Ramblings about weapons and armour

[Montero]

Bit of a quibble with this. For the most part a hand and a half, (******* sword) was out of the price range of most archers, most tended to go with a Falchon, which is easier to use at close quarter melee. Also the muscles developed by the constant use of the longbow upper arm, shoulder and back and as well as the thickening of the bones (see Mary Rose info) and not quite the same as those needed for swordwork. The over development of the shoulder muscles are a bit of a disadvantage to begin with and can limit range of movement re swordwork.

Interesting, thanks. Was quoting what seemed to be a very well put together documentary.

Speaking as a former fencer, over done shoulder muscles definitely slow you down and limit flexibility. (Not that I exactly had any, I just got to feel smug about not having been down the gym a lot.) (But that is modern epee which is all about flexibility and speed with a light weapon.)

Having now read the rest of the thread.....

Arrows
Something I saw in a documentary which seemed pretty plausible was that the arrows fired in an arc, that missed the soldiers/knights/horses tended to stick into the ground. Multiply that by a lot of arrows fired and you have a serious tripping hazard.

Other "tripping hazards"
There was mention of the end of Agingcourt there being heaps of dead horses and people and the battle included scrambling up and over these to attack.

Crush injuries
Edgehill - first big battle of English Civil War. I seem to remember about 200 died of being trampled. (No source, something I was told round the campfire by someone who'd been re-enacting a lot longer than me at that time.)

 

[sknox]

It's important to remember that the mounted, armored warrior covers over a thousand years. So any statement about the kind of armor they wore, or how they fought, needs to be scoped chronologically. Plenty of knights dismounted to fight. One of the more famous examples is in 1192 when King Richard and his knights fought Saladin's forces at Jaffa, but there are many others. In fact, in the Seventh Crusade, King Louis actually jumped from the ship into the waters on the beach in Egypt. Armored. But that was 1249 and still before the plate mail that came later.