as chemicals are broken down, amongst others from sunlight. That last problem persists even to this day (though we've done much to improve on it anturally). Got plenty of clothes with faded colours.

The existence of bright fabrics notwithstanding, getting the right colour and making it stick was a general problem right up to the advent of synthetic dyes. The famous British Redcoats didn't always quite live up to their name for example, much to the annoyance contemporaries (outsourcing has always produced interesting results).

Epimethee

2018-05-31, 07:28 AM

Bright blue pigment for paints were rare, blue dyes are much easier to make.

I enjoyed your post and you are right to point out the difference but it seems that blue clothes were also fairly rare before the XIII century.
They are sources for example about the «*garance*» producer of Strasbourg (a Kind of red) and their techniques seem advanced but the same cannot be said about blue. But in a few decades, from 1180 to 1260, the technics and use of blue change rapidly to the point that the producer of red start complaining about the loss of money and prestige.

In Rome and Greece, blue was considered barbaric. Blue eyes for example were ridiculed for a man and the sign of a depraved woman. Blue clothes were unheard of, till the Late Empire.
It is also hard to say blue in latin or greek. In Roman language (french, Italien etc.) the word came from germanic rooots, blau, or from arabic, azur.

Blue was not a liturgical color, and is still not to this day. This is a major point because the christianity was a huge factor in medieval culture. In early medieval time, blue was commonly used as a pejorative color, a lot of devils were blue on manuscripts or in the statues of the churches.

It is also worth considering that early coat of Arms were rarelly blue. For comparison in the XVIII century it was the most used color in heraldic.

So for a long time blue was to ill considered to be used on clothes or in art. But i have not the time yet to go ans further. If you are interrested i will come back with more later.

The Jack

2018-05-31, 09:57 AM

Why would it be unheard of when Medieaval Europe would still remember Imperial Rome? Not to mention how the Catholic church retained many of it's trappings, not in the least the purple robes of bishops.

Bright blue pigment for paints were rare, blue dyes are much easier to make.

The fun part is that France was the biggest producer of woad it seems. But even then it wasn't exactly cheap or commonly available as you have to farm it on an almost industrial scale, I think they said 1-2kgs from a hectare or something after the complex process (there were quite a few steps, most labour intensive) to render down the plant into a usable dye..

What's the economics of this? Like how much can 1-2kgs of woad dye?
An acre was "an amount of land plowable by one plow and it's ox" and a modern hectare is 2.4 "modern" acres (an Acre in sensible units is around 4000m2). Woad seems like it could be a pain to raise but I don't have a great farming knowledge and I kind of assume everything'd be a pain to raise. The grinding, balls and fermenting/drying seem more waiting than laborious (though one unreliable source said it permanently blackened hands)

The balls are noted to be a valuable trade good, but I don't know what that's relative to. Could a twelfth century peasant afford blue?

How often were medieval clothes made anyways? People didn't wear much, perhaps what they did wear was something they paid more attention to?

DavidSh

2018-05-31, 10:29 AM

From my one attempt at it, I can say that woad is not hard to grow. Also, Wikipedia says it is listed as an invasive weed in several states of the American west.

The Jack

2018-05-31, 12:14 PM

http://www.woad.org.uk/index.html

I ended up finding this site pretty helpful in the economics of production(and it's reasonably referenced) and another I found somewhere that listed the profession of dye quite common. Do wish it was a bit more helpful with trade.

Clistenes

2018-05-31, 02:09 PM

Bright blue pigment for paints were rare, blue dyes are much easier to make.

The point is, while blue dyes were easily available, they weren't bright, but dark and/or greyish. Woad blue is like this:

https://www.firedearth.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/375x/0fd6336dce834ac188c3dee9d7a68c5a/i/m/image_16378.png

Indigo is like this (indigo was imported from the Mediterranean, Africa or Asia):

https://res.cloudinary.com/mmlafleur/image/upload/ar_1:1,c_scale,dpr_1.0,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto,w_60 0/v1/d20sb1n2rcfp9j.cloudfront.net/shop/media/catalog/product/d/e/deep_indigo_swatch_3.jpghttps://d2d00szk9na1qq.cloudfront.net/Product/328c647d-bc41-4628-8fbe-7a975aaff012/Images/Large_FF-333.jpghttp://lghttp.48874.nexcesscdn.net/8023826/sewing/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/363x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/E/s/Essex_Indigo_E014-1178_Fashion_Fabric_1.jpg

Most people in the Middle Ages favoured bright, light, warm, cheery colours if they could afford it, so they prefered reds, yellows and greens over blues. Blue was perceived as too cold and dark.

You could get a very bright, intense shade of blue using crushed turquoises, but it was too expensive.

However, around the XIII century they got the hang of creating affordable bright blue dyes in France, and french royalty, starting with king Louis IX, made it into their colour of choice (starting the "Blue Prince" or "Prince in Blue" trope).

DrewID

2018-05-31, 03:20 PM

However, around the XIII century they got the hang of creating affordable bright blue dyes in France, and french royalty, starting with king Louis IX, made it into their colour of choice (starting the "Blue Prince" or "Prince in Blue" trope).

Perhaps the origin of the shade named "Royal Blue"?

It sounds like the Technicolor Era version of medieval folk in all bright colors might be more correct than the "realistic gritty" Dung Ages versions of everyone in shades of brown.

DrewID

The Jack

2018-05-31, 04:26 PM

The point is, while blue dyes were easily available, they weren't bright, but dark and/or greyish. Woad blue is like this:

https://www.firedearth.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/375x/0fd6336dce834ac188c3dee9d7a68c5a/i/m/image_16378.png
.

A quick google image search demonstrates that this is incorrect, though it is true the other dye was better. It was better for more reasons than just colour though.

Vinyadan

2018-05-31, 05:00 PM

While we are at it, there could also be local variations of great importance. For example, the minerals in the water in Hierapolis in Phrygia would fixate certain pigments, that otherwise would have faded with washing. It still was an important center in the times of Justinian.

Haighus

2018-05-31, 05:19 PM

Why would it be unheard of when Medieaval Europe would still remember Imperial Rome? Not to mention how the Catholic church retained many of it's trappings, not in the least the purple robes of bishops.

Well, I meant unheard of to actual know somebody with it- there is a reason purple is associated with Emperors. I probably should've said legendary or something. Tyrian purple at least was ridiculously expensive to produce, and most people probably didn't come accross it much if at all. The numbers of murex snails needed to make enough to dye a single cloak is enormous.

However, as pointed out to me, other purples most likely existed by simply mixing red and blue.

Galloglaich

2018-05-31, 06:30 PM

If colors were rare in the day of Louis IX, I really can't say. By the time you are in the era of plate armor and longswords as I previously stated, you could find textiles of every color in the rainbow (and then some) in the market place of basically any large town.

The only real issues are related to quality. More rare colors might cost a little more, a good black was I think the most expensive in much of the 15th Century. But that had to do with the quality of the manufacturing of the textile and how the dying was done, which in turn had to do with things like the availability of alum, which was used for fixing dyes (and also tanning leather and other hides). A lot of rather vicious wars were fought, people were assassinated and so on over control of alum mines.

In most towns you would find the dyers shops near taverns, as people would pee in the dyers kettles that we were left out - the cheaper way to fix dyes was with urine.

But by the time of plate armor and so on, you really couldn't impress anybody with a color, per se. You needed to have really nice patterns, pretty designs, geometric or natural... stripes or checkers or swirls. Cloth of gold, silk, velvet. All kinds of embellishment. Try to banish the dismal costumes of Genre fiction, TV shows and games from your minds. Far from being less colorful and picturesque, actual medieval Europe was far more startlingly vibrant than really any of us can imagine today.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/s3/tls-prod/uploads/2016/05/matthus-schwarz-may-15-1524-from-the-first-book-of-fashion.jpeg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/62/70/f7/6270f71a35fe35e1a452978b55b0d905--public-bathing-german-fashion.jpg

My theory of leading a horse to water having failed, I'm posting some links to images from Mathaus Schwarz famous book. This guy was an accountant for a rich man, but he himself was wealthy by no means unusually so. It will give you an idea what a professional could afford to wear in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries. I believe you'll also see him wearing purple outfits in some of the plates.

"Let those who have eyes to see, see"

https://cdn.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/schwarz-hat.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/dd/55/c4/dd55c4ffd93795d0ba6bac0c948e90f4.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91YVoIbFRzL.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/4c/11/ef/4c11ef6d7f990123cfafe3a221f838c9.jpg

https://www.varsity.co.uk/images/derived/article-objects/md5-2f7b439924980900a84cc387418da268/12206.jpeg

https://meappropriatestyle.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/matthaus-schwarz-medievalistsnet-archer-251x450.jpg

https://032c.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bild-87-1024x1518.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f5/dd/a7/f5dda775af3c7fdc2ef0c2e609430fc9--landsknecht-augsburg.jpg

https://032c.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bild-61-1024x1567.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f5/dd/a7/f5dda775af3c7fdc2ef0c2e609430fc9--landsknecht-augsburg.jpg

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d6afc3d65e23cbeb0b8181a32be7dcf0fb5485cd/0_0_2892_4582/master/2892.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&

https://032c.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bild-86-1024x1586.jpg

https://032c.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bild-128-1024x1582.jpg

https://www.historischnieuwsblad.nl/upload/image/renaissance%20mode%203.jpg

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/article_small/public/thumbnails/image/2015/10/03/00/schwartz_0.jpg

As just one other example, consider the colors (and patterns) of Carnival (Nuremberg Schembartlauf) costumes from the 15th Century. These are not the finest clothing or textiles available to the people in question, these are what they were using to make carnival costumes for one night of wild partying. I.e. if not throw away these are essentially once a year use.

P.S. the artichoke looking things most of them are carrying are fireworks kind of like sparklers used to light the way and keep crowds at bay

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/08/6d/2d/086d2d7d6521af8bec8f5d577cffca7d.jpg

https://www.annascholz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Schembart-Carnival4.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8392/8639593767_3dc4a84fa5_o.png

https://thenewinquiry.com/app/uploads/2013/09/schembartdouble.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8392/8639593767_3dc4a84fa5_o.png

https://ww1.notestream.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/1435798854Flaming_Artichoke.png

http://www.santasombra.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/the-Schembart-Carnival-santasombra-victor-ruano.png

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8389/8640692964_063ab49298_o.png

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/9f/71/63/9f7163040f07eed089b1c5abac15021d.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7f/04/9a/7f049af41541b0de3d006a79f0d9ac3b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8541/8639592637_52bd62ecd7_o.png

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/22/ae/58/22ae586004dae9f89c92532c129393a8.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/64/c0/2b/64c02bde454c04b83adc33892a61296e.png

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/31/bc/5d/31bc5d4887b82af00818dcabe3c22dd9.png

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/14/0b/b9/140bb914572a4e7966c44f1776521450--carnivals-albrecht-d%C3%BCrer.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/55/8d/06/558d06e226e507c51e7416b322a97e70--illuminated-manuscript-medieval-art.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/e4/48/bd/e448bd1ea6ddce2f102c4409ad3728fe--carnival-images-fireworks.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/21/54/4e/21544e0849ec8e371f379d5d95dab921--wilder-mann-amazing-costumes.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTK_B56BKb51BHaHDmNnJDlUTa4gqvUy pLZWMFDMewqQPWmC68c

https://www.annascholz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Schembart-Carnival3.jpg

Again, some of you will understand the implications of these images and some of you obviously won't. I did already give you search terms you can use to find academic articles and books to use for references.

G

Galloglaich

2018-05-31, 06:34 PM

You know it bears thinking about... we did something similar with the Classical World. We assumed it was all black and white. Actually makes the statues more elegant. But the real ones were apparently extremely colorful, even gaudy. Most people can't get their head around it, I know I had trouble.

http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/field/image/Colorful-Ancient-Greece.jpg

http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Reconstructed-in-polychrome.jpg?itok=1HUfX0Ta

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/86/9c/71/869c7169e138d21fa126e989a06d90e2.jpg

https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/lucius-romans/files/2016/09/Augustus2_F.jpg

http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Trojan-archer.jpg?itok=eTme-a5t

I guess the past just makes more sense if it's simpler.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-05-31, 06:35 PM

One odd thing in those pictures is the exposed breasts and knees in a couple of the more animal like costumes.

I guess fashion has always been strange...

Clistenes

2018-05-31, 06:39 PM

Perhaps the origin of the shade named "Royal Blue"?

It sounds like the Technicolor Era version of medieval folk in all bright colors might be more correct than the "realistic gritty" Dung Ages versions of everyone in shades of brown.

DrewID

Both versions were probably true, to some extent... Europe is big, the Middle Ages were a long period, and different social classes could afford different stuff... plus the already mentioned Suntuary Laws would limit some people in what they could wear...

But yeah, at least high classes in Western Europe dressed in what we would consider too strident or garish colours during most of the Middle Ages, and low classes would do too, if allowed and if they could afford it...

Galloglaich

2018-05-31, 06:42 PM

One odd thing in those pictures is the exposed breasts and knees in a couple of the more animal like costumes.

I guess fashion has always been strange...

That is one of the big changes from medieval to Early Modern. Medieval people had far less prohibitions against or aversion to nudity. They all took baths together in public for one thing.

After ~ 1500 AD you have the onset of Syphilis, and probably not coincidentally, some new religious interpretations which denounce sex, nudity, and women. By around 1550 attitudes had changed a lot. By 1650 it's very strict, almost Victorian.

Some medieval cultural traditions related to body image seem odd though - in Medieval Germany a married woman with her hair down / uncovered in public was considered a bit shocking. You could see her in the bath stark naked, but her hair would be covered. But on the other hand a "Maiden" with her hair uncovered wasn't a big deal.

http://www.larsdatter.com/ogpix/baths.jpg

G

PhoenixPhyre

2018-05-31, 07:01 PM

Galloglaich

2018-05-31, 07:02 PM

Both versions were probably true, to some extent... Europe is big, the Middle Ages were a long period, and different social classes could afford different stuff... plus the already mentioned Suntuary Laws would limit some people in what they could wear...

But yeah, at least high classes in Western Europe dressed in what we would consider too strident or garish colours during most of the Middle Ages, and low classes would do too, if allowed and if they could afford it...

To be clear, all of the people in the images I posted were commoners. Schwarz was a professional, so basically upper middle class by todays standards (lets say he listens to NPR) but a lot of the others would be just basic burghers, even servants, peasants, day laborers and apprentices. Working class or middle class.

A basic middle class artisan might look like this self portrait of Flemish painter Robert Campin and the accompanying painting of his wife. Simple attire but hardly drab.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Robert_Campin_013.jpg/407px-Robert_Campin_013.jpg http://www.art-pics.ru/pics/3832/%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%80%20%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%B C%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%BD-%D0%9F%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%82%20%D0%B 6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%89%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B.jpg

Upper middle class burghers might dress something like this 15th Century Flemish (Petrus Christus) depiction of St. Eligius (as a goldsmith) and two of his customers.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Petrus_Christus_003.jpg/1200px-Petrus_Christus_003.jpg

The wealthier urban classes tended to dress with gold and very expensive furs like this:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/73/6a/aa/736aaa2ba87175615104f4b3dbf2fc6e--german-men-renaissance-portraits.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/D%C3%BCrer_Oswolt_Krel.jpg

It also tends to be a bit more severe looking.

Whereas princes, the top level nobles, dressed in truly exotic garb

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Hans_S%C3%BC%C3%9F_von_Kulmbach_-_Portrait_of_the_Margrave_Casimir_of_Brandenburg_-_WGA12298.jpg
Margrave Casimir of Brandenburg, 1511

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/94/d5/9a/94d59a940b3c3a5776e2e5097887f88c--renaissance-portraits-german-style.jpg
Duke Heinrich "The Peaceful" of Mecklenburg 1514

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A7b2_JLKQLY/Uc5dwoBuNuI/AAAAAAAAdOc/osrwnu6mFXk/s1600/29-Santa+Emma+de+Gurk-29.jpg
German noblewoman from 1490 (as St. Hemma von Gurk)

http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/henry4.jpg
Henry IV

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5LQUwWKtBKk/TVDbkTbGasI/AAAAAAAAAD0/U_RtJ_zrJhw/s1600/Black%2BRenaissance%2BClothing%2Bworn%2Bby%2BPhili p%2Bthe%2BGood%252C%2B1447-50..jpg
...and of course, the King of fashion, Philip "The Good" of Burgundy, 15th C

G

Galloglaich

2018-05-31, 07:04 PM

It wasn't even that they were bare, but that they'd cover everything else elaborately and leave those parts bare. Like the green leafy one near the end of the carnival pictures.

But thanks for the info--I'm working on clothing styles for my setting and it's always interesting to see the variety of things that people did.

I'm from New Orleans and we still have Carnival, and I can tell you that on Mardi Gras day ladies often dress in such a manner as to emphasize maybe not their knees, but other parts of the anatomy.

Especially when you have a mask on and can be semi-anonymous, you might be surprised how people will dress. I doubt Carnival has changed that much even since the ancient Saturnalia and before.

G

Galloglaich

2018-05-31, 07:07 PM

Honestly, I never saw your post, and thought I was replying to the only person at the time who had replied to me.

Forgive me...

Done!

Here is another picture of a couple of greedy merchants and a pawnbroker couple as a bonus just to show no hard feelings.

http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01539433f3ea970b-800wi.jpeg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Quentin_Massys_001.jpg/638px-Quentin_Massys_001.jpg

PhoenixPhyre

2018-05-31, 07:09 PM

I'm from New Orleans and we still have Carnival, and I can tell you that on Mardi Gras day ladies often dress in such a manner as to emphasize maybe not their knees, but other parts of the anatomy.

Especially when you have a mask on and can be semi-anonymous, you might be surprised how people will dress. I doubt Carnival has changed that much even since the ancient Saturnalia and before.

G

True enough.

I've always wanted to start a thread dedicated to pre-industrial clothing, but never have gotten around to it. I find it strongly under used as a description tool, and when it's used, it's used badly (CF boob plate or stereotypical drow women).

Galloglaich

2018-05-31, 07:16 PM

One other comment. I don't want to convey too 'Technicolor' of an impression. Schwarz is obviously showing off his nicest clothes in most of those paintings. He obviously has a lot of nice clothes, but i doubt he dressed like that every single day.

Similarly those Carnival costumes are obviously meant to be startling and jarring - that's the nature of Carnival.

I just wanted to show you what people could afford back in the 1300s, 1400s or 1500s, since that was the original question. Daily attire would probably not be so bright and colorful, but it wouldn't be hopelessly drab either. For towns, probably something like you see in depictions of daily life like you see here.

https://i1.wp.com/www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Medieval-shops.jpg?resize=610%2C431

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/a0/5f/e3a05faab9af6993c963d5cd0c5ba4f8.jpg

For rural peasants probably more like this famous Pieter Brughel painting. Much simpler than urban people but still not drab or crude looking like the "medieval caveman" on TV.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Peasant_Wedding_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg/640px-Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Peasant_Wedding_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg

G

Max_Killjoy

2018-05-31, 07:40 PM

The past is a foreign country.

But I'm loving this, need to package up all the info and sources, and send it off to a friend of mine who believes the "Dung Ages" / "Medieval Caveman" trope is "deeply realistic".

Epimethee

2018-05-31, 07:45 PM

Most people in the Middle Ages favoured bright, light, warm, cheery colours if they could afford it, so they prefered reds, yellows and greens over blues. Blue was perceived as too cold and dark.

You could get a very bright, intense shade of blue using crushed turquoises, but it was too expensive.

However, around the XIII century they got the hang of creating affordable bright blue dyes in France, and french royalty, starting with king Louis IX, made it into their colour of choice (starting the "Blue Prince" or "Prince in Blue" trope).

Actually blue was considered a warm color in medieval time. The representation of color was really different, for example green and yellow were seen as one of the strongest contrast and frequently used together to depict madness.
One cannot use our actual classification of colors, coming mainly from the discovery of the laws of optic in the XVIII century to explain the medieval understanding.

And it was actually the other way around in this case: the symbolic use of blue in art, theology and by the King of France lead to better technics and a groving industry of woad. Some cities, like Toulouse, were specialized in this new industry.

And i must disagree on a minor point with Galloglaich. From where i come ( Central Europe) Carnaval can have very traditionnal aspects, and are mainly organised by companies. The costumes of those companies are often more expensive than everiday clothes. You could Check for example the carnaval of Basel.
Carnaval was often a scenography of the power of the City with huge display of wealth and power. Of course there was drinking and wenching. But that was not the only point. Ah and i Allmost forgot Venice...

Another point worth discuting is the colors in fashion according to religious restrictions but i won’t dare going really far. But for example black was promoted by the interdiction in Italy at the end of the XIV century of others colors. It was thus very fashionnable for some time. Similarly Calvin in Geneva prohibited the use of some colors, red and yellow iirc but not blue for some reasons. I won’t dwell further here but it is good to remember.

( There was also a famous controversy between Suger and Bernard of Clairvaux in the XII century: for Suger color was light and thus divine and for Bernard it was matter and a distraction for the soul. It is really a defining moment for the cultural understanding of color in Europe and well worth researching).

Edit: Also the industry of dye was well established by the XII century. In Strasbourg for example the merchant of red were able to pay for some of the glassworks of the cathedral. With the growing taste in blue, other cities like Erfut, Glastonbury or the Lombardy in Italy were growing in wealth and power.

As I stated previously, the taste came in this case before the technics and the production center, to respond to a new market so to say. The quality and quantity of blue clothes were fairly low prior to the XIII century. Woad was mainly used with other pigments to produce black. The reds were by contrast very good and far more widespread. It was possible that in some part of Europe some clothes were blue but it was really uncommon and seen as an eccentricity. The red clock for example was the true mark of an active man.

Clistenes

2018-06-01, 02:50 AM

*snip*

Mostly upper middle to high class urban dwellers from a region famous for its wealth, trade and textile crafts, and they were wearing their nicest clothes in the painting (and the painter may even have made their clothes a tiny bit nicer than they really were...).

At the other end of the spectrum you have places like Iceland or the Faroe Islands. Even in continental Europe there were very isolated places like Las Hurdes that saw very little trade...

If you look for long enough, yo will find a place and time that fits almost every trope...

snowblizz

2018-06-01, 03:48 AM

What's the economics of this? Like how much can 1-2kgs of woad dye?

The grinding, balls and fermenting/drying seem more waiting than laborious (though one unreliable source said it permanently blackened hands)

The balls are noted to be a valuable trade good, but I don't know what that's relative to. Could a twelfth century peasant afford blue?

How often were medieval clothes made anyways? People didn't wear much, perhaps what they did wear was something they paid more attention to?
Sadly know nothing about the economics of it. If they said something I didn't pay enough attention.

Well, laborious broadly speaking, it took time, and time is money, and had several steps of boiling, fermenting, drying, mixing with urine, and so on until you get to the point where you can start putting thread in it. And if you want to get a deep colour you need to dye several times and let it dry abit inbetween I think. It's interrsting, you need the dye to react with oxygen in the air to get the process going. It's not like modern industrial dyes were you get instant results more or less.

I would say a 12th century peasant probably could afford blue, if they really wanted. The problem becomes more what are they forgoing. It's not ruinously expensive as purple or spices and such. But it's probably an outlay compared to your homespun textiles dyed with local plants.

IIRC servants contracts tended to give you clothes one a year, twice maybe because there was winter and summer clothes.

Soldiers were also provided with cloth 1-2 times a year abouts too, though I think they'd be wearing/tearing the uniforms a bit harder than most people did clothes.

That's an interesting question really, were ye olden textiles more hardwearing than modern ones? Jeans fabric is relatively new (19th century right?) and famously hardwearing.

Mostly upper middle to high class urban dwellers from a region famous for its wealth, trade and textile crafts, and they were wearing their nicest clothes in the painting (and the painter may even have made their clothes a tiny bit nicer than they really were...).

At the other end of the spectrum you have places like Iceland or the Faroe Islands. Even in continental Europe there were very isolated places like Las Hurdes that saw very little trade...

If you look for long enough, yo will find a place and time that fits almost every trope...

Yes, and it was something I was thinking about mentioning. In Scandinavia the truth to the best of my ability discern tips more towards pastel peasants than technicolour medieval. Medieaval Sweden e.g. was mostly extremely poor, had few towns, all of which were tiny in comparison to anything south of the Baltic. Trade wasn't as widespread only lightly touching most of the country as there wasn't a lot of interest to trade with long distances.

We see history as a reflection of ourselves, not as it was mostly. We like to think of ancient Athens as rational and logic, democratic and white because that's the parts from it we kept. So we don't see the colourful statues, irrationality of beliefs, how deeply unequal it was (but not as bad as those around it at least!). It's no coincidence that the most recent trend in the history disciplines is making everything into gender theory e.g. We always try and re-understand history based on our own society.

Some days ago Swedish historian **** Harrison answered a question in his blog whether parents loved their kids in the middle-ages. Because with the high infant mortality surely they couldn't have or they must have caved under the traumatic experiences of multiple loss. Surely kids back then were just small, but ultimately easily replacable adults, whereas older children where resources had been expended in rearing was more of a loss. That's the basic "theory". Apparnetly it was a serious idea adopted for awhile. That's a modern perspective placed on middle-age people trying to explain something from our point of view though. Modern historians conclude it's bunk based on the surviving records and stories. Harrison mentions e.g. the "miracle stories" written down how pilgrimages and such were undertaken for the sake of saints interceding on behalf of sick children, and if it "worked" the story would be noted down. Clearly then people must have cared becasue they went through effort to save them. And so on.

Basically the question said more about our modern sensibilities than medieaval times.

Berenger

2018-06-01, 03:58 AM

Museum website about the "Gods in Colour" exhibition: http://buntegoetter.liebieghaus.de/en

Epimethee

2018-06-01, 06:38 AM

You have to remember that the textile industry was also the first in Europe as early as the X century with cities like Bruges, Bruxelles or Ypres central to the trade.
The local production was only meaningfull in the fringest places, like Ireland for example. There is a famous drawing from Dürer of soldiers and poors from Ireland that show in 1521 the relative backwardness of irish fashion.

In continental Europe, most of the work, like dying, was made in big cities. In Basel for example the Zunft zum Schlüssel ( Corporation of the Key) was one of the most important and united the merchant of fabric.
It was one of the «*Big Trade*» with a lot of wealth and prestige and central to the growth of the cities and of the bourgeoisie.

The sewing was mainly made locally but the production of textile was centralised early and one of the main force in the medieval international economy.

What one could wear in France or Germany was really early linked with what was made in those centers.

Galloglaich

2018-06-01, 09:43 AM

Mostly upper middle to high class urban dwellers from a region famous for its wealth, trade and textile crafts, and they were wearing their nicest clothes in the painting (and the painter may even have made their clothes a tiny bit nicer than they really were...).

At the other end of the spectrum you have places like Iceland or the Faroe Islands. Even in continental Europe there were very isolated places like Las Hurdes that saw very little trade...

If you look for long enough, yo will find a place and time that fits almost every trope...

Well, I'm not sure what precise images or post you are referring to here, as I posted a lot of stuff yesterday.

However many of the images I posted included urban dwellers (burghers) of the mid range from servants and apprentices up to wealthy merchants, as well as a few nobles which I stipulated as such. If you want i can post another series of nothing but apprentices, servants, day laborers and other representatives of the poorer half of the urban landscape, and I think you will see they don't look anything like cavemen.

It's true that of course you could find isolated and poverty stricken regions where people had very little, and you don't have to go way out to the Faeroes or Iceland. Wllachia, Albania and a lot of the Balkans, especially after the Ottoman conquests... up in the Pyrennes and much of Granada, most of Ireland (though they could afford colored cloth - especially saffron / yellow) and many areas in England and Scotland, certain rural parts of Germany, Sicily, certain parts of France and some southern regions of Italy, a lot of Russia especially the part under direct Mongol control. And so on and so forth.

So when you say "if you look hard enough you can find a place and time that fills almost every Trope" I guess that is true but it's also kind of meaningless. I can find people living in my own city today who live like cavemen, I pass a handful of them on the way to work every day.

But I still think the Trope is misleading and even destructive. It does not really portray the era in question, especially the towns. The thriving, clean, bustling, lively, vibrant, self managed medieval town is almost never portrayed in any of the millions of outlets of genre media (TV, video, computer games, tabletop RPGs graphic novels, etc. etc. etc.) which depict these eras which we seem so fascinated with. It's always the filthy, ignorant, benighted caveman. And yet, where is the facility where they build all that plate armor the knights are wearing? Where is the organized group of people who built the Cathedrals, castles and great buildings? Nowehre to be found apparently. Just a bunch of wretched cavemen.

And yet there were thousands of thriving, vibrant towns and even small market villages like that all over Europe. I can find them for you in every country and region. (Ok maybe not in Iceland or the Faeroes but you know what I'm saying...)

It would be like if at some time in the future you did shows or games about the 20th or 21st Century and every scene was in a favella, a refugee camp, or a shanty town. Sure they do exist, and sure even in the US we had the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl where for a while in the 30's it was fairly widespread... followed by World War II when so much of the world was smashed, broken and burned up. Even today you could go to a War-Torn place like Syria or Congo or a place in extreme economic deprivation like Venezuela or North Korea. So if you looked hard enough you could find that Trope, yes.

But this is hardly a universal or even common condition in most of the world this period, today. The point I'm making is that it wasn't the most common condition in the Middle Ages either, in fact quite to the contrary. The last 300-400 years of the Middle Ages is basically when there was such an incredible surge of culture and technology that "Western" culture went from being roaming barbarians to pulling ahead of the rest of the world.

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-01, 09:56 AM

You have to remember that the textile industry was also the first in Europe as early as the X century with cities like Bruges, Bruxelles or Ypres central to the trade.

Yes, and in Florence, Venice, Bologna, Siena, Brescia, Genoa etc., and in Cologne, Strasbourg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Prague, Krakow etc. etc.

A lot of this was actually originally instigated by the Cistercian Monks and their predecessors going back to the late Carolingian era. The Textile industry (of which dying and coloring were a subset) was in many ways the most important, earliest and most developed in Europe.

The history of England in the middle ages, by the way, was dominated by their trying to figure out how to develop their own textile industry since the English kings were very frustrated that all the weaving of their wool was being done in Bruges and Ghent and therefore thats where all the money was going.

The local production was only meaningfull in the fringest places, like Ireland for example. There is a famous drawing from Dürer of soldiers and poors from Ireland that show in 1521 the relative backwardness of irish fashion.

In continental Europe, most of the work, like dying, was made in big cities. In Basel for example the Zunft zum Schlüssel ( Corporation of the Key) was one of the most important and united the merchant of fabric.
It was one of the «*Big Trade*» with a lot of wealth and prestige and central to the growth of the cities and of the bourgeoisie.

The sewing was mainly made locally but the production of textile was centralised early and one of the main force in the medieval international economy.

What one could wear in France or Germany was really early linked with what was made in those centers.

Exactly. This is what I was trying to tell them but I guess this is a difficult concept to grasp.

As for your earlier point on Carnival clothing - yes it's true, we have the same kind of societies (Confraternities, Sodalities, Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs and so on) here in New Orleans trust me, that is basically who organizes Mardi Gras. But for every person in one of those Confraternaties, there are probably ten who are not and are just spectators, basically. Including myself for the most part.

In a Late Medieval Town, probably more people would be in Carnival societies, but it's still probably the upper third of the economic spectrum. Journeymen on up pretty much I think. Most day laborers and ordinary household servants for example would not be in a Confraternity. And those are the people really spending money on costumes (and other things like floats, tapestries, pageants, buying beer and candle wax and food, hiring musicians and so on for the celebrations). And not just for Carnival but for all the 180 or so Saints days and Holy Days throughout the year. Carnival was just the wildest and most debauched one.

More broadly, the main issue I'm pointing out is that Carnival costumes are surplus. Sure it may be your way to show off your wealth, but whatever you are putting into a Carnival costume is above and beyond your basic needs to cover your nakedness and protect yourself from the weather.

G

Clistenes

2018-06-01, 10:01 AM

DrewID wrote:

It sounds like the Technicolor Era version of medieval folk in all bright colors might be more correct than the "realistic gritty" Dung Ages versions of everyone in shades of brown.

And I answered:

*
Both versions were probably true, to some extent... Europe is big, the Middle Ages were a long period, and different social classes could afford different stuff... plus the already mentioned Suntuary Laws would limit some people in what they could wear...

But yeah, at least high classes in Western Europe dressed in what we would consider too strident or garish colours during most of the Middle Ages, and low classes would do too, if allowed and if they could afford it...

Then you posted some images of richly dressed people from Flanders, Burgundy and Germany.

And I wrote:

*
Mostly upper middle to high class urban dwellers from a region famous for its wealth, trade and textile crafts, and they were wearing their nicest clothes in the painting (and the painter may even have made their clothes a tiny bit nicer than they really were...).

At the other end of the spectrum you have places like Iceland or the Faroe Islands. Even in continental Europe there were very isolated places like Las Hurdes that saw very little trade...

If you look for long enough, yo will find a place and time that fits almost every trope...

Meaning that, as I said previously, Europe is big and the Middle Ages were very long, and society was complex and heterogeneous, so you will find examples of both Technicolor Era brightly coloured and/or fancyly dressed people and Dung Age peasants in undyed clothes, so both tropes are true to a extent...

I wasn't trying to contradict your post, just elaborating on what I had said previously...

Galloglaich

2018-06-01, 10:08 AM

Yes, and it was something I was thinking about mentioning. In Scandinavia the truth to the best of my ability discern tips more towards pastel peasants than technicolour medieval. Medieaval Sweden e.g. was mostly extremely poor, had few towns, all of which were tiny in comparison to anything south of the Baltic. Trade wasn't as widespread only lightly touching most of the country as there wasn't a lot of interest to trade with long distances.

Sweden was largely rural, with only a few towns (Stockholm and Wisby on Gotland being the only two of real significance) and yet, it was not so poor. The Scania market (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%A5ne_Market) - an area in what is now Southern Sweden on the Oresund but at the time contested between Sweden, German towns and Denmark, was the birthplace of the Hanseatic League.

Read the article I linked there if you don't already know the story, you may find it interesting.

Wisby on Gotland was also one of the most important trading cities in Northern Europe until it got sacked by the King of Denmark.

And Sweden was a bit unusual by European standards in that it had a lot of production in rural areas. Sweden produced a lot of iron in the middle ages, of very good quality, mostly seemingly from smallish rural estates. They were also, by the 14th Century, producing very well wrought, highly sophisticated iron and steel goods like firearms and cannon, mysteriously emerging from within their deep forests.

Sweden also had significant and well developed mining industries in regions like Dalarna.

Swedish peasants, finally, were apparently quite well armed by the late Medieval period including good armor and other kit (not just weapons). This seems to be related to their defeat of several armies of Danish and Danish-employed foreign mercenaries sent to tame them. Sweden also (more or less peacefully) conquered or annexed Finland from whence they got a lot of valuable trade (and they managed some trading centers in Finland too). And Swedish traders traded silk road goods with the Russians (whom they also frequently fought).

Swedes living on the Baltic coasts also seemed to be closely linked to some of the rather prosperous Baltic pirate groups like the Likedeelers and Victual Brothers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers).

In the High to Late medieval period, Sweden tended to be at a hot or cold war with Denmark (even when technically part of the same Kingdom) and more or less aligned with the mostly German towns of the Hanseatic League, with whom they played a substantial role in the development of trade and manufacturing in Northern Europe. In the 15th Century they also founded one of the more important northern Universities at Uppsala (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uppsala_University#15th_century:_origins), modeled on Bologna. So while poor and rural to a large extent, I wouldn't call them as poor as say Norway, certainly. Sweden was kind of unique in the middle ages and quite interesting. They did not jump into Feudalism the way Denmark did but did not wallow or suffer in poverty quite as badly as the poor Norwegians did, and they had a hand in the development of the Hanse.

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-01, 10:14 AM

Then you posted some images of richly dressed people from Flanders, Burgundy and Germany.

I made about 5 posts some of which were specifically of working class people and peasants, yes mostly in Flanders or Germany but Germany in particular was also quite heterogeneous and by no means universally a rich region. Like I said, I can post images from many other regions in the medieval world.

Conversely, maybe you could show me some realistic paintings of people wearing burlap and rat skins ala Monty Python?

Meaning that, as I said previously, Europe is big and the Middle Ages were very long, and society was complex and heterogeneous, so you will find examples of both Technicolor Era brightly coloured and/or fancyly dressed people and Dung Age peasants in undyed clothes, so both tropes are true to a extent...

I wasn't trying to contradict your post, just elaborating on what I had said previously...

I understand ... I was just hoping to clarify which images you meant, and more generally I'm just pointing out the weight tends to get placed on one end of that spectrum rather heavily, to a degree which I think is misleading.

I do concede there were many poor regions and places where they were too poor to die their clothes - the Grisons in what is now Northern Switzerland for example were called that due to the undyed clothing worn by the peasants there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_League

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-01, 11:02 AM

But that is also, of course, an outlier, hence the name of the region...

Max_Killjoy

2018-06-01, 11:15 AM

Yes, and in Florence, Venice, Bologna, Siena, Brescia, Genoa etc., and in Cologne, Strasbourg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Prague, Krakow etc. etc.

A lot of this was actually originally instigated by the Cistercian Monks and their predecessors going back to the late Carolingian era. The Textile industry (of which dying and coloring were a subset) was in many ways the most important, earliest and most developed in Europe.

The history of England in the middle ages, by the way, was dominated by their trying to figure out how to develop their own textile industry since the English kings were very frustrated that all the weaving of their wool was being done in Bruges and Ghent and therefore thats where all the money was going.

Exactly. This is what I was trying to tell them but I guess this is a difficult concept to grasp.

I wonder if the American pop-history concept of this comes in part from all stories of American pioneers making their own cloth and clothing that we're told -- and the misunderstanding of just how far "off the grid" the American frontier was compared to the European states many of these people or their parents had come from.

Epimethee

2018-06-01, 11:30 AM

More broadly, the main issue I'm pointing out is that Carnival costumes are surplus. Sure it may be your way to show off your wealth, but whatever you are putting into a Carnival costume is above and beyond your basic needs to cover your nakedness and protect yourself from the weather.

G

Agreed ! (And i enjoy your extensive answers.) but... Carnival is one of the more complex and strange celebration. The masks were often specifics with a lot of symbolical meaning and reserved to a special group of peoples, not only the richest but often the young and unwed men. The wild men you showed above are great examples of this kind of traditions and one of the more archetypal figure of Carnival. The celebration was highly codified with often the election of a King or Queen. In Basel, to this day, it start in the middle of the night, around 3am, when the drums start playing and the companies roaming the city.

This was the case not only in cities but also in more rural part of Europe, were some celebrations survive to this day. Take for example the Roitshäggäta in the alpine valley of Lötschental in the swiss mountains. Only a select few were authorised to wear the masks and a lot of work was put all year long in their elaboration that followed very strict rules. The main Population was wearing everiday clothes and the celebration was mainly the arrival of the masks in the village, disturbing the normal life.

In Lötschental, the general population start wearing mask of the more commercial persuasion only during the 20th century (as much as the sources are valid, there is not a lot of them prior to the XIX century), which correspond also with a taming of the traditionnal masks who could be quite violent in more ancient time.

Carnival is really special and we could Go really deeper down the rabbit hole. We are far from weapons of course but i Hope it is fair as long as we all learn and enjoy.

At last, i could argue that the surplus used in celebration mean more wealth and not less than the everyday needs. You just have to Look at the money people put today in Christmas decoration or in their vacations to see my ( very minor) point.

gkathellar

2018-06-01, 01:22 PM

I can find people living in my own city today who live like cavemen, I pass a handful of them on the way to work every day.

I feel like, since we're on the subject of misconceptions about the past, that "lives like cavemen," would mean they're healthy, well-rested, and physically fit. :P

Galloglaich

2018-06-01, 02:18 PM

Sweden was largely rural, with only a few towns (Stockholm and Wisby on Gotland being the only two of real significance) and yet, it was not so poor.

I guess the shorter more succinct version of all this is that in the high to late medieval period Sweden seemed to still have a lot of what you might call "yeomen" independent farmers, who were peasants, more or less (according to Feudal law anyway) but not necessarily so poor. Not serfs either.

Sweden didn't seem to have a lot of nobles or a lot of serfs. it was mostly rural and had few towns - but it was also integrated with the trade network of the urban economy of the Northern coast of the Baltic. In fact Sweden was an important part of building the Hanse.

This is often left out of Hanseatic histories which tend to be somewhat German-centric and often leave out the (IMO very important) Swedish contribution. That's one of the reasons why I'm being so forceful in pointing it out.

I feel like, since we're on the subject of misconceptions about the past, that "lives like cavemen," would mean they're healthy, well-rested, and physically fit. :P

True! Good point, I'm actually committing the very crime I decry. The people I pass on the way to work are living more like "Hollywood Cavemen".

I wonder if the American pop-history concept of this comes in part from all stories of American pioneers making their own cloth and clothing that we're told -- and the misunderstanding of just how far "off the grid" the American frontier was compared to the European states many of these people or their parents had come from.

yes I think THIS in a nutshell - when we try to understand Medieval Europe we tend to look at the 19th Century and project our way backward.

in the US this is doubly so because we don't have very many medieval castles (with the exception of a few Spanish forts down in Florida and the Gulf Coast and so on) or cities to look at.

We do a much better job with our 19th Century history by the way.

I think we also get a lot of our history from England and for the English, and their history got a lot more interesting, glorious and fun in the 16th Century. Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, Francis Drake and Shakespeare. before that it's pretty much Agincourt and then Vikings.

Kidding there but in general, I think the English put more emphasis on Early Modern history for understandable reasons. To understand history of Europe more broadly you have to combine together a lot of local historical data from 50 different countries and 200 different cities and so on, which is much more of a challenge.

in Continental Europe it seems to me like everybody knows their own local history (and how cool and unique and interesting their town / region / country was) but pretty much assumes the rest of Europe was like the Monty Python trope.

G

Max_Killjoy

2018-06-01, 02:30 PM

I feel like, since we're on the subject of misconceptions about the past, that "lives like cavemen," would mean they're healthy, well-rested, and physically fit. :P

I think this is one where there's been a lot of pressure to swing way too far back the other way based on some rather dubious modern agendas.

Hard to sell people your "paleodiet" books if you can't convince them that the people who (never actually) ate that way were super-awesome-healthy.

Beleriphon

2018-06-01, 02:39 PM

in Continental Europe it seems to me like everybody knows their own local history (and how cool and unique and interesting their town / region / country was) but pretty much assumes the rest of Europe was like the Monty Python trope.

G

As Canadian about European history and you get one of to things: We left British rule eventually after the British beat up the French in Europe/North America, or the British are bullies and the French king abandoned us to the English.

Galloglaich

2018-06-01, 03:14 PM

Agreed ! (And i enjoy your extensive answers.) but... Carnival is one of the more complex and strange celebration. The masks were often specifics with a lot of symbolical meaning and reserved to a special group of peoples, not only the richest but often the young and unwed men. The wild men you showed above are great examples of this kind of traditions and one of the more archetypal figure of Carnival. The celebration was highly codified with often the election of a King or Queen. In Basel, to this day, it start in the middle of the night, around 3am, when the drums start playing and the companies roaming the city.

This was the case not only in cities but also in more rural part of Europe, were some celebrations survive to this day. Take for example the Roitshäggäta in the alpine valley of Lötschental in the swiss mountains. Only a select few were authorised to wear the masks and a lot of work was put all year long in their elaboration that followed very strict rules. The main Population was wearing everiday clothes and the celebration was mainly the arrival of the masks in the village, disturbing the normal life.

In Lötschental, the general population start wearing mask of the more commercial persuasion only during the 20th century (as much as the sources are valid, there is not a lot of them prior to the XIX century), which correspond also with a taming of the traditionnal masks who could be quite violent in more ancient time.

Carnival is really special and we could Go really deeper down the rabbit hole. We are far from weapons of course but i Hope it is fair as long as we all learn and enjoy.

At last, i could argue that the surplus used in celebration mean more wealth and not less than the everyday needs. You just have to Look at the money people put today in Christmas decoration or in their vacations to see my ( very minor) point.

Great post. Trust me I understand all this, all the nuances... I just can't fit all that into every post.

Just a couple of quick points as i already spent too much time today commenting here.

Carnival in the towns vs countryside was very different. There was broader participation and less formality in the towns very generally speaking and people outside of the Confraternities did also wear costumes. The Confraternities pageants and processions of course did have very strict and meaningful rules on every detail sometimes - it's the same here in New Orleans today. Even their own music and languages. It gets very deep.
In the towns in Europe, it also varied a lot from place to place. The Church tried to crack down on Carnival with mixed success. After converting to Protestantism they had more luck and it was banned in several places (though by no means all) in the 16th or 17th Centuries.
Carnival in the country is linked to all the Krampus stuff everybody now knows about. Google "Wilder Mann" to see images of 12th Night Carnival costumes from all over Europe. Jacob Grimm (yes that Jacob Grimm) has very good and well researched / sourced descriptions of the practices from all over Central Europe going back to the medieval period in his Deutsche Mythologie

In addition to New Orleans and our own rural Carnival which is in the Cajun country I've personally experienced Fasching in some towns in Southern Germany, the Koln (Cologne for us Anglophones) Carnival, womens carnival night or whartever they call it, plus Carnival in Nice and in a couple Carribean Islands.

never experienced Basel yet but would love to go one day, it's the birthplace of Joachim Meyer.

Speaking of which, there are strong links between Carnival and the culture of fencing in Germany / Central Europe. Google "Sword Dance Nuremberg" for example no time to get into it but it's an important activity and was part of Carnival. These were organzied mainly by Journeymens Confraternities in certain crafts like the Furriers and Cutlers. There are variations of it all over Europe.

http://www.rapper.org.uk/graphics/cutlers-guild.jpg

Fechtbucher (fencing manuals) in Central Europe are also linked to Carnival.

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-01, 03:17 PM

The Jack

2018-06-01, 03:23 PM

I think we also get a lot of our history from England and for the English, and their history got a lot more interesting, glorious and fun in the 16th Century. Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, Francis Drake and Shakespeare. before that it's pretty much Agincourt and then Vikings.

Kidding there but in general, I think the English put more emphasis on Early Modern history for understandable reasons. To understand history of Europe more broadly you have to combine together a lot of local historical data from 50 different countries and 200 different cities and so on, which is much more of a challenge.

in Continental Europe it seems to me like everybody knows their own local history (and how cool and unique and interesting their town / region / country was) but pretty much assumes the rest of Europe was like the Monty Python trope.

G
Well it isn't the mainland, but when I was schooled in the UK, I never felt like we learned much about ourselves in history. I went to schools that were considered good, and it still felt lackluster.

Egypt, Rome. Victorian england (maybe with a bit of earlier industrialization), Henry's wives, the Blitz, the atlantic slave trade, Francis Drake (who was important to our region) Trench warfare.

There was never a general understanding of what was going on. We got narrow focuses, which weren't particularly relevant, or we got broad generalizations.

We never learned about:
England before the romans
England between them and the vikings.
England between the normans and the tudors
And colonial era britain was basically limited to the slave trade.

and a whole bunch of other stuff. There's a few little tidbits I'm missing out on. Good thing I really liked reading. I didn't pick history as further study, but all I heard was that they learned about Prussians and napoleon.

I spent a single year in Australia when I was 15/16. History there was a waste of time. "we're really sorry for that whole aboriginal genocide and we really want you to know it, we've had a few prime ministers, we helped a bit in these wars" If I was a more confident student, I would've just skipped class. Thinking about it, history in school was easy, but that was it's fundamental problem; I didn't understand things, I just knew about them.

Also, our history studies really weren't the kind to inspire nationalism. Sure, WWII's western front was all us and that's the front that mattered, and the accounts of fighting against the spanish Armada would give the impression that britain always won, but most of it's either "this happened" or "this was ****ty"

Australia was "We're great, except this bit, we're sorry for this bit, and it's great that we're sorry" and it'd blend in to other classes. You ever heard of original Australian cuisine? The teacher was surprisingly insistent that it was a thing.

rrgg

2018-06-01, 05:02 PM

@Galloglaich You left out 1066, the year William the conquer single-handedly invented feudalism all by himself. ;)

It's probably worth noting that even in the Early Modern period fashion was never really this consistant thing. Some years dark, drab clothing might be in while other years the fashion might be to wear a variety of bright colors. Sometimes women would be expected to wear clothing which revealed very little skin, but other times it was considered the height of elegance for to walk around while letting your boobs hang out as much as possible. etc.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dqDSwIzoC1k/T1VQcFI9i9I/AAAAAAAAGlo/b2rUgcFwWwk/s1600/18th+Century+Fashion+Plate+64.jpg

I know it's even harder to make broad generalizations about the middle ages. But the sense I get is that most people back then did care a lot about the clothes they wore. And even if dyed clothing was expensive for a peasant to afford at times, I suspect many would have been perfectly willing to save up the money anyways (which might in turn explain the high prices and just how lucrative many of these industries were)

Mr Beer

2018-06-01, 05:36 PM

I think this is one where there's been a lot of pressure to swing way too far back the other way based on some rather dubious modern agendas.

Hard to sell people your "paleodiet" books if you can't convince them that the people who (never actually) ate that way were super-awesome-healthy.

I agree. My own competely nonscientific take on it is that Im completely willing to believe that hunter gatherers may well have generally lead a healthy life, with a good diet and plenty of outdoor exercise, leisure time etc etc.

But at the same time, those good times would be over the moment they snapped a femur or got an infected cut or their internal parasites reached the level needed to make them chronically unwell.

Though of course it was probably a much better life than you could expect working in a factory during the industrial revolution for example.

Kiero

2018-06-01, 05:50 PM

I agree. My own competely nonscientific take on it is that Im completely willing to believe that hunter gatherers may well have generally lead a healthy life, with a good diet and plenty of outdoor exercise, leisure time etc etc.

But at the same time, those good times would be over the moment they snapped a femur or got an infected cut or their internal parasites reached the level needed to make them chronically unwell.

Though of course it was probably a much better life than you could expect working in a factory during the industrial revolution for example.

They had a better life than the early farmers. However, that was in the good times. In the lean times, when game was hard to find and foraging not very plentiful, they starved. They also routinely practised infanticide to keep their numbers to a manageable level, over and above what must have been pretty high infant mortality.

Epimethee

2018-06-01, 06:18 PM

As a continental European i’m always surprised by how little people know about the history that surround them. There is of course a lot to learn and a lot to discover but mainly everybody know the most emblematic pieces, one or two half-legends that put them in a glorious light. They often sit next to treasures without noticing.

I come from a place with more than 6’000 years of continuous documented occupation, with megalithic, celtic, roman and catholic funeral sites, three castles in a city of less than 30’000 peoples, not to mention the houses, painting, archives of every kind, the oldest manuscript from the IX century. less than 30 minutes of driving from there you could find one of the last complete monastic treasure in western Europe, defiled neither by the Reformation nor the Revolution. A King of Burgundy was crowned there and i could go on and on... Of course, everybody and his nephew know the castle, the monastery, and could tell the same old Stories, Cesar was here, Napoleon never paid his due to the inn were he stayed (and the french president refused to clear the debt some 2 century later when the owner of the place had the funny idea of giving it to him)... droping a name is not that hard. But more is often too much to ask. Even in your own backyard you only know a few things and the rest is left to the tropes...

To be fair there is so much, it’s really demanding even to draw a simple sketch. I enjoy local history cause i think it’s great to walk in the past, to look around seeing another time. But for many there is nothing to see.

Yeah... i think it was some kind of rambling...

Vinyadan

2018-06-02, 03:05 AM

Clistenes

2018-06-02, 03:34 AM

About the house in the prairie, that was something I found explicitly used as a comparison for late Roman country life: that a farmer was not living like that. He and his family would have been part of a complex economy, would have owned some small piece of land, but would have worked for money in different properties as well as mines, and be paid with money. With the money, he'd have bought ready made pottery, often imported from Africa, and clothes, as well as many kinds of food. The produce he had been paid to grow could then be sent anywhere in the Empire. One of the reasons why the barbarian invasions stroke so hard was that this interconnected economy was sent to hell, which caused widespread poverty and was one of the reasons for the population decrease during the V-VI centuries.

Yep. I have read the argument that, while urban society degenerated at the end of the Roman Empire (mostly due to the flight to the countryside of the higher classes, due to increasingly higher taxation and more and more unpopular duties imposed on them without compensation), the hardest hit against the cities was the loss of the transmediterranean trade economy due to the Muslim invasions (before those there were whole regions focused towards the mass production and export of some produce or craft).

About African pottery, amphorae were used to transport wine and oil in such quantites they didn't know what to do with empty amphorae im Rome, and they made small hilks out of broken, discarded ones...

Berenger

2018-06-02, 04:00 AM

Well it isn't the mainland, but when I was schooled in the UK, I never felt like we learned much about ourselves in history. I went to schools that were considered good, and it still felt lackluster.

I'm german. The only things we got about the UK was "Colonialism & Atlantic Slave Trade", "Cradle of Industrialization" and the vague impression that they were junior partners of Team America in WW I and WW II.

We also skipped german history before the romans (which is kind of disturbing since some parts of modern germany never had any romans) and everything between the romans and Vormärz with a brief exception for Martin Luther which involves literally disgusting hero worship at least at some schools ("Name three reasons why [person X] is your hero." as an assignment in a test seems like a pretty big red flag to me).

We also learned basically nothing about those tiny specks of land east of our modern eastern border and west of Hawaii prior to the 20th century. Yes, that includes stuff like "relationship with eastern neighbours", "parts of the Holy Roman Empire" and "the crusades".

Brother Oni

2018-06-02, 04:22 AM

Kidding there but in general, I think the English put more emphasis on Early Modern history for understandable reasons. To understand history of Europe more broadly you have to combine together a lot of local historical data from 50 different countries and 200 different cities and so on, which is much more of a challenge.

I think it depends very much on the school and when you were taught in the UK.

When I was taught, the main events in chronological order were: Roman Britain, Vikings, 1066, the Crusades/Magna Carta, Elizabethan Times then jumped straight to WW1, missing out Ollie Cromwell, Republic England and the Napoleonic Wars as key Early Modern era national identity forming events (exception for our annual ritual burning of a Catholic traitor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes)).

The Jack

2018-06-02, 06:26 AM

were junior partners of Team America in WW I and WW II.
.

But the USA was hardly in WW1. They came very late, did relatively little fighting, and made a good deal of fuss about not wanting to use british helmets (which they did). It shouldn't even be worth a discussion.

Their largest contribution in WW2 was supplies and weapons. A little under half the troops on D-Day were american, (and they used british ships) But US forces did far less in africa, and were absent for norway. The british spent more lives by the end of the war.

In the Pacific, colonial forces are all but forgotten, despite their significant numbers, in favour for the american island hopping campaign which gets such media attention, but most of the US contribution to that war was naval battles so...

Ultimately, the eastern front should have overshadowed everything, but the cold war was on and the americans were good at making movies, so we've got the common perception we do. It doesn't help that most of my school's ww2 education was on how we got bombed to ****. Everyone also gets their sources/opinions skewed by nationalism (I highlight the british, but mostly to contrast against the americans)

Berenger

2018-06-02, 07:22 AM

For clarification: that was the general impression my history classes in school left me with when I was about eighteen, not a statement to be taken at face value.

The Jack

2018-06-02, 07:42 AM

Yeah, but it's still a trigger of mine.

I honestly feel like I could give students a better (and more entertaining) overview of history in a week than a public school could give in six years.

Max_Killjoy

2018-06-02, 07:44 AM

"More people from country X died than from country Y" is hardly a great metric of contribution to a war...

Kiero

2018-06-02, 08:14 AM

I think it depends very much on the school and when you were taught in the UK.

When I was taught, the main events in chronological order were: Roman Britain, Vikings, 1066, the Crusades/Magna Carta, Elizabethan Times then jumped straight to WW1, missing out Ollie Cromwell, Republic England and the Napoleonic Wars as key Early Modern era national identity forming events (exception for our annual ritual burning of a Catholic traitor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes)).

I studied history up to A-level, but I've learned a lot more in my own personal reading since leaving full-time education than I ever did at school.

awa

2018-06-02, 12:31 PM

so I'm trying to find out about Asian crossbows particularly in the region of Tibet and Nepal if anyone knows that specific but ill settle for china
how much they were used and how they compared to bows in ability/ penetration and what have you.
I'm interested in both the repeating kind and the regular kind.

Brother Oni

2018-06-02, 01:07 PM

"More people from country X died than from country Y" is hardly a great metric of contribution to a war...

There's a quote I read that's stuck with me - three things won the Second World War for the Allies; British intelligence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra), American steel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II) and Russian blood (https://vimeo.com/128373915).

so I'm trying to find out about Asian crossbows particularly in the region of Tibet and Nepal if anyone knows that specific but ill settle for china
how much they were used and how they compared to bows in ability/ penetration and what have you.
I'm interested in both the repeating kind and the regular kind.

Could you narrow down which period you're interested in, please?

Qin, Yuan and Qing era bows and crossbows were all used very differently to each other since that timespan covers nearly 2 millennia.

The repeating crossbow or Cho Ku Nu/Zhuge nu was legendarily attributed as an invention of Three Kingdoms Shu strategist Zhuge Liang, but the only concrete information is that the earliest copies date back to Han era China (~3rd Century AD). It's typically regarded as a civilian or a siege defence weapon due to its low power giving it poor range and the texts say the bolts were dipped in poison to give it some semblance of lethality. Experimental modern reproductions of the Cho Ku Nu seem to confirm the low power of the bolts, but with the caveat that modern reproductions of western medieval crossbows can't match their historical performance listed in period texts, so the Han era repeating crossbows could be more powerful than expected.

awa

2018-06-02, 01:24 PM

Could you narrow down which period you're interested in, please?

Qin, Yuan and Qing era bows and crossbows were all used very differently to each other since that timespan covers nearly 2 millennia.

its intended for a non-historical game so a bit of anachronism is fine but I'm aiming for around 1000 CE give or take a few centuries

gkathellar

2018-06-02, 02:12 PM

They had a better life than the early farmers. However, that was in the good times. In the lean times, when game was hard to find and foraging not very plentiful, they starved. They also routinely practised infanticide to keep their numbers to a manageable level, over and above what must have been pretty high infant mortality.

Pretty much. There were lots of intermediary societies that practiced a mix of the two lifestyles, but in general horticultural and agricultural societies traded the easy life for the ability to accumulate surplus, with all of the advantages that provides. Hunter-gatherers can live very comfortable lives, but they are always at the mercy of the fortunes.

Ok I'll bite .... (hahahahahah ahahahah hahahaha ... ahem, sorry*) what did they eat?

Assuming you're asking about the so called "paleo diet," it's gone through stages. The earliest version was 75% meat, 25% leafy greens, which is completely ridiculous and often unhealthy. Modern spinoffs tend to be slightly more grounded in reality but ignore the ways that virtually all human food staples have been phenomenally altered by selective breeding, as well as the various adaptations by humans to unusual dietary staples (I'm looking at you, lactose tolerance).

If you're asking about actual Paleolithic diets, looking at modern hunter-gatherers and archaeological evidence, indicates a lot of nuts, seeds, fruit, rudimentary grains, and simpler greens; meat was an occasional but important dietary supplement. Very little of this food would have been recognizable, as prior to generations of human cultivation, what are now our staple crops were very different. Maize is sort of the ur-example.

Kiero

2018-06-02, 03:59 PM

Also as the settled farmers became more established and successful, for those who remained in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, a growing proportion of their diet would have been "things we stole from the farmers".

Epimethee

2018-06-02, 07:54 PM

Brother Oni, if y may ask, what will be a good translation of the Three Kingdoms Tales in english? I tried a few years ago the main french one and it still is one of my biggest reading frustration. The translator died halfway trough and the new one changed every names. It is hard enough to remember all the charachters like Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Ren and so on but as soon as they became Little Cloud or Crouching Dragon it became unreadable. It was the first book i seriously considered sending back to the publisher as a protest for the stupidity of the édition. I guess Penguin should have a good one if i judge by their great translations from japanese like the Heike or the Genji tales but those are another world entirely. English is my third language, i have to order the books i wish and the Three Kingdoms is obviously a sensible subject. Some input would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

So on sedentarisation... Nobody know exactly what happened and theories range from an increase in population leading to the crash of hunting-gathering ressources to the production of alcohol (seriously) to the etablishment of religious center to name only a few. Ethnography established long ago, with the case of the Kwakiutkl of North Western America, that you can produce surplus with an hunting gathering lifestyle. In fact it seem that the social organisation of the Kwakiutl led to their fall and not the availability of ressources.

Some people argue that a place like Göbekli Tepe was build by hunter gatherers, which mean also a lot of surplus and a specialisation that was thought only possible with agriculture a few years ago. It is not yet clear if buildings were a cause or a consequence of sedentarisation.

Of course, living with animals, people start suffering from new diseases and of course also the domestication of plants and beasts mean a lot of work but it is really hard to have some definitive answers on the why of sedentarisation.

A mummy like the famous Ötzi, who was conserved in the ice of the Alps show also the many diseases hunters gatherers could suffer from, like Lyme disease, parasites in the stomach, arsenic poisoning ( maybe he was working with metal) or bad lungs from the smoke of campfires... He even had stones in his kidney, because of the many proteins he was eating. Hardly good publicity for the paleodiet i’m affraid...

Knaight

2018-06-02, 09:50 PM

It would be like if at some time in the future you did shows or games about the 20th or 21st Century and every scene was in a favella, a refugee camp, or a shanty town. Sure they do exist, and sure even in the US we had the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl where for a while in the 30's it was fairly widespread... followed by World War II when so much of the world was smashed, broken and burned up. Even today you could go to a War-Torn place like Syria or Congo or a place in extreme economic deprivation like Venezuela or North Korea. So if you looked hard enough you could find that Trope, yes.

But this is hardly a universal or even common condition in most of the world this period, today. The point I'm making is that it wasn't the most common condition in the Middle Ages either, in fact quite to the contrary. The last 300-400 years of the Middle Ages is basically when there was such an incredible surge of culture and technology that "Western" culture went from being roaming barbarians to pulling ahead of the rest of the world.

The modern example is a pretty good example of the phenomena of swinging too far the other way though - neglecting favellas, refugee camps, shanty towns, slums, etc. also provides a very skewed view of modern culture. War torn places aren't quite the exception presented here, and neither is extreme economic deprivation. Close to a third of the world's population doesn't have reliable access to clean water, today. There are rich, industrialized countries which have populations to the tune of 20+% that don't reliably have enough to eat.

Kiero

2018-06-03, 05:41 AM

Aresenic poisoining might suggest working with bronze, since early compounds used arsenic rather than tin.

Brother Oni

2018-06-03, 07:39 AM

its intended for a non-historical game so a bit of anachronism is fine but I'm aiming for around 1000 CE give or take a few centuries

The closest dynasty I'm familiar with to your target time is the 13th Century Yuan Dynasty established by the Mongols. There's plenty of resources on Mongol horseback archery, but crossbows would have been mostly used by the Chinese conscripts.

Broadly speaking, Chinese crossbows never reached the borderline insane draw weights of western crossbows, but instead compensated by having a much longer powerstroke (how far the string travels while pushing the bolt). A western crossbow may have a powerstroke of 4-8 inches, while Chinese ones were much longer at around 15-21 inches.

http://medievalcrossbows.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Kusza-22.jpg
http://www.cctv.com/program/natureandscience/20060814/images/103263_1.jpg

The slightly earlier Song dynasty military treatise, the Wujing Zongyao (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wujing_Zongyao) mentions a number of different crossbows with a quote of "the strongest weapon of China and what the four kinds of barbarians most fear'.
The Chinese also used a variety of 'siege crossbows' or ballista, which are crew served artillery pieces:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Two-bow_crossbow_wjzy.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Triple_bow_crossbow_wjzy.jpg

The Tang dynasty Triple Bow Ballista had a draw weight of 12 stone (~2,000 lbs) and according to the records, could shoot up to 700 paces (~1,000m)

They also used gunpowder to increase the lethality of their siege weapons:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_kXQTi6OKqW0/SPt8YdK4PgI/AAAAAAAAAz4/GJimp80UnKU/s400/20070320101129390.jpg

The Chinese also developed firing drills, with the front rank retreating to the back to reload, much like later musketmen. The Song Dynasty image isn't very clear unfortunately, so I've used one from a later Ming Dynasty treatise:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/1639_Ming_crossbow_volley_formation.jpg

It's not very clear in the above image, but by the time of the Song, they had started using their own versions of belt hooks as spanning devices, but not stirrups (they pushed against the prod with their feet).
http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Crossbow-Chinese-Origins.jpg

I'm failing a little bit on finding exact crossbow draw weights in the Song dynasty, but the standard Han era military crossbow is 6 stone, or ~384lbs.

Edit: Completely forgot about the point of the reply. In game mechanics terms, the Chinese crossbow would have the same performance as a western crossbow but at a lesser draw weight and also be harder to use on horseback - the issue is, this level of granularity typically isn't modelled in a system like D&D.

Brother Oni, if y may ask, what will be a good translation of the Three Kingdoms Tales in english? I tried a few years ago the main french one and it still is one of my biggest reading frustration. The translator died halfway trough and the new one changed every names. It is hard enough to remember all the charachters like Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Ren and so on but as soon as they became Little Cloud or Crouching Dragon it became unreadable. It was the first book i seriously considered sending back to the publisher as a protest for the stupidity of the édition. I guess Penguin should have a good one if i judge by their great translations from japanese like the Heike or the Genji tales but those are another world entirely. English is my third language, i have to order the books i wish and the Three Kingdoms is obviously a sensible subject. Some input would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

Are you after a good translation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms which is a historical novel or Records of the Three Kingdoms which is a drier, but more fact based chronicle?

I don't have a copy of Records myself, so I can't offer any recommendations.

Romance is the better read as it's essentially a movie version based on true events. My copy of Romance is the unabridged version translated by Moss Roberts and published by Foreign Languages Press, 1991 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Kingdoms-Historical-Luo-Guanzhong/dp/0520215850). I'm old so back when I picked it up, the Three Kingdoms wasn't as well known as it is now, so there are better translations - whether you go for an abridged version or not depends on your tolerance on story jumping when an important character shows up as Romance is essentially a written down version of older oral stories. You know in the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where you get a 40 minute flashback in the middle when Dark Cloud shows up to explain his and Jen's backstory? That happens a lot in the early chapters of my copy of Romance.

A couple of caveats on Romance - the attributed Chinese author, Luo Guanzhong, was a Shu advocate, so the novel is biased towards them. For example, many of the heroic events attributed to Shu officers were in fact performed by Wu officers and Cao Cao is painted in a particularly bad light. Roberts keeps to the Pinyin romanisation of the names (so Cao Cao instead of Ts'ao Ts'ao) and mentions nick names, but generally doesn't use them (and certainly doesn't translate the names to their character meanings like Little Cloud). However note that the Chinese used courtesy names (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name) at the time; for example Liu Bei is often called by the more deferential Xuande (his courtesy name) due to aforementioned original author's Shu fanboy-ing.

Edit 2: If you're having problems keeping track of all the major characters, then may I suggest getting hold of one of the Dynasty Warrior games? I would recommend DW7 as that stays fairly close to the events of the novels and includes the rise of the Jin Dynasty post Three Kingdoms, but is a bit too old now.

The Jack

2018-06-03, 08:36 AM

Beleriphon

2018-06-03, 10:00 AM

Archers getting disproportionately big draw arms.
How widespread was that, how common was that, and how much disproportion are we talking here?

Just seems to me that it'd be better to work on both arms, for balance and general purpose.

Previous discussions lead me to understand something in the range of visibly larger bone mass on human remains, so its outside of the margin of error for calculations, but somebody else would have t provide the percentages.

Brother Oni

2018-06-03, 12:03 PM

Archers getting disproportionately big draw arms.
How widespread was that, how common was that, and how much disproportion are we talking here?

Just seems to me that it'd be better to work on both arms, for balance and general purpose.

It's a bit of a falsehood, based on a beginner's misunderstanding of how you should draw a bow. You don't use your arms to take the main weight - you use your back. Skeletons of (presumed) archers from the Mary Rose show RSIs and adaptions (deformity in the upper spine, shoulder blade formation and bone ridges in the left shoulder socket) due to the high draw weight of their bows; link (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/9686177/Mary-Rose-scientists-identify-shipwrecks-elite-archers-by-RSI.html).
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/af/c1/a9/afc1a96a75f301890b5f821c82e921a3.jpg

Studies of modern high draw weight archers show preferential muscle development in their drawing side, but not to the degree that it's outwardly noticeable, unless they're sub 10% body fat or similar.

It's also not especially easy to shoot accurately with your non-dominant hand/eye and medieval archers have more important things to focus on when training like killing the enemy before they get within stabbing range than perfect body symmetry and uniform muscle development.

That said, English archers body shapes tended to be more uniform as from what I understand, they bend their bows (they hold the arrow close to their anchor points, push the bow out with their left hand then reach full extension with their backs), rather than the classic 'hold your bow out in front of you and pull the string and arrow back to your anchor points' you see in modern target archery.

awa

2018-06-03, 12:55 PM

The closest dynasty I'm familiar with to your target time is the 13th Century Yuan Dynasty established by the Mongols. There's plenty of resources on Mongol horseback archery, but crossbows would have been mostly used by the Chinese conscripts.

so assuming I'm understanding it correctly while they are a little different in how they do it they basically function the same.
Did they use anything as heavy as an Arbalest?

Brother Oni

2018-06-03, 01:22 PM

so assuming I'm understanding it correctly while they are a little different in how they do it they basically function the same.
Did they use anything as heavy as an Arbalest?

I'm not 100% sure what the difference between an arbalest and a crossbow is. From looking at various resources, an arbalest is a late 12th Century steel prod crossbow, with such a high draw weight that it required a windlass or cranequin mechanical aid to span.

Chinese crossbows used a composite prod, which allowed for greater energy storage and more efficient energy transfer. From this forum thread (http://historum.com/asian-history/131303-han-dynasty-crossbow-ii.html):

Heaviest standard 8 stone Han crossbow power = 4902 inch lbs * 60% efficiency = 2941 inch lbs = 332 Joules
Typical 6 stone strength Han crossbow's power = 3676.5 inch pounds * 60% efficiency = 2206 inch lbs = 249 Joules
Andreas Bichler's 1200 lb composite crossbow = 4488 inch lbs * 39.04% efficiency = 1752.3 inch lbs = 198 Joules
Tod Todeschini's 1250 lb steel crossbow = 4062.5 inch lbs * 30.5% efficiency = 1239 inch lbs = 140 Joules

For reference, a Heavy Song dynasty bow made to pierce armor outputted 156 Joules.

The article notes that Han crossbows efficiency was arbitrarily set to 60% as that's mid-way between the efficiencies of composite bows and composite prods with a short powerstroke. This was confirmed with crossbow maker Andreas Bichler, who noted that long power strokes improve the efficiency and composite crossbows tend to have higher potential energy than steel crossbows of the same draw weight.

So technically speaking, the Chinese didn't use anything as big as an arbalest as the crossbows they were using already (out)performed an arbalest.

Epimethee

2018-06-03, 01:30 PM

Kiero : good point ! Ötzi was from roughly 3000 BEC so the chalcolithic era. He had a cooper axe but i cannot say if he allready worked with bronze.

Brother Oni: thank you! Fun fact, i played Dynasty Warrior VII in my time and it was great. I‘m not so young myself... I agree with your take on it as it was my main entry to this period. After playing it i was really looking forward to read the sources. You can understand how disapointed i was by the stupid work of the translator. I have nothing against choices as long as they are followed trough.
I’m more interrested in the romance yet. It was the book i tried ten years ago.
Thanks also for the clarifications and warning ! I’m used to historical romance but you have to get the conventions of the time and place. It could take some pages for a casual reader.

gkathellar

2018-06-03, 02:33 PM

That said, English archers body shapes tended to be more uniform as from what I understand, they bend their bows (they hold the arrow close to their anchor points, push the bow out with their left hand then reach full extension with their backs), rather than the classic 'hold your bow out in front of you and pull the string and arrow back to your anchor points' you see in modern target archery.

On that note, wasn't there an old, "French archers draw the bow, English archers bend it," truism?

awa

2018-06-03, 04:16 PM

I'm not 100% sure what the difference between an arbalest and a crossbow is. From looking at various resources, an arbalest is a late 12th Century steel prod crossbow, with such a high draw weight that it required a windlass or cranequin mechanical aid to span.

Chinese crossbows used a composite prod, which allowed for greater energy storage and more efficient energy transfer. From this forum thread (http://historum.com/asian-history/131303-han-dynasty-crossbow-ii.html):

Heaviest standard 8 stone Han crossbow power = 4902 inch lbs * 60% efficiency = 2941 inch lbs = 332 Joules
Typical 6 stone strength Han crossbow's power = 3676.5 inch pounds * 60% efficiency = 2206 inch lbs = 249 Joules
Andreas Bichler's 1200 lb composite crossbow = 4488 inch lbs * 39.04% efficiency = 1752.3 inch lbs = 198 Joules
Tod Todeschini's 1250 lb steel crossbow = 4062.5 inch lbs * 30.5% efficiency = 1239 inch lbs = 140 Joules

For reference, a Heavy Song dynasty bow made to pierce armor outputted 156 Joules.

The article notes that Han crossbows efficiency was arbitrarily set to 60% as that's mid-way between the efficiencies of composite bows and composite prods with a short powerstroke. This was confirmed with crossbow maker Andreas Bichler, who noted that long power strokes improve the efficiency and composite crossbows tend to have higher potential energy than steel crossbows of the same draw weight.

So technically speaking, the Chinese didn't use anything as big as an arbalest as the crossbows they were using already (out)performed an arbalest.

thanks that's very helpful

Brother Oni

2018-06-03, 04:21 PM

Thanks also for the clarifications and warning ! I’m used to historical romance but you have to get the conventions of the time and place. It could take some pages for a casual reader.

Actually because of its oral roots, each chapter is fairly self contained with a cliff hanger for the next chapter (hey, oral storytellers need a hook to get repeat customers :smalltongue:), so a casual reader getting through a chapter or two at a time is perfectly do-able.

On that note, wasn't there an old, "French archers draw the bow, English archers bend it," truism?

I believe so, but I've seen multiple methods of 'authentic' English archery techniques (bending, regular drawing, sky drawing, rocking back and forth while sky drawing then loosing and more esoteric ones to put it mildly), so take the truism as a rule of thumb rather than an absolute.

Kiero

2018-06-04, 07:50 AM

There was a conversation upthread which was about how ancient skirmishers were "trained". Philip II of Makedon dual-trained his phalangites:

Unlike a spear, which retains some utility in single combat, a pike is essentially useless outside a compact phalanx. The formation, in both senses of the word, of the Macedonian phalanx, gave Philip an infantry force that was capable of standing up to Greek hoplites in open battle. If it was to retain any strategic utility however, its men needed to be able to fight outside the confines of the phalanx. As with most peoples living in an area surrounded by hills, the traditional Macedonian weapon was the javelin. Philip ensured that his men were trained in the use of both weapons, and carried whichever was the most appropriate for the occasion, so that his infantry could fulfill the role of both hoplite and peltast as need be. When marching through broken country, javelins were carried: Polyainos relates how when Onomarchos' Phokian's ambushed Philip's men, they were able to fight back at a distance. Similarly, a pike was of little use when assaulting a city, when troops had to climb ladders up walls and inside seige towers, so the javelin was carried in this situation as well.

Philip's brutally efficient training programme, backed by his autocratic royal power, ensured his men lived up to his expectations. Training men to use two sorts of weapons with equal facility is no easy task, and very few other classes of warriors over the millenia have ever attained such dexterity; the few that readily spring to mind are mostly aristocratic steppe horsemen accustomed to both lance and bow. Training his men to use two weapons that required a completely different formation to fight with, a rigid pike phalanx against the loose order required to hurl javelins, made the achievment all the more outstanding, especially given the inclusive nature of his reforms - it was the entire national levy that was so trained, and not just a picked elite. The result was that not only could Philip eventually come to count on troops as good as any opposition could field, but he would have numbers of his side as well.

Source (http://lukeuedasarson.com/Iphikrates1.html#34).

Or perhaps more accurately, most of the men he was recruiting already knew how to hunt with the javelin, so alongside teaching them how to fight in the phalanx, they were also trained in how to skirmish with the javelin. It gave his armies incredible tactical flexibility when he could simply detail as many of his main infantry to instead fight as skirmishers as he wanted to. I'd imagine a dual-trained phalangite was going to be sturdier in melee than your average psiloi who didn't want to close at all.

Notable that this practise wasn't continued after his death, the Makedonian phalanx became less flexible and single-role with Alexander and his successors.

Epimethee

2018-06-04, 10:44 AM

On a totally unrelated note, i was reading recently this great paper from «*antiquity*», the archeological publication of Cambridge university, about a massacre in V century Sweden.
This is really a mysterious site: the inhabitant of the place were killed including small children but as yet no woman was found. A lot of jewellery was discovered, like golden brooches, coins from across Europe and pearls, but allmost no weapon which is really strange. This seem to exclude a plundering operation but raise a lot of question about what happened there.
Also, according to a Guardian article, local warned the archeologist about digging there.

The potential story hooks are many for any DM but it is also an Highlight on an interesting time, the years after the fall of Rome in the neighbouring regions of the Empire.

Enjoy!

Epimethee

2018-06-04, 10:46 AM

Spamotron

2018-06-04, 12:16 PM

This Double posting was necessary to share the link with you:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/moment-frozen-in-time-evidence-of-a-late-fifthcentury-massacre-at-sandby-borg/5C803B7E77A41439BC3B50D4BF96560E

Fascinating that it appears that all the weapons were taken but valuables were left behind.

Snowblizz this is pretty much your wheelhouse. Do you have thoughts?

Galloglaich

2018-06-04, 12:33 PM

Fascinating that it appears that all the weapons were taken but valuables were left behind.

Snowblizz this is pretty much your wheelhouse. Do you have thoughts?

And Tobtor, he should know a bit about this unless I'm very wrong!

G

snowblizz

2018-06-05, 05:29 AM

And Tobtor, he should know a bit about this unless I'm very wrong!

G

Yes Tobtor's your guy. He is in the field.

I'm just well read (broadly and shallowly) layman. I'm better at the 17th century +- a bit.

I actually read about that one recently in a popular history magazine. I'll have to read the article see what it says. In general the period before "Viking" age is neither well researched or well known in Scandinavia. E.g. there's a village close to Lund that seems to have been a major, massive for Scandinavian circumstances, site for around 1000 years before around the middle ages (so basically 0-1000ad ) and nationstate forming, the royal power seems to create Lund as an alternative and later usurping town. This place, I forget the name is largely unexplored despite clearly been an important regional centre and likely seat of a powerful chieften or king.

We need Tobtor to dig more in the ground is what I'm saying.:smallbiggrin:

Epimethee

2018-06-05, 12:48 PM

I’m also no specialist, just an eager reader, but there is an explanation alluded to un the article: the weapon could have been taken to make an offering.
Why only the weapons? They offer no more but the lack of plundering seem to point to political turmoil more than a raiding group. But as yet only a few houses were excavated. So more questions will surely follow...

On the offering, it is for me quite interesting because, were it possible to connect a deposit of weapons with this site, it could go a Long way to prove the ritual meaning of this kind of deposit.

Of course it started for me with a book, precisely «*Les Armes dans les eaux*» ( Weapons in the Water), who aim to explore systematically every hypothesis about those deposit. It is a serious colaborative effort between archeologist, medievist, anthropologist and bronze and iron age specialist. It was published with the collaboration of the Latenium, the La Tène museum.

The book is really illuminating about the interpretation of archeological sources. The Ritual use of those deposit is far more accepted in Scandinavia than in France. The french archeology tend to be really descriptive. But in this case it tend to show that there is no really proven explanationfor the real reasons of so many deposit of weapons and more specifically swords. La Tène for example was interpreted as an offering site, a military station, the result of a tsunami on the Thielle river... Many deposits were also connected with historical battle, or pseudo-historical, on more or less solid ground, like thestory of the Rauracians in the Jura mountains. The explanations haven’t really changed since thé XIX century but shift a bit from generation to generation.

Even the classical sources who describe the cult of water don’t mention the offering of weapons. The medieval Texts are disputable. And in any case the content of such offering is unclear. A funeral rite? But there is no connection between those kind of deposit and the known funeral rite of the time. A rite of victory? There is as yet no clear answer, just many hypothesis. So connectiing this place with a deposit could be really interesting.

And of course, proving that a kind of ritual existed in V century Sweden does not mean that it was the case around Europe, as much as one fight of Cu Chulainn does not implie a eitual value for every river fight.

VoxRationis

2018-06-05, 01:13 PM

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/af/c1/a9/afc1a96a75f301890b5f821c82e921a3.jpg

Wow, that's a very deep rib cage. I'm more used to seeing that on Neanderthal skeletons than those of modern humans.

Brother Oni

2018-06-05, 01:44 PM

Wow, that's a very deep rib cage. I'm more used to seeing that on Neanderthal skeletons than those of modern humans.

From the articles around the excavation, the archers were the elite of the English army at the time, so were well fed and well trained. It's not surprisingly that they were all big beefy lads.

wolflance

2018-06-06, 12:00 AM

It's not very clear in the above image, but by the time of the Song, they had started using their own versions of belt hooks as spanning devices, but not stirrups (they pushed against the prod with their feet).
http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Crossbow-Chinese-Origins.jpg

Chinese did have stirrup before belt-hook - particularly popular during Song Dynasty. Also, the earliest finds of repeating crossbow dates to Warring States.

BTW I was also in that forum.

https://i.imgur.com/QmhGRpl.jpg

so I'm trying to find out about Asian crossbows particularly in the region of Tibet and Nepal if anyone knows that specific but ill settle for china
how much they were used and how they compared to bows in ability/ penetration and what have you.
I'm interested in both the repeating kind and the regular kind.
I don't think crossbow was all that common in the regions (Nepal/Tibet) you mentioned.

snowblizz

2018-06-06, 04:12 AM

I guess the shorter more succinct version of all this is that in the high to late medieval period Sweden seemed to still have a lot of what you might call "yeomen" independent farmers, who were peasants, more or less (according to Feudal law anyway) but not necessarily so poor. Not serfs either.
As I always say, feudalism never really got a foothold in Sweden. It arrived late (like everything else, including civilization), and other ways of organising a country got popular beofre we got a reall good feudal state going. The nationstate of Sweden was built on a rather clean slate when it comes to local powers and privillages. Nobility isn't established formally until the late 13th century, and is still a fairly fluid class until the 16th (as in you can get in by showing up in horse and armour). Guilds are basically nonexistent until the 14th and actually are formed as much by the state wanting to control economic activity as anything else. Take Finland e.g., it's not until the 1600s when the Swedish crown starts to put in an effort to actually control the populace. Beyond a few medieaval castle there's not much of a crown prescence.

But Sweden was definitely poor. That's a thread you can follow all through history up to the 1800s. I got a book on Swedish economic history at home I was gonna take some stuff out of. It's grim reading. Kings lament the deplorable state of their finances and subjects (neither are as good as what their colleagues down south have). The nobles are barely better than robber barons. The state and kings (and the occasional queen) also spend considerable effort to try and (re-)populate areas, developing the economy, manufacture and trade. Everything is difficult, communications are challenging, you can't effectively farm anywhere, there are no easily exploitable resources of high value. The list is long. Frankly one starts to wonder why anyone wanted to live there.:smallbiggrin: Basically the period 1000-1700 in the economic history filed under "subsistence farming mainly".

Sweden didn't seem to have a lot of nobles or a lot of serfs. it was mostly rural and had few towns - but it was also integrated with the trade network of the urban economy of the Northern coast of the Baltic. In fact Sweden was an important part of building the Hanse.

This is often left out of Hanseatic histories which tend to be somewhat German-centric and often leave out the (IMO very important) Swedish contribution. That's one of the reasons why I'm being so forceful in pointing it out.
Well it was integrated in the way that what little trade Sweden provided the Hanse controlled it all. I've never seen Sweden described as anything but a "subject" to the Hanse. The League controlled the trade, and German merchants tended to control what few towns there are. In Stockholm the rules said half the council had to be Swedes, otherwise the Germans would be running the town. The League would often dictate the terms of trade to Sweden. It's also the main source of capital, e.g. when the eventual King Gustav financed his rebellion.

The Swedish view, as I learnt it in school, you may disagree, am just providing what I was taught. The Hanseatic League used Sweden as a source of rawmaterials and place to sell other's goods. The Leagues merchants were powerful palyers in the few towns, and would ruthlessly guard their privilliges, e.g. in trade. Basically a monopoly on Swedish trade. Sweden's position towards the Hanse has basically been described as subservient.
There's a touch of the national romantic in there, am sure. I will point out however that the main difference today between the Swedish and Danish languages is that Swedish has much more German loanwords for everyday things. Even English(!) has a Scandinavian rootword for "window", Swedish uses a German derivative, "fönster". German influences on medieaval Sweden was large.

But trade only lightly touched most of Sweden, there wasn't a lot of surplus to trade anyway, mainly the iron from the region close to Stockholm since that could be shipped out on the rivers and lakes. Later on copper becomes a big thing. In both cases the state was also heavily involved, in part to try and improve the output but also controlling one of the few things generating currency. What I was saying though was that unlike most European places (it seems) you don't depend on trade as much and have a deep division of labour in the economy. Except for the Bergslagen region, where you have iron and copper, as well as good transport, waterways and lakes. It is mentioned as a special case even of IIRC the only places that would import basic foodstaples instead of trying to be selfsufficient. Other than that there's really not regions specialising in different stuff.

Sweden was largely rural, with only a few towns (Stockholm and Wisby on Gotland being the only two of real significance) and yet, it was not so poor. The Scania market (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%A5ne_Market) - an area in what is now Southern Sweden on the Oresund but at the time contested between Sweden, German towns and Denmark, was the birthplace of the Hanseatic League. Considering the Scania market lay in Denmark back then I stand by what I said. There was no Swedish contesting, it was Danish through and through. The Swedish wiki about the Scania market has no mention of Sweden at all in fact. Nor does the English one for that matter, not sure where you get that.
Even Gotland was effectively Danish from 1361-1645 (it had been Swedish for only 80 years before that). So one of 3 "Swedish" towns with a citywall has not been very Swedish. Ignoring the fact that German merchants were the main power in Visby anyway.

Wisby on Gotland was also one of the most important trading cities in Northern Europe until it got sacked by the King of Denmark. When do you purport that happened? When Valdemar Atterdag conqured Gotland after the Battle of Visby he specifically did not sack Visby, but instead taxed it (under duress but still) and confirmed it's privilleges.

They were also, by the 14th Century, producing very well wrought, highly sophisticated iron and steel goods like firearms and cannon, mysteriously emerging from within their deep forests.

Sweden also had significant and well developed mining industries in regions like Dalarna.It's not exactly mysteriosuly emerging from the deep forests. That's actually *how* it was even possible. Unlike much of the rest of Sweden the southernmost part of Dalarna was connected to a series of lakes and waterways cutting deep into the land. Stockholm is placed at the end, or start, of these waterways, which of course is one reason it's the capital. Compared to other parts of the country it was rather well communicated. Just to contrast this. The *northern* part of Dalarna was a frontier settlement area still in the 1800s. Says something about how difficult communications are outside the areas you can reach by water.

The economic benefit of this industry was rather concentrated to the area where the iron was mined and the crown however.

Sweden also (more or less peacefully) conquered or annexed Finland from whence they got a lot of valuable trade (and they managed some trading centers in Finland too). And Swedish traders traded silk road goods with the Russians (whom they also frequently fought).

May have to challenge you on that one too. The valuable trade Sweden got form Finalnd was in fact the Russian trade and Swedish control was mainly focused on the coastal regions since sailing meant you hugged the coast. It's telling that it's not until the peace of 1323 anyone bothers to figure out where the border between Sweden and Russia actually lies a couple of hundred kms away from the coast. It's true that they traded with the Russians and thorugh them a bit more widely but it was very much small scale and had very little direct impact in generating economic surpluses. The Russian trade was highly contested with the Hanse, Novgorod, Danish and others.

My point is none of this trade approached what the Hanse brought in, let alone compared to anything on the Mediterranean.

Sweden spent the better part of 3 centuries trying to take control of the trade towards Russia and we are way past medieaval times when they are starting to make any inroads on that. The high point being the late 1600s, quickly follwoed by a collapse of Sweden as a great power in the early 1700s.

Swedes living on the Baltic coasts also seemed to be closely linked to some of the rather prosperous Baltic pirate groups like the Likedeelers and Victual Brothers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers).

So while poor and rural to a large extent, I wouldn't call them as poor as say Norway, certainly. Sweden was kind of unique in the middle ages and quite interesting. They did not jump into Feudalism the way Denmark did but did not wallow or suffer in poverty quite as badly as the poor Norwegians did, and they had a hand in the development of the Hanse.

G
I stand by that poor. Obviously places like Norway (Norway wasn't a country until 1905 anyway), Iceland (alsoa Danish dependency... hmmm... makes ya think don't it :smallwink:) probably Ireland can compete, I didn't say the poorest country period. But do note that still in the 1800s Sweden was per capita one of the poorest countries in Europe. I guess one can argue that during it's heyday in the 1600s it was richer than in the 1800s, but again, if you read about the sorry state of most rural areas during the long wars in the 1600s the whole "poor poor country" does come thorugh.

snowblizz

2018-06-06, 05:40 AM

I’m also no specialist, just an eager reader, but there is an explanation alluded to un the article: the weapon could have been taken to make an offering.
Why only the weapons? They offer no more but the lack of plundering seem to point to political turmoil more than a raiding group. But as yet only a few houses were excavated. So more questions will surely follow...

Read through the article now but as said am not expert and can't really say anything with sureity.

I'll note the abscence of women to me strongly suggests they were probably forcibly removed. When they say the place was not looted I'd disagree, women were valuable commodities and more easily transported than livestock. E.g. in boats.

The lack of weapons could mean the military compenent was absent, fighting invaders or already killed in battle. The people at the fort clearly are civilians left behind. I don't think they'd have looted weapons and left more valuable things behind. Though it's not clear to me they've not looted valuables and whats left are what got left in a hurry.

One scenario is that the "menfolk" are away with the weapons and that this is a raid against unsuspecting soft targets. That would explain why it's not thoroughly looted, the perptrators simply didn't have the time to do more than take the most easily accessible things. Women and as much wealth as could be carried off on them (like the jewelry and such they'd already worn or was easily presentable).

As noted, it's curious noone came back to bury the people. Clearly a large blow to the locality.

Since I'm not a history scholar I am free to guess. I don't see it as inconceivable that it was an outside raid for slaves and any easily portable wealth. These went on back and for over the Baltic during this time. It's even on the right side of the island for it. It's not even farfetched that the "menfolk" were of on a similar adventure that went badly. Maybe the raiders knew where they were going.. payback is a female dog...

awa

2018-06-06, 01:06 PM

I don't think crossbow was all that common in the regions (Nepal/Tibet) you mentioned.

I could not find much information myself one way or another but while the setting is inspired by the Himalayas its not intended to be historical accurate, and they are being invaded by a china analogue anyway so I wanted to put it on the equipment list even if they mostly show up in npc hands.

Epimethee

2018-06-06, 04:40 PM

Read through the article now but as said am not expert and can't really say anything with sureity.

I'll note the abscence of women to me strongly suggests they were probably forcibly removed. When they say the place was not looted I'd disagree, women were valuable commodities and more easily transported than livestock. E.g. in boats.

The lack of weapons could mean the military compenent was absent, fighting invaders or already killed in battle. The people at the fort clearly are civilians left behind. I don't think they'd have looted weapons and left more valuable things behind. Though it's not clear to me they've not looted valuables and whats left are what got left in a hurry.

One scenario is that the "menfolk" are away with the weapons and that this is a raid against unsuspecting soft targets. That would explain why it's not thoroughly looted, the perptrators simply didn't have the time to do more than take the most easily accessible things. Women and as much wealth as could be carried off on them (like the jewelry and such they'd already worn or was easily presentable).

As noted, it's curious noone came back to bury the people. Clearly a large blow to the locality.

Since I'm not a history scholar I am free to guess. I don't see it as inconceivable that it was an outside raid for slaves and any easily portable wealth. These went on back and for over the Baltic during this time. It's even on the right side of the island for it. It's not even farfetched that the "menfolk" were of on a similar adventure that went badly. Maybe the raiders knew where they were going.. payback is a female dog...

Yeah, I think even the most learned scholar can only guess yet. They are to many unknown factors.
You raise some very valid points. Anyway i can live with more than one hypothesis. I think it is generally better to test and disprove different explanations than to choose one a try feverishly to prove it.

So with your permission let me propose some counter-arguments. (Based mainly on the article.)

My interpretation of the «*Demography of the massacred*» (p.431) is that every age group include what you rightly call menfolk, i.e. adult warriors. I may be mistaken but only a few remains are explicitly described and they are chosen in my opinion to put the emphasis on the slaughter. I don’t think it is representative of the demographic of the remains found .
Of course, 26 peoples is a little sample but i’m sure a lack of male adult would have been mentioned. The lack of women is clearly stated.

We agree on the value of women. Sorry if that sound awfull, i mean of course that in such a situation women could be treated as valuables commodities. My opinion is also at this point that they were taken away. But i don’t think a slavers raid explain the known circumstances.

Even if the killers had limited time, the jewellery, and some pieces are fairly precious, were not hidden but worn by the massacred. I won’t dwell on the economics of slavery but i’m sure that capturing a living human being take more time and effort than securing a gilded brooche on a corpse. I won‘t sound offending but i could also argue about the economics of taking a child to slavery. In an even more cynical tone, i‘m wondering what it means if someone took the time to kill the babies. It make sense only if you wish to annihiliate a population.
Even the fact that meat was found in the houses sound strange in the case of a raiding party.
In any case a raiding party has little incentive to perform a massacre. They will of course kill some peoples but their main goal is the wealth.
More digging may clear this point, offering a better distribution of the demography of the town.

On the lack of weapon, i understand the place s being of military value. Even with your Interpretation of the demography, I cannot imagine that no warrior was left behind and that no weapon was in stock. Metal detection seem to confirm their rarity and the point remain unclear.

But the main argument is that the place seem frozen in time. I think it is the biggest clue of a total destruction of the society that lived here.
Even if the menfolk were away, they would have done something about the deads as soon as they were back. Im unifamiliar with the funerary rites of the time but i‘m sure you would not let your family rot.
Ok, i can see desesperate warriors swearing not to bury their deads before taking revenge. You can’t escape the years of Roleplaying...

I think the state of the place could point to something more akin to a political conflict. If the extent of the massacre is proved, his intentionality is more plausible.
You need some reasons to plan a massacre. It this case it erased a relatively prosperous city. I would really like to know more about the region at the time and other comparable places.

In any case, such a discovery is great: it let use discuss some very epic and evocative stories. In the meantime the archeologist will certainly learn a lot about the daily life of the place.

Mr Beer

2018-06-06, 04:49 PM

I'll note the abscence of women to me strongly suggests they were probably forcibly removed. When they say the place was not looted I'd disagree, women were valuable commodities and more easily transported than livestock. E.g. in boats.

This was my immediate thought as well.

ExLibrisMortis

2018-06-06, 05:02 PM

It is possible, I suppose, that the massacre was a punishment, intended to wipe out the settlement; that might explain why the jewellery wasn't looted (tainted by the crime) and the settlement abandoned (also tainted), plus perhaps the weapons (disarmed, for safety or as symbol). I don't know how realistic such a punitive massacre might be, though, given the local customs of the time.

snowblizz

2018-06-07, 07:03 AM

My interpretation of the «*Demography of the massacred*» (p.431) is that every age group include what you rightly call menfolk, i.e. adult warriors. I may be mistaken but only a few remains are explicitly described and they are chosen in my opinion to put the emphasis on the slaughter. I don’t think it is representative of the demographic of the remains found .
Of course, 26 peoples is a little sample but i’m sure a lack of male adult would have been mentioned. The lack of women is clearly stated.
I got the feeling out of the article that it was mostly old and young, and no women. I read it here at work so I'll admit I skimmed a bit. None of the descriptions seem to say anything about what I'd say were warriors. Swedish wikipage does mention adult males, so maybe I've missed it. The issue to me is if there were warriors where are the weapons.

We agree on the value of women. Sorry if that sound awfull, i mean of course that in such a situation women could be treated as valuables commodities. My opinion is also at this point that they were taken away. But i don’t think a slavers raid explain the known circumstances.

Even if the killers had limited time, the jewellery, and some pieces are fairly precious, were not hidden but worn by the massacred. I won’t dwell on the economics of slavery but i’m sure that capturing a living human being take more time and effort than securing a gilded brooche on a corpse. I won‘t sound offending but i could also argue about the economics of taking a child to slavery. In an even more cynical tone, i‘m wondering what it means if someone took the time to kill the babies. It make sense only if you wish to annihiliate a population.Did they kill the babies or is that just a consequence of noone being left alive? Live captives are way more valuable than jewellry. On the Swedish wikipedia page they talk about hidden jewellry caches as well so much of the wealth was not "in the open". I'm just saying it's possible in the rush to raid a palce, and clearly it's not been systematically looted, you can miss some items of value, humans are harder to accidentally miss. They can also "take direction" so you can order them to gather in the square e.g. instead of having to physically drag them everywhere. Self-moving loot. Children were enslaved too, but usually IIRC you prefer adults, young adults are best as they come at their healthiest, pre-trained, ready-to-go and you get maximal time out of them. In the lightning raid scenario I posited children are more of a burden as you can't expect them to "behave".
A slave raid can definitley fit the known circumstances. It is probably not the *best* explanation, which is why it's not the one posited in the article.

Even the fact that meat was found in the houses sound strange in the case of a raiding party.
In any case a raiding party has little incentive to perform a massacre. They will of course kill some peoples but their main goal is the wealth.
More digging may clear this point, offering a better distribution of the demography of the town.

On the lack of weapon, i understand the place s being of military value. Even with your Interpretation of the demography, I cannot imagine that no warrior was left behind and that no weapon was in stock. Metal detection seem to confirm their rarity and the point remain unclear.

But the main argument is that the place seem frozen in time. I think it is the biggest clue of a total destruction of the society that lived here.
Even if the menfolk were away, they would have done something about the deads as soon as they were back. Im unifamiliar with the funerary rites of the time but i‘m sure you would not let your family rot.

Cremation was stated in the article as the main burial form.

Ok, i can see desesperate warriors swearing not to bury their deads before taking revenge. You can’t escape the years of Roleplaying...
"My" scenario includes the posit that the "menfolk" are away, likely dead. And not returning. Ooo, Roman connection, they are all off fighting for Rome!
My elaborate scenario is therefore that the warriors wnet away to raid some place and got killed there. Their victims came back to punish them. (This could in fact easily be a "local politics" scenario too, I just find the overseas one more poetic).

I think the state of the place could point to something more akin to a political conflict. If the extent of the massacre is proved, his intentionality is more plausible.
You need some reasons to plan a massacre. It this case it erased a relatively prosperous city. I would really like to know more about the region at the time and other comparable places.
Not a city. A fortification. A castle essentially. Wiki about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandby_borg

It is by all accounts rather unique. Normal practice for such places were that you gathered there when threatened. This does seem a bit more akin to a town that the traditional ringforts. They mention that the peoples here had strong ties to the Roman empire, a lot of Roman finds have been found on Öland (compared to other parts of Sweden).

Interestingly local tradition suggests something bad happened and it was a place to avoid, which partly is why it's been left alone.

In any case, such a discovery is great: it let use discuss some very epic and evocative stories. In the meantime the archeologist will certainly learn a lot about the daily life of the place.
It's especially noteworthy because the timeperiod haven't left much similar evidence due to cremation.

I'll say the "political" answer also works, but they already pitched that in the article. So why would I do that.:smalltongue:

My main problem is the lack of weapons, because no one would be so thorough in looting weapons and leave valuable stuff around. So I'm honestly trying to reconcile the idea of where the warriors were. Now only what 1% of the site was excavated. Also if it was a more local thing I'd think it'd have left more local traces.

rrgg

2018-06-07, 01:11 PM

Chinese did have stirrup before belt-hook - particularly popular during Song Dynasty. Also, the earliest finds of repeating crossbow dates to Warring States.

BTW I was also in that forum.

So are you the same wolflance as the one from the Historium forums? If so I think we may have gotten involved in sort of a proxy argument a few months ago. Something about Manchu cavalry, Sarhu, and pikemen. :x

I still find that a pretty fascinating subject though, the idea that europeans in the 16th century saw pikes as an extremely strong counter against horsemen, while military leaders in china at the same time instead saw the pike as primarily an anti-infantry weapon that was unable to stop a determined cavalry attack. It just goes to show that what we often assume to be universal "rules" when in comes to historic warfare can be heavily influenced by differences in local conditions and local culture and perhaps aren't even fundamental truths in the first place.

The Jack

2018-06-07, 03:07 PM

So were chinese crossbows better, given the limb difference?

Now, don't get me wrong, repeating crossbows were garbage weapons unless you poisoned them and fired at clusters of unarmoured peasants, but it just seems a little strange that european crossbows evolved so much and were outperformed by chinese counterparts.

That said the ergonomics of chinese crossbows don't look as pleasant.

Yora

2018-06-07, 03:40 PM

awa

2018-06-07, 03:54 PM

a gut wound is a classic slow death

The Jack

2018-06-07, 05:10 PM

Combat

Stabbing is generally better than slashing, especially with even light armour (padded cloth would protect against most cuts).

I know you didn't ask for this, but Heavy weapons with blunt force were awesome, and can happily break bones and cause internal injuries, but you could probably keep fighting so long as you don't get an exceptionally clean hit to you. In later armour you could knock perhaps knock someone over or send shock through their helmet and it'd make nice drama, but they'd probably be alright unless the attacker was goliath. Clubs were quite popular weapons when metal was scarce and they're somewhat underated.

With spears, you can go for draw cuts if you can't get a good stab, and they can be really nasty against unarmed opponents, but You'd survive a few draw cuts if you don't hit anything too nasty.

When people are heavily armoured, combat centers around trying to either get things in the gaps, or getting a big hit with a blunt/spike/stab weapon (the latter much less good against later armours). When people started to use shields less, this involved more wrestling daggers into eachother. Common choices for dagger insertion
Neck (which was armoured but usually less so)
Visor (or face, if it's open) My personal favourite. It's not really a shock that the english lost a king to an arrow in the eye: you can't properly armour the eye.
Armpit
Inner thigh (not that you should be near it, really)
Gaps in joints. This is the survivable choice, though I'm not sure you'll be fighting much after.

Arrows involve luck. If you were lucky, you might hit less thick parts of plate armour or chance to hit something unarmoured. Except the eyes and the joints however, the more vital parts were not the less armoured parts.

A big thing with spears/arrows is that, well, armour is usually still protective even when it fails. If you manage to shoot an arrow through mail and the gambeson behind it, it's could be abbrasive to the skin, an inch or so in and not hitting vitals, a terminal death that won't take you out of the fight, or it could be stopped by your back plate and you'll be very dead (unlikely).
Range, Angle of impact, strength of the bow, shape of the arrow.

A man can survive bullets, pencils and iron bars shot through the brain. Apparently some people don't even notice the pencils. I doubt it'd work for a broadhead though.

Archpaladin Zousha

2018-06-07, 05:16 PM

wolflance

2018-06-07, 08:47 PM

Haighus

2018-06-07, 08:50 PM

I am working on a book and want to make fight scenes rare and frightening, so I'd like to be able to make educated guesses about plausible effects of injuries by spears, arrows, and knives.
I believe unless it's to the throat, knife cuts are not immediately lethal or incapacitating and are comparatively easy to treat. So I guess it really comes down to stab wounds.

Which areas are most likely to kill or incapacitate quickly (and what actually constitutes quick in this context?), and what places would allow a person to continue fighting for a good while but still leave only a slim chance to survive? Anyone have any info on that?
I think spear wounds would obviously be considerably larger and therefore quicker, but I would assume there wouldn't be much difference between a knife and an arrow.

I'd also accept references from boar hunting. Humans and pigs are remarkably similar when it comes to circulation.
This depends a lot on the shape and size of the blade/point, and what you mean by "incapacitate".

A quick example. I gave myself a 5mm long cut on my finger last year, that caused me to loose the ability to flex the end of that finger. Without modern medicine, I would have permanently lost that function. The size of cut I received was the sort of cut that would be easily ignored on most of the body, but I cleanly severed a tendon (the right flexor digitorum profundus of my little finger).

Cuts can incapacitate unarmoured foes very quickly. A cut to just about any joint on the body has a good chance of severing tendons and rendering the joint dysfunctional. If you lose your dominant shoulder function in a fight, you are no longer anywhere near as dangerous. Such wounds are generally very survivable.

Cuts with larger weapons, like most swords, are also quite capable of lopping off limbs, which obviously incapacitates the limb very quickly, and is pretty life threatening, but still survivable.

On the other hand, thrusts are generally comparatively poor at incapacitating quickly, because they don't usually stop a fighter from functioning in the short term. This is why people killed in knife attacks are typically stabbed a large number of times, because the victim was still struggling after the first few. However, in the longer term, thrusts to the abdomen and thorax which penetrate into any of the major organs is typically fatal with pre-modern medicine (but not always, there are some accounts of duels with honestly incredible amounts of injuries on each side, yet one or both duellists survived- I vaguely remember one involving some body part being bitten off one of the duellists, and over a dozen rapier stab wounds each!).

Thrusts are also heavily affected by the blade used. If I remember correctly, the most dangerous blades are over 6"/15cm long and wide (even in a modern context). They are long enough to cause serious penetrating trauma, and the width of the blade makes the thrust much more likely to sever arteries and injure vascular organs. A blade like a gladius is actually very lethal due to its width, and wider blades will down a foe quicker. Narrow blades, like rapiers, are far more likely to not kill the opponent quickly (or at all, like in the duels I mentioned above).

Thrusts are generally also more likely to trap the blade. This is obviously an issue if the opponent is not immediately incapacitated, and double kills in rapier duels was not hugely uncommon.

Blunt trauma is generally less damaging than cuts or thrusts on unarmoured humans. A mace glancing an arm will hurt, but it is incredibly unlikely to prevent a muscle or tendon from functioning, and even a broken bone is unlikely to seriously incapacitate in the short term (and also takes a really solid hit, because humans are not fixed in place). Bear in mind that in a fight, adrenaline will help with this. Elderly folk will sometimes walk in to a GP/hospital having broken a hip, and they aren't a young, strong, adrenaline-filled fighter.

Contrast this with a sword, where even a small nick can sever a tendon and cause immediate loss of function. There is a good reason that blunt trauma weapons are only really favoured in certain contexts, mainly armoured combat and when mounted. One of the big advantages of armour is that it basically negates glancing hits, and turns most cuts and thrusts into blunt trauma, which is less dangerous (but can still be debilitating over time).

Injuries to the head and spine can incapacitate and quickly kill with all of the above methods of injury, which is why helmets are some of the most ubiquitous armour throughout history. The skull and spine are pretty well protected naturally, and pretty resistant to injury in general (although sometimes a single punch kills someone. Humans are weird like that)

Bear in mind that head injuries are highly variable in their outcome, especially if they mainly damage the cortex, which is not vital for basic life functions. In addition, injuries that break the skull often fair better than injuries which cause internal swelling and bleeding without skull fracture, because the pressure is not relieved in the latter and can even cause the brain to herniate (herniating through the foramen magna into the neck is often lethal- also called coning). Depressed skull fractures, where the bone fragments enter the cranial cavity, are generally very damaging though.

Wounds to the thorax and abdomen are unlikely to kill quickly, unless the injuries damage the heart, major arteries, liver, and spleen (these are also the incredibly messy, bloody deaths). Basically injuries along the midline in the body and under the lower ribs are most likely to cause massive haemorrhage. Other wounds will be unlikely to stop a fighter within a combat, even lung injuries. If the bowel is penetrated, it will probably kill the person through peritonitis in the next few days, but is not especially lethal without the infection. Blunt trauma is unlikely to cause any of the above, unless it is massive enough to rupture the liver, spleen or arteries, or it pushes a fractured rib into something inportant.

Muscle injuries are very unlikely to kill someone by themselves, and unless they entirely bisect the muscle, don't eliminate that much function. Muscle is some of the most damage-resistant tissue. With blunt trauma, eventually bleeding into muscles can cause compartment syndrome and cause ischaemia and death of affected areas. For example, compartment syndrome in the lower leg following bleeding can cause irreversible damage to the foot as the pressure cuts off the blood supply. Tendon injuries are similar, but as mentioned immediately incapacitating if the tendon is bisected, which is easily done. Even if partially cut, the tendon can tear in two with tension through use. Bones have to be proper smashed to prevent function in the short term, but the pain could be incapacitating. Large bone fractures can kill, but not usually within the time frame of a fight. Typically it is in a few hours to days through slowly bleeding out, and/or mechanisms like fat embolisation. Skin injuries just hurt and bleed a bit short term, unless they cover a wide surface area like burns (which causes lots if additional issues). The main risk with skin wounds is infection, which is no different to any of the other penetrating injuries.

In terms of the weapons you mention, what they do damage-wise depends on the blade/head profiles. A hewing spear will deliver devastating cuts and stab wounds, but a spear with a simple point will cause much less dramatic thrusts that are less likely to immediately incapacitate someone, and won't be able to cut. Broadhead arrows cause more immediately damaging and less survivable wounds than bodkins. Long, fat knives are more immediately lethal than stillettos.

Note that despite these general trends, sometimes people get stabbed once by a pocket knife in the gut and keel over dead after a few seconds, and others survive getting clobbered on the head by a mace. Humans don't like being textbook!

I hope that helps a bit.

snowblizz

2018-06-08, 03:36 AM

Got a question about the landsknechts: everyone here's likely familiar with their weapons of choice (pikes, pollaxes/halberds, arquebuses and the infamous zweihander), as well as their flamboyant, cobbled-together fashion sense, but what kind of ARMOR did they actually wear? The article on Wikipedia doesn't go into much detail apart from describing the dopplesoldner as an "armored swordsman," and the woodcut pictures in the article just depict the puffed-and-slashed shirts they were famous for. :smallconfused:

Anything from full plate to nothing. More likely somewhere in between. The classic image tends to be with a breatsplate (backplate optional) and tassets. The Doppelsöldeners would be more completely armoured since they are expected to be up front taking bullets even, close to how a high medieaval platearmoured man at arms would look. Pinterest is frustrating my efforts to find good pictures (as in only get google results from there and am not getting an account just to link pics).

I know G has pics he usually posts but can't rememer the artist nor find them in older threads. Did a load of woodblocks of life of a soldier from the time. Think name starts with a D. Annoying me now.

Can do an Googel image search for "landsknecht armour" and get some reasonable results to look at. www.alamy.com has various stuff but again don't want me linking (it's a stock photo source).

Kiero

2018-06-08, 04:12 AM

I believe unless it's to the throat, knife cuts are not immediately lethal or incapacitating and are comparatively easy to treat. So I guess it really comes down to stab wounds.

No, as Haighus said any of the major arteries, if severed, have stopping power, not just carotid. Brachial or femoral bleeds will kill you in minutes through blood loss and shock if they're nicked and left untreated. They very rapidly incapacitating as you loose blood pressure, too.

Those are both close enough to the surface to be cut, others like the subclavial or iliac are only really accessible by a puncturing wound.

Haighus

2018-06-08, 04:57 AM

No, as Haighus said any of the major arteries, if severed, have stopping power, not just carotid. Brachial or femoral bleeds will kill you in minutes through blood loss and shock if they're nicked and left untreated. They very rapidly incapacitating as you loose blood pressure, too.

Those are both close enough to the surface to be cut, others like the subclavial or iliac are only really accessible by a puncturing wound.
They are quite hard to cut with a typical knife if the person is clothed over them though. Only big knifes are good at slashing in a situation where the target is mobile and responsive. The carotid is very superficial and comparatively fixed, being close to the trunk, and rarely clothed, so it is a bit more vulnerable to a knife cut than the brachial or (especially) the femoral. The brachial would be the next easiest to damage after the carotid, but is the least dangerous with the lowest blood volume. Note I am not including the ease of defending the artery deliberately when I say easier- the carotid is going to be naturally better guarded than the brachial in a fight.

There are some interesting videos of Skallagrim slashing a mannequin wearing a thin raincoat and jumper, and it is remarkably damage resistant to a typical modern knife. Stabs work much better to penetrate clothing.

Swords and polearms and so on are obviously a completely different ball game for cutting wounds. A sharp sword can cause deep cuts with surprising ease.

Epimethee

2018-06-08, 07:32 AM

I got the feeling out of the article that it was mostly old and young, and no women. I read it here at work so I'll admit I skimmed a bit. None of the descriptions seem to say anything about what I'd say were warriors. Swedish wikipage does mention adult males, so maybe I've missed it. The issue to me is if there were warriors where are the weapons.

Further down the article state that an usual battlefield has only a segment of the population and that the site contain every segment. I believe it would have been clearly stated if no active population was found. In such a case the site is far more understandable as it is easy to connect a lack of weapon with a lack of Warriors.

Did they kill the babies or is that just a consequence of noone being left alive?

Don’t know exactly. And as i understand not possible to say based on what was found. It is still an intriguing point. My english may have been confusing but i wished to raise the question, not to use unclear circumstances as an argument.

Live captives are way more valuable than jewellry.

They need more space, they need to be feed, you have to plan in advance for transportation. Anyway i think your point may be disputed case by case, as the prestige and worth of specific slaves and jewellery may vary.

On the Swedish wikipedia page they talk about hidden jewellry caches as well so much of the wealth was not "in the open". I'm just saying it's possible in the rush to raid a palce, and clearly it's not been systematically looted, you can miss some items of value, humans are harder to accidentally miss. They can also "take direction" so you can order them to gather in the square e.g. instead of having to physically drag them everywhere. Self-moving loot.

All your points are fair and clever but can be argued the other way around: peoples tend to defend themselves, to hide, to run away. They may be harder to miss but they also actively try to be overlooked. Obviously those who run away are unlikely to be found here. And more Informations are needed to offer a better understanding of the demographic of the place.
In any case i find strange that the supposed slavers did’nt even took the food. I can only wonder about the logistic of such an enterprise.

Children were enslaved too, but usually IIRC you prefer adults, young adults are best as they come at their healthiest, pre-trained, ready-to-go and you get maximal time out of them. In the lightning raid scenario I posited children are more of a burden as you can't expect them to "behave".
A slave raid can definitley fit the known circumstances. It is probably not the *best* explanation, which is why it's not the one posited in the article.

Again fair points but young adulte were specifically described among the victims here. I agree that the known circumstances point to a part of the population taken as slaves but in my opinion it does not explain all the circumstances.

Cremation was stated in the article as the main burial form.

Thank you, i missed that!

"My" scenario includes the posit that the "menfolk" are away, likely dead. And not returning. Ooo, Roman connection, they are all off fighting for Rome!
My elaborate scenario is therefore that the warriors wnet away to raid some place and got killed there. Their victims came back to punish them. (This could in fact easily be a "local politics" scenario too, I just find the overseas one more poetic).

A lot of possibilities are quite engaging. I’m not sure about the chronology but i don’t know this part of the world that much. The article seem to date the massacre after the fall of Rome but that does not rule out your scenario. I would argue that you need a set of very specific circumstances to make it work, the complete eradication in two different places of the entirety of the population. It is possible but seem far fetched. As a poetic interpretation i find it great.

Not a city. A fortification. A castle essentially. Wiki about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandby_borg

It is by all accounts rather unique. Normal practice for such places were that you gathered there when threatened. This does seem a bit more akin to a town that the traditional ringforts. They mention that the peoples here had strong ties to the Roman empire, a lot of Roman finds have been found on Öland (compared to other parts of Sweden).

I intended «*city*» more as a reflexion of the importance of the fort than of his size. The smallest city in my region count less than 700 inhabitants but is proud of the status obtained by imperial privilege. The roman Connection, as much as the wealth of the place seem to demonstrate a relatively important and well connected location. I intended to state this point, sorry for any misunderstanding.

Also the fact that the place was fortified make the lack of weapons even stranger.

Interestingly local tradition suggests something bad happened and it was a place to avoid, which partly is why it's been left alone.

Yeah! I like this part of the story! A Taste of spooky! Great for the imagination! But the use of oral tradition in history is really difficult, not impossible but difficult. For example the epic of Sundiata Keita in Mali was reassessed in light of the archeological and ethnographical Survey. an epic is obviously more widespread than local tradition so easier to work with. It is still highly contentious. So this fact is really lucky for the archeologists but i don’t know what to do with something like that. (Or i can imagine some kind of lovecraftian scenario)

I'll say the "political" answer also works, but they already pitched that in the article. So why would I do that.:smalltongue:

Well played! I have at least two answers! First i was already seeing something like Lear or Ran, some epic clash of locals lords more or less bound by honor, family and blood in the dramatic background of the fall of Rome with plenty of strange people coming and going around... Treason, revenge, new alliances and a final and absolutely lethal confrontation... Even harder to prove than your scenario but closer to my taste and at least as much fun!

Then the case of the missing weapons and the proposed scenario of ritual motivations seemed like an interesting piece to add to the problem of the weapons in the water. I need a lot of steps to proove it but the first seem to assess the likelyness of a fort left without any weapon in stock. But more on that later.

I have another argument! I argue mainly here because the place seem mysterious and you are kind to answer with challenging points. They are two main possibilities for such a massacre: local or external forces. You choosed one, it seem fair that i stand by the other!

Yeah, for a third what if: the women were the killers all along! Such a scenario explain the missing weapons and the lack of women! The men went away fighting for Rome for so long that the women rebuilded their life and decided to kill them after their return. They had already taken care of securing their wealth and the necessary food. So they hide the weapons before striking. Also far fetched but there is an historical precedent in Hungary after WWI: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Makers_of_Nagyrév
I’m not sure this scenario should be taken seriously. But it seem also to fit the known facts.

My main problem is the lack of weapons, because no one would be so thorough in looting weapons and leave valuable stuff around. So I'm honestly trying to reconcile the idea of where the warriors were. Now only what 1% of the site was excavated. Also if it was a more local thing I'd think it'd have left more local traces.

I agree completly with you. More excavation, à better understanding of the demographic and a better inventory are needed.
I also agree with you on the main problem, the lack of weapons against the valuable stuffs. As yet, they back the number of weapons with metal detection and agree that the demographic may be corrected with further investigation.
But if i explore my interpretation of the demographic, then the possibility of a cultural meaning of this state of destruction is worth exploring. I know that a lot of archeological facts and object were titled «*ritual thingy*» for lack of a better understanding.
In this case i think there is a file and this case may be one of his pieces. It is as much guess work than whishfull thinking but i think it is worth trying.

What do you mean by the way by local traces?

Kiero

2018-06-08, 08:09 AM

They are quite hard to cut with a typical knife if the person is clothed over them though. Only big knifes are good at slashing in a situation where the target is mobile and responsive. The carotid is very superficial and comparatively fixed, being close to the trunk, and rarely clothed, so it is a bit more vulnerable to a knife cut than the brachial or (especially) the femoral. The brachial would be the next easiest to damage after the carotid, but is the least dangerous with the lowest blood volume. Note I am not including the ease of defending the artery deliberately when I say easier- the carotid is going to be naturally better guarded than the brachial in a fight.

There are some interesting videos of Skallagrim slashing a mannequin wearing a thin raincoat and jumper, and it is remarkably damage resistant to a typical modern knife. Stabs work much better to penetrate clothing.

Swords and polearms and so on are obviously a completely different ball game for cutting wounds. A sharp sword can cause deep cuts with surprising ease.

Granted they're harder to access, but they're still exposed. If you're only wearing a t-shirt, your brachial arteries are just as available as your carotid, especially if you're reaching out towards the person with the knife. If you're wearing shorts, your femoral arteries are similarly exposed.

I'm thinking of martial arts like Silat, where those sorts of disabling cuts to the arms and legs are routine, and if you're using a kerambit rather than a regular knife, they won't be shallow nicks.

wolflance

2018-06-08, 12:46 PM

So are you the same wolflance as the one from the Historium forums? If so I think we may have gotten involved in sort of a proxy argument a few months ago. Something about Manchu cavalry, Sarhu, and pikemen. :x

I still find that a pretty fascinating subject though, the idea that europeans in the 16th century saw pikes as an extremely strong counter against horsemen, while military leaders in china at the same time instead saw the pike as primarily an anti-infantry weapon that was unable to stop a determined cavalry attack. It just goes to show that what we often assume to be universal "rules" when in comes to historic warfare can be heavily influenced by differences in local conditions and local culture and perhaps aren't even fundamental truths in the first place.
Yes. I don't think there's too many wolflances lurking around the forum.

I am not really a regular there though - IMO discussions at Historum sometimes get heat up pretty fast, and I often got myself riled up in/by the atmosphere as well and join in the argument, ugh. I much prefer the more relaxed atmosphere here.

For the pikes (I only vaguely remember I had a discussion about that before, forgot almost all of the finer points though), I think both sides can agree that pikes are good DETERRENT to cavalry charge (as in preventing the cavalry from ramming into your men in the first place), the Chinese advocated using Zhanmadao and whatnot to chop down horses, and that came AFTER the charge has been "deterred" in one way or another.

So were chinese crossbows better, given the limb difference?
Now, don't get me wrong, repeating crossbows were garbage weapons unless you poisoned them and fired at clusters of unarmoured peasants, but it just seems a little strange that european crossbows evolved so much and were outperformed by chinese counterparts.

That said the ergonomics of chinese crossbows don't look as pleasant.
According to the calculations Han crossbows are better in the "pound for pound" sense, as in you get more bang for the buck.

Ergonomic wise they are okay, I personally think that the short stock and pistol grip plus trigger on Han crossbow is easier to use than the long & stick-like stock of European crossbow, and it's got a nice iron sight to go with it. The longer prod for higher powered crossbow will cause some inconvenience though.

Spanning and reloading the damned thing (you need to sit down to span high powered Chinese crossbow - stirrup or belt/hook won't cut it. They didn't have the removable windlass) is another story though...

Yora

2018-06-08, 01:10 PM

Kiero

2018-06-08, 01:20 PM

Where are those?

Also, is it possible to shot a person into the heard from behind with an arrow for very quick death? Or does the spine make this highly improbable?

Brachial artery runs from your armpit to your elbow, on the inside of your upper arm; femoral from your groin to your knee, along the inside of the thigh.

If you managed to hit the hindbrain/brain stem at the base of the skull, it's possible, though would require quite a shot. Or if you severed the vertebrae from the skull.

Yora

2018-06-08, 01:23 PM

True. But sniping at the base of the skull would feel cheesy in a fantasy context. :smallwink:

HeadlessMermaid

2018-06-08, 03:19 PM

Re: knife wounds

Just as injuries can be incapacitating without being lethal, they can be lethal without being immediately incapacitating. Especially with knives: with a prison yard rush you can stab an (unarmoured) man to the abdomen a dozen times in three seconds. He might still have enough strength to strike back, but barring readily accessible modern medicine, or D&D healing (works instantly, and patches people up now matter how serious the injury was), or truly extraordinary luck, you have effectively killed him - and you didn't go anywhere near the throat or brachial/femoral arteries, and you did it with a shiv.

Don't underestimate knives, they are terrifyingly lethal. Any bladed weapon Vs soft flesh is lethal. For advice on how to write fights, I recommend... (ta-dah!) howtofightwrite (http://howtofightwrite.tumblr.com), it does what it says on the tin: "A third degree Black Belt and an Eagle Scout share their tips to help authors create realistic fight scenes and characters." Browse, search, or send them an ask. For knives in particular, see their post Knife Fighting Do’s and Dont’s (http://howtofightwrite.tumblr.com/post/115262246725/knife-fighting-dos-and-donts). For collected resources, I have a Dagger Fighting Masterpost (http://we-are-rogue.tumblr.com/post/156321732451/do-you-have-a-masterpost-on-realistic-sneaking).

Yora

2018-06-08, 03:47 PM

Mike_G

2018-06-08, 05:17 PM

Yes, but again, with the exception of vulnerable arteries, it's the stabs that pose much more danger than the cuts.

Kinda.

Stabs are more likely to be lethal. But cuts are more likely to be quickly incapacitating. And if you get incapacitated in a fight, you are at the mercy of your enemy.

A cut on a limb can incapacitate you by severing the muscles and tendons and bone that let you use it. Probably won't kill you, but you just lost that swordfight in an instant.

A thrust to the body might very well kill you. But unless it hits something really vital, it might take some time, and during that time you may still be a danger to your enemy.

I know I've told this story before, but working as a medic in a fairly tough city, I once had to track a stabbing victim up two flights of stairs, following a blood trail, before I could treat him. The guy had been stabbed in the freaking neck, and was bleeding like a sieve. Missed his trachea and his carotid, so he had enough left in him to run pretty far. If he'd wanted to, he had more than enough energy to fight back and stab his enemy.

Haighus

2018-06-08, 07:03 PM

Brachial artery runs from your armpit to your elbow, on the inside of your upper arm; femoral from your groin to your knee, along the inside of the thigh.

If you managed to hit the hindbrain/brain stem at the base of the skull, it's possible, though would require quite a shot. Or if you severed the vertebrae from the skull.
Indeed. Adding to this, they are most exposed at the joints too- so in the armpit and the crook of the elbow for brachial, and the femoral at the groin and back of the knee (where it becomes the popliteal artery). You can feel the pulses for these arteries at these points (search for a guide on feeling peripheral pulses for specific locations). These areas also have lots of juicy tendons and nerves, so are just generally very vulnerable places to cuts. The arteries between these points are reasonably well protected by muscle, very thick muscle in the thigh, but deep cuts and stabs can still reach them.

The other major arteries are the carotids, which everyone knows about in the neck; the iliac arteries, which are in the pelvis and connect to the femorals (these are deep arteries protected by the pelvis); the subclavian arteries, which lie under the clavicle/collarbone and connect to the brachial arteries- this artery is actually quite vulnerable to descending cuts and the hero movie gunshot to the shoulder (which heroes usually shrug off...) and is surrounded by some very important nerves to the arm; and the aorta, which basically is in the centre of the body (slightly to the left of midline) and loops up from the heart to descend through the abdomen just in front of the spine, and bifurcates into the iliac arteries. All the major arteries branch off the aorta, and it lies very deep and is protected by the spine and ribs from the rear. With the spine and heart also being in the midline, deep stab injuries to the midline are probably the most likely thrusts to incapacitate and kill quickly.

The liver and spleen are also very vascular and can bleed massively when wounded. They are pretty well protected by the ribs though, which is partly why stabbing up from the abdomen under the ribs is so lethal. Kidneys are very vascular too, but have inbuilt mechanisms to shut down the blood supply (to control urine production) that tend to stop them bleeding hugely after acute trauma.

Knaight

2018-06-08, 07:09 PM

Kinda.

Stabs are more likely to be lethal. But cuts are more likely to be quickly incapacitating. And if you get incapacitated in a fight, you are at the mercy of your enemy.

This also gets back into how different implements leave very different stab wounds - we've gone around a few times on this thread regarding data about dueling fatalities from rapiers and small swords, where there were surprisingly few fatalities even from good stabs (paritcularly for the small swords). That doesn't necessarily hold as well for a broad headed spear.

Archpaladin Zousha

2018-06-08, 08:59 PM

For poorer landsknechts, "bishop's mantle" which is basically a chainmail poncho, was quite common. Better off landsknechts would use breastplate, pikeman's corsetlet, and other munition-grade plate armors, sometimes along with the aforementioned chainmail poncho.

I don't know whether their "leder wams" count as armor or not...

Anything from full plate to nothing. More likely somewhere in between. The classic image tends to be with a breatsplate (backplate optional) and tassets. The Doppelsöldeners would be more completely armoured since they are expected to be up front taking bullets even, close to how a high medieaval platearmoured man at arms would look. Pinterest is frustrating my efforts to find good pictures (as in only get google results from there and am not getting an account just to link pics).

I know G has pics he usually posts but can't rememer the artist nor find them in older threads. Did a load of woodblocks of life of a soldier from the time. Think name starts with a D. Annoying me now.

Can do an Googel image search for "landsknecht armour" and get some reasonable results to look at. www.alamy.com has various stuff but again don't want me linking (it's a stock photo source).

These were both very helpful answers, thank you! :smallsmile:

On a slightly different note, when were were cuir bouilli kinds of armors most common? And during that time, what were the most common "kits" of weapons someone who wore such armor would use? For instance, the common RPG and fantasy depiction of a "barbarian" is a person wearing leather armor and swinging around a two-handed sword, but judging by what amateur history research I've done, by the time such swords became commonly used, the types of people who would wield them would wear metal plate like the aforementioned landsknechts. So, in essence, what kinds of warriors actually wore "leather armor" in RPG parlance? :smallconfused:

wolflance

2018-06-08, 10:23 PM

These were both very helpful answers, thank you! :smallsmile:

On a slightly different note, when were were cuir bouilli kinds of armors most common? And during that time, what were the most common "kits" of weapons someone who wore such armor would use? For instance, the common RPG and fantasy depiction of a "barbarian" is a person wearing leather armor and swinging around a two-handed sword, but judging by what amateur history research I've done, by the time such swords became commonly used, the types of people who would wield them would wear metal plate like the aforementioned landsknechts. So, in essence, what kinds of warriors actually wore "leather armor" in RPG parlance? :smallconfused:
In Europe? Probably never common. Most of the time cuir bouilli was made into vambrace to protect the inside of your wrist (from archery-related injuries, like getting smacked by the bowstring).

The Morgan Bible contains illustration of poorer troops that apparently wear "cuirie", a (possibly) leather breastplate, and there are speculations that at least some early plate armor was made of leather instead of metal, particularly in Italy. But nothing concrete.

A leather body armor along with arm protections was discovered somewhere in Denmark as well (forget the name, it's not like I can speak Danish at all), but it was apparently made for teenagers, and used in training instead of real combat.

Leather armor was much more common in the East, particularly East Asia, although most leather armors should be called "rawhide" armor in truth. Rawhide is tougher and generally performs better as armor than tanned leather, boiled or not. They generally come in the form of rawhide scale armor or lamellar armor.

As far as protection goes, rawhide armor sits between iron armor and padded armor (gambeson etc), both in real life as well as in RPGs.

Epimethee

2018-06-09, 08:16 AM

Yora

2018-06-09, 08:27 AM

You want shallow cuts and fighters with a lot of meat on the bones. And fat. Gladiators were specifically put on a diet to make them chubby in addition to strong.

Tobtor

2018-06-09, 09:54 AM

About the massacre:

A lot of things have already been discussed, so I will not go into every detail.

About the missing weapons: We are at the very late era for large weapon sacrifices. That is the main period is early 3rd to late 4th century, but with some in the 5th century as well. We also do have classical writings indicating the practise:

"The enemy ... destroyed everything that had fallen into their hands in an outrageous and unprecedented ritual of curses; clothes torn and thrown away ... the mens breastplates chopped into pieces ... people were hanged from trees with a cable around their neck, so that nothing fell into the hands of neither victor nor the fallen, nothing exchange and no mercy." Orosius around 400AD.

So destruction of enemy gear is a definite possibility in the period.

BUT we should remember that only a small part have been excavated. It is interesting that there are multiple male-identifications, but no females (though several young people that could not be identified). One source of this is that it is generally easier to recognize males, while more women might fall into the "indeterminable" category. As there is children (even quite young ones), we cannot assume any form of "garrison" situation either.

Now even young adult males between 18-40 does not mean "warrior". Some men would be thralls, others might simply not be warriors but farmers etc. But looking at the composition, and if that continues in further excavations, there is no indication of a group of "missing" warriors. So I think we can exclude the idea that the warriors was not at the site. But perhaps different people where killed at different places (warriors at the wall for instance), causing a bias.

But as the evidence is at present we must imagine that the entire population (at least if we assume that women was there when there is infants) was there, and that woman and weapons could have been removed after the event. Weapons for sacrifices, and as have been suggested possible women for slaves (however there is no indication of targeting young women,as there is no old women either).

Tobtor

2018-06-09, 10:12 AM

About colour: It is true that "bright" blue and red is slightly more expensive than lets say green or yellow, or murky blue, and reddish-brown colours, but "slightly more expensive" is not equal "unpaiable".

Here is an example of a women from the iron age Denmark:
http://denstoredanske.dk/@api/deki/files/88474/=daol-3-282.jpg?size=webview

It is definitely a someone belonging to the "chieftain class", but that's a class that would be represented in every mid sized village (10-12 farms).

Or an artist interpretation (based on the colours analysed) of the Huldremose woman:
https://videnskab.dk/sites/default/files/styles/columns_6_12_desktop/public/article_media/huldremosekvinden_tbr_rgb_2.jpg?itok=PMXZVqzn&timestamp=1464219173

This should dispell the idea that pre-modern people wore murky browns/grey.

HOWEVER we should remember that as G says paintings and such from the medieval period is like "instagram", and we should always be aware that we shouldnt trust instagram to represent an accurate picture of peoples lives, but an idealized one. Another comparison is tv-shows, where the people typical wear clothing their characters would not be able to have in reality. So sometimes the medieval artist have likely embellished reality, making the colours more vivid/clear etc to tell a story. Also it might be the most vain people who had themselves painted once a month.

Another thing to note is that "they all wore brown/grey" is no a modern thing. Saxo (writting around 12000) writes about a battle where the "grey shirts" of the peasants was mistaken for mail-armour. Thus around 1200 he (and he grew up in a noble family with warrior father and brothers etc), considered peasants to wear grey shirts. But we do see quite a lot of paintings with them wearing green/yellow/orange etc, so how does that match? Perhaps peasant only could afford a few pieces of coloured clothing, using that for feastdays, festivals, weddings etc, while wearing more grey/brown when working (or going into battle, no point in ruining your best clothing after all).

A bit like today: some people use quite a lot of money on wedding clothing, but their everyday clothing is much simpler.

Archpaladin Zousha

2018-06-09, 10:38 AM

In Europe? Probably never common. Most of the time cuir bouilli was made into vambrace to protect the inside of your wrist (from archery-related injuries, like getting smacked by the bowstring).

The Morgan Bible contains illustration of poorer troops that apparently wear "cuirie", a (possibly) leather breastplate, and there are speculations that at least some early plate armor was made of leather instead of metal, particularly in Italy. But nothing concrete.

A leather body armor along with arm protections was discovered somewhere in Denmark as well (forget the name, it's not like I can speak Danish at all), but it was apparently made for teenagers, and used in training instead of real combat.

Leather armor was much more common in the East, particularly East Asia, although most leather armors should be called "rawhide" armor in truth. Rawhide is tougher and generally performs better as armor than tanned leather, boiled or not. They generally come in the form of rawhide scale armor or lamellar armor.

As far as protection goes, rawhide armor sits between iron armor and padded armor (gambeson etc), both in real life as well as in RPGs.
I see. So what were soldiers wearing that kind of armor using as weapons?

The Jack

2018-06-09, 10:53 AM

Still about the wounds : what would a fight intended to be the most spectacular with the less lethality Look like? I mean something akin to gladiatorial fighting. You want real blood to please the peoples but you want also a fight longer than one or two exchanges and you mainly don’t want to kill your opponent.

Where should i aim to obtain the less incapacitating wounds with the biggest Visual? I understand that the weapons and styles of the gladiators are a good starting point, but i’m sure this thread will have some deep and specific knowledge.

And by the way what about the weapons? Would some of them never fit the bill of a mock fight with real wounds? Are some technics, like thrusting, too lethal to be ever used? ( so what about a trident?)

Many thanks!

I think "chubby" might be a bit of a misleading word and people grab onto this idea to much, but it's true that gladiators put on extra chub to get the a nice, slashable form. But they also had dumbel equivalents and did lifting exercises (amongst many other more soldier-practical fitness activities) so they also had muscle that was cosmetic, protective and practical under that fat.

Gladiator training notes are patchy and varied a lot because of all the different schools/regions/times/wealth of owner and so on.

The Manica is a sleeve armour that they wore, probably because the arm'll be more likely to end a career. The torso was hardly armoured, to encourage hitting it..

If you take a quick look at gladiator trident artifacts, they don't look like they would've been very sharp. Sharp enough to cut, sure, but not very deeply.

Gladiators would learn acting techniques and would be taught that if they were going to die, they should die with style. WWE is a maybe, maybe not kind of thing.

rrgg

2018-06-09, 02:59 PM

Yes, but again, with the exception of vulnerable arteries, it's the stabs that pose much more danger than the cuts.

Another nasty thing about knives is that because they are so small, they are hard to see and require only small movements. Once the opponents close in to effective stabbing range, it becomes hard to even see a strike coming and do anything to avoid getting hit.

Since I don't mean to make lethal fights appear in any way glorious, I am seriously considering making shanking the main cause of violent death. Followed by unseen arrows. The most effective way to kill people is when they can't fight back.

It seems to have been a matter of debate. A stab requires much less energy to kill if it hits something important, but a powerful chop is more likely to hit something important in the first place. Additionally a cut might be more likely to quickly incapacitate or put someone out of action, for instance by completely severing major muscles or lopping off an arm or leg. A stab to the lower abdomen would usually be pretty lethal, but it might not kill right away unless you pierce the heart or the brain.

Regarding realistic melee fights, if it's an actual fight between two men or two small groups of men rather than someone getting shanked from behind without warning then most of the time it might not even be that lethal in the first place. Getting close enough to stab someone means you have to get close enough that they might hurt you back, which was extremely scary and extremely risky even for very skilled fighters. It may depend on the situation but instead you're likely to see a lot of posturing, shouting, quick jabs and flashy, sweeping moves, and perhaps getting close enough to make contact weapon on weapon or even recieve the occasional nick or scratch, but rarely actually getting close enough to cause or receive serious injuries while waiting for that elusive "opening", or just waiting for help to arrive or for the enemy to grow tired and leave. Whenever one fighter does think that he's at a significant disadvantage he's likely to give ground or just leg it out of there.

Getting back to the subject of wounds. This is much more speculation on my part so I'll let other people chime in if they want to, but it might be interesting to keep in mind the different visual or psychological effect different types of wounds might have in addition to just the physical effect. In a fight between two small groups of men it would be one thing to see your friend receive a stab to his right arm and unable to fight any longer, but something entirely else to see your friend clutching a bloody stump where the rest of his arm used to be, or to see his head split in half by a powerful chop from a greatsword or daneaxe. I suspect that the latter would cause you to lose confidence and end the fight much quicker than the former would.

Epimethee

2018-06-09, 03:46 PM

About the massacre:

About the missing weapons: We are at the very late era for large weapon sacrifices. That is the main period is early 3rd to late 4th century, but with some in the 5th century as well. We also do have classical writings indicating the practise:

"The enemy ... destroyed everything that had fallen into their hands in an outrageous and unprecedented ritual of curses; clothes torn and thrown away ... the mens breastplates chopped into pieces ... people were hanged from trees with a cable around their neck, so that nothing fell into the hands of neither victor nor the fallen, nothing exchange and no mercy." Orosius around 400AD.

Thank for your well thought answer. Let me comment on a few points.

About the sources, i intended specificaly on weapon in waters. I know of some sources on the ritual destruction of weapons, mainly classical sources. The main problem is that no source that mention a cult of water, like Tacite about Nerthus ( Germania XL) mention a dropping of weapon.
Even the text that clearly state what happened to the weapons of the losing side are not really clear. Plutarch for example, in the Life of Marius 22, explain that the best weapons were kept for the triumph and the lesser equipment was burned and dedicated to some unnamed divinity. But a triumph hardly qualifies as a religious celebration and the cremation seem not really meaningfull. It is at most an usefull mean of dealing with second rate material. The gods surely desserve better. You could think that Plutarch paint is subject in a pious light by attributing religious meaning to a custom of war.

Polybus narrate another interesting case in the war of Philippe V of Macedonia against the Etolians. He comment on the destruction of Thermos. The macedonian destroyed the temple. Around the temple are weapons «*hanged on the Portico*». They choose the best and burn the rest (more than 15’000 weapons ) and Polybus say that their destruction happened according to the rules of war. But the macedonians burn also the offering inside the temple. (Statues and such...) This act is an abomination. In this case the weapons are closer to a trophy than a offering. Their destruction is clearly not stated as religious even when they are hanged around the temple.

I know those cases are far in space and time from the massacre that started this discussion but the ritual meaning of the destruction of weapons is not clear. The text of Orosius tell about an «*exsecratio*», more like a curse than a ritual. It’s not far away but it does not implies a religious meaning. Also Orosius Talk about a war in 105 BCE, so 400 AD is far away and his christian context may be relevant here.

I have another close call in a lesser known source, Florus, in Epitome book IV, chapter 12 ( I have only found the first two books in english so i cannot offer you a translation)
Florus talk about the war against the Pannonians in the time of Augustus. The relevant lines state more or less that the weapons of the defeated were not burned «*more belli*» (roughly translated «*following the custom of war) but were broken and thrown in the river to bear witness of the name of Caesar to those who resisted.
There is no clear ritual or religious meaning but the destruction of the weapons is clearly stated. The insult, or at least the warning from the victorious forces seem relevant and echoes a little the exsecratio.
The texts that state the religious meaning of the destruction of the weapons (i think there is also Livy) are mainly apologetic. In the others sources it is not specified. In all the litterary examples i think we cannot even rull out Military reasons disguised with a pinch of piety or cursing.
Some sources, Livy again and Claudius Aelianus, tell a fews words about the Celts, mainly that they make trophies like the romans.
So the case for weapons sacrifices is not clear in the sources.

So destruction of enemy gear is a definite possibility in the period.

Agreed. It is the ritual meaning of such destruction that is less clear. I have only a few articles about the subject in Scandinavia. But the ritual interpretation of the destruction of the weapons of the defeated is only one explanation for the deposit of weapons alluded to in the article. Some others interpretations, like a funeral rite, a ostentatious destruction of wealth, a regular offering ( like the fountain of Trevi with swords), or even, as is more common in documented case, the offering of the victorious weapons, are more readily tried in other parts of the world. As difficult as it may sound, connecting such a slaughter with a deposit of weapons would go a long way to shed more light on a file than i understand as still open.

I agree fondly with the rest of your post and enjoyed your contextualisation of the population and of their possible distribution.

Tobtor

2018-06-09, 04:41 PM

It is the ritual meaning of such destruction that is less clear. I have only a few articles about the subject in Scandinavia. But the ritual interpretation of the destruction of the weapons of the defeated is only one explanation for the deposit of weapons alluded to in the article. Some others interpretations, like a funeral rite, a ostentatious destruction of wealth, a regular offering ( like the fountain of Trevi with swords), or even, as is more common in documented case, the offering of the victorious weapons, are more readily tried in other parts of the world. As difficult as it may sound, connecting such a slaughter with a deposit of weapons would go a long way to shed more light on a file than i understand as still open..

About the sources: you are right they do not point directly to water, but do indeed point to systematic destruction of weapons post battle. And in southern Scandinavia "bogs" or small lakes are also used for al sorts of OTHER sacrifices, often in the same bogs, making the though plausible.

I doubt the "funeral rite" or "a regular" offering as explanation, they do not really work for the south Scandinavian weapon deposits. We are not talking a few spears here and there (we are for bronze age deposits though, where two spears is very common). The Illerup-find for example have one major deposit with more than 1.000 weapons (and then several other later deposits). The deposits also contains personal equipment of the warriors, such as belt-pouches with scrap-metal etc, looted valuables and mixed coins, but also combs and strike-a-lights, as well as other small personal items carried in a belt. The find also include quite alot of beltst/scabbards and such, but no human bone and very little jewelry (compared to graves). Thus we are finding exactly what is missing at the massacre site (except the women).

Interestingly the Illerup find is just a few kilometres up river from the Alken Enge (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/05/15/1721372115) which is a few centuries earlier and contains mainly human bones (and a wider use as place of various offerings of animals and pottery/food)

Illerup pictures:
http://legionord.org/images/IMG_20150319_133456.jpghttps://i.pinimg.com/originals/90/38/5a/90385a0305e43c36e3449aa33116a88b.jpghttps://i.pinimg.com/originals/20/39/cd/2039cd0e3b03ba50284a736abfd272af.jpg

Part of a scabbard from Nydam:

http://samlinger.natmus.dk/DO/asset/1706/thumbnail/1280

as is more common in documented case, the offering of the victorious weapons

In the Scandinavian cases we know that it is "foreign" equipment being deposited based on the personal effects (Danish combs where made different from Swedish and Norwegian combs. So it is quuite clearly the "enemy" equipment (otherwise a foreign army would have deposited all their weapons and work-knives, strike-a-lights, combs, ears-spoons etc, in the middle of enemy territory!).

We can also exlude "military reasons", as the equipment have been so thoroughly OVER-destroyed (curled up, bend, scattered). Swords bent into S forms does not happen if you just want to get rid of them. Also it does not explain the other equipment gathered and deposited together with the weapons.

Tobtor

2018-06-09, 04:58 PM

I'll have to read the article see what it says. In general the period before "Viking" age is neither well researched or well known in Scandinavia. E.g. there's a village close to Lund that seems to have been a major, massive for Scandinavian circumstances, site for around 1000 years before around the middle ages (so basically 0-1000ad ) and nationstate forming, the royal power seems to create Lund as an alternative and later usurping town. This place, I forget the name is largely unexplored despite clearly been an important regional centre and likely seat of a powerful chieften or king.

We need Tobtor to dig more in the ground is what I'm saying.:

Well I think the period prior to the viking age IS well researched. And while we might know less (due to lack of written sources), we know quite a bit. While Uppåkre was definitely an important site (especially during the 600-800 timeframe), we have other similar sites, such as Sorte Muld on Bornholm, but I think the site of Gudme (short for Godheim, "Home of the Gods"), is more important. The Gudme hall was huge (by contemproary standards) with 47x10m it had a roof area of around 470 square meters. Next to it was a smaller (but contemporary) hall, with 25X10meters, thus a very large "home" and an enormous hall. A few kilometres away was the important trade-centre of Lundeborg.

The Broholm treasure found near Lundeborg: https://natmus.dk/typo3temp/GB/b9e19ea4ec.jpg

So the period would have several small scale kings each with their local cult sites and halls, and the important ones also trade centre (such as Gudme and Uppåkra).

wolflance

2018-06-10, 12:23 AM

I see. So what were soldiers wearing that kind of armor using as weapons?
Spear, sword, axe, bow, crossbow etc - just like everybody else.

Vinyadan

2018-06-10, 04:00 AM

I think "chubby" might be a bit of a misleading word and people grab onto this idea to much, but it's true that gladiators put on extra chub to get the a nice, slashable form. But they also had dumbel equivalents and did lifting exercises (amongst many other more soldier-practical fitness activities) so they also had muscle that was cosmetic, protective and practical under that fat.

Gladiator training notes are patchy and varied a lot because of all the different schools/regions/times/wealth of owner and so on.

The Manica is a sleeve armour that they wore, probably because the arm'll be more likely to end a career. The torso was hardly armoured, to encourage hitting it..

If you take a quick look at gladiator trident artifacts, they don't look like they would've been very sharp. Sharp enough to cut, sure, but not very deeply.

Gladiators would learn acting techniques and would be taught that if they were going to die, they should die with style. WWE is a maybe, maybe not kind of thing.

Keep in mind that there were different categories of gladiators, some wearing less armour than others, some with their torso fully protected.
http://eleggo.net/blog/2016/12/19/the-roman-scissor-gladiator-weapon-or-aka-return-of-the-arbelos

Storm Bringer

2018-06-10, 07:28 AM

on the topic of stab vs cut wounds, its worth noting in passing that part of the impetus for the move to pistols in duelling was the tendency for sword armed duellists to receive wounds that were eventually fatal but not immediately incapacitating, and thus to keep fighting long enough to inflict a similarly fatal but not incapacitating wound to their opponents, leaving both parties at deaths door.

The general decline in swordmanship among the duelling classes was another factor, particularly due the tendency of semi skilled swordsmen to think only in terms of attacks and not properly defend, again leading to more double fatalities as duellists attacked into an attack* rather than parry-riposte.

It was these double kills that lead to the priority/right of way rules in modern sport fencing, as teachers tried to force students to parry more, and made the focus of training about surviving the fight, rather than killing the other guy.

* sometimes called a "stop-hit", it can work, if your good enough, and can ensure that the attack your counter-attacking doesn't connect, but its a risky and difficult move. much safer to just parry and then counter-attack (preferably in a single motion, i.e. smash the attackers blade aside while your own sword makes a cut at him)

Kiero

2018-06-10, 07:44 AM

The Hamilton-Mohun duel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%E2%80%93Mohun_Duel) was one such event that led to a great outcry against sword-duelling.

Epimethee

2018-06-10, 09:47 AM

About the sources: you are right they do not point directly to water, but do indeed point to systematic destruction of weapons post battle. And in southern Scandinavia "bogs" or small lakes are also used for al sorts of OTHER sacrifices, often in the same bogs, making the though plausible.

I will explore the links and references you gave us. Thanks also for the update on the others cities.
I used the sources to point that the case of a sacrifice is not so well made. I understand that different explanations are necessary for different finds. I could also point out that others objects in the same place are not a proof of a specific action. For example, in La Tène, humans and animals remains were found alongside the weapons. As much as a ritual seem implied, the offering of the weapons of the defeated is not proved.

I doubt the "funeral rite" or "a regular" offering as explanation, they do not really work for the south Scandinavian weapon deposits. We are not talking a few spears here and there (we are for bronze age deposits though, where two spears is very common). The Illerup-find for example have one major deposit with more than 1.000 weapons (and then several other later deposits). The deposits also contains personal equipment of the warriors, such as belt-pouches with scrap-metal etc, looted valuables and mixed coins, but also combs and strike-a-lights, as well as other small personal items carried in a belt. The find also include quite alot of beltst/scabbards and such, but no human bone and very little jewelry (compared to graves). Thus we are finding exactly what is missing at the massacre site

I never intended to specificaly explain the Scandinavian deposit. Nevertheless there are some arguments in favor of both explanations in the european context. The funerary one is mainly supported by the work of W. Torbrügge on the complementarity between the finds in waters ( here including bogs, swamps, sources and river) and the finds in graves. His maps include Scandinavia by the way.
The „regular“ offering is an argument about the timeframe of the deposits. You need only a few generations of small offerings to colllect a huge amount of stuffs. A large amount of weapons does not mean the aftermath of a fight. The sites excavated in the XIX century lack very offen a clear stratigraphy, a big part of the information about this point is sadly missing.

Illerup is a very specific site because it contain some of the fews example of swords intentionnaly bended in a way that implies a warmed blade. Others places include Gournay in France. The intentionality is proved beyond doubt but not the implications.
It is not clear that a sword treated in such a way was ever intended to be used in a fight. The possibility of swords made only to be sacrified cannot be ruled out. (Others finds are composed of weapons clearly used in war so there is likely many possibilities.)
The existence of miniature versions of weapons , like shields in the Salisbury hoard (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=831340&partId=1) may also reinforce this point.

As i understand the hypothesis on Scandinavians deposits draw a lot on the Illerup find. From a defensive war to the plunder of a local expédition the main hypothesis start with a defeated foe and a sacrifice. For Snowbliss, Hella Lund Hansen suppose that the latter deposits were the result of the return of mercenenaries, back after years of war for or against Rome.The bogs would have been the results of the power fighting between the locals and the newly returned.
Even so, my main article on the subject of scandinavian deposit( by Xenia Pauli Jensen) suggest to consider the implications of such a waste of wealth in the context of the expression of power in the societies of the time. She argue that one explanation may not be enough in regard to the differences between the finds and the various times of the deposits. Her conclusion is to reassess the deposits in light of their differences and in a more local context.

So i’m happy if what was found in conextually pertinent bog and what was missing in the massacre may match ( further discoveries pending).

In the Scandinavian cases we know that it is "foreign" equipment being deposited based on the personal effects (Danish combs where made different from Swedish and Norwegian combs. So it is quuite clearly the "enemy" equipment (otherwise a foreign army would have deposited all their weapons and work-knives, strike-a-lights, combs, ears-spoons etc, in the middle of enemy territory!).

Agreed, but a defensive or an offensive operation could result in very different practices. Destroying the equipment of foreigners is not the same as dedicating what was obtained by war. Some of the deposits seem also to reflect a warrior ideology with a clear distinction between the equipment of the warrior, the soldier and the conscript. That it may reflect the local ideology add further complexity to the question. (I have relevant sources about this specific point if you wish.)
Consider also the case of Vimose in Funen island. The pieces that were found cover more than 600 years. They are very diverses in origins, inclunding foreign object and local ones. Asserting an interpretation of such a place seem difficult. Such Reflexion may also nuance the sacrifice of spoils of war hypothesis.

We can also exlude "military reasons", as the equipment have been so thoroughly OVER-destroyed (curled up, bend, scattered). Swords bent into S forms does not happen if you just want to get rid of them. Also it does not explain the other equipment gathered and deposited together with the weapons.

Almost agreed for Illerup, bearing in mind that more or less twenty weapons were found curled up. That’s A very little proportion of the find. I don’t think it rule out totally the possibility of Military reasons, even simultanously pointing out to a kind of ritual.
The case of the intentional destruction of weapons is less well asserted for the most part of the finds in water and even so they tend to be brutally broken. As in many part of archeology, the more you state the known facts, the less you seem to be sure of an hypothesis. That’s what fascinate me in the site of the massacre. It seem so easy to connect it with the problem of the weapons of the defeated, it fit so well into what we are sure to know. I think it is fair not to take the hypothesis for granted, as seductive as it may look.

I would be amazed if a connection between a known massacre and a deposit could be proven beyond doubt, because of all of the above.
Even without this connection, the lack of weapons in the fort seem relevant and add further weight to the case of a specific treatment of the weapons of the defeated.

Thanks for those who answered on gladiatorial fight. I’m surprised by how simple it looks, almost repetitive. A few cuts on the chest, some splatter of blood. I understand the need tho have different styles of fighters...

Tobtor

2018-06-10, 12:47 PM

I will explore the links and references you gave us. Thanks also for the update on the others cities.
I used the sources to point that the case of a sacrifice is not so well made. I understand that different explanations are necessary for different finds. I could also point out that others objects in the same place are not a proof of a specific action. For example, in La Tène, humans and animals remains were found alongside the weapons. As much as a ritual seem implied, the offering of the weapons of the defeated is not proved.

I agree that other finds is not proof of the same action; but there seem to be some bogs used for offerings, and then we have the large deposits in the same ones.

I never intended to specificaly explain the Scandinavian deposit. Nevertheless there are some arguments in favor of both explanations in the european context. The funerary one is mainly supported by the work of W. Torbrügge on the complementarity between the finds in waters ( here including bogs, swamps, sources and river) and the finds in graves. His maps include Scandinavia by the way.

Yeah, then he is wrong. Its completely different material in the graves and in the weapon sacrifices (except a few graves with very fancy belt equipment). There is really no relation.

The „regular“ offering is an argument about the timeframe of the deposits. You need only a few generations of small offerings to colllect a huge amount of stuffs. A large amount of weapons does not mean the aftermath of a fight. The sites excavated in the XIX century lack very offen a clear stratigraphy, a big part of the information about this point is sadly missing.

At both Illerup, Nydam, Vimose and many of the others we find clear evidence of large single deposits. For example the weapons are often found in separate "heaps",clearly put down together. We also have frequent examples of "bundles" of artefacts tied together with strings/rope or packed in textile. Sometimes several such bundles can be tied together by lets say half of sword a was found with 10 spears, while the other half was found with another group of spears and parts of sword B wich was found togther with... and so on.

Illerup is a very specific site because it contain some of the fews example of swords intentionnaly bended in a way that implies a warmed blade. Others places include Gournay in France. The intentionality is proved beyond doubt but not the implications.
It is not clear that a sword treated in such a way was ever intended to be used in a fight. The possibility of swords made only to be sacrified cannot be ruled out. (Others finds are composed of weapons clearly used in war so there is likely many possibilities.)

Uhhmm no. It happened in a lot of the Scandinavian bog finds. So does systematic destruction by other means. Also gravegoods prior to the weapon sacrifices are also bent to fit into urns. Also several weapons show signs of use, shields shown signs of repair (even the most fancy ones with silver and gold!) and so on. How it is abroad (France, Germany) is of less interest since the equipment from the last phase of the Scandinavian weapon sacrifices are mainly from "eastern Sweden" (that is the region with the massacre!).

As i understand the hypothesis on Scandinavians deposits draw a lot on the Illerup find. From a defensive war to the plunder of a local expédition the main hypothesis start with a defeated foe and a sacrifice. For Snowbliss, Hella Lund Hansen suppose that the latter deposits were the result of the return of mercenenaries, back after years of war for or against Rome.The bogs would have been the results of the power fighting between the locals and the newly returned.

The weapon deposits all have the same basic characteristics as Illerup. Also newer re-excavations of older sites, confirm the picture.

Even so, my main article on the subject of scandinavian deposit( by Xenia Pauli Jensen) suggest to consider the implications of such a waste of wealth in the context of the expression of power in the societies of the time. She argue that one explanation may not be enough in regard to the differences between the finds and the various times of the deposits. Her conclusion is to reassess the deposits in light of their differences and in a more local context.

Both Ulla Lund Hansen and Xenia Pauli Jensen agree there is a ritualistic element and that we are dealing with a large sacrifices. There is some debate weather it is "offensive wars" (like Roman triumphs), a result of defensive wars against invading neighbours (Jørgen Ilkjærs hypothesis and the most prevalent one), or indeed returning mercenaries (which I do not think work, due to the "local" appearance of clothing and smaller use-items which would not last for long periods as mercenaries/auxiliaries). There is of course also some discussion of WHY such a ritual sacrifice happens and why it is developed in the first place, what the underlying meaning is and so on. But that doesn't change the fact that is a ritual.

Agreed, but a defensive or an offensive operation could result in very different practices. Destroying the equipment of foreigners is not the same as dedicating what was obtained by war. Some of the deposits seem also to reflect a warrior ideology with a clear distinction between the equipment of the warrior, the soldier and the conscript. That it may reflect the local ideology add further complexity to the question. (I have relevant sources about this specific point if you wish.)
Consider also the case of Vimose in Funen island. The pieces that were found cover more than 600 years. They are very diverses in origins, inclunding foreign object and local ones. Asserting an interpretation of such a place seem difficult. Such Reflexion may also nuance the sacrifice of spoils of war hypothesis.

Yes the bogs was used repeatedly, but with a few large deposits (and then some smaller ones as well). So there is continuity of practise, but a continuity with larger deposits intermingled with smaller ones. As mentioned we see all sorts of equipment there, puches, gaming pieces etc, and not only weapons (and yes these artefact ARE connected to the weapons).

Almost agreed for Illerup, bearing in mind that more or less twenty weapons were found curled up. That’s A very little proportion of the find. I don’t think it rule out totally the possibility of Military reasons, even simultanously pointing out to a kind of ritual.

The case of the intentional destruction of weapons is less well asserted for the most part of the finds in water and even so they tend to be brutally broken.

Yes some items are bruttally broken by other means, such as smashing them up. This include a horse that have been killed many times over.

As in many part of archeology, the more you state the known facts, the less you seem to be sure of an hypothesis. That’s what fascinate me in the site of the massacre. It seem so easy to connect it with the problem of the weapons of the defeated, it fit so well into what we are sure to know. I think it is fair not to take the hypothesis for granted, as seductive as it may look.

So because the missing weapons fit the interpretation of the deposits, we shouldnt make the connection? Or... ?

I would be amazed if a connection between a known massacre and a deposit could be proven beyond doubt, because of all of the above.

Nothing in humanities can be proven without a doubt (and very little in natural science).

However, that we are dealing with large deposits of weapons, which is not related to the grave-cult, but non-the-less have a relation to rituals (systematic destruction and deposition in well known offering sites, and with a long history of repeated large deposition suggesting that the "place" was important beyond immediate military needs), these depositions consist of entire "equipment" of the warriors including belts and personal items, but little in terms of jewellery and clothing, and no bones of humans (but a few horses). At the same time we find a defensive site where there have been a massacre, where we have bones and a some (at present a bit unclear how much) jewellery but no weapons. This massacre happens in the very specific region where the "war" represented in the weapon deposits of the period appear to come. Can we prove a relation? No. But we must consider it a very LIKELY connection.

VoxRationis

2018-06-10, 02:11 PM

Kiero

2018-06-10, 03:59 PM

What sort of weapons and armor are typical for pre-modern marines? In particular, I'm thinking of those serving on the Ptolemaic and Venetian navies. My first assumption would be that a marine would want lighter, more compact gear than his land-bound counterpart, but I could be wrong about that.

Also, what ranges are typical of ballistae? The Age of Titans by William Murray gives a list of the size and weights of a series of semi-standardized ballista designs from the Hellenistic period, but references to ranges are difficult to find. I'm expecting a lot of variation, based on the size and weight of the ballista; I'd like an emphasis more on the smaller, ship-appropriate classes (the 5-span oxybeles, the 10-mina petrobolos, etc.) but anything would be helpful.

Early Ptolemaic marines would probably have been like Athenian ones, given that was a relatively successful model for a good century or more. That would mean a mixture of hoplites (ie heavy spearmen with big shields - if they went overboard in armour, they drowned) and archers (often steppe peoples like Skythians - composite bows and long daggers, armour was rare).

However, as time went on, they tended to recruit their sailors and marines from southern Anatolia and the Aegean islands. Karians and Pisidians, along with Cypriots, Kretans and Rhodians. They all preferred lighter panoplies; helmets and smaller shields (pelte, small thureoi), some might have textile body armour (but not universal as with hoplites), with missile weapons (javelins mostly, but possibly bows for the Kretans, slings for the Rhodians) and swords for backup. Those javelins might include some heavier, dual-purpose ones like the longche, which was robust enough to be used as a spear as well as balanced for throwing.

Some of the reasons for the shift were the Ptolemaioi's problems with getting Greek manpower (since they didn't hold the mainland, only some islands, and got most of their Greeks as mercenaries) and the general increase in the size of marine complements. In the era of Athenian dominance, the primary naval platform was the trieres/trireme, which had limited space on deck (if it was aphract, then it didn't have much of a deck beyond a central board for the sailors to get about). Their complement tended to be just over a dozen, weighted primarily towards hoplites for defense against boarding. The oarsmen were always a potential emergency reserve of makeshift marines, since they outnumbered dedicated marines tenfold, and that's probably where the Athenian skirmishers at the battle of Sphacteria came from. Give them some javelins and you have a force of light infantry. That was a risky move, though, since they were also your motive force.

However, following Demetrios Poliorketes success at the battle of Salamis in 306BC, which was mostly due to his much heavier battle line, the standard battleship moved to the penteres/quinquireme, which not only had more oarsmen, but much more deck space. Their marine complements were 30-40 men each along with the addition of ship-board artillery. For a power already struggling to find Greeks to fill it's army and administration, using them for marines as well was too much of a stretch. Thus the employment of coastal peoples from lands they controlled in southern Anatolia.

Not sure about artillery, it doesn't seem to have been given much time even in the books I've read about Demetrios Poliorketes and his siege of Rhodes, for example. The ammunition used by some of them them (all-iron bolts) must have been ruinously expensive.

snowblizz

2018-06-12, 04:08 AM

Yeah, for a third what if: the women were the killers all along! Such a scenario explain the missing weapons and the lack of women! The men went away fighting for Rome for so long that the women rebuilded their life and decided to kill them after their return. They had already taken care of securing their wealth and the necessary food. So they hide the weapons before striking. Also far fetched but there is an historical precedent in Hungary after WWI: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Makers_of_Nagyrév
I’m not sure this scenario should be taken seriously. But it seem also to fit the known facts.
You know I was this ][ close to suggesting exactly that.

What do you mean by the way by local traces?
I was thinking that if one community suffers such a massive loss the benefit should be visible in the other party.

Rome had the story about the women caputred from...er... ok can't remember the city. Something something Rome had no women so they went and enslaved some neighbouring city's women as wifes etc. Something like that is the story.

If a similar act happened locally on Öland I sorta would expect it to leave traces. Mainly since in some bizarre twist of fate somehow the "haunting story" sticks around for 1500 years!

Well I think the period prior to the viking age IS well researched. And while we might know less (due to lack of written sources), we know quite a bit. While Uppåkre was definitely an important site (especially during the 600-800 timeframe)

So the period would have several small scale kings each with their local cult sites and halls, and the important ones also trade centre (such as Gudme and Uppåkra).
Uppåkra! It was bugging me. Stupid names. Well if you think it's well reasearched then you are all not doing a very job informing us about it ;P. Because all the popular science articles about it tend to go "eh, duno, maybe". The more they dig the more mysterious it seems it gets.

It's also rather sad when I hear that money is keeping stuff from being excavated.

Telok

2018-06-12, 04:47 AM

Rome had the story about the women caputred from...er... ok can't remember the city. Something something Rome had no women so they went and enslaved some neighbouring city's women as wifes etc. Something like that is the story.

Rape of the Sabine Women (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women)

Well, more a 'bride kidnapping'. Translation and all.

Galloglaich

2018-06-12, 09:25 AM

As I always say, feudalism never really got a foothold in Sweden.

Agreed, though Sweden was by no means the only part of Europe that didn't. The establishment of Feudalism was surprisingly patchy in many areas including in general all around the Baltic.

But Sweden was definitely poor. That's a thread you can follow all through history up to the 1800s. I got a book on Swedish economic history at home I was gonna take some stuff out of. It's grim
reading. Kings lament the deplorable state of their finances and subjects (neither are as good as what their colleagues down south have). The nobles are barely better than robber barons. The state and

I'd be willing to bet that Sweden was actually much more poor in the 1700's and 1800's than it was in say, the 1400's or 1500's. With the exception of a small number of princes, Nobles were barely better than robber barons in most of medieval Europe. Particularly up in that area where Frisia, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, the various islands like Rugen, Gotland and Saaremaa were known as bandit and 'pirate' havens from the times of Charlemagne through the 16th Century. As you mentioned the large organized pirate groups like the Victual Brothers and the Likedellers thrived in the Baltic, before that Curonians and Norse Vikings terrorized the coasts.

A poor monarchy does not necessarily mean a poor people. The Holy Roman Emperor was a poor monarch compared to the King of France, but it did not mean that the HRE itself was poor. Sweden was mostly rural, very thinly populated it's important to note (even by the much lower norms of population density 5 or 6 centuries ago - something people tend to forget about) therefore of a largely subsistence economy and by today's standards quite poor, but by medieval standards rural wealth might mean 20 or 40 acres of land, a nearby creek or pond you could catch fish out of, and a few dozen reindeer or cattle*. Seemingly, many Swedish peasants did have that. The big dividing line between poor and 'yeoman' or rural middle class in medieval times was did you own your own land, and most Swedes apparently did. It may not have been the most productive land but they had a lot of it (low population density) and they did have things like lumber which had considerable value.

And they had enough surplus wealth to show up to muster during the (quite frequent) times of strife with quite respectable arms and armor, as we know from period records, and they were also able to fit out ships... though the arms and some of the money seems to have actually come from mercenaries sent by Denmark to tame them who were subsequently defeated and robbed and / or held for ransom.

You should be aware that economic conditions in Europe generally and Scandinavia in particular declined substantially in the 17th Century and kind of bottomed out in the 18th, with the 19th Century and Industrial revolution gradually reversing the trend by around 1900. You can see this quite clearly in charts of the height of skeletons across the centuries.

Well it was integrated in the way that what little trade Sweden provided the Hanse controlled it all. I've never seen Sweden described as anything but a "subject" to the Hanse. The League controlled the

Stockholm was basically a Hanseatic city, as you noted half the Council was Swedish but the town was essentially controlled by German merchants (and had both craft and merchant guilds going back to the 13th Century by the way), but Visby, which was the epicenter of the Hanse until the mid 14th Century, was noted for having an international and largely Swedish population of merchants. Visby also incidentally had well developed guild system.

It was after a particularly nasty series of feuds between the Hanse and Denmark that Visby was broken, so to speak, and went into rapid decline, after which Lubeck became the de-facto seat of the Hanse, and the Hanse became much more an association of German cities, with Low German becoming the Lignua Franca and laws being passed (with mixed success) to exclude non-German merchants from the League.

e.g. in trade. Basically a monopoly on Swedish trade. Sweden's position towards the Hanse has basically been described as subservient.

This is an oversimiplification. Norway was subservient to the Hanse. Sweden was basically an ally against Denmark. Sometimes Sweden was in conflict with the Hanse but much more often they sided with the Hanse against Denmark, or the Hanse sided with Swedish rebellions against Denmark. Denmark was wedded to the Feudal system and got into a bitter power struggle with the Hanseatic League, whereas Sweden was indeed linked to trade networks. They may not have made that much money from it but it was enough to align their interests with the Hanse - Swedish exports included (salted, dried, pickled or cured) fish, furs (especially from Finland), lumber, other forest products like 'pine resin' (potash seems to be surprisingly important) whetstones and millstones, and probably most important and profitable - iron. As I noted, high quality iron (and bronze) artifacts like guns show up in Hanseatic records (and in the archeological record) which come from Sweden as early as the first quarter of the 1300's but do not necessarily originate in any of the towns.

For example this bronze beauty, the so called morko handgonne dated to 1390, came from Sweden

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Gun_Sweden_Morko.jpg/640px-Gun_Sweden_Morko.jpg

In exchange they imported a lot of salt, butter, cheese, beer, pickled foods, barrels, glassware, and textiles, especially wool cloth.

Considering the Scania market lay in Denmark back then I stand by what I said. There was no Swedish contesting, it was Danish through and through. The Swedish wiki about the Scania market has

The Scania market (and theOresund) was under a near-constant political and military struggle for control by various forces. The Hanse took it away from Denmark several times and basically brought in Swedish fishermen to run the actual fishing part of the whole enterprise. The way the market worked was the Hanseatic traders would bring salt from Luneburg, buy fish from the fishermen, process the fish (largely using female labor they brought with them, who would gut the fish and pack it into barrels with the salt) and then ship it back to Germany from where it would be sold all over Europe at a large profit. Fish was supposed to be the only meat you ate during the 40 days of Lent, on every Friday, and on maybe a third of the 180 holidays (Holy Days) spread throughout the calendar year. Plus it was one of the cheapest forms of preserved protein food you could get.

in the Middle Ages it's a bit fraught to declare a given piece of land as "Swedish" or "Danish" or "German" or "Russian" since whatever government ostensibly laid claim to it often had a tenuous level of actual control.

When do you purport that happened? When Valdemar Atterdag conqured Gotland after the Battle of Visby he specifically did not sack Visby, but instead taxed it (under duress but still) and confirmed it's privilleges.

He took a kings ransom from the city and had the wall broken. After that day Visby was repeatedly sacked by Pirates (almost as often as Bergen) and went into a sharp decline.

It's not exactly mysteriosuly emerging from the deep forests. That's actually *how* it was even possible. Unlike much of the rest of Sweden the southernmost part of Dalarna was connected to a series of lakes and waterways cutting deep into the land. Stockholm is placed at the end, or start, of (snip) frontier settlement area still in the 1800s. Says something about how difficult communications are outside the areas you can reach by water.

Every trading city or zone in Europe was linked by water. It was basically the only efficient way to move heavy goods around.

May have to challenge you on that one too. The valuable trade Sweden got form Finalnd was in fact the Russian trade and Swedish control was mainly focused on the coastal regions since sailing

You are forgetting about the furs. Ermine and mink and so on, but beaver fur was the most economically important. The underfur of beavers was used to make felt, one of the more important industrial materials in Europe, used to make relatively affordable warm clothing among other things.

My point is none of this trade approached what the Hanse brought in, let alone compared to anything on the Mediterranean.

It was on a much smaller scale, but Sweden (and Finland, and Novgorod for that matter) was part of the Hanseatic trade network.

*it's worth noting, what was considered basic level peasant assets then, by today's standards that would make you rich!

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-12, 09:53 AM

By the way, perhaps the most amusing and RPG friendly of the Swedish exports that you see on Russian and Hanseatic merchants records was the 'unicorn horn', a highly prized super-luxury. These were apparently narwhal horns.

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-12, 10:15 AM

I know G has pics he usually posts but can't rememer the artist nor find them in older threads. Did a load of woodblocks of life of a soldier from the time. Think name starts with a D. Annoying me now.

You probably mean Paul Dolnstein who was a Landsknecht himself who did a lot of sketches from his experiences. Urs Graf is also quite good, he did more woodcuts, but he focuses more on Reislaufer, the Swiss equivalent, and you might say inspiration for the Landsknechts.

some guy posted on Myarmoury that he was translating Dolestein's diary for his Masters Thesis:

https://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=215295

I can't hotlink but you can see a clear distinction between the armor of the Landsknechts vs. some Swedish peasants they were fighting in the first image.

He also shows interesting details like this 'sword staff' which may or may not have some kind of links to earlier Viking "halberds"

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Two_soldiers_in_battle_at_Old_%C3%84lvsborg_Castle _in_1502%2C_V%C3%A4sterg%C3%B6tland%2C_Sweden_%288 579777716%29.jpg

Edit: note by the way that the Swedish 'peasant' has a metal helmet, (I think) a cuirass, and a longsword sidearm in addition to his polearm. And a canteen.

G

Lemmy

2018-06-12, 10:34 AM

Galloglaich

2018-06-12, 11:39 AM

I would be amazed if a connection between a known massacre and a deposit could be proven beyond doubt, because of all of the above.
Even without this connection, the lack of weapons in the fort seem relevant and add further weight to the case of a specific treatment of the weapons of the defeated.

Just wanted to say, this is a fascinating discussion. Another (for sure long shot and unlikely) explanation of valuables being left behind but not weapons, are some stories in certain Sagas, I think for example Hrolf Kraki saga, in which "Vikings" threw down treasure they had captured as they were fleeing, in the hopes of slowing down their pursuers who would stop to pick it up.

Not saying this explains it it just reminded me of those stories.

That story about all the Angel Makers of Nagyrév was quite chilling. Reminds me a bit of that very scary film Heredetary I saw last night. Sometimes I think the ladies would kill all of us men if they could!

Thanks for those who answered on gladiatorial fight. I’m surprised by how simple it looks, almost repetitive. A few cuts on the chest, some splatter of blood. I understand the need tho have different styles of fighters...

A possible good source on gladiatorial combat would be Galen. he is one of the three 'auctores' or "authorities" upon whom most medical teaching was done in pre-industrial Europe - the other two being Hipporcrates and Avicenna. For some reason Hippocrates is the only one still in the mix.

Galen was a physician or surgeon who early in his career sewed up wounded Gladiators, that is how he learned his trade so to speak. Later he was the personal physician of Emperors. There has been a great deal written about him. I have read some excerpts from Galen and he does get into detail about cut and stab wounds and how to treat them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen

G

rrgg

2018-06-12, 11:41 AM

What sort of weapons and armor are typical for pre-modern marines? In particular, I'm thinking of those serving on the Ptolemaic and Venetian navies. My first assumption would be that a marine would want lighter, more compact gear than his land-bound counterpart, but I could be wrong about that.

Usually the weapons and armor used at sea were the same as those used on land. There usually wasn't a clear distinction between "marines" and regular soldiers either.

The 13th century Scandinavian King's Mirror (http://www.mediumaevum.com/75years/mirror/index.html) does briefly discuss fighting at sea. It claims that "Wide shields and chain mail of every sort are good defensive weapons on shipboard; the chief protection, however, is the gambison made of soft linen thoroughly blackened, good helmets, and low caps of steel."

iirc there's been some suggestion that because it points out the gambison in particular perhaps that means some soldiers did prefer to wear lighter armor at sea, but other than that it doesn't seem to have been much of an issue.

If you are fighting on foot in a land battle and are placed at the point of a wedge-shaped column, it is very important to watch the closed shield line in the first onset, lest it become disarranged or broken. Take heed never to bind the front edge of your shield under that of another. You must also be specially careful, when in the battle line, never to throw your spear, unless you have two, for in battle array on land one spear is more effective than two swords. But if the fight is on shipboard, select two spears which are not to be thrown, one with a shaft long enough to reach easily from ship to ship and one with a shorter shaft, which you will find particularly serviceable when you try to board the enemy's ship. Various kinds of darts should be kept on ships, both heavy javelins and lighter ones. Try to strike your opponent's shield with a heavy javelin, and if the shield glides aside, attack him with a light javelin, unless you are able to reach him with a long-shafted spear. Fight on sea as on land with an even temper and with proper strokes only; and never waste your weapons by hurling them to no purpose.

Weapons of many sorts may be used to advantage on shipboard, which one has no occasion to use on land, except in a fortress or castle. Longhandled scythes and long-shafted broadaxes, "war-beams "and staff slings, darts,: and missiles of every sort are serviceable on ships. Crossbows and longbows are useful as well as all other forms of shooting weapons; but coal and sulphur are, however, the most effective munitions of all that I have named. Caltrops cast in lead and good halberds are also effective weapons on shipboard. A tower joined to the mast will be serviceable along with these and many other defenses, as is also a beam cloven into four parts and set with prongs of hard steel, which is drawn up against the mast. A "prow-boar": with an ironclad snout is also useful in naval battles. But it is well for men to be carefully trained in handling these before they have to use them; for one knows neither the time nor the hour when he shall have to make use of any particular kind of weapons. But take good heed to collect as many types of weapons as possible, while you still have no need of them; for it is always a distinction to have good weapons, and, furthermore, they are a good possession in times of necessity when one has to use them. For a ship's defense the following arrangement is necessary: it should be fortified strongly with beams and logs built up into a high rampart, through which there should be four openings, each so large and wide that one or two men in full armor can leap through them; but outside and along the rampart on both sides of the ship there should he laid a level walk of planks to stand upon. This breastwork must be firmly and carefully braced so that it cannot be shaken though one leaps violently upon it. Wide shields and chain mail of every sort are good defensive weapons on shipboard; the chief protection, however, is the gambison made of soft linen thoroughly blackened, good helmets, and low caps of steel. There are many other weapons that can be used in naval fights, but it seems needless to discuss more than those which I have now enumerated.

Once you get into the late middle ages and the early modern period you often find war books illustrating or describing an inflatable leather "girdle" designed to let a man in heavy armor cross a river or body of water without drowning:

https://i.imgur.com/IqQHcGh.png

Galloglaich

2018-06-12, 11:41 AM

Narwhal teeth, actually... :smallbiggrin:

But pedantry aside... That's hilarious!

Yeah it's almost a kind of sardonic Swedish peasant joke played on the world. The whole reason Unicorns exist in the popular Zeitgeist may originate from this 'racket' ;)

G

rrgg

2018-06-12, 12:02 PM

On the subject of landsknecht armor, it's probably worth noting that it could vary quite a bit depending on how successful a regiment was and even within the regiment itself. In combat officers and the best paid, most experienced troops would usually be put at the front, rear, and sides of a pike square and might be pretty well armored compared to the newest recruits further inside the square. As a result you might have some landsknechts pretty well kitted out with a complete 3/4ths harness while others in the same company had just a bishop's mantle or no armor at all.

https://www.arador.com/armour/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/woodcut6.jpg

Blymurkla

2018-06-12, 03:10 PM

Galloglaich

2018-06-12, 03:13 PM

Narwhals in Sweden?

No idea where they originally came from, but the horns... sorry teeth, were traded from Sweden

G

Beleriphon

2018-06-12, 03:34 PM

No idea where they originally came from, but the horns... sorry teeth, were traded from Sweden

G

Narwhal is endemic to the Artic Circle and regions slightly south. The Atlantic coast of Sweden could certainly have Narwhal. Or they could have originally been traded with Iceland whalers, which is probably more likely.

Galloglaich

2018-06-12, 04:45 PM

Narwhal is endemic to the Artic Circle and regions slightly south. The Atlantic coast of Sweden could certainly have Narwhal. Or they could have originally been traded with Iceland whalers, which is probably more likely.

I know by the 14th century they were getting a lot of sulphur and I think maybe potassium nitrate from Iceland so maybe that was the source.

I think Norway traded some other 'whale products' like baleen, ambergris, and whale oil

G

snowblizz

2018-06-13, 03:33 AM

Am glad to see someone else caught this.

I know by the 14th century they were getting a lot of sulphur and I think maybe potassium nitrate from Iceland so maybe that was the source.

I think Norway traded some other 'whale products' like baleen, ambergris, and whale oil

G

Narwhal is endemic to the Artic Circle and regions slightly south. The Atlantic coast of Sweden could certainly have Narwhal. Or they could have originally been traded with Iceland whalers, which is probably more likely.

No idea where they originally came from, but the horns... sorry teeth, were traded from Sweden

G

Narwhals in Sweden?
Definitely not.

Narwhal teeth most definitely would come to Sweden from elsewhere. Sweden doesn't exactly have an Atlantic coast either. Definitely not in the medieaval period where up until the 1500s they only had a tiny breathingspot along Göta älv where it empties into the North Sea. Supposedly given to them to solve a border dispute between Danish and Norwegian kings (keeping them separate with a sliver of Swedish lands) in the 1300s or thereabouts. The Swedes built a castle in the 1360s at least.

Trade through Norway would be the likeliest explanation. It is also possible that you get some trickling through from the east (and north, essentially Sami lands) however. There was some trade coming from the Arctic sea down waterways in Finland and Karelia, which would likely end up in Swedish hands. Sweden wasn't particularly west oriented, essentially lacking ports on the west coast. It's not really until the founding of Göteborg in the 1600s we get a reasonable port in the west. The earlier attempts were generally pccupied and burnt down in conflicts with the Danish. That Älvsborg e.g. got ransomed twice at an exorbiant cost to the people. And also made Swedish taxrecords of the 1500s some of the most complete documents from the time.

Tobtor

2018-06-13, 12:20 PM

No idea where they originally came from, but the horns... sorry teeth, were traded from Sweden

G

G: do you have a source?

As mentioned Sweden does not have an Atlantic port, and the North Sea does not count as the narwhal was mainly found in Iceland and Faroese.

More problematic is however that there, as I understand it, were not really any big trade of Narwhal in the medieval period. The reason is that there were no large scale systematic whale hunting before the 17th century (and then dominated by the Dutch, and a few Danish ships). Before that it was only very coastal hunting (if even that, it is debated that this does not really come into play before 16th century, but we have a few accounts, so maybe). Anyway: Main source of whales during the medieval was natural occurring beachings. However, whalrus tusks was traded as "ivory". But not really "mainly" from Sweden. Possibly the went through Visby in their travel eastwards, but thats not really what you seem to think.

It is therefore from the 17th century we have most "unicorn" narwhal teeth, like the danish Unicorn throne:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/27/54/8b/27548b70841209400f83cc1ab6009211.jpg

(and gifts from the Danish kings to various European royalty, such as Luis the 14th).

The Scania market (and theOresund) was under a near-constant political and military struggle for control by various forces. The Hanse took it away from Denmark several times and basically brought in Swedish fishermen to run the actual fishing part of the whole enterprise. The way the market worked was the Hanseatic traders would bring salt from Luneburg, buy fish from the fishermen, process the fish (largely using female labor they brought with them, who would gut the fish and pack it into barrels with the salt) and then ship it back to Germany from where it would be sold all over Europe at a large profit. Fish was supposed to be the only meat you ate during the 40 days of Lent, on every Friday, and on maybe a third of the 180 holidays (Holy Days) spread throughout the calendar year. Plus it was one of the cheapest forms of preserved protein food you could get.

As far as I am aware the Hanse only took the Scanean market once (1368-85). And in that war their main ally was Jutlandic nobles rebelling against the king (the nobles lost, the Hanse won, that is the nobles lost power in Denmark, and the king had to give up the Scanean market for a period). Earlier the market was Royal domain, and during the 14th and 15th century there was a more dierse trade, that is also English and Dutch merchants (who was often opposed to the Lübeck dominanse in the Hanse).

Also remember that whole of the 15th century Sweden was not very strong, and only at times independent.

Also which wars are you referring? The Peasant rebellions during the rule of Erik (1412-1439)? Because in that war Erik fought against the Hanse and Holstein duchy, but the taxes cause rebellions in Sweden and Norway (AFTER the war had ended!).

Looking through medieval battles from the conquest of Gotland in 1360'ies to the Stockholm blodbath in 1520 I cannot find that many Danish defeats (and I am not purely "national" in this department, as I can find plenty of defeats in the 16th and especially 17th century onwards). Maybe the victories of Gustav Vasa in liberating Sweden (1520-1523?)? But the King Christian II was very popular among the merchants, and the Hanse supported him, so that cant be what you are refering to either.

Also there are many crushing defeats from the Sweden peasant armies in the 14th-16th century, the wars Sweden won was typical by attrition, not battlefield victories (whch dramatically change in the 17th-18th century). By the way Denmark and Sweden are the countries which have officially been at war the most times (in the world! England and France a nice and friendly neighbours by comparison).

Galloglaich

2018-06-13, 01:30 PM

Tobtor,

I wish I had time to get deeper into this, but there seems to be a rule on this forum that interesting discussions break open and I'm given many requests to prove this or that thing I posted when I am under the gun and don't have time to break open books.

As my time is very limited right now, a few quick replies.

Whaling - see Basque sailors in the Bay of Biscay. I think you will find they were donig systematic whaling there from the 11th Century and were routinely traveling to the British Isles by the 14th. By the 1520s they were in Labrador and Greenland. I believe they had nearly extirpated one of the local whale species in their own region by the late 1300's which is why they started going further afield.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_whaling#Basque_whaling

What the precise history of whaling is by Norse seamen, I don't know as it's not something I have looked into. But i would be surprised if they hadn't done any of their own by the 15th Century.

Narwhal Teeth - yes I do have sources but it would take me a while to track them down. Hanseatic records list various products and I remember underlining "Unicorn Horns" and looking into it, which is where i found out about Narwhal teeth. I'll pull some books off the bookshelf when I have the time.

England and Holland and the Scania Market
I think you are maybe (?) confusing or overlapping conflicts over the Oresund with conflicts to do specifically with the Scania Market. The Scania market itself ceased to be as important at some point, i forget what year but I think late 14th or early 15th Century, when the Herring population suddenly crashed. England and Holland did fight their way into the Baltic in the Dutch-Hanseatic War (1438-1441) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch%E2%80%93Hanseatic_War) and a series of other smaller wars in the 15th Century. I was unaware they had anything to do with the Scania Market.

Defeats of Denmark
It's a curious thing about the conflicts involving the Hanse, that they do not tend to make it into official histories of Europe in the era. But the Hanse fought many times with Denmark and I have all sorts of records about it, mainly from Philippe Dollinger who did what is basically the magisterial history of the Hanse in a book he published in the 1970's.

As I recall the Hanse, or certain specific towns within the Hanse, fought at least 5 wars with Denmark between 1350 and 1450. When i have time I can dig up the dates and towns involved.

However, we have discussed one particular incident on this thread before, the first and second bombardment of Copenhagen in 1427-28. In the first, a very large Hanseatic fleet was led by a German prince, and was driven off by the Danes with the help of 'floating batteries'. In the second, a smaller fleet led by Hanseatic city counselors and burgomeisters, brought their own floating batteries and wiped out the Danish fleet. The wiki covers the basics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Copenhagen_(1428)

Among other amusing details the King fled forcing the queen (I forget her name but I remember she was English) to manage the defense, which she did quite well.

Regarding the long occupation of the Scania market which you referred to upthread, I have this letter on the hard drive of my work computer, from Lubeck to Danzig in 1383, which I can quickly cut and paste to this post. You may find interesting. It refers to the castles they had seized during that war.

1384 – Letter from Lübeck to Danzig from the delgates at the Hanseatic diet meeting at Marienburg [Malbork].

In the year of Our Lord 1384 the delegates of the Prussian towns assembled in Marienburg on the Sunday before Christmas and discussed the following articles:

1) First, concerning the general diet to be held on 5 March with the common towns in Lübeck: are we to be represented by delegates or merely by letters? It was unanimously resolved that delegates should be sent to this diet, because of the many matters which concern us, the common towns and the merchants.

2) Further, are the castles in Skania to be surrendered on the date fixed in the treaty?... On this matter it seems best to us to keep the castles as long as we can and not to return them, unless the merchants are compensated for their losses, for the castles were pledged to the towns by the father of the queen and not by the Queen herself ….

3) As for the alliance formed by the towns, contained in the Treaty, is it to be continued or not? On this point we believe that the alliance should be continued in its present form.

4) Shall we continue next year to levy poundage as before? We think that it should be levied as before, under oath.

5) Concerning the warships, shall we continue to fit them out or not, etc.? It seems good to us to fit them out and to pacify the seas as far as is possible, as has been done before, and to ask the common towns to undertake the equipment of them as before, etc.

6) As for the ban on the manufacture of cannon [the word used is [I]geschossbuxen] in the common towns for the use of foreigners: our opinion is that the decision and consent of our lord the Grand Master [of the Teutonic Order] be accepted …

7) As for the vessels which sail up and down the Vistula with herring or other cargo, when they are wrecked or ice-bound: on what terms are the skippers and crews to receive wages and subsistence, how long are the crews to be allowed to use wood from the banks, if the channel is blocked? On this question each delegate is to consult his own town council about what is to be done, and also whether the town has anything written on this matter [In their laws]. Each delegate is to bring these documents or a reply to the next diet and there report on the matter.

There is also a reply from Danzig on these questions (mainly in the affirmative as i recall) but it's not on this machine.

G

Max_Killjoy

2018-06-13, 01:45 PM

These threads offer a great insight into just how wrong some of the common beliefs are, when it comes to the "dark ages" of Europe (sometimes even presented in pop-media as everything from the "fall" of Rome to "Italian Renaissance").

If I wanted to make a case on another forum, where links to places like Reddit's "Ask Historians" are verboten (because it's Reddit), what could I point them to as a primer?

KarlMarx

2018-06-13, 02:09 PM

Haighus

2018-06-13, 02:11 PM

If "unicorn horns" were a "super luxury", then that suggests to me they were very rare commodities, not something available in large numbers through systematic whaling.

I think the suggestion of them being obtained through Sami traders in the north would fit this. Narwhals (and other small whales) occassionally get trapped in small ice-free pockets within the Artic ice sheet in the winter. They would be comparatively easy to hunt. This wouldn't be systematic, but it would provide the occassional windfall. I would not be at all surprised if there was a trickle of narwhal teeth from the north due the odd successful narwhal hunt.

Galloglaich

2018-06-13, 02:21 PM

Does anyone here know anything about the military technology and social-military organization of pre-Swedish Finland c. 1000 CE? Or know of any links to where I might find information on said military tech and organization? I'm working on building a campaign setting inspired by this culture but am finding it hard to do in-depth research.

Look closely at the Finland parts of this Early 16th Century map (Olaus Magnus Carta Marina) it will give you some interesting clues.

https://i.redd.it/e0krlkq3ij8y.jpg

Link: https://i.redd.it/e0krlkq3ij8y.jpg

Galloglaich

2018-06-13, 02:22 PM

If "unicorn horns" were a "super luxury", then that siggests to me they were very rare commodities, not something available in large numbers through systematic whaling.

I think the suggestion of them being obtained through Sami traders in the north would fit this. Narwhals (and other small whales) occassionally get trapped in small ice-free pockets within the Artic ice sheet in the winter. They would be comparatively easy to hunt. This wouldn't be systematic, but it would provide the occassional windfall. I would not be at all surprised if there was a trickle of narwhal teeth from the north due the odd successful narwhal hunt.

Seems likely. Though again, I don't know.

To give you an idea what 'super luxury' means I think I remember an anecdote where queen Elizabeth paid 10,000 lbs for one.

Tobtor

2018-06-13, 02:32 PM

Whaling - see Basque sailors in the Bay of Biscay. I think you will find they were donig systematic whaling there from the 11th Century and were routinely traveling to the British Isles by the 14th. By the 1520s they were in Labrador and Greenland. I believe they had nearly extirpated one of the local whale species in their own region by the late 1300's which is why they started going further afield.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_whaling#Basque_whaling

What the precise history of whaling is by Norse seamen, I don't know as it's not something I have looked into. But i would be surprised if they hadn't done any of their own by the 15th Century.

Well, yes as I said some really local coast hunting. The norse in Iceland did not have big ships by the end of the 15th century (all wood expended), thus only foreigners traded much there, and niether danish, dutch nor germans did whalehunting before 16th century (or small scale in late 15th century), a time when Sweden mostly was under Danish rule...

Narwhal Teeth - yes I do have sources but it would take me a while to track them down. Hanseatic records list various products and I remember underlining "Unicorn Horns" and looking into it, which is where i found out about Narwhal teeth. I'll pull some books off the bookshelf when I have the time.

Well that they appear in inventory list dosnt mean its swedes trading them... it could be dutch-traders bringing them from Iceland.... But a few Narwhal teeth would be HUGELY expensive (more than gold by weight in some sources), thus just a few would be noted specifically.

England and Holland and the Scania Market
I think you are maybe (?) confusing or overlapping conflicts over the Oresund with conflicts to do specifically with the Scania Market. The Scania market itself ceased to be as important at some point, i forget what year but I think late 14th or early 15th Century, when the Herring population suddenly crashed.

I think you are conflating a few things. The Scania market was a tradehub in the 12th-mid 14th century after which it turned pure herring market producing huge amounts of herring. The market drop in the early 16th century. Thus again I think your description is a little late for "medieval".

Defeats of Denmark

Well you mentiuoned Swedish Peasants defeating mercenaries... I agree on the Hanseatic thing. It was Swedish PEASANT victories I couldn't find (before Gustav Vasa). Yes, minor battles, but overall - no.

Secondly you mentioned other (than the one mentioned) periods of CONTROL of the Scanea market, which I also cannot find documented. The wars was typically about other things (customs, conflict of rulership, Hanse support for Helstein etc).

The point is: during the 10th-16th century Scania was a NOT "contested" area. It was Danish. And Denmark was (comparatively) a relatively "gathered" state, only Slesvig (and later Holstein as well) was more "contested" (and well some other "German" territories such as Rügen etc for shorter periods).

Carl

2018-06-13, 03:09 PM

So thanks to back browsing through that article linked vis a vis knife fighting earlier i found a youtube series, (man at arms), about some baltimore blacksmiths making various weapons from various media. And amongst the stuff they've made i found somthing very interesting, they've made a titanium sword. Apparently there are alloys that can be forged without burning up. Although they had a devil of a time grinding it and in the demos it really dosen;t cut like it should, (if you compare it to their other sharp edged stuff it really struggle to cut compared to other stuff of the same size they've made, there's visible slowdown on the strikes).

Thought it might be interesting since we recently had a titanium discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9-W-VhjZsU&list=PLUUGFk1wE5OFOpfPz3ggXQrCSdQdFEslx&index=15&t=0s

Vinyadan

2018-06-13, 03:33 PM

Galloglaich

2018-06-13, 07:36 PM

Galloglaich

2018-06-13, 07:44 PM

Since we are talking about it, what was the relationship between the Hanse and the Empire? Many Hanseatic cities must have been Imperial subjects. Were there official talks and representatives, or quarrels, or coordination attempts?

All of the above. The relationship with the Empire was very complex, and the Hanse itself was almost never completely united and whenever it was even partly, never for long. There were times when one group of cities was trying to eradicate one of the big pirate groups while simultaneously another group was openly giving them shelter and acting as a base for their ships. Or when say for example, Lubeck and Danzig were at war with England but Cologne and Hamburg were still trading with the English and were opposed to the war.

Most Hanseatic cities were at least nominally Imperial subjects but the Emperor had little sway over them regardless. There were numerous disputes in which the Emperor gave orders to a Hanseatic town like Lubeck or Hamburg and they were ignored as readily as a Papal Bull. More powerful Hanseatic Cities tended to have their own foreign policy while smaller or weaker ones tended to follow the policies of the largest regional towns or princes. For example Danzig led most of the Prussian towns, Riga the Livonian ones, Hamburg and Lubeck the Saxon towns and so on. Rostock and Wismar meanwhile tended to follow the Dukes of Mecklenburg.

On the other hand the Hanse did support the Emperors in some wars and rarely moved at cross purposes to the Empire. The appreciated the nominal "cover" of the Emperor and the princes against other more rapacious foreign rulers (like the King of France) and usually supported Imperial policy. For the most part they just ignored the princely domain altogether unless they had no other choice - their interest was not in the "Game of Thrones" but rather just the pursuit of trade and building up of their towns into the little jewels of art and architecture that so many millions of tourists flock to every day in our lifetime, centuries after they were built. Most of their disputes with Princes were with local ones up north - the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg and Pomerania; the Archbishop of Bremen: the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order; the King of Denmark and so on.

These same princes were often also the closest allies of the Hanse towns. Usually kind of on again off again, but they tended to be friendly with the towns in their own district as often as not, especially in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Frisia and lower Saxony. Quite often the princes and the towns shared similar economic agendas of pursing trade and prosperity in their region, so for example they would unite forces to try and stamp out robber knights.

Denmark was mostly, though not always inimical, as they were in an almost permanent power struggle with the larger Hanseatic towns over control of the Oresund (and generally opposed to the burgher estate it seems). Sweden, as I said before, usually allied itself with the Hanse. The Teutonic Knights were closely allied with the Prussian cities until they started getting a little too heavy handed with them after their defeat by the Poles at Grunwald, leading to the 13 Years War after which the Prussian towns became (nominally) part of Poland. The Livonian Order was more conciliatory toward Riga, Dorpat and Reval by the mid 15th Century. Brandenburg is the one Princely estate which remained pretty hostile to the Hanse and to the towns in general, and was successful at it. They more or less strangled their own smallish towns (like Berlin) in favor of consolidating seignorial power. At the time no-one could foresee the implications of that.

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-13, 08:06 PM

Well that they appear in inventory list dosnt mean its swedes trading them...

It appears in inventory of items received in trade from Swedish towns or castles, or from Finnish castles.

I think you are conflating a few things. The Scania market was a tradehub in the 12th-mid 14th century after which it turned pure herring market producing huge amounts of herring. The market drop in the early 16th century. Thus again I think your description is a little late for "medieval".

You wound me sir! I'm always shocked how little respect I get in this forum after all these years. The herring market actually crashed for the first time in the end of the 14th Century. From the wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%A5ne_Market#Strife_between_Denmark_and_the_H anseatic_League

"The abundance of herring around Scania abruptly ceased in the beginning of the 15th century and the region lost its importance as a trading place."

They did gradually, eventually come back, but this happened again and again over the centuries.

More broadly, this is how I understand the Skania market. The market was seasonal and moved every year as it was always located wherever the herring were running. The heart of the market was:

Lots of fishermen coming from all over to catch herring: Swedes, Slavs, even Scots and English, their activities protected by the Hanse and unregulated.
German (mostly Hanse) merchants bringing tens of thousands of barrels and huge amounts of salt mostly from the big salt mines at Luneburg
These same merchants buying the fish, then processing them and packing them in barrels full of salt, and then sail back across the sea to lower Saxony or Prussia.
The King of Denmark imposing a tax which, so long as it was reasonably low, was paid. When he tried to impose a less reasonable tax, or to kidnap the merchants and rob them, the Hanse fought back. More than once the Danes were thrown out.

The other booths selling various other more general trade items - beer, weapons, textiles, glassware, and so on, was an adjunct to the main show, i.e. the fish harvest and fish market.

And once the herring stopped running all of that went away, virtually overnight.

Well you mentiuoned Swedish Peasants defeating mercenaries... I agree on the Hanseatic thing. It was Swedish PEASANT victories I couldn't find (before Gustav Vasa). Yes, minor battles, but overall - no.

Well I guess it depends on how you define a 'minor battle', but you do have quite a few incidents. For example the Dalarna rising in 1434, led by Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson (say that 3 times with a mouth full of beer I dare you) which had quite significant consequences. As far as I'm aware it led to the expulsion of Danes from Sweden. And the army was mainly peasants, as well as some miners and a few burghers and petty nobles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engelbrekt_rebellion

That particular rising in Dalarna led to a Diet or 'Ting that is often cited as the first convening of the Swedish Riksdag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riksdag_of_the_Estates

... the one in Sweden being notable that it is only one of two I'm aware of on that scale in which the Peasants were specifically represented as one of the Estates.

I believe around this time there was also another significant anti-Danish uprising in Norway but I can't remember the search terms.

The point is: during the 10th-16th century Scania was a NOT "contested" area. It was Danish. And Denmark was (comparatively) a relatively "gathered" state, only Slesvig (and later Holstein as well) was more "contested" (and well some other "German" territories such as Rügen etc for shorter periods).

Scania may have technically been ruled by the Danish crown, but of course in theory Sweden was part of Denmark through out the Late Middle Ages, but one Kingdom laying claim to a given area was usually a matter of degree in those times. I would argue that yes, the Scania market certainly was contested. The only reason the Hanse left it to Denmark in the 15th Century was that the herring had gone away in their mysterious fashion.

G

Max_Killjoy

2018-06-13, 08:06 PM

Primer on what specifically? Medieval history in general?

The general facts of what the "dark ages" really were and were not.

(Someone's trying to point to the standard "dung ages" view of the period as support for a badly-constructed future history, and I'd like to at least give them the chance to learn the facts.)

Galloglaich

2018-06-13, 08:23 PM

The general facts of what the "dark ages" really were and were not.

(Someone's trying to point to the standard "dung ages" view of the period as support for a badly-constructed future history, and I'd like to at least give them the chance to learn the facts.)

Yeah sadly I don't think there is such a thing. The closest you can really get is a good book on a particular region across a particular period of time, usually no more than a century or two, or else it's kind of meaningless. I have found one decent, relatively succinct book (https://www.amazon.com/Germany-Later-Middle-Ages-Duboulay/dp/0485120429/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528939004&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=germany+in+the+later+middle+ages+frh+du+b oulay) for the Holy Roman Empire in the "later middle ages" as the guy puts it.

this (https://www.amazon.com/Warfare-Western-Europe-Century-History/dp/0851155707/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528939069&sr=1-1&keywords=verbruggen+medieval+warfare) is probably the best relatively succinct history of medieval warfare I know of. The next step would be perhaps to go to Hans Delbruck, but he is not succinct.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/25/8a/14/258a14f28fa8e2b7ad6290beda563fee.gif

But beyond that, you'd really have to specify a region and a 2 or 3 century time span.

For example I also wrote my own book about Northwest Europe in the Baltic region, for the mid 15th Century (on my sig). I like to think it's pretty good. But part of the reason I wrote it is I wanted to read this type of book on that part of the world, but could never find anything like this in English.

One of the biggest problems in understanding the Medieval World is that England is not Albania is not Florence is not Krakow. Europe was quite varied back then so you can't really make sweeping statements.

The other reason it's hard is that almost all of our pop culture or 'lite education' derived assumptions about the period are wrong, and there is so much that is just unexpected, so it's a very steep learning curve to even get a basic grip on it.

I often direct people toward those Osprey military books for a kind of 'cliff notes' version of history as relates to a particular region or type of warriors. It's probably the quickest way for people to get up to speed.

G

Epimethee

2018-06-13, 08:27 PM

I agree that other finds is not proof of the same action; but there seem to be some bogs used for offerings, and then we have the large deposits in the same ones.

I think that before i start responding to your facts some clarifications are in order. I never intended to challenge the consensus in Scandinavia. I was merely reflecting on some questions that were raised during one of the most complete seminar on watery finds. The wider context of european finds show that the case is still open, even if the scandinavian finds are explained. The mere fact that a reliable interpretation can be proposed there stand out compared to similar finds across Europe.

Each of my hypothesis were intended to better understand thoses specificities. They all were used with various results on other finds. Some are easy to dismiss but other are reframing the question and, as much as you are certain of the scandinavian interpretation, you stated yourself that there is always a place for doubt.

I don‘t want to make a new or better explanation, i just try to understand how some of the hypothesis that fit other comparable situations are refuted by your knowledge, what make the scandinavian situation so well explained.
On a more theorethical basis, i wonder how and why the consensus seem so strong in Scandinavia. According to you, the proofs of the sacrifice are overwhelming. I want to make clear that i enjoy your knowledge. I hope i don’t sound too aggressive, i think it’s clear for everybody that english is not my first language. I try to make my case as clear as possible but i may sound better in my Head than in my words. I may not play the Devil’s advocate as best as i wish but i’m sincerely trying to relate what i know of a file with what you bring. And i find it very interesting.
I think the scandinavian situation is very peculiar according to the state of the subject across Europe. That‘s not a critic of the archeologist or their interpretations but a musing on the specificity of the scandinavian situation. Most other finds are heavily disputed.

Discussing the religious meaning of the deposits, and not specificaly on the scandinavian ones, some theoretical precautions are in order. Proving the intentionality of a deposit does not prove the ritual status, as shown by the literary sources. Proving the ritual does’nt even prove the sacrifice: the exsecratio is a ritual but not in a religious way. In any case, there is very little in history of religion connecting offerings and water, and even less connecting water to weapons. Both problems, and the specifics of some deposits, lead some to argue that some watery finds were the site of secondary deposit, where the sanctuaries discarded the offerings, maybe after showing them like in the Polybus depscription.
In this last case, the religious meaning of the weapons is even less certain. Trophies are not offerings. And the true religious Act may be distinct from the final deposit. Clearly all those arguments should be disputed and they are less than perfect. They are nevertheless important to understand what is necessary to attest the religious meaning of an archeological find.

As much as i understand, the hypothesis of the sacrifice of the weapons of the defeated was proposed in the XIX century and still stand today.
It is not enough to discard any hypothesis but still worth considering. With all due respect for the many peoples who know more about the bogs than me, cases of self reinforcement are well documented in archeology, especially as soon as history of religions is concerned. In other parts of Europe, like in La Tène, the idea of sacrifice is almost the texbook example. You make a good case for the intentionality and ritual charachter of the bogs and i think i made it clear that i agree with you.

I‘n less inclined to go further, bearing in mind the distinction between religious and ritual. The easier statement would be that the circumstances of the deposits are largely unknown. I think it is a cheap Argument here. My biggest problem yet is the few ethnographical occurences of the phenomenon of the sacralisation of the weapons of the defeated.
I find quite interesting that the sources tend to be interpreted in light of this hypothesis. A closer inspection of the Texts show a muddier picture.
I can totally accept that the case is closed in Scandinavia. I still find strange that such an unusual and expensive activity could take Place without leaving a bigger mark on latter periodes or in litterary texts.
In historical time, some cult of water are documented. Even in rural catholicism. The offerings are mainly pins and little denominations of coins, a far cry from the wealth of the bogs. The main sanctuaries tend to be around sources. Bogs and swamps are also a strange place for a god and i don‘t know any documented example. The only documented sacrifice of a weapon in water in antiquity was made by Xerxes to cross the Hellespont, according to Herodotus. Tacitus mentionned swamps in Germania as infamous places. There is really little to back the idea of waters as a common place for sacrifices. Mostly the scandinavians finds.

A similar problem appear with the sacrifice of weapons. Both trophies and vilification by destruction survive in historical time. Cases of sacralisation of victorious weapons are relatively easy to come by. The same cannot be said of the weapons of the defeated.

In any case, the scandinavian phenomenon stand out by is scale and his uniqueness.

Yeah, then he is wrong. Its completely different material in the graves and in the weapon sacrifices (except a few graves with very fancy belt equipment). There is really no relation.

I think you misread this point that was made in the wider context of european finds. The complementarity is not in the scandinavian find, more in the general distribution of finds around Europe. In fact finds in water in northern Europe match finds in tumuli in the southern part of the continent. Hallstatt swords like Mindelheim or Gündlingen were extensively found in watery site in England, Scandinavia and the northern part of France. They were found in tumuli in the Rhone valley and between the Rhine and the Danube.
The same can be said chronologycally, in England for example where the swords and daggers were mainly found in graves and tumuli in the early bronze age but switch to swamps and rivers in latter time.
There is a lot of arguing about the consequences of this distribution but the inventory is fairly exhaustive. In any case we come back to the specifics of the scandinavian situation as a part of a more extended phenomenon.

At both Illerup, Nydam, Vimose and many of the others we find clear evidence of large single deposits. For example the weapons are often found in separate "heaps",clearly put down together. We also have frequent examples of "bundles" of artefacts tied together with strings/rope or packed in textile. Sometimes several such bundles can be tied together by lets say half of sword a was found with 10 spears, while the other half was found with another group of spears and parts of sword B wich was found togther with... and so on...

Ok. You have clearly demonstrated the intentionality of the deposits and their scale.

Uhhmm no. It happened in a lot of the Scandinavian bog finds. So does systematic destruction by other means. Also gravegoods prior to the weapon sacrifices are also bent to fit into urns. Also several weapons show signs of use, shields shown signs of repair (even the most fancy ones with silver and gold!) and so on. How it is abroad (France, Germany) is of less interest since the equipment from the last phase of the Scandinavian weapon sacrifices are mainly from "eastern Sweden" (that is the region with the massacre!).

I misread two different informations. The first was on the paucity of a proven intentionality of destruction except in Scandinavia. The second was a run down of the finds in Illerup that i misremembered. Sorry for the mistake. I hope i make clear that my commentaries are by no means objections. I went back to my sources and again Scandinavia stand out.

So a few europeans facts may help clarify my thoughts . Swords in s were mainly found in terrestrial sites, like the sanctuary of Gournay. It seem to point to an offering but there is still some strange facts: the umbos of the shields found with the swords were destroyed in a manner that implies that the rest of the shield was missing. One of the possibility is that the destruction happened on a latter phase of the lifecycle of the weapon, like after the wood has rotten. The idea of a secondary deposit lessen the case for a religious meaning of this kind of destruction.

About the swords in U, a fun little fact! A french archeologist tried to wear Celtics swords and he found fairly easy, when you fall, to trip on the shafth and bend the blade. The faster you went, the more bended was the blade. As i understand it better now, this has certainly nothing to do with the bogs. I have found some stuff on the shape of the broken swords in the bogs and the way they were broken rule out this situation. It’s nevertheless interesting as a precaution against hasty interpretation in other cases.

And i have a few question: are the reparations on the finds coherent with fighting? Were the impacts and reparations made long before the destruction ( and it is thus possible that an object broken in fight was then overdestructed) or were the objects repaired and only then destroyed?
About the bundles, how exactly do they relate to each others? I wonder if the objects seem to come from the same source? As i understand some objects are in different bundles, like the broken sword a in bundle b. How are thoses bundles related to each others?
Also about the gravegoods, can you tell me more? They were also broken, Does one practice end with the start of the other?

The weapon deposits all have the same basic characteristics as Illerup. Also newer re-excavations of older sites, confirm the picture.

Interesting, but make a case to look at the differences.

Both Ulla Lund Hansen and Xenia Pauli Jensen agree there is a ritualistic element and that we are dealing with a large sacrifices. There is some debate weather it is "offensive wars" (like Roman triumphs), a result of defensive wars against invading neighbours (Jørgen Ilkjærs hypothesis and the most prevalent one), or indeed returning mercenaries (which I do not think work, due to the "local" appearance of clothing and smaller use-items which would not last for long periods as mercenaries/auxiliaries). There is of course also some discussion of WHY such a ritual sacrifice happens and why it is developed in the first place, what the underlying meaning is and so on. But that doesn't change the fact that is a ritual.

Ritual and sacrifice are two very different things. As much as i agree with your factual explanations i think the case for a religious meaning is less well made than you make it sound. In this case offering may not be the best way to describe the objects.
I would also like to know how the practice emerged. What can be said about the chronology. I will certainly read more about the subject. But as i said i fail to see any corrsponding phenomenon and i find this peculiarity quite intriguing.

Yes some items are bruttally broken by other means, such as smashing them up. This include a horse that have been killed many times over.

I read that. Just one little question: was it possible to know if the horse was killed where he was found ?

So because the missing weapons fit the interpretation of the deposits, we shouldnt make the connection? Or... ?

No, the other way around. Connecting a specific fight with a specific deposit help explain the context of such a sitzation. Better yet if a good chronology can be made. I can spitball three hypothesis as an illustration. If the deposit is close in time and place with the massacre, à close connection between them seem probable and the ritual implications are strenghtened.
A gap of maybe one generation could point to a first use of the weapon before the destruction. The ritual meaning of the deposit may still be present but it may not have been the most significant part.
The place may also be important. Say you could find pieces of the massacre in various deposits. The ritual is again an option but is included in a wider scope than the aftermath of a fight. Same if we imagine a deposit far away from the place of the fight. The fact that the objects were transported change the way we have to look at them.
As i said it is spitballed and likely to be easily dissmissed. But that’s the kind of stuff that i would like to know.

Nothing in humanities can be proven without a doubt (and very little in natural science).

Come on, no need to go all epistemological on me. Moreover you should be able to prove, let’s say the use of bronze in northern Europe. But documenting such material fact is easy.
In my opinion you need extraordinarie proofs to assert a cultural explanation. I agree that the scandinavian bogs come close, but still i ask for more informations.

However, that we are dealing with large deposits of weapons, which is not related to the grave-cult, but non-the-less have a relation to rituals (systematic destruction and deposition in well known offering sites, and with a long history of repeated large deposition suggesting that the "place" was important beyond immediate military needs), these depositions consist of entire "equipment" of the warriors including belts and personal items, but little in terms of jewellery and clothing, and no bones of humans (but a few horses). At the same time we find a defensive site where there have been a massacre, where we have bones and a some (at present a bit unclear how much) jewellery but no weapons. This massacre happens in the very specific region where the "war" represented in the weapon deposits of the period appear to come. Can we prove a relation? No. But we must consider it a very LIKELY connection.

I agree with all of that. I think it’s a good resume of the scandinavian situation. I would be weary to go any further in any other context than this kind of discussion were i tried some far fetched possibilities. But i agree here almost word for word, also because you dropped sacrifice. I think it is a major point in discussing the finds. But i would certainly enjoy to read about the demonstration of their religious meaning and welcome any further information. I thank you again for your time.

Max_Killjoy

2018-06-13, 11:43 PM

Yeah sadly I don't think there is such a thing. The closest you can really get is a good book on a particular region across a particular period of time, usually no more than a century or two, or else it's kind of meaningless. I have found one decent, relatively succinct book (https://www.amazon.com/Germany-Later-Middle-Ages-Duboulay/dp/0485120429/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528939004&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=germany+in+the+later+middle+ages+frh+du+b oulay) for the Holy Roman Empire in the "later middle ages" as the guy puts it.

this (https://www.amazon.com/Warfare-Western-Europe-Century-History/dp/0851155707/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528939069&sr=1-1&keywords=verbruggen+medieval+warfare) is probably the best relatively succinct history of medieval warfare I know of. The next step would be perhaps to go to Hans Delbruck, but he is not succinct.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/25/8a/14/258a14f28fa8e2b7ad6290beda563fee.gif

But beyond that, you'd really have to specify a region and a 2 or 3 century time span.

For example I also wrote my own book about Northwest Europe in the Baltic region, for the mid 15th Century (on my sig). I like to think it's pretty good. But part of the reason I wrote it is I wanted to read this type of book on that part of the world, but could never find anything like this in English.

One of the biggest problems in understanding the Medieval World is that England is not Albania is not Florence is not Krakow. Europe was quite varied back then so you can't really make sweeping statements.

The other reason it's hard is that almost all of our pop culture or 'lite education' derived assumptions about the period are wrong, and there is so much that is just unexpected, so it's a very steep learning curve to even get a basic grip on it.

I often direct people toward those Osprey military books for a kind of 'cliff notes' version of history as relates to a particular region or type of warriors. It's probably the quickest way for people to get up to speed.

G

I actually bought your book on the Baltic. It's very good.

Galloglaich

2018-06-14, 12:08 AM

I actually bought your book on the Baltic. It's very good.

Well, it's got a pretty decent bibliography at the end. Certainly better than anything I ever posted here. Not a bad starting point.

Beyond Central / Northern Europe though. Jacob Burckhardts Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (https://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Renaissance-Italy-Penguin-Classics/dp/014044534X) is probably the best single book I know of on the Late Medieval Italian Renaissance (he invented the concept after all). Fairly readable too.

Henry Pirenne is probably the "go to guy' for Urban Flanders / The Low Countries (https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Cities-Origins-Princeton-Classics/dp/0691162395/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8). Good history of Europe (https://www.amazon.com/History-Europe-Invasions-XVI-Century/dp/1166140199/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) too. Also readable (and reasonably succinct). His "Mohammed and Charlemagne" is also really interesting for the Carolingian period.

Jan Dlugosz (https://www.amazon.com/Annals-Jan-Dlugosz-Maurice-Michael/dp/1901019004/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528952850&sr=1-1&keywords=jan+dlugosz) is without a doubt the best guy for the history of Medieval Poland - and the best single primary source I have ever found for the period. He's basically the medieval Herodotus. A primary source that reads like a particularly well written contemporary book. But that is not an easy book to get a hold of.

Not sure of a single good source for the Iberian Peninsula, or France, or England, or Scotland or the Balkans, or the Byzantine Empire, or Hungary. maybe some other folks can chime in on that.

Thanks, by the way :)

G

Carl

2018-06-14, 01:56 AM

Primer on what specifically? Medieval history in general?

Yeah sadly I don't think there is such a thing. The closest you can really get is a good book on a particular region across a particular period of time, usually no more than a century or two, or else it's kind of meaningless. I have found one decent, relatively succinct book (https://www.amazon.com/Germany-Later-Middle-Ages-Duboulay/dp/0485120429/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528939004&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=germany+in+the+later+middle+ages+frh+du+b oulay) for the Holy Roman Empire in the "later middle ages" as the guy puts it.

this (https://www.amazon.com/Warfare-Western-Europe-Century-History/dp/0851155707/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528939069&sr=1-1&keywords=verbruggen+medieval+warfare) is probably the best relatively succinct history of medieval warfare I know of. The next step would be perhaps to go to Hans Delbruck, but he is not succinct.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/25/8a/14/258a14f28fa8e2b7ad6290beda563fee.gif

But beyond that, you'd really have to specify a region and a 2 or 3 century time span.

For example I also wrote my own book about Northwest Europe in the Baltic region, for the mid 15th Century (on my sig). I like to think it's pretty good. But part of the reason I wrote it is I wanted to read this type of book on that part of the world, but could never find anything like this in English.

One of the biggest problems in understanding the Medieval World is that England is not Albania is not Florence is not Krakow. Europe was quite varied back then so you can't really make sweeping statements.

The other reason it's hard is that almost all of our pop culture or 'lite education' derived assumptions about the period are wrong, and there is so much that is just unexpected, so it's a very steep learning curve to even get a basic grip on it.

I often direct people toward those Osprey military books for a kind of 'cliff notes' version of history as relates to a particular region or type of warriors. It's probably the quickest way for people to get up to speed.

G

Yeah as someone over on the same forum where this is happening it's frustrating to see. This thread has really changed how i view things. I've actually been offering to point them over here myself because you guys can go over nearly anything given the right questions.

Talking of which 2 things i'm going to put forth 1 related 1 unreleased.

I gave my own very broad response to said poster based on various discussions we've had here in the past, but because it's an amalgamation of a number of semi-related discussions here i'd like to check i've taken the right lessons away from them by cross checking what i wrote with you lot, (though i acknowledge it's undoubtedly a massive simplification of an enormously complex subject):

Yes he's seriously arguing that because it's true. Certainly some specific techniques where lost but we gained far more newstuff than was lost. I can point you a thread over at the GITP forums where numerous historians will be more than willing to go over any examples you care the bring up.

The reason people tend to see it that way is the breakdown of the strong society that existed beforehand, but it wasn't really tech loss that caused that but the breakdown of the roman empire as a governing body. COmpared to later feudal systems the roman empire was much better, (general;y, exceptions exist), at organising things, probably because the roman empire had a strong central authority with a firm "chain of command", despite what hollywood would teach you Feudal systems where generally much more lose, the king in reality wasn't usually an absolute monarch but rather rules with the consent of his lords. As a result he had to give them a lot of autonomy which made things less coordinated as every lord did some things his own way.

The second point is a touch of world building i'm engaging in, doubt i'll go anywhere with it as it would mean writing a full on romance in detail and i'm not really comfortable doing that for many reasons, but i enjoy world building for the hell of it so i'm going to ask the odd question anyway. When talking about greek, (or other classical nations worshiping the greek gods), what would the most probable weapons be for a king, (in the terms of symbol of authority sense, sort of a greek Excalibur, i just specifically want to avoid swords), i figured a spear would be the most obvious but i was wondering if there were alternatives?

Vinyadan

2018-06-14, 04:21 AM

The second point is a touch of world building i'm engaging in, doubt i'll go anywhere with it as it would mean writing a full on romance in detail and i'm not really comfortable doing that for many reasons, but i enjoy world building for the hell of it so i'm going to ask the odd question anyway. When talking about greek, (or other classical nations worshiping the greek gods), what would the most probable weapons be for a king, (in the terms of symbol of authority sense, sort of a greek Excalibur, i just specifically want to avoid swords), i figured a spear would be the most obvious but i was wondering if there were alternatives?

Talking about symbols, rather than weapons, I would say the sceptre. In the Iliad, there is a sceptre that is passed around during assembly, and is only given to kings, and it gives you the right to speak. It can also be used to beat up people who talk without holding it.

I remember reading about helms with three crests, like those on certain statues of Athena. I am not sure that it was a kingly symbol, but it looked impressive and must have been costly.

The Argeades had a star as a symbol.

The obvious problem is that, during classical Greece, kings were something of an oddity. Later on, during the Hellenistic period, you have talk of "doryktetos chora", "spear-conquered land", and the weapon of the king is the spear held by his soldiers. However, it could be quite literal: Alexander threw his spear at Asia when he first got there, to show that it was his prize.

I would go with the spear also because one of the reconstructions of the Augustus of Prima Porta has him holding a spear as a symbol of military authority, and one equestrian statue of one of the good emperors had him hold a spear pointing downwards to signify the end of the war.

Kiero

2018-06-14, 04:44 AM

The second point is a touch of world building i'm engaging in, doubt i'll go anywhere with it as it would mean writing a full on romance in detail and i'm not really comfortable doing that for many reasons, but i enjoy world building for the hell of it so i'm going to ask the odd question anyway. When talking about greek, (or other classical nations worshiping the greek gods), what would the most probable weapons be for a king, (in the terms of symbol of authority sense, sort of a greek Excalibur, i just specifically want to avoid swords), i figured a spear would be the most obvious but i was wondering if there were alternatives?

As mentioned, there were few kings in the Classical era (there were tyrants, by they were a different thing), they were a post-Alexander Hellenistic thing. "Barbarian" places like Makedonia always had kings, of course, but that was terribly un-Greek of them.

The symbol of Hellenistic kingship wasn't a weapon or throne, but the diadem. A circlet of fabric worn around the head. Otherwise there's Zeus' lightning bolts (since he was the "king of the gods") or one of the many depictions of Zeus as a bull or swan. Or if a king claims heredity to an ancient hero, a depiction of that hero (like Herakles wearing a lion skin carrying a club). All of which could be featured on the king's personal banner and painted on his shield.

snowblizz

2018-06-14, 06:03 AM

It appears in inventory of items received in trade from Swedish towns or castles, or from Finnish castles.

G
Would love to hear the place it came from whenever you got time to dig it up.

Does anyone here know anything about the military technology and social-military organization of pre-Swedish Finland c. 1000 CE? Or know of any links to where I might find information on said military tech and organization? I'm working on building a campaign setting inspired by this culture but am finding it hard to do in-depth research.
I don't doubt it's hard. Few people are very interested in it, including us living there. Can you be more specific on what you wonder about, maybe jogs some things loose in my brain. It's also not something covered much in school.

Just incredibly briefly you'd expect to see similar things as the rest of the region. Iron age warriors (it's not entirely off to say we were around 2 centuries behind rest of Europe in many regards), small communities headed by chiftens and local kings. Usually concentrated to areas close to the sea and rivers. Much older forms of agriculture was practiced still like burning swaths of forest. I don't know the Englsih name of it.

At around this time (IIRC) there is a migration of Swedish speaking peasants to the coastal regions. The formal conquering comes about 2 centuries later. Christianity is tentatively making inroads. Around 10km from me is one of the oldest stonechurch in Finland from the early 1200s. Maybe I should pop over to the local museum, I hear Thursday is free entry day (dang, 1st Thursday of month need to wait a bit then).

Not sure how much really is known of the culture. When people talk of Ye Olde Finnish culture it's Kalevala all the way and that's oral stories from the 19th century (passed down over the centuries as oral tradition, but unlikely to have avoided other influence down the years) eastern Finland which are likely not connected much with the other parts.

Galloglaich

2018-06-14, 09:58 AM

Not sure how much really is known of the culture. When people talk of Ye Olde Finnish culture it's Kalevala all the way and that's oral stories from the 19th century (passed down over the centuries as oral tradition, but unlikely to have avoided other influence down the years) eastern Finland which are likely not connected much with the other parts.

That said, Kalevala is a fantastic source for RPG type stuff: spells, creatures, characters, adventure hooks and situations. Great evocative poetry - it's very Tolkein-esque. Great for any campaign set in a woodland setting.

Between that and the Volsunga Saga you have almost everything you need for a really wild and magical early medieval setting.

For more prosaic (but still interesting) histories of the region, you can also read the Chronicles of Novgorod, especially for the border areas around Karelia etc.

Also look at that Olaus Magnus map I posted for the archers on skis, ice skates and war-reindeer and so forth.

G

The Jack

2018-06-14, 12:12 PM

Why do people no longer make pizza dish/topside/inverted mags on firarms. Everything seems belt fed or on the underside.

Bizen/p90's are an exception, but they're not popular designs.

Gnoman

2018-06-14, 12:46 PM

There are three primary reasons.

First, the standard bottom-loading magazines are driven entirely by the pressure of the spring and the shape of the magazine itself, so that gravity plays no part. Meanwhile, a top-loading magazine has a small but real possibility of gravity pulling the round down as it loads. For this reason, those sorts of magazine are slightly less reliable than the more common ones unless significant engineering effort is made to ensure this can't happen.

Second, a top-loading magazine will either interfere with the weapon's sights (if you're using a pan or stick magazine) or else be somewhat cumbersome to change (for helical magazines or the fancy direction-changing ones the P90 uses - changing the magazine is a noted drawback of these weapons). A bottom-mount is out of the way, and access is fairly convenient.

The third reason is that bottom-mount is the standard. Even discounting STANAG and equivalent interchangeability standards, a factory set up to produce one type of bottom-mount box magazine can easily make a slightly different type with minimal retooling. A different type will require more work to set up production.

Carl

2018-06-14, 01:58 PM

Talking about symbols, rather than weapons, I would say the sceptre. In the Iliad, there is a sceptre that is passed around during assembly, and is only given to kings, and it gives you the right to speak. It can also be used to beat up people who talk without holding it.

I remember reading about helms with three crests, like those on certain statues of Athena. I am not sure that it was a kingly symbol, but it looked impressive and must have been costly.

The Argeades had a star as a symbol.

The obvious problem is that, during classical Greece, kings were something of an oddity. Later on, during the Hellenistic period, you have talk of "doryktetos chora", "spear-conquered land", and the weapon of the king is the spear held by his soldiers. However, it could be quite literal: Alexander threw his spear at Asia when he first got there, to show that it was his prize.

I would go with the spear also because one of the reconstructions of the Augustus of Prima Porta has him holding a spear as a symbol of military authority, and one equestrian statue of one of the good emperors had him hold a spear pointing downwards to signify the end of the war.

As mentioned, there were few kings in the Classical era (there were tyrants, by they were a different thing), they were a post-Alexander Hellenistic thing. "Barbarian" places like Makedonia always had kings, of course, but that was terribly un-Greek of them.

The symbol of Hellenistic kingship wasn't a weapon or throne, but the diadem. A circlet of fabric worn around the head. Otherwise there's Zeus' lightning bolts (since he was the "king of the gods") or one of the many depictions of Zeus as a bull or swan. Or if a king claims heredity to an ancient hero, a depiction of that hero (like Herakles wearing a lion skin carrying a club). All of which could be featured on the king's personal banner and painted on his shield.

Cheers for the answer. When i say king it's more of a descriptive rather than specific title and its not necessarily hereditary, though it can be. Whilst the whole concept is based very loosely on greek themes i've got to emphasise the loosely, it's not really meant to be remotely historical and the cosmology is very different, it's probably about as greek as i'm led to believe Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series is roman. i.e. they both have a basis in classical cultures but play very loose and fast with it.

The basic point of this weapon isn't that it's strictly a symbol of his authority in every respect but specifically his authority as a war leader who can call the other city states to war and will lead the combined forces in the field, (though this is very much in the sense of generalship, in the same way is true of the Olympians, the Lord of the Gods leads the armies, but once they came along Ares and Athena usurped other martial titles). It's based on Hephaestus's presentation of a weapon as an act of apology at Aphrodite and Hades wedding when the latter ascended to Lord of the Gods when Zeus and Hera formally retired from the roles, (though they remain gods of their respective domains and support and advise as requested their replacements).

Whilst a gift of the appropriate weapon is common at most powerful nobles weddings it's especially important for the leader of the capital as many positions there are filled by the high priests and priestesses of various gods who are mostly chosen by the god or goddess in question. ades is a special exception, just as he became Lord of the Gods because Aphrodite chose him as her husband the high lord of the capital is chosen by the high priestess of aphrodite as her husband. He automatically becomes the high priest of hades in the process and gains all the appropriate godly blessings thereof, but he's not chosen directly by hades. That said no one's going to challenge their right to the rulership ethier, annoying the gods like that probably isn't a god idea and they're sufficiently blessed it's probably dangerous even without the gods taking a more direct hand.

Hopefully that explains a bit better what it's supposed to encapsulates, (and highlights a significant cosmological difference or three along the way).

The Jack

2018-06-14, 03:48 PM

What's the future for firearms? seems like most of it's been very small refinements to reduce recoil/weight, and It doesn't look like there's much to really improve.

Mr Beer

2018-06-14, 06:08 PM

What's the future for firearms? seems like most of it's been very small refinements to reduce recoil/weight, and It doesn't look like there's much to really improve.

Military firearms are a mature technology. I think mostly small advances in material science and engineering will do things like improve weapon life, ease of cleaning, accuracy etc.

There will be more or better add-ons, like the grenade launchers you see now.

Integration into some kind of overall weapons system / HUD / computer-aided aiming system is probably happening right now or is in the field for all I know. I think that's likely to be the biggest advance and it's not directly about the firearm. I heard about some computer system that allows rookies shoot rifles at qualified sniper-level accuracy so the concept already works in certain (non-battlefield) conditions.

There's potential for caseless ammunition or maybe liquid propellant down the track, obviously these technologies have drawbacks or they'd already be in production since conceptually they've been around for a while.

Vinyadan

2018-06-14, 06:50 PM

Carl

2018-06-14, 07:00 PM

What's the future for firearms? seems like most of it's been very small refinements to reduce recoil/weight, and It doesn't look like there's much to really improve.

The core problem is that recoil and stopping power and weapon weight are at least somewhat interlinked, so there's not a lot they can do to improve the punch of man portable ballistics, at least below the crew served weapon level. Crew served weapon have a fair bit of room to expand as tech improves because recoil isn't the limiting factor there, (as with personal kit), rather it's the weapon weight, (for a weapon with a practical sustained RoF), and to a degree ammunition weight in terms of things like cases and belts.

The potential for powered exoskeletons or outright powered armour will probably lead to some significant changes one day, but that tech isn't remotely mature enough yet, (building the actual armour/exoskeleton sure, a viable power source however is another matter entirely). Once it arrives though the ability to heft so much more weight is going to have noticeable effects. The only other potential big change is if something causes one or more of the geneva convention statues on acceptable ammunition types to be repealed, you'd undoubtedly see a long period of frenzied development of new military ammunition types as a result.

Carl

2018-06-14, 07:42 PM

The largest difference from classical Greece I see is that Ancient Greece didn't have a priestly caste like Egypt or Persia. Priests tended to be either city magistrates, or people whose family had been hereditarily handling certain local rites, but otherwise lived ordinary lives.
I am not sure about how one became priest in a large sanctuary outside of a city, like Olympia, Delphi, or Samos.

You posted while i was typing so sorry for the double post.

To clarify a little the various priests and priestesses of the gods in this case are more mortals picked out as earthly representatives. They're expected in very large part to do things their own way, but they're chosen for innately being in line with the god or goddess in question. It's more (at least in terms of the high priestess of Aphrodite and the High Priest of hades), of the gods picking out the rulers of the capital and their role as priest/priestess is more of a consequence of the fact that since they do know their god/goddesses will they innately fulfill the roles of communicating and interpreting the god/goddess in question, and whilst it's common for existing lesser priest/priestesses to be involved in the rituals that underpin the choosing of a new high one they're not strictly required and the new high priest/priestess is chosen from outside the existing lessers.

Simply put whilst you can and there are judges, and doctors, and blacksmiths and rules, and middle managers, (not sure what the greek equivalent would be), who are not chosen out by the god in question in the capital, (and it's the de facto state of things in other city states),the higher ups are all chosen for their role. They're chosen by the god/goddess because they posses something within them that instantly aligns with the god or goddess in question.

As a simple example when it's time to pick out a new high priest, (though for most god/goddesses genders can end up swapped, exceptions exist), of Hephaestus the capital will host a smithing competition where anyone not allready a priest or priestess is free to take part, they may and often do pare the numbers down by successive competitions and judgings of the output work until eventually amongst them Hephaestus sees one who embodies what he believes a smith should be most well and he'll invest power into them, depending on the god or goddess this will manifest different ways, for Hephaestus it will aid them in their smithing and allow them to imbue the blade, (or armour or whatever it is they smith), with mythical properties, somthing that will be innately and clearly obvious in the final product he produces, which is how everyone sees that he's Hephaestus's chosen and he'll then become the master smith and leaders of the smiths as a craftsmens trade within the capital.

Does that explain what the priest/priestess moniker means a bit more clearly?

Epimethee

2018-06-15, 01:40 AM

I have some computer issues so it is hard to follow exactly what happens in this thread. And you guys are amazing: the reach of topics is huge, the casual and the very specific and rigorous are well balanced.
And there is always something new and interesting.

I wished to respond to a few of the posts that i haven’t adressed yet. I’m a bit late but see the Computer issues above.

To Snowbliss first. The Nagyrev scenario is clearly impressive and enticing from a storyteller point of view. Such strange circonstances call for a narratively satisfactory explanation and this one may be the most dramatic.

About the Sabines, and generaly the problems with oral tradition, it is quite hard to discern the historical facts, the mythological motives and the literary embellishment. In Rome we have early texts but we know that they reflect some lost oral stuffs. What is historical is difficult to tell. In the Illiad, for comparison, the helmets and shields are accurate with archeological finds. So there musst be something of historical value there.
What exactly, and how it reflect of what is a huge topic with a lot of contradicting positions from Euhemerism ( the legends represent misinterpreted facts and the gods were humans) to structuralism ( very roughly the myth change according to rule akin to the laws of linguistic).

His underlying theories are rightly dissmissed today but Georges Dumézil demonstrated the connections between the ancient history of Rome and some known myths. Horatius Cocles or the Horaces have very similar cousins across the world, even in historical time. The attribute of the first kings match descriptions of gods and so on. Again, historical stuffs are certainly there. Rome was clearly at war with is Italian neighbours, but those events happened certainly not like in the Urbe Condita. And that’s only the stuffs we know. I mean, we have a lot of holes in our knowledge of myths.
On a relative note i think far many cities were described as lost in tales around the world that were effectively lost. Only in Brittany i can think of more than a few like Ys, and they don’t point to anything existing.

So i tend to be carefull with the use of traditions and even of historical sources. They are meant to inform but that’s only a part of their content.

To Galloglaich, thanks, i forget Galen. Cool idea.

About greek weapons: as already said, not many were described. The most famous example is of course the shield of Achilles, his depiction is one of the most celebrated literary piece in history. The shield was made by Hephaistos and brought by the divine mother of Achilles. The fight for the weapons and armor were important i Illuad but more as a symbol of the individual valor of a fighter than his power. Also there was some greed involved .

Amazingly quite a few bows are mentionned and the Odysseus one may be the closer to a Symbol of kingship. Ok, that‘s not exactly a sword in the stone but the weapon can only be used by the rightfull sovereign of the place. Herakles, Apollo, Artemis all use bows and for the gods it is an important attribute.

Theseus had to take is sword and sandals from under the rock were his father put them. Again The weapon is not really an attribute, more a token of recognition.

Also i think there is a Zeus depicted with a labris, the two headed axe, but it‘s a foggy memory.

I think the closest relative could be staffs, like the thyrse of Dyonisos or the caduceus of Hermes. The thyrse was used by priests but obviously it was no weapon and not used by kings.

Also the club of Herakles is a specific case of depiction of the hero. Suffice to say that it is not intended to give him more but to show how special he was. Only a god could use such weapon efficiently.

The fact is also that Greece was not as fond of individual military valoir as the neighbours. The weapons were collectively dedicated to temples, and the shield was valorised. The strength of the city was important so personal weapons were less valorised than, say, in medieval Europe.
As much as i understand, few of the divine attribute were explicitly weapons cause few of the gods were fighters. Even then, some are mysterious like the famous Aegis.

But i will read the worldbuilding proposition more carefully. I have to catch up to the thread again...

Kiero

2018-06-15, 02:22 AM

Swords in stones are a Eurasian steppe thing, they'd be placed in the barrows of dead lords to honour them.

Tobtor

2018-06-15, 02:46 AM

You wound me sir! I'm always shocked how little respect I get in this forum after all these years. The herring market actually crashed for the first time in the end of the 14th Century. From the wiki:

I did not mean to "wound you". But you come with very sweeping statements, and some of them are actually very wrong. You say I "confuse" or "misunderstand" things, So I could have equal rights to be wounded.

On the Skania and the Herring markets

The herring market actually crashed for the first time in the end of the 14th Century
While the wiki-pedia has:

"The abundance of herring around Scania abruptly ceased in the beginning of the 15th century and the region lost its importance as a trading place."

So that seems to imply that it did NOT crash in the 14th but in the 15th century. Though it is at odds with Danish sources I have sayng it happens in the 1500-hundred (16th century). To mavoid "english" versus danish sources i here quote the Swedish wikipedia:

Fiskemarknaderna i Skanör - Falsterbo drog årligen under 1200-talet fram till början av 1500-talet till sig tiotusentals besökare. Den danske kungen garanterade genom sina fogdar att ordning och lag upprätthölls på fiskmarknaden.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skan%C3%B6rs_borg
and

När sillen uteblev 1560 slutade marknadens storhetstid i Skåne, Skanör och Falsterbo nästan ödelades, samtidigt med de vendiska städernas stagnationsperiod.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%A5nemarknaden

Skanör (danish Skanør) and Falsterbo was the two most important herring markets in Scania. Perhaps its a translation error in the English wikiepedia (a situation were 15oo-talet became not 1500-hundreds but 15th century thing?). I can find my old medieval history professor wrting that the top of the herring trade was around 1400, thus excluding a crash in the late 14th century. I am more inclined to trust the combined statements of a history professor, the Danish and Swedish wikipedia, Danish encyclopedias etc, than the English wikipedia about stuff happening in Scania in the medieval period.

More broadly, this is how I understand the Skania market. The market was seasonal and moved every year as it was always located wherever the herring were running.

Again this is wrong. Sorry, but it is. I respect you knowledge on the Baltic, town history etc, but here you are out of you area. The Scania market is referring to a series of markets, often many held each years. They where held annually at both Skanør, Falsterbo and even on the island of Amager at Dragør (Amager is a island of the Zealand coast). The main sites where used every year, castles where built to run the trade and gather the taxes etc, thus not moving about every year! A few smaller markets where held in other places during high periods.

More than once the Danes were thrown out.

Really? Can you come with other examples than the one already discussed?

The other booths selling various other more general trade items - beer, weapons, textiles, glassware, and so on, was an adjunct to the main show, i.e. the fish harvest and fish market.

As I mentioned earlier: this is true in the early parts of the market history, but as towns grew in the 13th-14th century the Scania markets stopped being important for other trade, and became specialised herring places.

On Scania and the political situation in Sacandinavia in the medeival period

Scania may have technically been ruled by the Danish crown, but of course in theory Sweden was part of Denmark through out the Late Middle Ages, but one Kingdom laying claim to a given area was usually a matter of degree in those times.

and

in the Middle Ages it's a bit fraught to declare a given piece of land as "Swedish" or "Danish" or "German" or "Russian" since whatever government ostensibly laid claim to it often had a tenuous level of actual control.

Here you should be careful. You are mixing very different parts of Europe (did not you warn about that sort of things a few posts back?).

First of: Scania was as Danish as Zealand during the medieval period (and until the 17th century!). They spoke danish, followed danish laws, elected danish kings, sat in the "dane court" and the bloody Danish archbishop was placed in Lund! It is as Danish as Kent or East Anglia is English. No one in the medieval period contested this! In Scandinavia there was much more agreement about which lands lay where than in "continental" Europe.

The main issues like this was the border to Germany, as the danish lords (later dukes) of Slesvig also ended up with Holstein and was thus both Danish and German lords, and then situations arising from the "Baltic crusades" (Rügen became part of the Danish bishopry of Roskilde, even after the kings lost control).

Secondly yes Sweden was sort of under danish control, but Sweden was not "part of Denmark". It was ruled with Swedish laws and a Swedish council under a common king/queen. So its like the "united kingdom". Scotland didn't become part of England, it became part of the united kingdom (though England was - and is- clearly the dominant party in the union...).

Denmark was mostly, though not always inimical, as they were in an almost permanent power struggle with the larger Hanseatic towns over control of the Oresund (
and generally opposed to the burgher estate it seems).

Refering to the bolded opart.
NO, not always. After Lübeck had been founded by Henry the Lion, it served a short period as Danish royal town (early 13th century) and theycontinued the rights and expanded the town (then due to shifting alliances it became German again and became a free town in 1220'ies). Also Christian the second was very popular among the burghers,and one of his main advisors was the mayor of Malmö (in Scania...), another was the Dutch born Sigbrit Villoms, mother of Dyveke who was mistress of the king. Even after the dead of Dyveke Sigbrit acted almost as chancelor for the king and he promoted dutch immigrant to Copenhagen and gave the towns extended rights etc. In general the kings was more on the side of the peasants and burghers of Denmark than the Hanseatic league who often supported the danish nobles in their struggle against the king. The nobles sought to limit burgher and peasant rights, this was supported by the Hnase partly due to wanting to damage the danish kings (and perhaps to avoid competition from Danish towns?).¨

Well I guess it depends on how you define a 'minor battle', but you do have quite a few incidents. For example the Dalarna rising in 1434, led by Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson (say that 3 times with a mouth full of beer I dare you) which had quite significant consequences. As far as I'm aware it led to the expulsion of Danes from Sweden. And the army was mainly peasants, as well as some miners and a few burghers and petty nobles.

Which is the ones I mentioned in my previous post:

The Peasant rebellions during the rule of Erik (1412-1439)? Because in that war Erik fought against the Hanse and Holstein duchy, but the taxes cause rebellions in Sweden and Norway (AFTER the war had ended!).

You often in these threads alude to Swedish peasant being well armed as a result of mercenaries defeated, that requires that there is at least a few good of examples of such defeats...

Did you read the wikipedia article? Englebrekt killed off a few locally appointed nobles, not a mercenary army. Then he lost power to another Swede (a noble): Karl Knutsson. Karl became King of Sweden when Eirk gave up bieng a king to turn pirate (much more fun!).

Karl Knutson (the swede) was then thrown out by the peasant reinstating a Danish king, first Christopher, then Karl Knutson again when Christoffer died without children, and later the "lower nobility" and burghers got Christian I of Denmark installed. Karl Knutson came back several times though, finally he won power with an army of german and polish mercenaries (due to Christian 1 imprisoning a memeber of a leading Swedish noble family who had helped him gain the throne in the first place).

The medieval period have many examples (Swedish, norweigean, finish, Danish etc) peasant rebellions. They are typiccally only succsful if they gain support from either a royal pretender or the nibility (often the lower nobility), or the Hanse.

... the one in Sweden being notable that it is only one of two I'm aware of on that scale in which the Peasants were specifically represented as one of the Estates.

In the meeting of the estates in Denmark in the late 15th and the 16th century the peasants was represneted through elected peasant at the local things (herredsting - county things)....

The three national things had been lawgiving and elected the kings in the early medieval, but had lost power to the court (Dane hoffet - the dane court - A sort of large assembly of nobles and bishops etc, and in afew cases possibly even peasant) in the 14th ad early 15th century. They at this time was mainly judicial in natur (judging according to the law, not making the law). But as the dane court gradually lost power in the 15th to a "rigsråd" (natinal counsel consisting of a small group of leading nobles), the meetings of the four estates became sort of a way for the King to limit the power of the high nobility (they at least in theroy had to elect the kings, and approve taxes etc). Note that Scanians was part of both natoiional things, the dane court, the national counsil, and the assmblages in their respective periods... Sweden and Norway had their own institutions separately but all under the Danish king (during the union period).

snowblizz

2018-06-15, 03:09 AM

That said, Kalevala is a fantastic source for RPG type stuff: spells, creatures, characters, adventure hooks and situations. Great evocative poetry - it's very Tolkein-esque. Great for any campaign set in a woodland setting.

Point of order! Tolkien is Kalevala-esque!

He cribbed much of his writings off it. He was a big fan of all the Scandinavian traditional stuff and freely borrowed from them all of course.
He found the lack of a similar British set of stories bothersome which is why he ended up inventing something himself to fill the gap.

Also look at that Olaus Magnus map I posted for the archers on skis, ice skates and war-reindeer and so forth.

G
Don't forget his "companion book to" the map. "Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Description_of_the_Northern_Peoples

Carl

2018-06-15, 03:14 AM

About greek weapons: as already said, not many were described. The most famous example is of course the shield of Achilles, his depiction is one of the most celebrated literary piece in history. The shield was made by Hephaistos and brought by the divine mother of Achilles. The fight for the weapons and armor were important i Illuad but more as a symbol of the individual valor of a fighter than his power. Also there was some greed involved .

Amazingly quite a few bows are mentionned and the Odysseus one may be the closer to a Symbol of kingship. Ok, that‘s not exactly a sword in the stone but the weapon can only be used by the rightfull sovereign of the place. Herakles, Apollo, Artemis all use bows and for the gods it is an important attribute.

Theseus had to take is sword and sandals from under the rock were his father put them. Again The weapon is not really an attribute, more a token of recognition.

Also i think there is a Zeus depicted with a labris, the two headed axe, but it‘s a foggy memory.

I think the closest relative could be staffs, like the thyrse of Dyonisos or the caduceus of Hermes. The thyrse was used by priests but obviously it was no weapon and not used by kings.

Also the club of Herakles is a specific case of depiction of the hero. Suffice to say that it is not intended to give him more but to show how special he was. Only a god could use such weapon efficiently.

The fact is also that Greece was not as fond of individual military valoir as the neighbours. The weapons were collectively dedicated to temples, and the shield was valorised. The strength of the city was important so personal weapons were less valorised than, say, in medieval Europe.
As much as i understand, few of the divine attribute were explicitly weapons cause few of the gods were fighters. Even then, some are mysterious like the famous Aegis.

But i will read the worldbuilding proposition more carefully. I have to catch up to the thread again...

I specifically avoided bows or shields to avoid stepping on Apollo, Artemis, or Athena, (who within the context of the events of Aphrodite and Hades wedding was a child at the time, (the fully formed bit of her conception has been dropped)), and also because as far cavalry and bows go it was Apollo and Artemis and Dionysus that transformed them to a well regarded weapon. But Apollo and Artemis won't be born for a while after the events of the wedding and the lead up to it.(This is to keep them out of the way of the events of the lead up. The negetive way the rest barring her parents treats Aphrodite just prior to her and Hades becoming a thing would undoubtedly elicit utter fury from her younger siblings as it did her parents, but when it's just her parents (however powerful they may be), vs the rest of mount Olympus its a reaction that's not going to be overtly challenged, indeed Hades pulling "reason you suck speech" is a big part of what drew him and Aphrodite together. He appreciated her for who she was, not the potential for power or lust they saw in her.)

So 'm a little hesitant to bring bows in. Shields certainly wouldn't be an issue however. As a notation whilst all of the gods are capable of fighting, until Athena and Ares came along none where considered individual warriors as a core part of their identities. They could all fight and as Lord of Olympus first Zeus and th later Hades where expected to lead the armies thereof, but they weren't seen as doing so because they where amazing warriors but because a good ruler was expected to lead the troops into battle.

Brother Oni

2018-06-15, 05:32 AM

The fact is also that Greece was not as fond of individual military valoir as the neighbours. The weapons were collectively dedicated to temples, and the shield was valorised. The strength of the city was important so personal weapons were less valorised than, say, in medieval Europe.

Please excuse me if I'm misunderstanding something as I'm not very familiar with Greek culture and legends of the time, but from warty goblin (another infrequent poster on this thread), I was under the impression that in Ancient times, great emphasis was put on the earning of kleos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleos), that is the earning of glory through great deeds.

Since spoils of war is one of the direct measures of your great deeds, earning stuff from raiding or killing important enemy officers would imply great military valour. In the Illiad, when King Agamemnon takes Briseis away from Achilles, he's directly taking away Achilles' kleos, resulting in Achilles' first temper tantrum.

Epimethee

2018-06-15, 06:03 AM

Please excuse me if I'm misunderstanding something as I'm not very familiar with Greek culture and legends of the time, but from warty goblin (another infrequent poster on this thread), I was under the impression that in Ancient times, great emphasis was put on the earning of kleos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleos), that is the earning of glory through great deeds.

Since spoils of war is one of the direct measures of your great deeds, earning stuff from raiding or killing important enemy officers would imply great military valour. In the Illiad, when King Agamemnon takes Briseis away from Achilles, he's directly taking away Achilles' kleos, resulting in Achilles' first temper tantrum.

That’s true for the heroic ages , the time of Homer and the stories of demi-gods. By the time of the city, the classical periode, the individual glory was less important.

I’m not home so i use my memories here and some further readings may complete the picture. But the emphasis on thecollective of the city, the line of battle where the warriors stand together was greater. The morality of the fight was about togetherness, and i think i saw somewhere some fighter chastised because he had breaked the frontline. (I may be wrong on this last one). The Greeks fight together unlike the barbarians.

This tie also with the classical ideology of a state of (very roughly) equals citizen. Most of the weapons were dedicated in the name of a city. There was no use of a specific weapon to remember a specific warrior as long as the glory of the city was celebrated.

Contrast for example with the emphasis on individual valor that seem apparent in the grave were swords and other pieces of equipement were found.

Again i have to read a few things but i remember somebody talking about the balancing of the collective needs with the individual values of the aristocratic families of the ruling classes.
I hope i responded to the question but maybe a bit roughly i’m affraid.

Galloglaich

2018-06-15, 10:45 AM

We are getting very deep into the weeds here, and I can tell that this touches a nationalistic nerve with you. I believe we have a clear disagreement on some points of this history, but some of it is a matter of interpretation of history which is far slipperier and can vary widely for the same events between countries. Most of my sources on the Skania market, disputes between Hanse towns and Denmark and the herring fishery derive ultimately from Hanseatic records in the (Low) German language, though some from Polish (Jan Dlugosz) also some from Stockholm and Visby or the Teutonic Knights. Others are Swedish. I admit I have not used any Danish sources, mainly because they haven't been as accessible.

So that seems to imply that it did NOT crash in the 14th but in the 15th century. Though it is at odds with Danish sources I have sayng it happens in the 1500-hundred (16th century). To mavoid "english" versus danish sources i here quote the Swedish wikipedia:

Late 14th / early 15th - my understanding is that it was actually a series of bad fish catch "harvests" which started in the 1390s and finally collapsed around 1405. There are various theories as to why, some say the herring migrated into the North Sea, others say that overfishing caused a population crash. Cod and Herring fisheries also became much more developed around Holland and in the North Sea.

As for when the Skania market and associated herring fishery declined, rather than wikipedia, or this article (http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/10.1163/ej.9789004169739.i-422.42) which looks quite promising but for some reason Brill doesn't seem to have made it available even on JSTOR, I will quote directly from the most respected Academic source on the Hanseatic League in the last 150 years, Philippe Dollinger. This is from page 239 of his The German Hanse.

"Although Denmark occupies an important place in the political history of the hansa and had many immigrants from Germany, it was economically of secondary importance, apart from Skania. Being almost exclusively an agricultural area, it had nothing to offer the great Hanseatic merchants. The Germans purchased from the Danes mainly oxen and horses. The Oxen bought in the markets of Ribe or Rendsburg were moved on the hoof each year in thousands (about 20,000 in 1500) to the Wendish towns or to Holland. There was probably also a considerable trade in butter, and in exchange the Hanseatics sold the Danes salt, wine, cloth and iron.

The Skanian herring trade was on a far larger scale. The fish were caught on the shores of the southern Sound from July to September....[] The yield was unpredictable, as the shoals, although usually enormous, varied considerably in size from year to year. The fisheries were already very prosperous in the thirteenth century and seem to have reached their peak towards the end of the fourteenth century, after which they declined."

Declined doesn't mean nobody caught any herring there, it just means it became far less economically important. Dollinger estimates a peak of 300,000 barrels of herring in the 14th Century. Hanseatic records indicate that 65,000 barrels went to Lubeck alone in 1400 (officially, there were probably more than that off-books). By 1494 the rate had declined to 47,323 barrels for all merchants put together, according to tax receipts of the Danish bailiff. That is 15.7% of the peak volume.

Dollinger is French by the way, so it's not some kind of English, or Swedish bias. It sounds like is a Danish language tradition on a lot of these stories which is at variance with my sources.

I can find my old medieval history professor wrting that the top of the herring trade was around 1400, thus excluding a crash in the late 14th century.

Right. Think about that for a moment. The top of the herring market is 'around' 1400 - where do you go from the top? Like I said IIRC the herring population started fluctuating wildly (I suspect due to overfishing) in the 1390s and the first really big crash hit in 1402 and then again in 1405, after which it did not recover for generations.

Again this is wrong. Sorry, but it is. I respect you knowledge on the Baltic, town history etc, but here you are out of you area. The Scania market is referring to a series of markets, often many held each years. They where held annually at both Skanør, Falsterbo and even on the island of Amager at Dragør (Amager is a island of the Zealand coast). The main sites where used every year, castles where built to run the trade and gather the taxes etc, thus not moving about every year! A few smaller markets where held in other places during high periods.

I will try to explain. The herring did not care where the castles or fishing villages were. The herring 'ran' (from what I gather, were breeding) at a different spot in the channel every year. This in turn had to do with where saltier North Sea water was mixing with 'sweeter' (less salty) Baltic Sea water. That spot, or as close to it as possible, was where the market would be, in the form of hundreds of booths, tents and temporary sheds. The reason being was as this was done basically in the Summer (July to September) you wanted the shortest possible route between where the fish were caught and where they could be processed (beheaded, gutted, and packed in salt in barrels). Because they did not have refrigeration etc., spoilage was a major issue. Once they were processed they could be stored for up to two years apparently.

Once they were salted and in barrels, the herring were moved by small boats and coastal vessels to the markets at Skanor or later Falsterbo, then to larger Hanseatic ships typically docked at Malmo or even down in Dragor (near Copenhagen). From there they sailed back to Lubeck, Hamburg, Danzig etc., and ultimately up the Rhine, Elbe or Vistula to various ports inland.

Really? Can you come with other examples than the one already discussed?

Yes but I'll circle back to that. It's another deep dive.

Here you should be careful. You are mixing very different parts of Europe (did not you warn about that sort of things a few posts back?).

No, I'm not making a generalization here but an analogy - there is an important difference. Few Kingdoms in the late medieval period were anything close to a modern State. Certainly Denmark was not. The closest thing in the Baltic would have been the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order. There were no passports or visas, and typically no border guards between nations except in times of strife. Typically marked by a natural barrier like a river, a mountain range, a marsh or the sea - the borders between nations more accurately represented areas of the diminishing control of one polity and the increasing control of another.

In border areas however, such as in the area were are referring to Schleswig / Holstein, Pomerania, Prussia and Southern Sweden, local entities often had feudal, military political and economic links to both (or many or all) nearby kingdoms or proto-States. Knights living near the border with Denmark for example may have sworn or inherited allegiance to the King of Denmark, to Lubeck or Hamburg, to a prominent Swedish noble family, and to the Holy Roman Emperor all simultaneously. In effect this meant, that knights (or princes, cities, free peasant clans etc.) could and did choose which side they allied with at any given moment, based on the ever shifting alliances and intrigues between the princes themselves, and what they saw as their own advantage.

Furthermore, control in a given area such as Scania, Visby, or Stockholm (all contested between the various entities in the Baltic) was only 'real' to the extent that the polity or proto-State in question could actually enforce its wishes. I.e. make people pay taxes and follow their rules. As you note, at one point Lubeck itself was a vassal to Denmark, but it did not mind this legal nicety once it had walls and a fleet of it's own. Lubeck also routinely shrugged off demands and threats made by the Holy Roman Emperor including to "be nice' to Denmark, by the way.

Secondly yes Sweden was sort of under danish control, but Sweden was not "part of Denmark". It was ruled with Swedish laws and a Swedish council under a common king/queen. So its like the "united kingdom". Scotland didn't become part of England, it became part of the united kingdom (though England was - and is- clearly the dominant party in the union...).

The comparison between the Nordic Union aka Kalmar Union with the United Kingdom, while interesting, is also disingenuous in this context. Since the time of Queen Margaret I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_I_of_Denmark) (one of the more underestimated and underrated monarchs in European history), Danish Kings considered Norway and Sweden to be part of Denmark. Margaret herself was literally and figuratively in her own lifetime Queen on Sweden and Norway as well as being Queen of Denmark. After her reign, many of the subsequent Danish monarchs being far less impressive, Norwegians and in particular Swedes frequently contested this as you are aware.

NO, not always. After Lübeck had been founded by Henry the Lion, it served a short period as Danish royal town (early 13th century) and they continued the rights and expanded the town (then due to shifting alliances it became German again and became a free town in 1220'ies). Also Christian the second was very popular among the burghers,and one of his main advisors was the mayor of Malmö (in

All well and good - The difference is that Danish towns were Mediatstadt, controlled and dominated by either the king or a local Lord, whereas the towns of the Hanse, at least the larger ones, were either free outright (Lubeck and Hamburg for example) or subject only to the Emperor and then only nominally.

You often in these threads alude to Swedish peasant being well armed as a result of mercenaries defeated, that requires that there is at least a few good of examples of such defeats...

Ok, but later - I'll have to pull down a few more books.

Did you read the wikipedia article? Englebrekt killed off a few locally appointed nobles, not a mercenary army. Then he lost power to another Swede (a noble): Karl Knutsson. Karl became King of Sweden when Eirk gave up bieng a king to turn pirate (much more fun!).

A few replies to your specific queries:

Yes - I'm very familiar with the story and rather resent the implication that I would even have to rely on the wikipedia article - I linked it for your (and the other readers) convenience as I have yet to figure out a convenient or easy way to link my books online.

Locally appointed nobles - given land and dominion over was typically how one Kingdom controlled territory within another in those times. Though of course, not all of them were actually local in origin or even native language speakers. So yes that is how rebellions were conducted - many of these Danish affiliated nobles were given extra support from foreign mercenaries hired by Denmark. These mercenaries were mostly German but also specifically included Italians, Scots and Poles.

The treachery of the nobles of all nations in backstabbing one another (Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson himself was a noble) in their pursuit of the 'Game of Thrones' is the rule rather than the exception. Nevertheless, the rebellion was a success from the point of view of the Burghers, Peasants and miners because the peasants were admitted into the Riksdag and Danish authority in the region was temporarily eliminated and was in sharp decline after.

The medieval period have many examples (Swedish, norweigean, finish, Danish etc) peasant rebellions. They are typiccally only succsful if they gain support from either a royal pretender or the nibility (often the lower nobility), or the Hanse.

Lol - what about the Dithmarschen? Didn't Denmark try to invade them among many other regional princes? So far as I know they won those wars all by themselves, pretty much. And they remained autonomous until the 16th Century.

Sweden was unusual (though far from unique) by medieval standards in the considerable rights and autonomy conferred to the "Peasants". Rights which were, by the way, also extended to Finland after the Swedes annexed it, apparently more or less by accident. Swedish farmers were really not even truly peasants in the Feudal sense but more accurately just clansmen, members of their various extended families linked together by various alliances, sometimes going back many generations.

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-15, 11:15 AM

Since I was forced to go get one of my books down, and this was the original subject under debate (the economic development of medieval Sweden and it's relationship with the Hanseatic League) I will transcribe some of Dollingers commentary on this matter. I think it's pretty interesting, no doubt far more interesting than the finer points of herring stocks in 1395 or 1402 anyway...

From Dollinger:

From the thirteenth century onwards central Sweden was essential to Hanseatic trade. The port of stockholm handled the products of the stock rearing industry and of the Norrland forests, and above all copper from Flaun and iron from the widely scattered mines. The vital artery of foreign trade was the Stockholm-Lubeck route, served by about twenty vessels in the fourteenth century and by about thirty in the fifteenth. Most of this trade was in the hands of Lubeckers. At the end of the fourteenth century not more than a quarter of it was handled by Stockholm merchants, who themselves were of German origin*. From 1368 to 1370, when exports greatly exceeded imports, nine Lubeck merchants handled 60 percent of the trade between Stockholm, Lubeck and Flanders.

Minerals were the most valuable products exported by Sweden. Almost all the copper from Falun was dispatched to Lubeck, mostly for re-export to Flanders. In 1368 these exports were worth about 5,000 Lubeck marks, and 84 per cent of the trade was controlled by no more than fourteen of the wealthiest merchants. However a sharp drop in production at the end of the fourteenth century, due to political and administrative causes which have not yet been properly investigated, led to a severe crisis in the copper market. Fifty years later there were signs of a recovery, and by the end of the fifteenth century the amount of copper exported to Lubeck greatly exceeded the previous century.

Iron was produced by many mines in the district of Falun, and also in central and Southern Sweden. it was referred to by two different names, yser and osmund, the latter being applied only to the Swedish product. The two varieties differed only in appearance, the result perhaps of the smelting technique used. Osmund, unlike the pig-iron produced elsewhere, had a lumpy, rubble like appearance (in formibus ruderibus osmund, as one text says). Actually more iron than copper was produced and exported. Lubeck received 1,680 schiffpfund in 1368, 3,000 in 1369, valued at 7,000 marks, and 5,000 schiffpfund in 1399. Although most of the iron was re-exported to Flanders a good deal, unlike copper, was sent to various Baltic ports. The traffic appears to have increased in the fifteenth century (6,000 shiffpfund in 1492) a new factor being the export of ever larger quantities of osmund to Danzig.

As well as metals, Stockholm exported furs from Norrland, usually in the first two or three ships of the season, so as to get them on the Lubeck and Bruges markets before the arrival of the Russian furs. Swedish merchants had a much larger share of this trade, which in Lubeck in 1368 reached a value roughly equivalent to the copper trade (furs 2,300 marks, oxides, 1,000 marks)

Perhaps the most surprising figure given by the Pfundzollbuch of 1368 concerns the export of Swedish butter to Lubeck. It was valued at more than 15,000 marks, and half was re-exported to Flanders. This abnormally high figure was probably due to the war, which deprived north Germany and Western Europe of Danish butter. In the following years the figure dropped by more than 50 percent, and never again, even in the 16th Century reached the heights of 168. Butter, like the cattle exported from south Sweden and Gotland, could not cope with the Danish competition.

Hanseatic imports into Sweden consisted mainly of cloth and salt. Cloth represented more than half, sometimes two-thirds of these imports. After 1375 the quantity of salt dispatched from Lubeck decreased, owing to increasing quantities of Bourgneuf salt being imported, especially from Danzig.

One other interesting tidbit, he mentions that 90% of the exports from Bergen in Norway was cod by 1368, to the tune of 10,000 Lubeck marks in 1370, 18,000 in 1373 and 20,000 by 1400.

Iceland seems to have become an important source of Cod by 1475, he notes that "although Icelandic code was coarser and less highly thought of than Norwegian cod, it was less expensive, and when a method of pounding the flesh was discovered which made it tender it became increasingly popular, especially in South Germany."

imports into Norway included rye and wheat flour, malt and hops, salt and linen. The linen came mostly from Holland.

G

Galloglaich

2018-06-15, 11:49 AM

Some comparable prices in Prussian marks from Dollinger these are per "last" - a maritime unit of measurement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_(unit)) ranging from 770- 1000 kg depending on the time and place.

Saffron 7,040
Ginger 1,040
Pepper 640
Wax 237.5
French wine 109.5
Rice 80
Steel 75
Rhenish wine 66
Oil 60
Honey 35
Butter 30
Hungarian iron 21
Trave salt 12.5
Herring 12
Flemish salt 8
Wismar beer 7.5
Flour 7.5
Flour 7.5
Wheat 7
Rte 5.75
Barley 4.2
Ash (woad) 4.75

Dollinger has a lot more interesting stuff including individual ship records and so on, but no time right now to transcribe, maybe later.

G

Archpaladin Zousha

2018-06-15, 03:19 PM

Which would win in a sea fight: a galleon or a junk?

Vinyadan

2018-06-15, 06:07 PM

The times described by the Iliad were remarkably different from those of classical Greece. There were kings, who looked for kleos. The decisive fighting was done by them, maybe because they were best armed, maybe because they were commanders that led by example.

Around the time of the fall of Troy (let's say 1200 BC), this world disappears. Thukydides ascribes this to the fact that these kings had spent too many years abroad, which allowed powerful factions to form at home. When they came back, they were killed or ousted, or had to fight hard to regain their place.

Even after the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, however, the cult of heroes keeps going. Many people claim to descend from heroes, like the Heraclides. The cities worship their ancient heroes in a way akin to gods. Sometimes, a man receives heroic cult after his death: the founders of colonies, for example, become heroes for their new cities. But this already shows a huge shift in mentality. The old heroes are great for their individual kleos, but these new heroes are great because of their relationship with their cities.

This shift in general informs the whole of classical Greece. The difference between free citizen and slave of a king was very strongly felt. Sparta had kings, but their powers were limited by the law. And the great legislators are never kings (Drakon, Solon, Cleisthenes, Lykurgos). The citizen body is what matters.

This also leads to a conflict between family code of conduct and city laws. We see it in Athens with the juridical handling of "honour killings", and in the theatre with the Eumenides and the Antigone.

Athens also imposes laws that aim to equalise the looks, size, and richness of tombs. Athens was unusual in its democracy, but it's interesting to note that the heroon, where the hero was worshipped, generally started out as his tomb. So it becomes impossible for families to start out their own hero cult of a fallen family member without the city's consent.

Anyway, a full citizen was supposed to feel first and foremost a part of his citizenry. By serving the interests of the citizenry, he served his own.

Kiero

2018-06-15, 07:46 PM

With the rise of the city, kleos was replaced for the most part by arete as a driving goal for the citizen who wanted to make a name for themselves. Arete is "excellence" and you can show that in many fields, not just combat. Kleos undermines the cohesion and community of the phalanx, which is a collective endeavour of all the important citizens.

It wasn't just the Greeks who changed their opinion of personal glory - the Romans had a similar shift when they adopted the phalanx. The prescribed punishment for leaving the phalanx to seek individual combat was as harsh as that if you fled.

That's not to say people didn't read Homer and dream of glory through conquest - Alexander the "Great" was channelling his inner Achilles most of the time, and before he thought he was a god, he thought he was a hero from the epics.

Epimethee

2018-06-16, 01:05 AM

I specifically avoided bows or shields to avoid stepping on Apollo, Artemis, or Athena, (who within the context of the events of Aphrodite and Hades wedding was a child at the time, (the fully formed bit of her conception has been dropped)), and also because as far cavalry and bows go it was Apollo and Artemis and Dionysus that transformed them to a well regarded weapon. But Apollo and Artemis won't be born for a while after the events of the wedding and the lead up to it.(This is to keep them out of the way of the events of the lead up. The negetive way the rest barring her parents treats Aphrodite just prior to her and Hades becoming a thing would undoubtedly elicit utter fury from her younger siblings as it did her parents, but when it's just her parents (however powerful they may be), vs the rest of mount Olympus its a reaction that's not going to be overtly challenged, indeed Hades pulling "reason you suck speech" is a big part of what drew him and Aphrodite together. He appreciated her for who she was, not the potential for power or lust they saw in her.)

So 'm a little hesitant to bring bows in. Shields certainly wouldn't be an issue however. As a notation whilst all of the gods are capable of fighting, until Athena and Ares came along none where considered individual warriors as a core part of their identities. They could all fight and as Lord of Olympus first Zeus and th later Hades where expected to lead the armies thereof, but they weren't seen as doing so because they where amazing warriors but because a good ruler was expected to lead the troops into battle.

An elegant solution may be to focus on the whole panoply. You have a lot to play with: the shape and color of the plate, including engraving or geometric shapes, the shield and his many symbolic options, add matching weapons and you have an epic warrior. You could mix something like the homeric depiction of armors with a more classical style easily.

In time of war the king but not exactly a king stand out. In peace you could have the panoply around the throne but not a throne, like the shield where his arm rest, a spear leaning on the back of the seat and so on. If you don’t go all Saint Seiya it should be fine.

After all Achilles was given a full set of armor by Thetis.

Tobtor

2018-06-16, 02:23 AM

We are getting very deep into the weeds here, and I can tell that this touches a nationalistic nerve with you.

wow. Low shot! I take offense to that. I acknowledge all the defeats Denmark had against the Hanseatic, I acknowledge that Sweden was the stornge rpower from the 17th century onwards, and that there also was danish defeats before this (but that Demark had the upper hand during the medieval is not contested by Swedish or Danish scholars, not perticular nationalistic).

I believe we have a clear disagreement on some points of this history, but some of it is a matter of interpretation of history which is far slipperier and can vary widely for the same events between countries. Most of my sources on the Skania market, disputes between Hanse towns and Denmark and the herring fishery derive ultimately from Hanseatic records in the (Low) German language, though some from Polish (Jan Dlugosz) also some from Stockholm and Visby or the Teutonic Knights. Others are Swedish. I admit I have not used any Danish sources, mainly because they haven't been as accessible.

Well the Swedish sources is in agreement with "my" interpretation, and that of my history professor...

Late 14th / early 15th - my understanding is that it was actually a series of bad fish catch "harvests" which started in the 1390s and finally collapsed around 1405. There are various theories as to why, some say the herring migrated into the North Sea, others say that overfishing caused a population crash. Cod and Herring fisheries also became much more developed around Holland and in the North Sea.

A collapse? Really. Taxes kept comming in so its not a collapse. It is way too dramatic a term!

The Skanian herring trade was on a far larger scale. The fish were caught on the shores of the southern Sound from July to September....[] The yield was unpredictable, as the shoals, although usually enormous, varied considerably in size from year to year. The fisheries were already very prosperous in the thirteenth century and [B]seem to have reached their peak towards the end of the fourteenth century, after which they declined

Decline is very different from collapse, I would say. Do you agree? Again the source:

Dollinger estimates a peak of 300,000 barrels of herring in the 14th Century. Hanseatic records indicate that 65,000 barrels went to Lubeck alone in 1400 (officially, there were probably more than that off-books).

So Dollinger uses 1400 as the peak year, just as my sources. Why do he do this if there was a "collapse" in the late 14th century?

Declined doesn't mean nobody caught any herring there, it just means it became far less economically important.

Right, true. If you have a development some point in time will always be "peak". Yes the importance wore off, especially perhaps for the German towns(?). But no Collapse, it was still an importent revinue (though graduelly the Oresund due got more importent, it wa sintroduced in 1460'ies or so).

Dollinger is French by the way, so it's not some kind of English, or Swedish bias. It sounds like is a Danish language tradition on a lot of these stories which is at variance with my sources.

Uhmm, no. Dollinger have the same peak at 1400 that my history books. Compare:
reached their peak towards the end of the fourteenth century

, to your

herring market actually crashed for the first time in the end of the 14th Century

So perhaps it is

it is a matter of interpretation of history

And I might add an interpretation of what Dollinger say, where I get something different than you...

Yes, I think Dollinger put greater stress on the decline during the 15th century(!), than my sources. Anyway Dollinger also states that the catch

varied considerably in size from year to year

This is indeed true from 13th century onwards: the catch varied! It is not the same as a crash or collapse. The herring declined through the 15th century, yes, not as much as some sources might suggest, but decline from the peak (by 1450 it was as large as perhaps 1300 etc). The real herring "collapse" is in the 16th century. That is why I said you where conflating things. You make an up and down thing during the 13th-15th century (high point in 1400ish) with a collapse in the 16th century into a collapse in the 14th century. Perhaps it lost importance for the Hanse as they lost control of the market in 1385? And that is where you get the collapse thing?

I will try to explain. The herring did not care where the castles or fishing villages were. The herring 'ran' (from what I gather, were breeding) at a different spot in the channel every year. This in turn had to do with where saltier North Sea water was mixing with 'sweeter' (less salty) Baltic Sea water. That spot, or as close to it as possible, was where the market would be, in the form of hundreds of booths, tents and temporary sheds. The reason being was as this was done basically in the Summer (July to September) you wanted the shortest possible route between where the fish were caught and where they could be processed (beheaded, gutted, and packed in salt in barrels). Because they did not have refrigeration etc., spoilage was a major issue. Once they were processed they could be stored for up to two years apparently.

Once they were salted and in barrels, the herring were moved by small boats and coastal vessels to the markets at Skanor or later Falsterbo, then to larger Hanseatic ships typically docked at Malmo or even down in Dragor (near Copenhagen). From there they sailed back to Lubeck, Hamburg, Danzig etc., and ultimately up the Rhine, Elbe or Vistula to various ports inland.

uhhmm. Again flat out no. Since you keep claiming it I looked deeper into the sources and why they make their respective claims. THIS is how the herring trade whent on:

The different traders, merchant etc, had to buy the rights for a booth/land area (sort of rent), these where located are specific areas (Skanör, Falsterbo, AND dragør, and a few more places!). It was at these places the processing of the fish (salting) went on! Everything was highly regulated (size of fishing nets etc), and theDanish king would never allow large scale salting process happening at random places. Any way your original claim was that the "market" moved about yearly, which is even more wrong, as the market is where the trade was (and that was at the castles). There was tight control of the fishing AND the packing of herring. There was a death penalty on packing the herring wrongly! Thus the king needed to be able to control this.

Also you asked earlier (with some disbelief i might add) about English and Dutch traders at the markets, and guess who ALSO bought "booth"-space. Right Dutch towns and English traders... Not as many as the German towns (especially Lübeck was big, but also Danzig and Rostock and others). The process is well described from both Skanör and Dragør, and there is no doubt that the processing and salting happened at the sites! Also it is clear that it was a very complex system, with different people doing different parts (some women gutted the fish, others packed them, some men boiled the leftovers for "oil" etc). We also know that around 1420 some of booths (the buildings) became more permanent structures standing from year to year (again a change but not pointing to a collapse...).

No, I'm not making a generalization here but an analogy - there is an important difference.

Yes it is an important difference. You wrote
in the Middle Ages it's a bit fraught to declare a given piece of land as "Swedish" or "Danish" or "German" or "Russian" since whatever government ostensibly laid claim to it often had a tenuous level of actual control. . That is a statement that include the mentioned areas. And for Scania it is wrong. Analogy, statement, claim whatever, it is wrong. Would you argue that Kent was English during the medieval period? East Anglia?

Few Kingdoms in the late medieval period were anything close to a modern State. Certainly Denmark was not.

I did not claim that Denmark was a modern state. I claimed that Scania was NOT a contested area and was part of the "heartland" of the Danmark (as opposed to the german possesions etc). It is as Danish as Zealland, Funen, Jutland etc. And that Denmark was a relatively fixed entity, and not a more floating one like Germany.

The closest thing in the Baltic would have been the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order. There were no passports or visas, and typically no border guards between nations except in times of strife. Typically marked by a natural barrier like a river, a mountain range, a marsh or the sea - the borders between nations more accurately represented areas of the diminishing control of one polity and the increasing control of another.

You tell me this as if I do not know this, which I find a bit annoying, comparing what sort of discussions we have had in the past. You make (correct) statements in order to support wrong assertions (that there existed no passports does not influence whether or not Scania was contested or not...).

In border areas however, such as in the area were are referring to Schleswig / Holstein, Pomerania, Prussia and Southern Sweden, local entities often had feudal, military political and economic links to both (or many or all) nearby kingdoms or proto-States.

I am aware, and I mentioned Slesvig and Holstein for that very reason. The poitn is Scania was not such a border zone. Smaaland might have been (but frankly the area was very thinly populated and the strife about that area really first took of in the 16th century, with only minor incidents in the medieval period)

Knights living near the border with Denmark for example may have sworn or inherited allegiance to the King of Denmark, to Lubeck or Hamburg, to a prominent Swedish noble family, and to the Holy Roman Emperor all simultaneously.

Yes, to some degree. But a noble in Scania COULD NOT sit in the Swedish Rigsdag, nor could a Swedish one be part of the Danehofftet. And this sort of thing was not really that much of an issue between Denmark and Sweden (as have so very recently been discussed Sweden wasn't really that Feudal...). I came with some examples such as the Selsvig/Holstein case.

Furthermore, control in a given area such as Scania, Visby, or Stockholm (all contested between the various entities in the Baltic) was only 'real' to the extent that the polity or proto-State in question could actually enforce its wishes. I.e. make people pay taxes and follow their rules.

That is also true today, a state is only really functioning if it can enforce its rule (see various conflict zones of today). The point I am making is that Scania was not such a conflict zone! There was sometimes disagreement (and even low scale wars) between the archbishop and the King, but they never was about whether or not Scania was danish or not, but on how Denmark should be rules.

The comparison between the Nordic Union aka Kalmar Union with the United Kingdom, while interesting, is also disingenuous in this context. Since the time of Queen Margaret I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_I_of_Denmark) (one of the more underestimated and underrated monarchs in European history), Danish Kings considered Norway and Sweden to be part of Denmark. Margaret herself was literally and figuratively in her own lifetime Queen on Sweden and Norway as well as being Queen of Denmark.

Uhhmm yes, and I am pretty sure Elizabeth II considers herself queen of BOTH Scotland and England (and Wales and Northern Ireland?). Note that Margaret was not Queen of Denmark, but of Denmark, Noway and Sweden... They where separate titles ruled by separate laws and with separate assemblies of estates etc. The the analogy to the united Kingdom is a good one (especially the early part of the united kingdom). Post the Swedish exit Norway gradually became ruled more directly by Denmark, especially after the introduction of absolutism in the 17th century.

But I agree that Margaret I is one of the coolest rulers Denmark have had, she is every bit as interesting as Elizabeth I of England, but is much less known (outside Scandinavia at least).

Yes - I'm very familiar with the story and rather resent the implication that I would even have to rely on the wikipedia article - I linked it for your (and the other readers) convenience as I have yet to figure out a convenient or easy way to link my books online.

Right, but as mentioned I had already mentioned the underlying reasons for the rebellion in my previous post, so I find it recenting that you then send me a wiki-link on the same conflict and say "ohh but what about this rebellion", when I already mention

Locally appointed nobles - given land and dominion over was typically how one Kingdom controlled territory within another in those times.

Yes, it was.

Though of course, not all of them were actually local in origin or even native language speakers.

Quite so, but there was no large influx of Danish nobles in Sewden. The Swedish nobles was still rulers of their areas. Also it was still Swedish nobles who where appointed to offcies (as Albrekt had also been).

So yes that is how rebellions were conducted - many of these Danish affiliated nobles were given extra support from foreign mercenaries hired by Denmark. These mercenaries were mostly German but also specifically included Italians, Scots and Poles.

It is not "danish affiliated nobles" but Swedish nobles loyal to the Swedish ELECTED king, who also happened to be king of Denmark and Norway.

Lol - what about the Dithmarschen? Didn't Denmark try to invade them among many other regional princes? So far as I know they won those wars all by themselves, pretty much. And they remained autonomous until the 16th Century.

True I didnt mention all areas with rebellions. My sources indicates there was as many nobles in Ditthmarchen as in Sweden. That is a class of "low" nobility, who where close to the major non-noble peasant families (and how it had been in Denmark until at least the 13th century).

Sweden was unusual (though far from unique) by medieval standards in the considerable rights and autonomy conferred to the "Peasants". Rights which were, by the way, also extended to Finland after the Swedes annexed it, apparently more or less by accident. Swedish farmers were really not even truly peasants in the Feudal sense but more accurately just clansmen, members of their various extended families linked together by various alliances, sometimes going back many generations.

True, though this seem actually also to ably to danish peasant far up in time, and it is by German influence in the 13th and 14th century that it changes. Though there where still areas of mainly "yeoman" farmers (mostly in the royal fiefs, while the church and the noble fiefs had more tennants). As I mentioned the Danish peasant had a strong influence through the "things" (assembleges) prior to the 14th century, and later got admitted into the estates assemblages in the 15th century.

Galloglaich

2018-06-16, 11:46 AM

wow. Low shot! I take offense to that. I acknowledge all the defeats Denmark had against the Hanseatic, I acknowledge that Sweden was the stornge rpower from the 17th century onwards, and that there also was danish defeats before this (but that Demark had the upper hand during the medieval is not contested by Swedish or Danish scholars, not perticular nationalistic).

Look, I apologize if I offended you - clearly we are getting on each others nerves here and there but I don't think we are really that far apart and it is a matter of interpretation. I think we are also so far in the weeds here that we have lost everyone else in the thread so maybe it's time to wrap this up.

I respect your knowledge of Bronze Age Scandinavian history you are clearly an expert, not a word I use lightly. I think - I know from experience- there are just different interpretations from different national 'traditions' you might say, of many of these matters. It's always a kind of Rashomon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon) effect.

When I first released my medieval Baltic book I got a politely worded but very emotional letter from a Lithuanian fellow who noted through gritted teeth as it were that everything I wrote related to his country was Polish propaganda. I found this odd since I had been relying up to that point mainly on German sources and had come to rather admire the Lithuanians from their history. It took me a while to understand what he was getting at and I still don't fully get, but I recognize that it's part of the regional history that there are some very strong feelings particularly between neighbors.

Dollinger calls the Herring situation at the end of the 14th Century and beginning of the 15th a 'decline'; I used the word 'crash' - which I got from other historians (I didn't invent it). The sudden drop off of herring fisheries in that area is something which as I'm sure you know, has happened several times, then recovered, and this has been studied a great deal. My understanding of the Skania situation is that a series of bad fish harvests starting in 1395 ended by 1405 with a massive drop off. By Dollingers numbers it's about an 85% decline which didn't recover for several generations. I call that a crash, but you could also call it a steep decline or something else.

To say Skania was the heart of Denmark and insist that it was not contested when you already acknowledged that the Hanseatic towns seized it for 15 years seems a bit odd to me. Whether or not the booths were set up on the beach at the site of the herring run from year to year maybe we should just agree to disagree. That is what my sources say. I described to you what my understanding was - yes there were permanent castles (they are mentioned in the Hanse letter I posted) but the 'market' moved from year to year.

I also contend that the Hanse and other foreign merchants had at least, a considerable amount of control in that area. This can be the case even with a strong centralized Kingdom. England had to tolerate a Hanseatic quarter in London, the Steelyard, which even controlled one of the London Gates (the bishopsgate) and this went on until the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

One of the confusing aspects of medieval history is that it was so kaleidoscopic in terms of perspectives. The princely estates (including monarchs) and the towns lived in two almost mutually exclusive worlds, (except that they frequently rubbed elbows). The princely families engaged in the multi-generational power struggle that the Germans called hausmacht or hausmachtpolitik, basically the real world version of the "Game of Thrones".

I'm sure you know what it means I'm posting a link here (English translation of German wiki (https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausmachtpolitik&prev=search), original German wiki here (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausmachtpolitik)) for others reading the thread. Each family vied for power in an ultimate struggle for political and military dominance across many lifetimes. The French version of this dream was to recreate the reign of Charlemagne, something they achieved after 900 years in the reign of Louis XIV (but at a cost). There were various other regional variations, but the basic idea was "if only MY family can just take over, then we can fix everything and create order in this chaotic world. And then everyone will prosper and be happy." And in order for that best possible outcome to happen, the Ends Justify the Means and anything is permissible.

The Central European towns did also engage in Hausmacht, with elected city councils crafting multi-generational policies in a manner somewhat analogous to princely families (and with less disruption generation to generation), but in a much more limited fashion. They did not want to conquer the world, or even necessary the province, and they tried hard to avoid getting too involved in the death struggle for control. Their agenda was very different: to develop their towns as a communal project into beautiful cultural and economic centers, including manufacturing, and trade. For the Hanse cities the emphasis was on the latter especially. They kept the trade arteries open, by force if necessary, and thereby supplied the things that everyone - princes, knights, peasants, clergy and burghers alike, needed to survive and to enjoy life. Beyond that, they tended to check out of the endless power struggles. As long as nobody robbed their caravans or ships, they tried to stay neutral. If trade was disrupted then they went to war.

In the HRE, you also had various distinct elements of the Church each living in their own worlds, you had the peasant clans like in the Dithmarschen or Lithuania or Switzerland, you had the Universities who gave the towns as much trouble as the towns themselves gave the princes. You had mercenary captains, robber knights, pirates and heretic bands. It was a chaotic world of many different centers. What patched this mess together into a semi-functional society was the German concept of Rezeß. Roughly translated it means 'backing down' - in a nutshell, it meant that each polity or faction pushed the others until pushing started to result in bad results for everyone, i.e. pyrrhic victory and so on. The Rezeß meant that neither the Emperor, nor the Church, nor the princes, nor the towns or the knights ever achieved true control, but that a complex compromise usually existed in which it was possible to do business.

Software translation of the term:

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rezess&prev=search

German wiki

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rezess

This, incidentally, is also the main difference between the German (and Flemish, and Bohemian etc.) towns and the Italian City States - the latter played Hausmacht to the hilt and did not "back off" from a conflict so readily.

Denmark adopted a policy in the middle ages which could be perceived as either retrograde or forward looking. They started out very similar to Sweden but then adopted a certain subset of German or 'Continental' policy - embracing Hausmacht and attempting to establish a strong Feudal Monarchy. You could say either that they were stuck in sort of an 11th -12th Century Feudal model or that they were looking forward to something more like the Absolute Monarchies of the 17th Century.

Either way that meant a clear hierarchy from top to bottom which required the suppression of autonomous agents within the polity. This translated into a more rural, more agrarian, less dynamic or culturally influential economy but also one more in the direct control of the Monarch. It's basically the same tradeoff the French and the English embraced. And as with France and England, this put Denmark in conflict with the various free agents.

G

gkathellar

2018-06-16, 12:08 PM

In mythology, the stringing of a bow as a test of worthiness, kingship, and/or adulthood pops up now and again - Odysseus is of course the obvious example, and it's worth remembering that he has to stop his son Telemachus from stringing his bow and implicitly challenging his authority. Offhand there's also the bow of Shiva in the Ramayana: Rama strings it and is very nearly killed by Parashurama, who takes this as an insult to Shiva's authority (also Parashurama just likes to murder Kshatriyas, but that's besides the point).

I wonder if this has an Indo-European root, or something of that sort? Can anyone shed light on that?

VoxRationis

2018-06-16, 02:32 PM

Which would win in a sea fight: a galleon or a junk?

Well, "junk" is a pretty broad term, encompassing a wide range of tonnages, but to my limited understanding of Chinese shipbuilding, they were not built with the same goal of "make cannons occupy as much of the ship's outer surface as possible" as galleons and later European ships of the line. Others can expound upon the subject more, but I believe Chinese cannon were also usually smaller and less powerful than most Western cannons. Consequently, in a straight-up gun duel, I'd be inclined to favor galleons by virtue of sheer firepower in a match of roughly equal tonnage.

Archpaladin Zousha

2018-06-16, 06:08 PM

I see! Thank you! :smallsmile:

Tobtor

2018-06-17, 12:20 AM

Dollinger calls the Herring situation at the end of the 14th Century and beginning of the 15th a 'decline'; I used the word 'crash' - which I got from other historians (I didn't invent it). The sudden drop off of herring fisheries in that area is something which as I'm sure you know, has happened several times, then recovered, and this has been studied a great deal. My understanding of the Skania situation is that a series of bad fish harvests starting in 1395 ended by 1405 with a massive drop off. By Dollingers numbers it's about an 85% decline which didn't recover for several generations. I call that a crash, but you could also call it a steep decline or something else.

Look he uses 1400 as the peak year, which indicate there wasnt a crash in the 14th century, or at least not one that was permanent. I can tell you that the (foreign) towns continued to pay taxes to get booths, and that there was continued strong as solid expansion of the Skania towns (and tDragør) in questions long into the 15th century. Perhaps the issue is that when the Hanse lost control in 1385 and that Denmark might have promoted a more diverse group of traders (Dutch and English, as well as Danish and German). Thus a small decline became big for the German towns? Thus scewing German sources?

The 85% drop (I doubt it was that big), is not in the late 14th century, but something that happened between 1400 and the late 15th century (according to Dollinger).

To say Skania was the heart of Denmark and insist that it was not contested when you already acknowledged that the Hanseatic towns seized it for 15 years seems a bit odd to me.

Any historian working with the area would agree that Scania was a part of the heartland (I didnt say "the hearth", but that it was as much as Zealand etc). Since the the 10th century it was part of the political organisation of Denmark. It was one of the main sites for royal power from the 11th century. It was Canute the greats minting place in Denmark (he also had in England of course). It continued to be a central part, and it was where the Danish Archbishop was placed. by the 12th century Scandinavia was divided into three archbishopries which corresponded to the political boundaries of Denmark (Lund), Norway (Nidaros/Trondheim), and Sweden (Uppsala). In many respect there was not many really contested parts of Scandinavia. Sure there where some of the inland areas between Norway and Sweden, and they also argued who should tax the Sami etc. And there was a bit of an issue between Denmark and Seden on the area between Scania and Sweden.

But as said: Scania was Danish as much as Zealand. Denmark consisted of three parts Jutland, Zeland and the islands, and Scania including Bornholm. As I said the whole administration was based on peasants, nobles and bishops from each destrict etc. Apart from the German "holdings" (and the baltic ones) the national character was very homogeneus, that is the language was Danish (yes I know towns had foreigners). Was there periods of enemy control over parts of Denmark? Yes (before Valdemar III most of the country was pawned to various foreigners), but generally the idea of Denmark, Norway and Sweden was much stronger and more fixed that lets say Germany or France. Thus Denmark is much more comparable to England. A English island with clear English afinity, and then some French contested provinces (Normandy, Aquitaine etc). Denmark (Jutland, Zealland and Scania) was stable, but the German holdings where contested (such as Holstein, Rügen, for a short period Mecklenburg etc).

This is importent to understand when working with the period: the very fluid borders and intermixed "spot" states of Germany didnt extend to Scandinavia

Whether or not the booths were set up on the beach at the site of the herring run from year to year maybe we should just agree to disagree. That is what my sources say. I described to you what my understanding was - yes there were permanent castles (they are mentioned in the Hanse letter I posted) but the 'market' moved from year to year.

Yes we have to disagree. It is VERY clear from all sources that the permit to do trade and salt fish allways was located at specific places (Skanør), and that it didn't move about. Again in neither Swerdish or danish or any other literature I can find this is contested or a controversial point.

I also contend that the Hanse and other foreign merchants had at least, a considerable amount of control in that area. This can be the case even with a strong centralized Kingdom. England had to tolerate a Hanseatic quarter in London, the Steelyard, which even controlled one of the London Gates (the bishopsgate) and this went on until the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Yes they had some influence, of course.
They where the major trade partners. Just like USA have a lot of influence on its neighbourghs today. Every area with amercian influence is not contested areas between USA. Especially in the 15 years already discussed (but it was from the start a short period and a way to pay war-reparation from Denmark). HOWEVER, as I mention the burghers of for instance Malmö often supported the kings against alliances of Hanse and noble allainces. But Denmark is as centralised as England in the 15th century. Denmark of course also had influence in Germany (like Mecklenburg holdings), but I would never argue that these areas where really Danish. But the Hanse didn't have any more influence in Scania than they did in other parts of Denmark, apart from a specific period of 15 years.

Denmark adopted a policy in the middle ages which could be perceived as either retrograde or forward looking. They started out very similar to Sweden but then adopted a certain subset of German or 'Continental' policy - embracing Hausmacht and attempting to establish a strong Feudal Monarchy. You could say either that they were stuck in sort of an 11th -12th Century Feudal model or that they were looking forward to something more like the Absolute Monarchies of the 17th Century.

Yes and they succeeded at some point to create rather centralised understanding of "Denmark", there where clearly civil-war periods and periods of turmoil, but both during the late 12-13th century during Valdemar I-VAldemar II timeframe and again after Valdemar III and Margaret (and their successors) the country was a strongly centralised realm (by medieval standards, not by modern, but there was a very clear cut adminitrative division which was also a matter of fact, though of course with political issues like who had to pay what taxes etc).