Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk X

[Yora]

as has been said, pure water was very rarely drunk in those time periods, due to the risk of catching something, and the lack of decent fliters to clean dirty water with (seriously, try taking a glass down to the nearest natural water supply to you, like a river or pond, and filling it up. it will be full of random crap that you don't really want to drink).

most people prefered to drink a very weak beer or wine (often only 1% ABV), since the booze would kill most of the stuff livng in the water. I am under the impression that this weak beer was even given to children, form pretty much the point they stopped drinking milk, becuase it was safer than plain water was.

I think the major health factor of beers was the fact that it was boiled while being made. But at that time nobody new that it was the boiling that did the trick, only that water makes you sick while beer doesn't.

A knigh'ts sword WAS his "back up" weapon, as his "primary" weapon was his lance. like the samuari, the sword as used when the primary weapon could not be used for whatever reason.

One very good reason was to be at home or taking a stroll through the village. You don't want to carry a spear or a bow with you all the time, but a sword tucked into the belt doesn't get into the way much. Given that swords were rather expensive and peasant soldiers could not afford them, you automatically got a quite reliable way to identify noble warriors by them, even when not wearing armor. From there is't a very simple step to codify it in the unspoken rule that for example a samurai must have the sword to be properly dressed and from there the written law that anyone else is forbidden from doing so.

I'm not sure if the sword became part of the dress code in Europe at any time. I have a hunch that probably Italians would have something similar, but then the major italian cities were Republics and I'm not sure there even were any nobles.