Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIV

[Clistenes]

@Blackhawk, Vinyadan, and Tobtor

Thanks for the answers to my squires question.

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

In Medieval/Renaissance Spain there was a kind of grey zone between true nobility and mere commoners. Being of noble blood granted you juridic and fiscal privileges, and you could enjoy them without having any title (not even squire or knight). Nobility was so strongly associated to those privileges that, in Castile, the name for commoners was pecheros, literally "tax-payers"

People could access those privileges or at least some of them by getting college degrees, jobs as bureoucrats or administrators, or serving the crown. If your family managed to live that way for several generations, people would eventually forget your low class origins and consider you noble by blood...

In some cases, whole villages, towns, cities or even whole regions could be granted those juridic and fiscal privileges, and their inhabitants would be legally considered hidalgos (nobleborn) even if nobody showed them deference or treated them as nobles...

On the other hand, for a long time caballero (knight) was sinonymous to cavalry soldier (caballero literally means "horseman"). Men could become caballeros without becoming nobility (but becoming a caballero would grant you some degree of social respect, which could in turn help to achieve true nobility). The lowest rank among caballeros were the "brown knight" or "villain knights", who were heavy cavalry who served the cities (rather than a lord) or rich peasants who got some fiscal privilege or something else in exchange for military service as cavalry. Some of them were professional raiders who made a living stealing cattle from the muslim or taking prisioners for their ransom. "Brown knights" weren't considered nobility, but they had were socially ranked above commoners, anyways...

During some period of time, rich men in Castile were required to keep a horse, mail and weapons and fight as heavy cavalry, even if they were commoners; they were called caballeros de fortuna, "knights of wealth". Like "brown knights", they weren't considered true nobility. Very soon, they were allowed to pay a special tax to avoid the fighting...

It seems that in Spain being a trained cavalry soldier was often profitable enough that it was worth meeting the material requirements, and they were enough in demand that kings were willing to show some latitude when handing out knightly ranks...

As for true nobility, they were traditionally divided among powerful landholding nobility (magnates, ricoshombres...etc., meaning "big men", "rich men"... etc.) and mere knights who served them. In Aragon's parlament there even were four states (rich, titled nobility, mere knights, churchmen and commoners) rather than three like in the rest of European parlaments (nobility, churchmen and commoners).

If you were from a knightly family, but you weren't a knight, you were still a hidalgo, "nobleborn" and enjoyed certain privileges. Besides, being soldiers, hidalgos could take a few prestigious jobs like college teachers, scholars, medical doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats... etc., without losing their social rank, but they would be demoted to pecheros ("commoners") if the stopped living like nobles and took less prestigious jobs...

During the XVI century the title of caballero became completely divorced from service as heavy cavalry, and became just an honorary title granted by the king to acknowledge valuable service (kind of like the modern British title of Sir). You couldn't be just a knight, you had to be admitted into one of the Knightly Orders (the king was the head of all knightly orders). The knights were the social rank in between mere hidalgos and titled nobility; all they got from being knights was social recognition: They could wear the sigil of their order on their clothes, and use their own coat of arms in their coach, above their door and in other places...

[Yora]

On the other hand, for a long time caballero (knight) was sinonymous to cavalry soldier (caballero literally means "horseman").

In most European languages, I believe. Even back with the Romans, the lower nobles were equites, as chevaliers in French. And German Ritter are riders.

Knight seems to be an exception, simply meaning servant or soldier. I wonder if there is any kind of connection with English knights having a greater preference for fighting on foot rather than on horse, compared to other countries of the time. (A feature of English armor is plates on the back of the legs, which other knights ommited for more comfort while riding.)

[Kiero]

The Greek hippeus was a rider as well.

Note the notion of a supporting retainer is much older than medieval, too. The ancient Greeks had the skeurophoros and hypaspistai (both of which I think meant "shield-bearer"). They could be a slave or a younger family member (nephew, cousin, son, etc) who might also be expected to carry out camp tasks on behalf of the hoplite they were supporting, as well as literally carry their shield on the march.

Republican Roman legionaries (pre-Marius) had slaves who carried their gear and managed their camp, too. One of changes in the "reform" was to banish most of the camp-followers and make the men carry their own gear and do their own chores. Fewer mouths to feed and faster movement on campaign.

[Vinyadan]

Something similar happened in Latin, when miles began meaning knight, instead of soldier.

I think that words meaning "young man" also often transfers to military. So infantry literally means "the boys". It might be both things together.

Italian used to have both cavallaio (someone who worked with horses) and cavaliere (the proper knight, deriving from the same Latin word, but imported from French).

And ancient Greek had hippeus, but it would be interesting to check how Byzantium called the western European knights. Nowadays the word is hippotes.

[Berenger]

Something similar happened in Latin, when miles began meaning knight, instead of soldier.

I think that words meaning "young man" also often transfers to military. So infantry literally means "the boys". It might be both things together.

Huh. The common explanation in germany is that it originally referred to soldiers in the service of infanta (~princess) Isabella Clara Eugenia.

[Vinyadan]

Huh. The common explanation in germany is that it originally referred to soldiers in the service of infanta (~princess) Isabella Clara Eugenia.

Much to my surprise, the first use of German Infanterie we know of was in 1616, which would be the right era. However, there already was the Italian word infanteria in 1388 (meaning footmen), and I think that it makes more sense to assume a loan from Italian to German.
English infantry comes about in the 1570s. French enffanterie 1502, infanterie 1553. Spanish infantería, well, I couldn't find the lemma in the RAE dictionary.

[Brother Oni]

Sorry for the delayed reply. The English Warbow I said before is actually 156 joules (not 160), and is found in "The Old English Warbow, parts 1&2&3" Primitive archer Volume 9, Issue 2 & Volume 9, Issue 4, written by Pip Bickerstaffe.

Unfortunately I don't have original source, although I've read other sources that quote it. (such as this one)

Looking back, maybe I should treat this as outlier as well?[

Possibly, but the (rapidly becoming infamous) Payne Galloway test of a refurbished historical crossbow reported in excess of 200 J.

I've made a mistake here as well, when I said "recurved", what I meant was "reflexed", in that the bow bends away from the user when unstrung. This allows the bow to be pre-stressed (storing energy) when strung, before it is even drawn.

For the Yumi's performance, I will just copy these quotes from Myarmoury wholesome. Note that the efficiency number is not an estimate, but just a rough outline on why Yumi outperforms longbow (of the same draw weight).

Interesting - I wasn't aware it was possible to monkey around with the force/draw curve to this extent with just natural materials - I've seen it before with fibreglass limbs and the god forsaken monstrosity of wires and cams that is the modern compound bow.

In any case, I believe I'm been proved wrong in that current crossbow reproductions currently exceed bow performance, so I stand corrected.

So if a katana has about 3 lb (about 1360 g) and uses 1060 carbon steel (density of about 7.85 g/cm3)... You'll need around 173,3 cm3 of steel. That's about 10.6 cubic inches.

Taking a katana of 1400g and assuming it's made out of homogeneous 1060 grade carbon steel for sanity's sake, that'd make it 178.3 cm³, so your maths is correct.

This estimate is a on the low side (the hilt, wrappings and other non-metallic gubbins would be lower in density, thus the sword's actual volume would be slightly higher), but it's good enough for government work.

[Martin Greywolf]

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

Not at all. Your first mistake is assuming there is such a thing as European, or even western European.

In very general term, we can say that there was a demand for men wealthy enough to fight as heavy cavalry, and that these men often were the members of whatever the local ruling class was, and therefore the word knight (or any other version usually derived from horseman) was used to refer to both of these groups, sometimes accurately, at other times less so.

How the ruling class looked like varied immensely over time as well as over regions, Hungary managed to go from zero distinction classes to about 5/6 to 4 to just 3 in about 300 years. Hungary is especially relevant here because it was the first kingdom with a secular knightly order, Order of Saint George (not to be confused with later, and much cooler, Order of the Dragon) - this was more or less a club for military allies of Charles Robert, it's referred to as "Societas militae Sancti Georgii" in orignial texts.

Secondly, meaning of words changes - a knight at first may be just mounted soldier, but look at it after a hundred years, and it may be almost purely social, with a fuzzy period in between. Medieval is a span of 1 000 years, a lot of things can change.

A more accurate statement would be that Anglo-French medieval countries used knight to refer to both social and military role in one person, and thought of anyone who wasn't a knight and fought as one as simply fighting in a knightly fashion, which didn't make him a knight, necessarily.

And we are ignoring the issue of monastic orders here altogether...

Can anyone tell me something about weapons that were used in Eastern Europe during the 13th and 14th century? There's an interesting cultural merging of central European, Byzantian, and Mongol influences, which probably had some considerable impact on weaponry as well. I know that sabers were used to some extend, which I believe didn't really play any role in Western Europe at that time.

Do I spy with my little eye my area of expertise?

Well, first a disclaimer, I mostly go into deep detailed research on Hungary during this period, so all of what I'm saying will apply to it only, unless specified.

General overview

First some context. Hungary was founded by Magyars, who were just another steppe nomad horse archer type of people, but ended up settling in the Pannonia. They made alliance with some of the local Slavic, uh, let's call them counts, mostly those of Great Moravia. After they were defeated at Lechfeld, the portion of Magyars that was into paganism and looting suffered heavy losses, and their christian, settling-inclined opponents became the leaders, with Arpad dynasty at the helm, helped by Hunt and Poznan Slavic houses.

From about 900 to 1 300 AD, Hungary was sporadically at war with Venice, Italy, HRE, Poland, Byzantium, Bulgars, Croatia and Bohemia, all the while being invaded on a regular schedule by steppe nomads. Mercenaries were recruited from all of these countries.

Now, at about 1300 AD, a big change happens - Arpad dynasty dies out and is replaced by Anjou dynasty, and Anjous die out and are replaced by Sigismund of HRE by the end of the century. That means that Hungary starts out as nomad-slavic in terms of army equipment, transitions into western style with Byzantine influences and nomad mercenaries (these were often allowed to settle in Hungary and had their own legal system, the most prominent ones were Cuimans and Siculs), and comes out as Italian with nomad mercenaries during Anjou period, and mixes HRE and Italian influences at about 1400.

Important sources

Photos of frescoes, scans of obscure Russian books with heavy soviet bent, and most gloriously, Chronica Picta. Made in 1340-1380, it has a ton of pictures and is THE source for military equipment at this time, combined with archaeology.

Daggers, axes, swords and shields

Esseentially what is used in the rest of the world, the differences are only cosmetic - slightly different shape of pommel being more common, for example.

Spoiler: Battle of Rozhanovce, Chronica Picta

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Spoiler: Felician Zah uses a baselard to try and assassinate Charles Robert, Chronica Picta

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Spoiler: St. Ladislaus with a poleaxe, Chronica Picta

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This next one is especially interesting, not only does it have a ballock dagger and an axe, it also has an action girl.

Spoiler: St. Ladislaus wrestles with a Cuiman, Veľká Lomnica, Slovakia, 1310

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Spoiler: St. George kills the dragon, Poniky, Slovakia, 1415

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Budget swords

The term for these is long knives, or war knives, and they were just that - longer versions of knives. Proper messers and dussacks start to appear only after 1400. I don't thinka nyone makes replicas of these, and there is only archaeological evidence, scroll down in this pdf for a general idea. The early models before 1350 have no side attachments/nagel/sidering.

Armor

Standard issue mail, coat of plates and plate cuirass, legs and arms, as the time went on. One interesting thing to note is that Hungarian heavy cavalry had an unusually high number of horses armored in metal (probably mail), if Venetian travellers are to be believed.

This applies to nomad heavies as well, their lighter armor did often use leather lamellar armor. Steel lamellar was not really used at this time, being replaced by coat of plates.

Spoiler: Cuiman armor c1220, this years' Nitrawa, the guy wearing it is a historian specializing in Cuimans

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One unusual facet of Hungarian armor is that there were many more nobles who chose to fight in a visor-less helmet, or with just a coif and a crevelliere, which at times was mistaken for them fighting without helmets. This was no longer case by 1400.

The helmet types are mostly Italian, you start with crevelliere and great helmet at 1200 and end with visored bascinet. Other helmets used include, very prominently, kettle hat.

Spoiler: CHarles Robert in a kettle hat, Chronica Picta

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Maces

First significant difference, these were used more often than in the west. Your basic bronze bulava, with sometimes hollowed out head filled with lead.

Spoiler: Common versions

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Spoiler: Bulava in use, to see how big/small it is

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Sabres

Yah. This is the big one. Avars brought sabres to Europe, Magyars brought them again, and they remained a popular weapon in Hungary, going as far as to make hand and a half sabres that you can see in Chronica Picta. There were two general types, cavalry and fencing sabres, with cavalry sabres being cutting beasts with point of balance further from the hilt, often not bothering with a false edge, while the infantry ones had more refined balance and false edge, sometimes raised into what is now known as yelman, sometimes not, and at other times even having a point like arming sword.

The latter - arming sword tip - is best exemplified in so called sabre of Attila or sabre of Charlemange - in reality, it was made in Hungary, likely in 11th century, and was pilfered with the rest of the state treasury during Arpad-Anjou interregnum. Be careful when researching it, Cold Steel made a replica, the original has a band with gems on the grip.

Spoiler: Sabre of Charlemange

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Spoiler: Replica of sabre found in Karos-Eperjeszög, 11th century

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Spoiler: Traditional bastard sabre picture, start of 15th century

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We can generalize that the typical magyar sabre, identified by globes at the tips of crossguard, was phased out sometime during 14th century by sabres that had western arming sword hilt designs.

There's a lot more to be said here, and a lot more yet to be researched, but this post is kinda getting out of hand as it is.

Shields

At this point, pretty much exclusively strapped shields of various lengths, at 1200, you may still see kite shields, at 1400, not so much. No real difference from Italy or Germany here. Strapped shields were used possibly as far back as 700, but that's a debate for another time.

Ranged weapons

This will probably surprise everyone, but longbows and crossbows, with crossbows being especially popular in northern slavic region, on account of being rather mountainy. Composite bows were known and used, but that was by the nomad mercenaries, not the Hungarian general population - although various groups of nomads were integrated to that general population to varying degrees.

Summary

Not that different from western Europe, but for sabres and nomad mercenaries. Big reason for this is that Hungary was, from 1000 onward, a western European nation, being vassal or ally of HRE, catholic, participating in the Crusades etc etc.

[Yora]

Interesting how straight those sabers are.

Spoiler: St. Ladislaus wrestles with a Cuiman, Veľká Lomnica, Slovakia, 1310

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Fun gruesome fact: At the Battle of Visby, the most common injury on the skeletons are leg injuries, including feet being straight chopped off. Leg protection seems to have been a weakness with militia armor at the time and the Danish knights appear to have been trained to exploit it mercilessly.

[Gnoman]

Katana are also designed around s really specific structure and material composition. They are not the sword I'd want to shape out of random available metals.

It isn't meant to be a smart decision. A core aspect of the group in question (who are antagonistic to my PCs) is that they're very fixated on media rather than reality.

There is a reason for this (spoilered in case one of my players wanders in).

Spoiler

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A jaded and bitter janitor got his hands on some real dark magic, and started recruiting vulnerable students at the high school he worked for into what is basically a cult. His "elect disciples" are invested with a small amount of magic through dark rituals, but since they're literally teenagers (and the janitor is something of a manchild himself), they didn't make very smart decisions on how their power manifested.

They are deliberately petty and incompetent as a contrast to much more capable threats down the road.

[HeadlessMermaid]

And ancient Greek had hippeus, but it would be interesting to check how Byzantium called the western European knights. Nowadays the word is hippotes.

The word hippotes was sometimes used, too (it's ancient Greek, originally meaning driver or rider of horses - not as a separate social or military class, though, except in the Boeotian dialiect where it was a synonym of hippeus).

But more often it was some derivative of the Medieval Latin caballarius (horseman), either directly or via a Romance language from thereabouts, usually Venetian. The spelling varied, and I'm not sure how to transliterate them best, but here goes: καβαλ(λ)άριος (kavallarios), καβα(λ)λάρης (kavallaris), καβελ(λ)άρης (kavellaris).

The similar καβαλιέρης (kavalieris) or καβαλιέρος (kavalieros) sometimes meant knight and sometimes meant squire.

I got all this from the Dictionary of Medieval Vulgar Greek Literature (1100-1669), which is online and searchable, but in Greek, so I don't know how useful it will be to you. Hope that helped. :)

[snowblizz]

I agreee, though we need to consider time-frame as well. Most of those prize-lists we have seen in this thread are from the late period, as whenever technology is new, it is less affordable. If we use the car example, if you owned a car in 1900 you where filthy rich, if you owned one in the 1920'ies you were likely still pritty ruch, but if you owned one in 1980'ies onwards, you just needed to be middle class.

Actually the model T-Ford was launched in 1908 and was purportedly purchasable by his own employees with their salaries.
If you owned a car in 1920 you were most likely 1) american, 2) middleclass and 3) driving a T-Ford. Mass driving started much much sooner than the 1980s. By the 1920s cars were common, though with a heavy slant to america, the social and economic structure of Europe of course was less car-friendly.

[Kiero]

Actually the model T-Ford was launched in 1908 and was purportedly purchasable by his own employees with their salaries.
If you owned a car in 1920 you were most likely 1) american, 2) middleclass and 3) driving a T-Ford. Mass driving started much much sooner than the 1980s. By the 1920s cars were common, though with a heavy slant to america, the social and economic structure of Europe of course was less car-friendly.

Light rail and metropolitan bus services weren't deliberately sabotaged in Europe, either. The conditions in the US that promoted mass ownership of the car weren't entirely benign or naturally occurring, they resulted from industry lobbying of governments.

[Martin Greywolf]

Interesting how straight those sabers are.

Oh, yes, forgot about that one. If you start to research sabres, you'll quickly discover that the international norm for sabres is pretty straight with short edge being there more often than not. The extremely curved ones (some tulwars, kilij, shamshir) are the exception rather than the norm, but just happen to be the more iconic ones - perhaps specifically because of their extreme curve.

It means, among other things, that your arming sword techniques are just as good with a sabre, which I happen to know from experience with I.33 and magyar sabre.

The IMO most likely theory for the curve getting more extreme is specialization - if you have a sabre, you can use push cuts when charging from horseback instead of thrusts - these have the advantage of getting stuck in someone a lot less, and the more pronounced curve is, the easier it is to do. It bears mentioning that Ottoman empire mostly used kilij for their mounted troops, bulk of their foot forces used yatagan. It's actually pretty likely that the yalman portion of kilij was inspired by Hungarian sabres, while the overall shape was taken from the shamshir, which throws off a lot of people who think the Turks brought sabres to Europe.

Fun gruesome fact: At the Battle of Visby, the most common injury on the skeletons are leg injuries, including feet being straight chopped off. Leg protection seems to have been a weakness with militia armor at the time and the Danish knights appear to have been trained to exploit it mercilessly.

Firstly, skeletal injuries can lie. There are a lot of wounds that don't show on skeletons, and fresh post-mortem injuries are, AFAIK, not distinguishable from combat wounds.

That aside, I think that a lot of Visby wounds were dictated by weird mish mash of gear on the loosing side - coat of plates was long past its prime at the time. What I think caused the leg injuries was the use of shields designed to be used with leg armor while not wearing leg armor - while it is interesting to note, it's hardly representative of how fights of properly equipped troops played out.

Also note that the easiest way to defeat a relatively unexperienced opponent with a heater shield is to make a weak cut at his head to make him lift the shield and then go for the legs while he can't see.

[Max_Killjoy]

Light rail and metropolitan bus services weren't deliberately sabotaged in Europe, either. The conditions in the US that promoted mass ownership of the car weren't entirely benign or naturally occurring, they resulted from industry lobbying of governments.

The car still would have had a major advantage in the US -- geography. The US population was more rural and small-town at the time, still is (careful with statistics saying the US population has "gone urban", the US Census Bureau of "urban" is wonky as hell, with as few as 2500 people needed to count an area as "urban" as one example), and the distances are greater; this makes mass transit far less cost-efficient than it is in much of Europe.

[snowblizz]

The car still would have had a major advantage in the US -- geography. The US population was more rural and small-town at the time, still is (careful with statistics saying the US population has "gone urban", the US Census Bureau of "urban" is wonky as hell, with as few as 2500 people needed to count an area as "urban" as one example), and the distances are greater; this makes mass transit far less cost-efficient than it is in much of Europe.

That's likely one of those chicken-egg situations it's going to be hard to prove either way. A lot of developement outside the "core urban areas" were possible due to cars, and as you say geography in that most of the US was sort of "empty". But geography means you do have the option to do large-scale new construction sort of far away from the existing centres. And neither really means you can't have mass transit if you chose to. It existed and was scrapped. It's not impossible to have society built more on mass-transit, except if you play a variety of citybuilders it seems, that are filled with exclusively American thinking little electronic simoleons (take the expensive subway I built you ungrateful little electrons).

It's an interesting dichtonomy (to me, maybe not so much for this thread) how in the US cities are built both to the greatest heights (and thus high density) but also to the least densities. I still remember the wonder looking out from the observationdeck in th eHancock building in Chicago and realising I could see where the dense urban area ends and the car-powered suburban area starts. In comparison from the Eiffel tower the view was all rather homogenous not-super-tall (this is a strictly enforced thing in Paris of course) urban area stretchign beyond the horizon. As usual when you have country that's effectively a continent it's a bit tricky to speak generally. I'm also reminded of my visit to Lima, Peru where there were strong incentives to spread a city low and wide. The traffic there was horrendous.

I guess what am saying is I agree by and large, with the caveat that I don't think mass transit is much more cost-efficient in Europe (in fundamental economic turns), it's more that European society has a bit more willingness to utilize it so the expense/to use equation works better. Geography dictates ultimately what's possible, in the US you can strech your legs a bit, but it's also a conscious decision to do so. Cars provided a means, which segeued nicely into the "american way" I think, whiuch gives us suburbia.

And we should probably not overstate the differences either, there are bands on the US East and West coast of urban devleopment that is as far as I can tell similarly served with mass transit, whereas many parts of most European countries lack most masstransit due to low densities of population outside a few urban centres just like most "fly-over states".

[Lemmy]

Something similar happened in Latin, when miles began meaning knight, instead of soldier.

I think that words meaning "young man" also often transfers to military. So infantry literally means "the boys". It might be both things together.

Wait... What?!

Infantry... Infant...

Holy ****! In hindsight it makes so much sense! But I would have never made that connection if you hadn't mentioned it!

And my mother language is Portuguese, which is derived from Latin!

[Max_Killjoy]

That's likely one of those chicken-egg situations it's going to be hard to prove either way. A lot of developement outside the "core urban areas" were possible due to cars, and as you say geography in that most of the US was sort of "empty". But geography means you do have the option to do large-scale new construction sort of far away from the existing centres. And neither really means you can't have mass transit if you chose to. It existed and was scrapped. It's not impossible to have society built more on mass-transit, except if you play a variety of citybuilders it seems, that are filled with exclusively American thinking little electronic simoleons (take the expensive subway I built you ungrateful little electrons).

It's an interesting dichtonomy (to me, maybe not so much for this thread) how in the US cities are built both to the greatest heights (and thus high density) but also to the least densities. I still remember the wonder looking out from the observationdeck in th eHancock building in Chicago and realising I could see where the dense urban area ends and the car-powered suburban area starts. In comparison from the Eiffel tower the view was all rather homogenous not-super-tall (this is a strictly enforced thing in Paris of course) urban area stretchign beyond the horizon. As usual when you have country that's effectively a continent it's a bit tricky to speak generally. I'm also reminded of my visit to Lima, Peru where there were strong incentives to spread a city low and wide. The traffic there was horrendous.

I guess what am saying is I agree by and large, with the caveat that I don't think mass transit is much more cost-efficient in Europe (in fundamental economic turns), it's more that European society has a bit more willingness to utilize it so the expense/to use equation works better. Geography dictates ultimately what's possible, in the US you can strech your legs a bit, but it's also a conscious decision to do so. Cars provided a means, which segeued nicely into the "american way" I think, whiuch gives us suburbia.

And we should probably not overstate the differences either, there are bands on the US East and West coast of urban devleopment that is as far as I can tell similarly served with mass transit, whereas many parts of most European countries lack most masstransit due to low densities of population outside a few urban centres just like most "fly-over states".

The suburbs as encouraged by post-WW2 policy and the lobbying against intraurban mass transit is an entirely separate issue.

I'm talking about the rural / small town areas far from the urban or suburban sprawl, where plenty of Americans did and do live, and where mass transit (and much of the "new hotness" of ride sharing and autonomous cars and so on) won't work, that existed before the car ever came along. As one example, getting from where I live to where I work will never be covered by mass transit or "ride sharing" or any other service, and we'll be sharing the world with actual science-fiction pipe-dream AIs before self-driving cars can handle the weather and roads here.

[awa]

Does anyone know roughly how far you have good visibility with a torch in say a cave, d&ds 20 feet seems way to high.

[Tobtor]

Actually the model T-Ford was launched in 1908 and was purportedly purchasable by his own employees with their salaries.
If you owned a car in 1920 you were most likely 1) american, 2) middleclass and 3) driving a T-Ford. Mass driving started much much sooner than the 1980s. By the 1920s cars were common, though with a heavy slant to america, the social and economic structure of Europe of course was less car-friendly.

Only partly true. Depends on what you mean by middle class. In the 1910s (leading up to 1920), a car still costs around a whole years salary (before tax). Very few people could in fact afford to spend a whole years salary (before tax, rent, food etc) to buy a car. A new (small) car certainly does not cost the same as an average salary in Denmark today (even with a 100% extra car tax that we have). Today a new car can be bought for less than 1/3 of a years salary (and thats with a 100% car tax.... something I think they do not think they have in america).

I can find the exact statistics, but I think I read that in In 1920 it was still only about 1/10 to 2/10 households who owned a car in America. So the top 15-20% (probably). So not filthy rich, but still not quite middle class. But true, already by the 1930'ies it was much more common (and by the 1950'ies you get that there are more cars than households, but then it is because you have households owning multiple cars).

[Vinyadan]

Does anyone know roughly how far you have good visibility with a torch in say a cave, d&ds 20 feet seems way to high.

I personally hate rl torches, because they blind you with their own light. However, 6 m seems very reasonable to me. If the walls aren't black, they also reflect some light back.

[Yora]

You're not supposed to hold them in front of your face.

[Max_Killjoy]

You're not supposed to hold them in front of your face.

File under, things Hollywood gets wrong. It's standard practice for directors and cinematographers to have the actors hold the torches where it's best for lighting their faces, not where it's best for the character to get illumination of their surroundings and not be blinded.

[Vinyadan]

Eyes have over 180° of field of vision, there aren't many ways to avoid interference. Besides, you also need to be aware of where the fire is. And, if you are in a group, it's difficult not to be blinded by other people's lights.
It's better than nothing, but the fact that the open light hits your eyes diminishes its results.

[Max_Killjoy]

Eyes have over 180° of field of vision, there aren't many ways to avoid interference. Besides, you also need to be aware of where the fire is. And, if you are in a group, it's difficult not to be blinded by other people's lights.
It's better than nothing, but the fact that the open light hits your eyes diminishes its results.

It's still better to hold it more off to the side than right in front of your face.

Of course, better still is a lantern with closeable faces.

[Galloglaich]

@Blackhawk, Vinyadan, and Tobtor

Thanks for the answers to my squires question.

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

You are kind of conflating knighthood with aristocracy here..

A person could be a knight and also a serf (ministerialis). Or they could be a burgher, a member of the gentry or even a monk (so called brother-knights or ritterbruden for the Germans). There were bandit-knights (knights errant and robber knights or raubritter for the Germans) There even appear to have been some independent peasant knights.

So knighthood, first of all, was something which overlapped unevenly with social estate, which is the closest thing to class that you have in the middle ages. The main issue is that not all those who fought in battle as a knight owned their own horse or armor.

Knighthood was a kind of a separate military caste which gave you certain legal rights on the battlefield and in feudal courts (like the house of a prince or a lesser noble), and within the Church, like the right to carry a sword, the right to wear a knights special belt and gilded or silver spurs, and the right that your word counted as evidence in legal proceedings. Your honor had a certain weight as a knight. Perhaps the most important Chivalric rule was that you are more likely to be captured and ransomed than killed if you are captured (this is especially true in France and Spain where captives were often executed if they appeared to be broke and of low status)

In order to get these rights, many people were knighted who were never even close to a battlefield, including many nobles, even women.

Actual real fighting knights, and people who maybe were kind of part-time military men (such as many nobles and burghers) were typically leaders on the battlefield, of at least a small team of 4-6 cavalry (typically called a lance, or sometimes a gleve or a helm).

Earlier in the middle ages, Carolingian through early High Medieval (say 8th-11th Century) a 'squire' may have been a kind of apprentice knight, but by the High to Late medieval (say 12th-15th Centuries and a bit later) squire (or 'esquire') was effectively the equivalent of a knight, it was just a lower ranking knight.

A higher ranking knight might be a knight-banneret, the commander of a banner or squadron of cavalry, or a 'Captain' often the commander of an entire army (which could be as few as 50 men to as many as 5,000)

The association between nobility and knighthood varied by region, in France for example most knights were nobles or at least gentry, whereas in Germany or Italy there were thousands of burgher knights, probably tens of thousands of ministerial knights (who were technically serfs) and an equal number of knights of somewhat murky background.

Anyone who spent a lot of time fighting as heavy cavalry (as a lancer with some kind of armor at least) had a good chance of being knighted if they survived long enough.

Many nobles, as I said, who never did fight or want to fight, got knighted for the status and convenience of it. Many burghers who got knighted only took on the 'equire' rank so as to have fewer obligations in taxes and the militia.

G

[Galloglaich]

Hopefully a simple question: Why do I see some video games refer to medieval heavy infantry as "Squires?" And related to that, what was squiring like in a battle? I was always under the impression that a squire was sort of considered an underage supporter of the knight who was the actual combatant. Total War: Warhammer has a unit called Battle Squires, Heroes of Might and Magic 5 has Squires as heavy infantry as well. In Warlords Battlecry 2, "Squires" were actually an archer unit, if I remember correctly.

Here are my guesses:



4. The games are just sloppy at naming.

None of that other stuff has to do with actual squires

[Blackhawk748]

The suburbs as encouraged by post-WW2 policy and the lobbying against intraurban mass transit is an entirely separate issue.

I'm talking about the rural / small town areas far from the urban or suburban sprawl, where plenty of Americans did and do live, and where mass transit (and much of the "new hotness" of ride sharing and autonomous cars and so on) won't work, that existed before the car ever came along. As one example, getting from where I live to where I work will never be covered by mass transit or "ride sharing" or any other service, and we'll be sharing the world with actual science-fiction pipe-dream AIs before self-driving cars can handle the weather and roads here.

My God, do you live in the Midwest? Cuz you just described where I live

[LordEntrails]

Does anyone know roughly how far you have good visibility with a torch in say a cave, d&ds 20 feet seems way to high.

I've been in caves. 20 feet is a good number. Even though they say "bright light" it's not like how we light our houses at night. But it is good enough to see what you need.

[Max_Killjoy]

My God, do you live in the Midwest? Cuz you just described where I live

"The Lakes" in my profile refers to the Great Lakes -- in the lake effect zone downwind of Lake Michigan.

The idea of a self-driving car in the next 50 years that can actually handle LIDAR-blinding blowing snow and an all-white environment is laughable.

But not as laughable as the idea of mass transit ever being viable for the rural areas and very small towns I drive through every day to the office and back (I work in the frozen and processed fruit industry, in inventory/production management).