Oddities, curiousities and strangness in history

I thought the first one was carved from butter.

I think that 1st one is amazing  All done with sand, special sand they say ( cement sand ? ) Ice or snow sculptures amaze me also.probably as I lack artistic skills myself.

I was reading lately about how comparatively light historic swords were, as opposed to how they are generally thought of in popular culture.
After all the films I've seen in which Conan or whomever is chopping about I imagined a great sword to weigh something like 20 or 30 pounds, but apparently they were rarely more than 5 pounds (2.26 kilos) or so, even the two-handed ones.
http://www.thearma.org/essays/weights.htm#.VGED_sm9UqM

I knew they'd have to be light enough to be swung, but that's way lighter than I ever imagined. Fascinating read, there.  Isn't the same true of plate armor, that it was much lighter than typically thought of? I've tried on chain mail and it's certainly heavy, but additional plate couldn't have weighed too much or no one would have been able to move.

And think of the weight the poor horses had to charge across a battle field with ?

I think a lot of the plate armor that we think of, for both men and horses, was designed for display or for sports such as jousting. I remember reading that in the 19th century it became so popular to decorate your castles, villa's and hunting lodges that a whole industry sprang up of making impressive forgeries of plate armour.

Oooooh
Well that gave them something to do instead of embroidery on a long, cold, winters night

"Embroidery? Bah! That's work for the summer months. 'Round here when the snow begins to fall we stoke up the forges and craft decorative artisanal plate armour for our castle hallways!"

Eldorion wrote:I knew they'd have to be light enough to be swung, but that's way lighter than I ever imagined. Fascinating read, there.  Isn't the same true of plate armor, that it was much lighter than typically thought of? I've tried on chain mail and it's certainly heavy, but additional plate couldn't have weighed too much or no one would have been able to move.

I loved the comparison made here:
" For example, noted British arms curator Charles Ffoulkes in 1938 declared: "The so-called 'Crusader' sword is heavy, broad-bladed, and short gripped. There is no balance, as the word is understood in swordsmanship, and to thrust with it is an impossibility·its weight made swift recovery impossible." (Ffoulkes, p.29-30)...Ffoulkes was no doubt basing his opinion on his understanding of contemporary fencing as conducted with the featherweight foils...of the modern sport (in the same way a tennis racket might feel "heavy" to a ping pong player). "

To compare, simply take 4 of your average-weight tennis rackets (about 40-48 ounces total) and there's the weight of your average sword. To put it another way, slightly heavier than a modern baseball bat or about the same as a modern cricket bat.
Of course, the balance would be off, but the concept of a sword being even distantly comparable to a tennis racket would have seemed ridiculous to me in the past. Yeah, right! I would say, maybe if we're talking about a light saber.
And a huge part of that idea of weight has to do with the balance of the weapon. I've heard this concept before (I mean, who doesn't remember Orlando Bloom's expert sword-smithing in PotC ) but it sounds far more elegant when you consider how little weight is involved.

Edit:
Not to go on too long, but I looked up plate armour as well because I was curious. As suspected, it didn't weigh a terrible amount. Just from the Wikipedia page:
"...in fact, plate armour was lighter and featured more even weight distribution than a full complement of a modern firefighter's gear"
Full-body plate hung on the individual parts of the body, while most modern gear, especially Fireman's gear in this example, is hung off of the chest and shoulders.
They had partial plate armour back in Greek and Roman times.
On the right is the older archaic Bell-shaped cuirass which weighed about 25 pounds. On the left is the lighter Muscle Cuirass that weighed much less due to its shape (about 12 pounds maybe) and apparently replaced the older bell-shaped by the 5th Ce. BC. Notable is that the details on the left breastplate do not lineup with the actual body of the wearer: the armour ends below the ribcage, so as to allow more movement. The top of it is also quite narrow to allow greater movement of the arms. It's argued that these were more for display, but could probably have been used in battle as well, at least for cavalry.
(Edit: On second thought, the piece on the left does lineup pretty well anatomically, but there were other examples that did not so well. The point is that independent of what it looks like the Breastplate Cuirass ended well above the waist.)


(Talk about nipples on a breastplate)

This is the Roman Lorica segmentata (this name was invented in the 16th Ce.; they don't know what they used to call it apparently). Used from about 9 B.C. to 300 AD. It was really some sweet armour. The strips had softer iron on the inside, and harder steel on the outside so that it was strong without becoming brittle. This case hardening was achieved by packing the outside of the armour with organic materials and then heating it in a forge. This infused the outside with carbon, resulting in a mild steel exterior. It could be disassembled into 4 different parts, which were held together by brass buckles, hinge straps, etc. Modern reproductions weigh about 15 pounds or so, but the historical pieces certainly could have weighed more, as I am tempted to think that modern reproductions don't use case hardening, but simply cast it all in mild steel. I might be wrong though!


It was widespread, but mail was still pretty common, and much easier to make. It's a sign of how much easier it is to make that after the fall of the Roman Empire plate armour fell out of production. After a while, the word "mail" became synonymous with "armour."

By 1420 or so, however, full body plate mail had been developed in Europe.
"A full suit of plate armour would have consisted of a helmet, a gorget (or bevor), pauldrons , besagews, rondels, couters, vambraces, gauntlets, a cuirass (back and breastplate) with a fauld, tassets and a culet, a mail skirt, cuisses, poleyns, greaves, and sabatons. " -Wikipedia
Even with all that it weighed about 33-55 pounds. That might seem like quite a lot, but despite the tiring effects of it, that weight is spread across your whole body evenly, which would really alleviate how much it would cramp your maneuverability. Importantly here Eldo, you wouldn't wear full-body plate armour over mail. One or the other, generally.
By the 15th and 16th centuries a large percentage of your average European army would have consisted of men-at-arms equipped with full-body plate.
Apparently the best armoursmiths were Italians or southern Germans. The Ottoman Turks used more of a mix-and-match with mail and plate, especially for the "shock troops," the Janissaries. (A term I know from Age of Empires III )


15 Century Italian set:


16th Century German (I hope they did use a codpiece and it's just missing from this set):


Late 15th Ottoman Armour (note the plate protecting the lower chest and upper abdomen):


Naturally, because this is how humans think and act, all this plate led to the development of more powerful crossbows and bows, and the development of polearms that could be used to put more force into a smaller point so as to pierce armour. This is exactly why it is ridiculous to have images like this around in the public mind as something historically possible:


If someone were to actually wear this, they could die quite easily in at least one of two ways:
1. Get their chest hit by a blunt weapon of some kind, which would then force the inwardly-pointed part of the breastplate into their sternum, crushing their chest.
2. Find sharp pointy weapons sliding right into that convenient armour-cleavage and catching, and piercing, right into the chest.

Figure on Right: Probably going to live.
Figure on Left: Not so much.

Ah Elder Scrolls...

Much better!


With better development of firearms in the 17th century, you start to see metal plate only used to cover vital areas like the chest and head. I'm reminded of the armour shown in the English Civil War films I've seen.

So, in conclusion, the full-body Plate armour that we see in the late Middle Ages and onward was about 40-50 pounds (18 to 23ish kilos) but the individual pieces were strapped to the unique parts of the body (forearms, upper arms, chest, legs, helmet, etc.) and attached together in such a way that it did not hamper the wearer too much due to weight nor majorly effect your flexibility. After all this soulless Wikipedia stuff I found this cool website as well, feel free to peruse the FAQs!
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm

Interestingly enough, "chain mail" is in fact a pleonasm (like "black darkness", or "burning fire", or "see with one's eyes"). Mail is armour made of small chains of metal linked together. Therefore, "Plate mail" is not a real thing.
To be sure, "plated mail" is a type of armour found mostly in Asia and the Middle East and is simply mail with little bits of plate linked into it like so:


A little more obvious is the trivia that the grooves sometimes seen down the middle of a blade are not "blood channels" but were simply used to lighten the blade without significantly weakening it.

Whoa. I need to sleep!

Nice work, Forest! I was wondering looking at your multiple posts so early in the morning what was keeping you up. Though by Bluebottle's standards I suppose it's early enough to be considered late instead, late enough for a beer!

Good digging Forest- fascinating read.

Thanks for taking the time to type all of that up, Forest! It's a really interesting read. I knew that my terminology was not very precise, so I appreciate the extra explanation.

Even with all that it weighed about 33-55 pounds. That might seem like quite a lot, but despite the tiring effects of it, that weight is spread across your whole body evenly, which would really alleviate how much it would cramp your maneuverability. Importantly here Eldo, you wouldn't wear full-body plate armour over mail. One or the other, generally.

I must have picked this up from movies or games or something. That makes sense, though.

Well we should make the distinction between full-plate armour and partial-plate armour.
As you saw with the Janissary mail you could certainly include some plate on your mail.

With full-body plate, I would imagine it would be redundant to also wear mail underneath. In addition, it would be terribly heavy and extremely uncomfortable. I think what they wore was generally heavy-padded clothing underneath that would help cushion blows to their body (I mean, if you think about it, having solid metal around your body, and having that solid metal get hit by heavy things is close to asking for said metal to be crushed into your vitals).

But consider all the armour we see in Lord of the Rings (and here I'm sure you know more about all the Plate Vs. Mail debate than I do):
Here's a post on TOR.N about Sauron's stuff:
Nerdgasms over Sauron's Cool Stuff
It's nifty stuff. Importantly, he is wearing pretty much full plate over mail.

Anyway, I looked through the various peoples of the film:

Rohirrim:

You see several of the older and young at Helm's Deep in a simple mail shirt as the figure in the middle is wearing. But then there's also this fishscale mail on the figure on the left. This type is old and has been used in lots of places. Basically you attach a whole ton of little plate scales to a backing of leather or some such and to eachother.
It's better against bludgeoning damage than mail is, making it, I suppose, preferable if you're on horseback and going to ride into a hammer or something real hard.

Frodo Side-Note:

Then we come to Eomer on the right: He seems to be wearing this same stuff:

He's wearing a mail shirt that ends halfway up his thighs. Apparently a fishscale skirt, as well as a plate cuirass, and plate on his forearms, shoulders and the front of his lower legs.

Gondorion stuff: More decorate plate on the Guards of the... The name eludes me!


Overall, just big-ass shoulder-guards on everyone.


I looked up shoulder-guards, or pauldrons as the French cowards would have us call them, and when armour lacked a besagew (those metal discs located in front of the armpits that look like handy little lance-targets) the pauldrons would sometimes be winged instead (I think that's the term for it).

I was thinking that maybe the pauldrons on the Gondorian armour were so big-looking so as to achieve the same effect as the besagew, which protected the arteries found in the armpit from stabbing. I'm not so certain however: they might just be for show.
I mean, look how much neater and compact this medieval piece looks compared to the honking-big pauldrons in LotR:


Aragorn undergoes a clear transition that kind of mimics the scale (heheh) of the battles of the trilogy:
Classy leather garments --> Mail and Boromir's forearm-things --> Mail and plate by the end of RotK (I can't remember seeing his cuirass, or chestpieces I mean, in the final battle. But he certainly had a shnazzy looking bell-shaped cuirass by the coronation scene.



The Uruks of Orthanc wear a similar partial-Plate-over-mail to what we've seen already.

Overall, none of it is full-body plate armour. Pretty much everyone wears mail, but then also wears at least some pieces of plate on top of that.
I'm trying to find historical equivalents. There's something called the Churburg style, as shown here:

This is earlier on in the Middle Ages, more 14 century, and before plate had been fully developed.

So I suppose, more than anything, the armour in the Lord of the Rings films ranges from very old mail and fishscale, to a style most similar to early Middle Ages plate, at which point full-body plate had not yet been perfected and it was easier, and cheaper, to simply slap some pieces of plate over the top of a mail shirt.

quite another to say that mail like he has can protect your organs from the full force of a spear crushing you down at the hand's of a cave troll. - Forest

Because PJ prefers spectacle. In the book its an orc who thrusts the spear not a ginormous troll, and the mail is backed by leather, and it doesnt fully protect him, it only protects him from the piercing damage, he is badly bruised and winded however and says he feels like he has been caught between a hammer and the anvil.

Yes I do remember thinking of that change as being especially confusing as concerns the force of the blow.
I might be thinking of the Bakshi dub , I mean version, but doesn't Frodo in the book get stabbed by the spear while standing away from the wall? Otherwise even the force of an orc-chieftan's thrust if Frodo had his back against something solid must have broken something.
The mithril coat is mail in the book, right? I'm going to go double-check on that!
Edit:
I believe Gandalf describes it as a "shirt of mithril rings".

If Oberyn taugth us anything it's that you don't need armour.

Helmet might be a good idea though.

Or some goggles.

Really though, there's a difference between single-combat and running around a battlefield with no real armour on.

Depending on the period, I think a lot  of battle armour was intended at least partially as protection against archers.  Skill at arms could protect a person in direct combat, but flights of arrows descending from above called for more general protection.

Helmets and shields of some kind were like hats and umbrellas in a heavy rain. Don't leave home without them!

I have a book on military technology.  Knights never approved of archers.  No matter how good you were with a sword, some cheeky bugger could still nail you from 50 yards away.  Took all the fun out of warfare.

halfwise wrote:I have a book on military technology.  Knights never approved of archers.  No matter how good you were with a sword, some cheeky bugger could still nail you from 50 yards away.  Took all the fun out of warfare.

I guess it's much the same way today, only now the archers are drones

halfwise wrote:I have a book on military technology.  Knights never approved of archers.  No matter how good you were with a sword, some cheeky bugger could still nail you from 50 yards away.  Took all the fun out of warfare.

Exactly, what is this madness? Peasants with bows killing off the nobility? Bad form indeed!

Forest Shepherd wrote:Exactly, what is this madness? Peasants with bows killing off the nobility? Bad form indeed!

It got even worse with the introduction of firearms.

"Abraham Lincoln freed all men, but Samuel Colt made them equal."

Where did you get that quote from? An NRA banner!

19th century marketing slogan, I believe.