Evolution of swords through the middle ages
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- čas přidán 27. 01. 2016
- The medieval period in Europe lasted 1,000 years; A lot can change in that period of time and, with warfare being a fact of life, swords saw significant changes throughout the Middle Ages.
The companion video to this one, the evolution of armor, can be found here: • Evolution of Armour th...
Now nobody wears armor. The sword is relevant once again.
People carry knives. That's basically a small sword.
@@jobdylan5782 knives are for pussies
@@legostarwarsbattledroid5272 personally I carry a 2 handed longsword everywhere I go. Can't say how effective it is as everyone runs away from me screaming as soon as they see me and everytime i drop my kids off at school i get tazed by the police. Just the price of being a REAL MAN and carrying a REAL weapon
But... pistols...
@@Legitpenguins99 dude you do it all wrong. Your supose to slice the taser in 2
10:05 It wasn't a scream, it was a battle cry!
damn, I can't like this comment, and that makes me sad.
What is better than a twohanded sword? I was sure he was going to say "a threehanded sword". LOL
Christopher Silverberg a gun?
whats better than a two handed sword? even bigger two handed sword! but what would be EVEN better? buster sword! boom! myth busted, buster sword IS THE BEST SWORD EVER
ParanoeX worst* I think you meant worst.
A two hand and a leg sword
TWO two-handed swords!
I'm a fantasy authour and this man is my main refference.
I'm trying to become one and he's certainly very helpful!
@@Yarblocosifilitico I was but I'm more historical fiction now
Your not a fantasy author. You Henry the 8th.
Hi Henry the 8th do you have a male hier is
@@pilotfg4612 kinda
Maybe swords didn't evolve. Maybe they were intelligently designed. Did you think of that? Did you, Shad?
Gewgulkan Suhckitt 😂😂😂 I applaude you
@@jkosch yeah, evolution needs some kind of _selection_ to work.
The best ones become prominent, and the worst either disappears or adapts. That could be because no one would use a not-optimal sword, or because not-optimal creatures die.
In nature, you could even call it a _natural selection._
(Though I'm not sure what would it be called in sword's case)
@@jairomenares2089 manual selection, or just selection. I guess
@@Yumao420 Artificial selection. That's the term for someone or something deliberately selecting desirable traits instead of letting them develop at random. It's how we managed to get the many different breeds of dogs to descend from wolves.
it was designed, anything that serves a specific purpose had to be designed, just like cells, and proteins in our body ;)
My desire to buy a sword has gone up dramatically since I started watching your channel
Oh my god SAME
Just got one 😂 a Viking style sword.Happy with it. Quite heavy,will build up the wrist and forearm training with it. Definitely not a lightweight sword.Made for abuse.
And once pommels are removable they make a deadly weapon to end one rightly.
hahaha +skallagrim
+Sloth Of Rivia haha u failed to tag him
yup
skall is the best
It is said that if two pommels hit each-other mid-flight, they create a singularity that will suck end the universe. They are weapons of great power.
3:00 THAT'S MY DAD! DUDE! THAT IS MY DAMN DAD!
looks like a cool dad. Learn the craft if you can!
Awesome! Looks like my grandfather
5:44 If you're using a sword for self defense, then you likely won't be carrying a shield around. And in that case, you might as well use a longer sword for more reach.
MC Wren and you probably won’t be wearing gauntlets
Who uses a sword for self defence? Neckbeards?
I think that the invention of armour signifies an era where you wouldn't have militia's but professional armies and knights. They would have more training and it would make sense investing more material into their sword, especially given that their weapons have to be more effective than the swords already out there. But this correlates with Shad's statement about the redundancy of shields and the second hand freeing up, so good job I guess.
Wouldn't that be more cumbersome?
Buckler
You could have mentioned the devellopment of the grip and pommel as well. AFAIK the first swords had a H-shaped grip so that it could be pressed against the roundshield. Kiteshields required more parrying with the sword, thus the guard got bigger and the grip longer and the pommel changed to a medallion. This enabled more wristmovement and thus other guard positions. Later pear-shaped pommels appeared and the finger was often put on the ricasso changing the blade allignment even futher to the thrust.
Well nobles might be using Longswords without armor merely because that's what they had grown accustomed to on the battlefield. It could also be the result of wanting to carry something that would be more effective AGAINST armor as well.
Also the way you where talking about the Falchion as a commoners sword made me think about the way slashing and thrusting swords where seen in ancient china... With the more crude single edged broadswords being easier to train people in, and thus a commoners weapon, with the slinder thrusting blades being an experts weapon, and thus associated exclusively with the nobility.
A commoner carrying a two edged sword is going to hurt himself. Swords are dangerous to wield. One must know the Way. As in the literal, physical path gravity is going to take something at any instance. Prohibition wouldn't have been to shame non-professional troops and reinforce social status. Don't want to kinkshame, but peoplx in today's astronomically stratified bdsm scene of a society are just projecting with that crap.
The shad people watch: *porn*
The shad I watch: *swords*
@Guacamole Nigga Penis shadman Vs shadiversity
Wtf
The main thing I love about this channel is that he dives right into the topic and has an organized talk about it. He doesn't get side tracked easily and doesn't spend a minute trying to explain a statement like other CZcamsrs
I think the minimalist early hand guards were to keep your hand from going onto the blade when you thrust the sword into something/someone, not stop a blade from hitting your hand. If you use a shield and don't parry with a sword you don't need a hand guard to protect from that direction, but if you have no guard at all you can wind up holding a blade if you stab into something tough. Once you start parrying with the sword you really need hand protection.
12:36 this is why estoc is bestoc.
Dark Souls 3 PvP flash backs
R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 (Win)
WOO check out mah skillz!
Ferret Prince new update makes estoc parryable with medium shields after the second strike.
Well we have the Crow Quills now
what rings u got bithc >:v?
Im using this information for a video game I'm making, and I appreciate all the wonderful insights here. Thanks!
Subscribed. This is SO good. And your since of humor is lovely! Thank you!
10:02 Unironic jumpscare warning.
Another very well researched and put together video Shad! I just have one thing that you missed when noting potential reasons for the evolution of swords, and that is the improvements in steel production. Obviously I know you are familiar with the topic, but I feel that it would have been worthwhile to note in this video how the improvements in steel from Viking Era swords to later medieval swords made it more common for blades to bind (since the steel could much better take blade on blade contact) which would have made hand protection more important.
Then as steel continues to improve, you are able to make swords that are longer and thinner while still being structurally sound, which may have been one of the reasons for the development of the longsword over the arming sword and later on the rapier.
Wow both this and "evolution of armour through the middle ages" came out on my birthday. Odd two of my favorite medevialy oriented subscriptions release similarly named vids at the same time...that's amazing! Thanks for the vid!
Food for thought: china made double-edged weapons basically for as long as we have records. BUT fairly late into their overall history (~Tang dynasty) suddenly there was a like whole-culture-wide shift to single edged weapons, which puzzled scholars for a while until they found various documents etc discussing how smiths and quartermasters etc discovered that making a strong single edge with a nice thick spine meant you could use the spine for edge-to-edge defense, was VASTLY easier and waaaaaay faster to produce, thus could be mass produced for the common soldier, and didnt take anywhere near as much training. and so if you look at a Han era jian, it's a big hefty chopping thick CHOP! SMASH! sword. Then the Jian (like arming swords it has a bajillion variations, but the standard was actually basically an arming sword too with a slightly longer handle and thinner blade to make it a little bit faster) the jian shows up, and is popular for ages and ages, with various design tweaks. Then suddenly, tang dynasty jians are... basically just a jian but the second edge is pounded into a nice sturdy spine, instead of also sharpened.
(Which eventually got imported to japan, lead to katanas which then made them curved, etc etc)
But I think that is a really interesting bit of logic, cuz it kinda reminds me of the soviets' 20th century thought. "It doesnt need to be an incredible weapon, just a good kill and mass produced" and suddenly, tang jian everywhere. And then they took that single edge idea +the jian being a thinner lighter han idea = sabers. Big wide blade slicey choppy sabers, the "ox tail" being very common and the one you'd most likely recognize. They were so light and simple they were sometimes even issued in pairs for dual wielding, vaguely like sword and buckler actually. If you were crap at the skill, you still had something in your off-hand to block, and if you bothered to practice a bit, you had SLICEY DICEY.
Personally, I dont like sabers, but I completely see the logic when it comes to outfitting a large army, most of whom wont have the time to properly train. So give them something K.I.S.S. designed. (Keep It Simple n Stupid). Learning to use a proper jian or han was a lifelong effort (believe me, I know .__. ) but a saber was just like swing a utility knife, food knife, farming blades, even an axe. Just swing, and the shape and weight distribution does most of the work for you. So for massed barely trained infantry? It was the AK47 of antiquity.
:) fun food for thought re: why weapons change over time. Sometimes its more social reasons than technological limits or advances.
sverd literaly means sword in Danish. since Danish is my second language and currently the one i speak the most everyday it just sounds to me like you're saying i call this type of sword a sword.
not a critique as i don't mind it, it's just something i find abit amusing.
but great video.
Indeed! It seems like most sword names simply means "sword" in some weird native language where it was invented.
Same with German.
Schwert means sword.
yea norwegain too, sverd means sword. TRIGGERD
katana literaly translates to 1 edged sword.
yea usually in English, one refers to a regional type of sword by that regions name for sword, as many swords don't have specific names.
my goodness. that reaction when he pops up on screen had me in stitches. you guys are very informative
I love these two Videos 😂
very interesting presentation and topic :) good work guys
Thomas: Hey, Shad!
Shad: (screams loudly)
me: (screams even louder)
Having already seen the evolution of armor before this, I need to see an evolution of the shield video.
all in all not bad i especially resonated with your idea of design changes to the blade. well done very enjoyable
One of best channels about medieval weaponry i saw
Your pronunciation of Svärd is admirable.
"Wibbely wobbely timey wimey"... from where do i know that? o.ô
Both of your vids are nice. :)
+Blank- blade Dr. Who :)
Blank- blade sounds like the doctor gave you a prescription for adventure.
Could be a troper, as well.
Blank- blade doctor whooooooooooo
Dr who? NANI? allonsy
Excellent Lecture, just the job!
This was my favorite video of yours so far. I'm new to the channel.
I’m going to theorize that handles starting getting longer before two handed swords. Perhaps it benefited people when their shields broke and evolved from that.
This could start as small handles restricting the ability to move the wrist and so handles started to get longer. Then there eventually became enough room to add a second hand when needed. Thus the “hand and a half” swords. Combined with armor improvement and this could easily lead to creation of 2 handed swords.
However, it must be noted that swords were becoming more popular as well. Not only were they getting cheaper but more craftsmen were capable of making them which would allow for more exploration. Add to this increasingly better steel and the fact that rich people needed a way to distinguish their swords from the increasingly common sword-wielding lower classes.
You should link to the companion video in the description. Mobile can't click through videos.
+Justin Raulinaitis Done and done ^_^
+I am Shad thanks. Your link is on his video now, too.
Thank you good presentation
skal brought me here, so glad i found this channel!
Nice video, just a few remarks:
1) The *pommel shape* had a huge influence on the way swords were used:
a. *H type* guards allowed the sword to be pressed against the flat of the _roundshield_. The swords were _too soft or
brittle to parry_ and thin points would damage too fast.
b. Sturdier _kiteshields_ could not be held with an outstretched arm, thus making sword parries more important. With
the more stationary shield, thrusts became more important and to get through gambeson you needed a more acute
point. The pommel became heavier to shift the balance so that you can hold the sword outstretched for longer and
the *rounded shape* of the pommel allowed bending the wrist
c. With tiny shields or without any shields, parrying with the sword and keeping enemies at bay using the tip becomes
even more important. Mail required very stiff and pointy swords. The pommel was now *round* or even *pearshaped*
so that it has even less of a tendency to bang against your wrist. They were also comfortable enough to use as
_bastard swords_.
2) *Falchion* didn’t develop from swords but rather from messer. In many places even low-borns were able to possess swords, but were _not allowed to carry_ them. However, they were able to carry knives and daggers. The messer became more and more like shortswords and proved to be very effective cutters and backup weapons. At that point they probably gave up
any pretence of being a knife, but a blade worthy of a battlefield. Hence, _grossmesser, kriegsmesser_ and _falchions_ were born. Lame excuses about carrying them within cities were probably useless at this point. However, it might be that blacksmiths were allowed to make messer, but not swords, due to _guild interference_.
3) The *point of balance* doesn’t matter much, when fighting full plate armour, since you would use _halfswording_ (grabing the blade with one hand).
4) Another key aspect was the *quality of the steel*, the achieved heat and the homogenous temperature of the forge. Otherwise larger plates, rapiers and greatswords would have been impossible.
5) In civilian context, it doesn’t matter much, if you defend yourself with a sword without shield or with a longsword. Longswords, are nearly as fast as arming swords, but have a superior reach, cut better and allow a superior bind/strong parry. The disadvantage of carrying them is, their size, clunkieness and the limited mobility in a fight (you can’t lunge as far and some angles become impossible)
Problem is with point #2 is that first falchions appear around 1200, first Bauenwehr appear ca. 1350, first messer appear ca. 1380-1400.
In civilian context having a two-handed weapon is always at advantage, you can recover better and well two-handed weapons are a tad bit faster than one-handed weapons.
I personally think the reasoning for the fact that noblemen kept using their longswords even without armour for self defense situations is twofold: For one this was the weapon they were used to anyway. Plus, as a standalone sidearm, it is superior in most situations to a one-handed sword alone. Secondly, in a civilian context all weapons of war, such as a proper shield, are out of the equasion. Yes, you could strap a buckler to your belt, but in my experience, buckler and sword does not provide a clear advantage to a longsword either. In sum, I would dismiss the use of longswords in unarmoured context as a counterargument for the theory that the longsword came into existence because of plate armour.
spectacular video! And yes indeed I did click to watch the "Evolution of Armour" video. Thank you!
great video
You know armor never stopped evolving. We still use armor today just smaller and more efficient. The same could be said for knifes to. I would be really interested in a video about the evolution of knifes.
it stoped for a while around the 1700 and 1800s
Robert Harris I realise this is a late comment but that's not exactly true. Heavy cavalry retained armour for quite some time & the space between Helmets like the Pith Helmet & this heavy cavalry armour is non-existent or quite small.
Knives....plural
I love how corny the collaborations are. Keep it up.
Nice video. Swords are awesome I love checking out the weapons and armour the times I’ve been to stately homes and museums
New to your channel. It's actually really cool
I may sound psychopathic, but would anyone else prefer guns never to be invented, like everything about life was 2016-, but everything warfare was medieval and previously? No?
Guns robbed the nobility of there privileges by being easy to learn and inexpensive. The nobility kept their power for so long because they were able to spend most of their time and much of their money into superior survival chances in a fight/war. So no thanks. I would rather not live in the midle ages and I'm glad I do have rights and am not some filthy peasant serving his lord.
+Dakuffa I think he meant fighting war using Medieval swords and weapons instead of guns, in the current year
+WHATTHEFUCKEIDOS yes Allright. but today's society is the way it is because the gun was invented. Fighting wars with swords would only work in a timeline where guns had never been invented - with all the implementations mentioned above
+Dakuffa Yes we love to larp about being in the middle ages or anywhere back in time but the truth is that it would most definitely be a shitty existence unless you were lucky enough to be some kind of King or noble.
No I like what we live like today
Why call it sverd? It is just the scandinavian word for sword.
Why call a longsword longsword?
It's literally the English word for a long sword.
Why call a katana Katana? It's literally just the Japanese word for sword.
Zweihänder - Two-hander
its svärd in swedish :)
Because it's Scandinavian, and it's different, so it's a sverd.
Hey Shad. Love your content. Can you do a video commenting on all the weapons in Bloodborn?
At 14 38 you have a picture of one of my swords on the background. Nice!
What I really want to think about is how the sword might have continued to evolve without things like gunpowder and other things that made them obsolete. With that in mind, I don't think things like rapiers would have evolved as soon, if at all.
First of all you both did a great job here, good structure, many informations in a reasonable timeframe and very entertaining.
But so many things I want to adress are floating in my head right now. I will at some point reply to both, yours and Medieval Reviews video, just to ask some questions, point things out and of course give my own view on the subjects.
However I want to say one thing here, the appearence of handguns (firearms in general were actually around for a good amount of time in Europe, the earliest evidence we have is the from the 14th century) certainly led to a quickly disband of heavy armour, but the true downfall of the sword as a more primary weapon and also of the knight as troops were the (re)appearance of well organised and drilled infantry. The Swiss mercenaries actually didn't used firearms that much or even not at all they prefered crossbows (and they had big victories against knight armies), while firearms were more of a Landsknecht-thing, later on Spanish and Italian mercenaries also adopted those. But even there the firearm troops were in a supportive role and a counter against very heavy armoured troops. Melee combat was still the primary tactic and they had a diversity of polearms against heavy armour, most famously the halberd. After firearms became more widespread armours improved and coped with the power of guns, but the simple answer was to increase the size of the handgun and so the musket was born and at this point it was useless to build full plate armour, because they were still expensive. After that we enter a whole new chapter of military history.
Like always I talk to much, like I said I will adress some points in more detail but not in the next days, hopefully see you there. :D
Hey Shad. People like you, Rafaello, Matt... Have convinced me to pick up HEMA. Next week I will go take a look, the week after I will take part in 2 days (30.f'ing hours) of the Evolution of Combat (unarmed). Pygmanchia, bare knuckle boxing, Olympic Boxing and then a new defensive style. After that, I'm joining the school permanently. Thanks to you all for lighting my passion for history to a physical art. I'm truly grateful. Also, SWORDS!
11:14
Shad you absolutely flipping Legend
That’s it
You’re in my top 3 youtubers now
Oh yeah, the video was nice too
😂😂😂
I put your channel on push notifications- I don't even have pewds on push notifications... you are awesome.... so stay awesome. Bro fist.... wait.... no... stay awesome. Yes, that will do nicely
Yes.
Same
I can't stand pewdipie
8:14 looks a lot like steel armor in Oblivion.
Think it's the other way around. The armour was before Oblivion
naaah, i think priests and shamans were earlu biological modems that connected to the internet of the future, where they got most of thier inspirations from.
I love this video!
niooce co op there Shad! i saw the title and I was out to for disagreement because I know how hard this can be to agree on, but I didn't end up with much to argue with u about. good job.
Your accent sounds like a mix between an Australian and a Bostonian.
+CarnalKid Yeah, my accent is weird, even to Australians.
I am Shad Oh, thank god you're actually Australian. After I posted that, I thought "Wait, what if that's not the base accent at all?".
Shadiversity my friend has the exact same accent as you
Australian and Bostonian do sound similar. "Here" "there" "where" all sound the same in both
Oh my god i thought i was the only one thinking that
My thoughts:
Transition from Viking style swords to Norman style swords: Entirely down to changes to other equipment. The large round shields fell out of favor with the introduction of knights able to penetrate those shields with a lance charge. The heavier shield held more closely to the body required changes to the sword because the shield could no longer be used to protect the hand during a strike.
Longsword: It's not even a long stretch. People used the Daneaxe without any additional armor protection. Clearly, armor only plays a secondary role. The main reason that the longsword emerged at the time it did? Because they couldn't do it earlier. Quite frankly, the technology to make such a long sword just wasn't around.
Falchion: Ease of use and cutting power is one explanation. Logistics is another one. It's far easier to balance a single edged sword because you have all that thick spine to work with. This means less skilled weaponsmiths can create it, which in turn means that it will be cheaper to produce.
+naphackDT Frankly there are finds of early longswords as far as the late 11th century but it didn't become prominent until plates on the armor started to appear (14th century)
naphackDT Norman shields could stop a a sword or axe blow but not prolonged blowed to them nothing is damage proof .
I remember seeing those charts used in this video, and the sister video by Medieval Review, in a very old encyclopedia set growing up. It was from a World book Encyclopedia dating to the 1920's - so old it called WWI "The Great War", for example. Both charts were present, and I remember spending hours analyzing them when I was bored. This was the late 70's, so of course there was no Internet, and Pong wasn't that exciting being played solo...
Will you make a video devoted to greatswords specifically? Where they came from, how effective they were ect? I'd love to find out more about them from you.
It is 2019 I clicked but it didn’t work
They need hand protection because of...
Jedis
(Im serious)
(Many amputation moves)
Fair to that but there are not that many things that can resist Light Sabre strikes.
Hypothetically even if someone did wore Light Sabre Resistant armour what is to stop the jedi from simply striking the armour until the person inside gets affected by the heat?
Great video
Even though i am not a big fan of "Knighty stuff" i watch your videos just because your talking style, you make uninteresting (for me) stuff interesting. Love that.
"EVEN BIGGER TWO HANDED SWORD"
Falchion. I can see the design there. Maybe it was a civilian legal technical loophole, just a big knife. But what I see is civilians aren't walking around with armour and shields. So the thick, strong blunt side is used for blocking.
If I remember right, the other name for a falchion, the 'messer' literally is just German for 'Knife'
And it basically was. A giant knife.
Or dealing with you civilian opponent without committing full on murder. Rurouni Kenshin style. ;)
Messer and falchion are two different things, Shad has a video(series) about it, check it out. In short messer has different handle design and appeared later in history.
The ultimate Crocodile Dundee quote.
Even though when swords got banned messer were banned as well. (mostly because the laws mentioning that swords AND knives over certain length cannot be carried by outsiders)
swords are useless! Do a video about pommels and ENDING HIM RIGTHLY
At the Graz armoury in Austria they said the "zweihander" was mainly used to chop heads off of pikes. Teams of men in threes would volunteer to move up to the enemy and chop off the heads of pikes in the phalanx this creating holes in the enemy line.
1:39
schwert is german and basically meand sword... lol
That's the point.
This dude is wearing a superman T-shirt,wearing a vest over it,sitting on a throne,and talking about swords.
Wut?
A true king, to end us rightly.
Trust me, you got used to it
@@zachnerdydude6605 and indeed I did.
That was awesome shad, having you and Mr. Riley from medieval reviews work together is one of the best things ever, you both are very talented knowledgeable and entertaining please collaborate more.
+robert paulson We plan to in the future. I'm honored you like mate.
"it was a good," Nice grammar.
Maybe he's Italian
THERE NEEDS TO BE A CONTINUATION OF THIS VIDEO AND THE ONE FROM MEDIEVAL REVIEW!!! IT IS AMAZING....I think there need to be a continuation that starts at the late medieval and early renaissance, and then continues through the colonial period and early Victorian period which is where swords are almost practically unexistant. that would be awesome. Also maybe there could be a "prequel" video about the evolution of swords from ancient Greece Egypt and rome all the way to early medieval period!
Estoc is so overpowered in Dark Souls 3 ._.
A great video, if slightly cringe in places.
if you find cringe in videos that explain things i can't imagine how school goes for you, either way cringing at shit like this is weird and stupid i can't find any reason to cringe at this
How is the Bessègue circular armor piece spelled ?!
I'm having a problem searching for info on it !!
Shad can you give the source of the image 0:05 you put on in your video first? I tried to find it for reference for personal stuff, but i can't find it.
+csaba toth libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15324coll10/id/130601 I hope that helps
I am Shad
Thanks!
Oh! And i love your show. I am a big fan of medieval fantasy novels, and i love videos like what you, Skallagrim, and others are making.
what about the rapier!? you just kind of mentioned it then shrugged it off
+enpeithi west Unfortunate I couldn't go into full detail on all the swords otherwise the video would go for two hours, a very real possibility considering myself. I also had to skip over many facts about the falchion. I'll be doing individual videos on individual swords giving them the attention they all deserve one by one.
+I am Shad to be perfectly honest I think a lot of your fans (myself included) would watch that two hour video.
+enpeithi west And that is absolutely awesome, truly I'm blown away by that. Thanks heaps mate!
+I am Shad thank you for these incredible videos! I never considered myself to be interested in swords and general medieval weaponry but now thanks to you I know that sword are truly awesome!
+enpeithi west +I am Shad Seconding this.
What if they use repealing magnets on the plates it would have made it much harder to strike at those parts
Repelling***
for that though they'd need the swords attacking them to also be made of magnet
+φ First-order logic oh yeah ur right
But there's something interesting in your idea. Let's say I was wearing plate armor that is also magnetic and someone tried to attack me with a metal weapon. Wouldn't their weapon get stuck to my armor making it harder for them to fight?
Well you'd need one hell of a strong electrical magnet, something of that strength could definitely not be found in nature.. Besides, slashing, hacking, and basically all attacking movements were very swift and quick, at best, the attacker would just get flustered but his sword would definitely not be "stuck".
Shad, after watching your videos on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves brought about something that I recently tried look into something into and didn't find enough information to my satisfaction. Can we get a video on the evolution of Saracen and Byzantine arms (and armor if Medieval Review is ok with touching on the subject)?
Great video, I really enjoyed watching!!
One thing I never got really straight: Why was better hand protection not developed / invented much earlier? (I know Matt Easton did a vid about this)
I mean, they invented and used devices in the middle ages which construction and development took quite a bit of technical understanding and knowledge.
Compared to that: to add something like one or two nagel(s) or even a knuckelbar to a sword is so very obvious and simple! One could imagine that a soldier who got hit in the hand once (or even only feared that this could happen) would immediatly come to the solutione to add something like a a knucklebar or a second short cross bar to his sword. Even more so, cause not having to be worried about your hands would give you much more variability in your fighting style and therefore an advantage
In my opinion there is NO WAY that nobody hit on that idea for HUNDREDS of years, there must be other reasons they did not adopt better handprotection earlier
Maybe it was important that the sword remained a pure symbol for the cross?
Or, at least with a knucklebar, you could not just turn around the blade and use the second egde of your sword when the other got dulled?
Maybe someone would like to give his / her ideas to that, would appreciate it..
It's there (usually), just less obvious. A Gladius still has a measure of hand protection, a circular guard that very nicely lines up with the circular shape one's hand forms when gripping a sword. That's usually all you need, it also gives the advantage of making a Gladius even easier to make, transport, carry etc. Earlier swords were also typically designed to be used with large shields, something that, as Shad would tell us, went away in the later medieval period, and shields can easily be used to prevent an opponent's weapon from sliding down the length of your blade. The change wasn't that hand protection was invented: It was the circular guards being swapped out for cross guards. You'll notice most Eastern sources have Circular guards, so it's fair to say that both 'do the trick' well enough, or we'd have seen the eventual spread of Cross-guards into more of Asia if they were indeed 'better'.
Swerd is norvegian for sword!(viking swor)
Back in middle high german it was "swert". It really is interesting to compare different languages of the same family. You can really see that there has been a point at which they were very close, to the point where there may very well have been a single ancestral language.
+Asrashas yeah it existed look up indo European
+Asrashas all modern European languages descend from it
Development is the word you should be using. Evolution is an unthoughtful and unguided process.
+fredo1070 I agree ^_^
+I am Shad There is no real reason to suggest that the two-handed sword was not developed because of developments in armor, just because nobles would use the sword for self defense wearing no armor, on the contrary. This would be an expensive sword, and would initially primarily be the sword of nobles, however, nobles obviously did not wear armor all the time, but would still carry the sword associated with nobility and power, hence you find instances of nobles wearing the sword with no armor. That being said, I believe the common theory is that the two-handed sword was developed not because of developments in armor, but because cavalry became more common, and you needed a longer and heavier sword to fell a horse or reach the rider on its back.
***** That is a really good point too!
not its not...development has a final goal in mind...evolution or the result which is natural selection is that things fit to conditions and can counter balance changes in the environment...and thats how it went with swords as well...changes to counter problems faced...and changes due to changes by others...evolution in this context is teh correct word
To be honest, evolution is a guided process of random events, so evolution in terms of swords through the ages are a correct term for that process.
Development would suggest that there was one single individual/country/religion or such like it that pushed the design towards a specific goal.
15:00 Maybe also that the swept hilt looked fancy and at that time period, your status and look went hand in hand. So it became a sort of a fashion.
I remember hearing somewhere that the falchion was developed to hack through light armor (eg. leather vest, gambeson, riveted mail etc)
someone call it viking sword,but i like to call IT SWIEIEIWWIIUAURDAUYA!
you Made my day
Couldn't quite tell if he said "svärd" or "Sverige" there :-)
No one:
Shad: *Sverd*
Not meaning to throw shade but it's something I thought you should know, it's "in regard to", not "in regards to". Just noticed how often you say it and thought you might want to know. Love all your videos and this one especially. Keep it up!
Nice video Shad, but I could have used some time references. I would like to know how long it was between sword design and sword design
Don't call it a Sverd because it's not scandinavian. This type of sword was used all over Europe.
+Patrick Pienne + the word "svärd" just means any fricking sword.
brottarnacke I know, but it infers it scandinavian, cause it's a norse word. So it's not better then calling it a viking sword.
+Patrick Pienne its the same logic of calling a katana as such. which literaly means one sided sword.
isnt the correct term seax?
+Strife Rixa no a seax was basically a long knife and was used mostly as a tool
Sværd is pronounced with a silent d, just FYI
source: im danish
Not in Swedish, in Swedish the R would usually be dropped or have a slight roll (but not a hot potato in the mouth kind of roll as in Danish). :)
one oof the best channels about swords
shad what would be some good books or resources to learn more about medieval history?
Please never say "sverd* again.
czcams.com/video/Wyk2SJw39Z4/video.html
It was actually pretty good
Its Sværd.
Peter Asbjørn Hansen or it could be svärd depending on where you live in scandinavia
Well, "svärd" is what we call it. Sounds better than the english "sård".
The middle ages ended in 1492! And "Schwert" is just German for "sword".
Sverd just means sword in the Scandinavian languages too.
Clemens Kindermann People don't really refer to The Renaissance as a time period anymore, so much as a cultural change or event. I think this explains the disconnect over the end date of the middle ages.
CarnalKid I totally agree with you: The age of Reaissance is a fairley vague period of time in an artistic way - something between 1400 and 1600. But I mean the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of Modern history. And in a historic sense there is definitely a caesura between the late 15th and the early 16th century.
Clemens Kindermann Oh, fair enough, sounds as though I misunderstood what you meant.
As a Swede, I really like your pronunciation of "svärd", the swedish/nordic word for "sword". It was really good for a non-native Swedish speaker.
+AAA9734 Thanks mate, when I first said the word in one of my earlier videos a viewer was kind enough to correct my pronunciation.
I do amiture blacksmithing, and I think part of the reason that a longer 2 handed sword was developed was advances in forging technology, a wood forge give hot spots and cooler spots that make hammering thr sword into shape quite difficult. To have relatively circular wood forge almost 2 meters across is almost impossible to keep a solid temperature all the way through. So until lage belows and charcoal forges became the norm, it would have been very difficult to forge a long sword
Falchions could also be a development on the langseax that the Saxon fyrd used a lot and the langseax is literally "long-knife".
Could you recommend a good book on this topic please? Thanks.
There are some documents shown, one right in the beginning and another at around the 6:20 mark, where might I find those online?
1:25 - 1:42 is kind of funny for a swedish person. "Some call it the viking sword or something else, I like to call it sverd". the way he says "sverd" (I know I might get the spelling wrong), that is how we say sword in swedish spelled svärd.
So,, yes, the viking sword was indeed a svärd.
Love your videos man
i love weapons and armor I watched yours and the linked video and I found them vary entertaining a great future throw back to knights in armor and there weapons is tanks all the little advancements to give your side the edge can be seen there and the tank and the gun they cary