middle age swords

[pawsplay]

Yes, if by nobleman you mean the general upper class, clan leader + clan leader's extended family, in-laws, loyal retainers & best fighters. "Administration" is a funny word though for what the warrior aristocracy of say Scotland in 1150 AD actually did, and implies a much more civil emphasis than the actuality, IMO. The earliest Frankish knights don't seem to have been very heavily armoured, but certainly chain mail and a horse capable of carrying a big man in armour was always expensive.

The whole point of chainmail is to put lots of guys into armor who aren't fabulously rich. Mail and sword is expensive, but swords last pretty well, and chainmail can be forged by the village smithie, or in the field. A wealthy farmer certainly could have afforded it, but a wealthy farmer is only symantically, and one good marraige away, from the "aristocracy" in the middle ages. A farmer with a few acres of his own was certainly the "laird" of his little realm. All he lacked of the nobility was the power of justice, bestowed on the shire-reeve (sheriff). Any free person was eligible for the knighthood.

In times of war, the chivalrous classes were a huge source of upward mobility for freemen. In times of peace, the haves did what they could to maintain control of the have-nots.

One good example of "knighthood" in the professional sense are the landsknechts... German mercenaries, armored soldiers who fought on foot. Whereas the Scots fielded sizeable cavalry units of no particular pedigree other than a horse and a claymore.

It would be a mistake to assume the encyclopedic version of chivalry of certain periods in certain times and places describes, wholly, medieval knighthood. The word knight means "retainer," and certainly, the original knights were soldiers hired on who received their pay in land and taxes. They became nobility by achieving military and economic power of their own and intermixing with the baronial classes.

 

[pawsplay]

Yeah, I exaggerated a bit but I still think your numbers are too high. You said 3.5 -7 pounds per sword. The broadsword I mentioned had less than 2 pounds and my overweight bastard sword (slightly more than 1.2m) is still below your 3.5 pounds.

My round figures:

Shortsword (baselard or gladius): 1 1/2 pounds
Longsword, 30": 2 pounds
Longsword, 36": 2.5 pounds
Greeatsword (claymore or warsword), 42": 3 pounds
greatsword, (late era claymore, espandon) 48": 3.5 pounds
Japanese very sword, 54": 5 pounds
Very big sword (bearing sword, executioner, footman's sword), 60": 5.5 pounds

Now, for any given sword, you can find heavier representatives. There are claymores that are close to 60" and weigh six pounds. Seven pounds is about the outer limit for a "real" sword, and shoulder height about the limit in length for any sword to be used in a conventional way. I didn't want to be exclusive, I did not mean to imply that seven pounds was a typical weight.

Three pounds is about the lower amount you're going to find for a true zweihander in the D&D greatsword sense.

A late era longsword and a bastard sword are very close in size... hence the term broadsword or warsword can apply to either. What D&D calls a greatsword was fairly rare. Most two handers were 36" weapons with extended hilts, like a katana, claymore, or arming sword. The term "bastard sword" is anachronistic to the middle ages, and arose in later eras were larger (armor breaking) swords were more common, as were one handed (stabbing) weapons, with general purpose swords being less common (and swords in general being less common).

Chain shirt: 30-35 pounds
Chain shirt and skirt or leggings: 55-60 pounds
Mail and chain: 45 pounds
Lorica Segmentata: 45 pounds (depending on style)
Plate: 35 pounds

Sound good?

 

[shurai]

Yeah, I've heard the excuses. Early MMA competitions had far fewer constraints, and incidently were even better and more conclusive proofs of my point. People who practiced what fanboys in the US (or Japan for that matter) thought of a 'martial arts' before the MMA competitions got there butts kicked, proving many of the things I'd always heard all along.

I'm sorry, I don't know much about reporting posts to the moderators. Could I have some advice? Is this considered bad enough to warrant attention? I'd say the east/west martial arts part of the thread is offtopic. Moreover, it certainly sounds like he means that traditional asian martial artists are all or mostly deluded "fanboys," which would seem to be nearly tantamount to open insult, it seems to me.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

From what I've read the more traditional a martial art, the less likely it is to be worth much in a real combat situation. Pretty much every 'History of X-Style Martial Art' article I read many years ago (about the time Bruce Lee was starting to shake things up) said pretty much the same thing. X-Style started as sub-form or counter form of/to Y-Style, and was The Next Big Thing because the originator had relaized that Y-Style had atrophied into a traditional form. But after a generation or two, with the original Master no longer around, it too atrophied into a traditional form. (Bruce Lee learned Wing Chung because it hadn't atrophied as much as many of the Chinese forms, but when he used it in gang fights he found that it didn't work as well as he'd hoped.)

I don't know much about the MMA, but I'm not at all surprised at what I'm hearing here. Back when, there was a tournament set up to determine once and for all which martial art was the best, Kung-Fu or Karate. The traditional Kung-Fu boys got beat badly, but declared that the best Masters hadn't entered. This went on for a few years, with more asian martial artists entering from various styles. In the end the Thai Kick Boxers walked off with all the prizes because they actually fought each other.