only sword done at the time of presentation. i suspect in the full game, henry gets an axe or a club
To the original comment: I beg to differ.
I can not go into full generalization of the subject, but the truth is, the prices of the swords varied wildly depending on the quality. By the way, this was the case with the horses too. A good destrier was almost unattainable even for a simple noble, but even a simple longbowman could buy a draft horse to carry around his stuff relatively easily. Letâs see some prices from England:
1339, an average sword costs 41 penny.
1340, weak quality sword, 6 penny.
To compare these prices, Iâll gladly show you the daily wages of some people of the 1300-1351âs:
A day laborer: 1 penny
Common worker: 1,3 penny
Stonemason master: 4 penny
Carpenter: 3 penny
Also, let us see some soldiers:
Footman of Wales (not an archer): 2 penny
Archer: 3 penny
Armored heavy infantry, or a mounted archer (so, not a horse archer, just an archer with a horse!): 6 penny
mercenary heavy cavalry: 2 shilling (24 penny)
(source: militia.hu)
Again: Yes, prices were different, looking at the exact date, location or quality of the ware, but just like todayâs cars, for example, you donât necessarily HAVE to buy a Lamborghini. You can buy a used, old car for almost no cost - with that, you can go onto the roads as well.
What really was expensive, that was the (mainly the metal) armour, but even that was easier to come by as the metalworking industry got more and more advanced. For example, in 1290, a leather armor (or gambeson?) cost 5 shilling (60 penny), in 1369 a bascinet 200 penny, in 1374 a full knightâs armour 16 pound 6 shilling 8 penny (so 3920 penny, in this case I do not have more information on the precise type of the armour), or - again: just for comparsion - in 1397, an armour made for a prince cost 24720 penny.
I also mentioned the horses, so letâs see three types:
XIV. century, simple saddle horse for a mounted archer: 20 shilling (240 penny)
XIII. century, very good saddle horse: 10 pound (2400 penny)
also XIII. century, warhorse (destrier) 50-80 pound (12000-19200 penny)
Here you can basically see the same pattern. True, quality, âmilitary-gradeâ stuff costs a horrifying amount of money. In England at the same time, ony 1100 noblemen had an annual income of more than 40 pounds (9600 penny)! But, at the same time, even a simple commoner, or a peasant could and would buy a sword - or, like, almost anything! In Hungary, in 1514, we had a peasant uprising, and after that, the nobility wrote a law witch limited the weapons a peasant could wear or wield, but even that was just a law. In reality, later, even muskets were in posession of the common folk.
I really donât want to bore you more, gentlemen, with a longer reply (or with my sorry-ass english skills), but even a peasant could not only theoretically buy a sword, a crossbow, or even a simple gambeson, but they actually did! And they did so lawfully, even in the HRE! Again, in Hungary, peasants armed with swords and crossbows sometimes attacked other peasant brigades coming from marketplaces (so with money 
) or other merchants, and they were also the âarmyâ of their overlord, in case the lord had some âmisunderstandingâ with the neighbouring nobleman.
There were two really big difference, as far as I currently know: They did not have adequate armor, and they lacked skills and practice to properly wield these weapons.
All in all, a hero with a gambeson and a basic sword (who actually gets these stuff from his lord, and doesnât pay for these himself!) is pretty far from heresy in my opinion. Seriously, if you were nobleman, you would arm your servants with clubs? Or do you think, that a poor, old sword needs much-much more metal and work hours to construct, than other peasant tools? Probably the heroâs most valued posession is the horse he mounted in the 30 minutes long stream, if I remember correctly.
(And again: If you understood everything I wrote with my very⊠uhm, âspecialâ english, you are the true hero.)
(Edit 1.: I also donât have the slightest clue, why a sabre, let it be âheathenâs weaponâ, doesnât count as a proper sword. If we really want to emphasize on the financial status of Henry, then we should give him for example a Langes Messer, so technically a huge peasantâs knife.
I also would like to state, that a mail hauberk in general is not cheaper than a plate breastplate. Actually, it is usually true on the contrary! A mail armor was always mainly handcrafted, and it took a horrendous amount of time to construct, while it was heavy and offered worse protection than the plate with gambeson. The only advantage was that it was flexible, so you could cover areas of the body with it, that with plate you could - at the time - not. It might sound strange, but mail armor isnât the âplate armor of the poorâ!)
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Mail was time-consuming to make, yes, but it wasnât something you really needed a lot of training or specialized skills for (excluding drawing the wire for the rings which, yes, would need to be done by a smith). Plate armor by contrast is very complicated. Parts need to be carefully measured, cut and shaped to the right size and shape, etc.
So while you could give almost anyone a bag of mail links and the rivets, (most historical examples alternated solid and riveted rows, so it wasnât like you were riveting EVERY link) and they could sit down at night and weave it all together over a couple weeks (mail hauberks have very simple patterns and thereâs very little complex forming needed to be done), you could NOT give just anyone a bunch of steel plates and expect them to turn out a properly fitted suit of armor.
He is right though. Iâve read in several sources that after 1400-1430 the price of a mail hauberk is equal to or more expensive than equivalent plate armor. Reasons stated for this is that a hauberk takes 3 months to produce whether a breast and back plate can be produced in 3 days. The 3 month production time is no issue when labor is cheap but in post black death Europe labor costs only rose. If a smith could churn out 28 breast and back plates in the same time one guy makes a hauberk then no amount of labor cost is going to cover that gap and make mail cheaper. Another thing to take into account is that you canât possible have more than four people working on a hauberk before things get messed up. Plate armor could be made out of 43 separate components which 43 smiths in Milan could work on at the same time, practically doing factory belt work.
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Be careful with any analysis that states âcost = 6d, wage = 1d per day, thus you can buy one in a weekâ.
It is necessary to remember that this may not be âbeerâ money, but rather a significant proportion is taken in taxes, maintenance of tools of their trade, livestock, food, church tithes etc, someone earning 365d per year may not have more than a few dozen to spare if they are lucky.
The more marginal the living the worse this relationship becomes⊠a ten 10% increase in the cost of living can have much large impacts on the available incomeâŠ
With 20% margin over fixed costs, this 10% increase in expenses reduces the available funds by 40%
With 15% margin, a 10% increase in costs reduces available funds by 57%
With 12.5% margin, this increase in costs becomes a 70% reduction in available fundsâŠ
By 10% margin, there is no residual funds left after paying the 10% increase in costs at all.
There is no problem with people living with tight means, but what you cannot do it apply gross income to affordability issues.
Well you wouldnât buy one every year. Look at it like a car, only this car lasts you four generations with proper care.
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@Lieste : Your line of thoughts is absolutely rational. But, if we stop with the generalization, and look at the data, it is a bit false. (Also, if you notice, I never said âthus you can buy one in a weekâ)
Let us say, that a soldier parttaking in a campaign, could keep only a limited amount of food with himself, and since he does not works currently on the fields, it is logical to assume, that if he doesnât get food as an allowance, he has to buy it with his salary. So, what was the prices of some food products, or even live animals (again, A.D. 1300-1351)?
Price of a sheep, 17 penny; a pig: 24-36 penny, a duck: 6 penny, a dozen of eggs: 1 penny, the price of two chickens: 1 penny, the price of a 80-punder (at this time 36 kilograms) cheese: 40 penny, 5-10 pieces of salted herrings: 1 penny, the price of 1 gallon (at this time roughly 4 liters) mediocre ginger ale: 1 penny.
Now, I could play this game, that I convert these prices into each other, so we can see, that how much egg or salted herring does a poor or average quality sword costs, but I do think that would be an overkill at that point. Yes, I do realize that we cannot compare these to the current, nowadays prices of these products because of the harsh changes in the real terms, but this wasnât my intention, rather showing, that buying a sword is absolutely possible, if you are able to buy a whole, or even half a pig. Sure, if you lived day-to-day, like a poor man or a beggar, then swords were out of the question, but it this case, probably soldiering was the least of your concern.
It is probably a bad comparsion (just like every comparsion), so I shouldnât even write this down, but maybe we can look at this kind of like the assault rifles in todayâs United States. Can you buy them? Absolutely (well, in some states, if I know this correctly.) Of course, they are not as cheap as demolished brick, but you could. But that doesnât mean that every and all citizen will buy an assault rifle! Many can afford these weapons, many can not, but the majority will decide that they donât need these weapons in their household. Even if they do, simply owning an assault rifle will not make them soldiers, nor an army.
@Ambaryerno : While point-by-point I guess you are right, I think you fall into the trap of anachronism. While I absolutely agreee with Dushin, Iâll say some things myself. Imagine manufacturing the wire, cutting it, then hammering the edges, then drilling two holes into each and every ring, then making the rivets, and also cutting the full rings out of sheet metal, well, this still needs a huge amount of work. If someone could afford this half-done bag of rings, I do not really think that this particular soldier will then sit down at nights and make his shirt himself, but buy a done-made hauberk. We, modern reenactors and HEMA-fighters, or larpers, or âhistory-fansâ, or any other kind of animals of God, of course, do the former, for sure, but even those are mostly not riveted, just butted mail, and we do so because we have time, power tools and cheap wire - and we do not have to be on a war campaign currently or in two weeks. (Hell, Iâm making my hauberk for over a year, and Iâll never again f*ck myself over with making chain mail. 
) Even butted mail needs at least two pliers, and those are technically blacksmithâs tools. [at that point, Iâll make a note just out of curiosity - in 1514, a full set of a weaponsmithâs tools cost 13 pounds 16 shilling 11 penny (in all, 3323 penny), again, not to compare simply with the former values, although real, killer hyperinflation is a thing of the future at this point, even if devaluing of the money is notâŠ]
Rather than that, again, I think that if you can afford even a half-done mail at the time, then youâll most likely pay for the whole package, and not kill your time and also buy the necessary level of equipment, depending of what kind of work still needs to be done on the rings. All in all, I think it is just not worth it. I do not say that this example could not occur at all (and even if it did, it did not influence the prices of the mail armour pieces), but I highly-highly doubt that it was the general state of affairs. Even todayâs people like to buy finished products. Well, except for maybe IKEA, but hey⊠at the time, when you can afford a chain mail armor piece, then you donât buy at IKEA.
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Im talking about miltia not an army, axes being carried around commonly represented tools.
However to be of rank or role to carry a sword means your carrying a killing tool
flail where would you get one those weapons need training not to kill yourself with.
Scytheâs canât be used in combat look at lindyâs vids why
Which is why the peasant class was possible the best for those sort of weapons. They possible spend every autumn using a flail since they were twelve years old.
Lindybeige is a stage actor who does some occasional larping. Heâs right about it not being a good battlefield weapon but it can be made to work. Besides the model of scythe he is holding with a double curve is from the 1800s not what most medieval folks would be using.
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I like your comparison with the military style rifles. But you donât need to go as far as to US to give the example, you can very well stay in the country where the game is taking place. All a Czech needs to do today to get a gun is getting a license first, which is very similar to getting a driving license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_Czech_Republic
The gun afficiados in the Czech Republic have a saying: âevery man should have a scytheâ: Scythe being a call name of vz.58. [It is actually âbroomâ and âscytheâ refers to the paratroopersâ version with folding stock, but I think that scythe is used more than broom].
Currently, an ex-military scythe adjusted for semi-auto costs mere CZK 5.000, or about ⏠200, and is VERY prolific among gun license holders. For comparison, new CZ 805 BREN S1 (semi-auto version of the current Czech military main rifle) costs CZK 48.000, or about ⏠2.000 (without optics and other accessories which can easily triple the price). The average monthly income is somewhere around ⏠1.000.
Now, I can easily see that in 500 years someone will be pointing out to current situation in Germany, UK or Poland and claiming that it is ahistorical to portrey a Czech civilian owning a semi-auto assault rifle, and the argument will make as much sense as does the current one regarding Henryâs sword.
You need to realise that the Czech Kingdom was not only a political stronghold (especially after the Golden Bull gave the Czech king a special place among the electors of the Emperor), but also economical behemoth due to very productive silver mines - it was one of the wealthiest parts of Europe up until the gold started raining on Spainyards from American conquests and the Habsburg-Catholic hordes won the 30 year war, forcing out or outright murdering up to 2/3 of Czech population and destroying its bretheren/protestant character.
Itâs not decided yet. We need to find the right balance between historical truth and playable gameplay again. As many already pointed out, we also found out that swords werenât too common among people and werenât cheap. Different social statuses have different incomes therefore not everybody could afford a sword. Our villagers for example probably wonât have any, because as mentioned its expensive and more or less useless, if you consider that itâs just a âfighting toolâ. But also quality and the prices differ. There will be a large scale from low-cost swords to extremely expensive great swords. So if you want to get it legally, youâll have to gather a high amount of money. Swords wonât lie on the ground, youâll have to do something to get one, but itâs on you to choose the way youâll do it.
Tobi, while it is interesting to get insight as regards armament of general peasant population, I would like to point out that this thread was mainly started in regard to the possibility of a main character being furnished with a sword to complete a task of eliminating bandits for the local lord. I think that this is a believable story, since lords usually had stockpiles of weapons in their armory, and it would make no sense to keep it hidden during a period of enemy attacks.
Moreover, the main character is a blacksmith and, presumably, has been around swords or even made some himself.
As regards uselessness of swords for peasants: you may be right in general, however the game is taking place during a civil war. Any sane person tries to do their best to protect themselves, their family and possessions, or as they say, do âwhatever it takesâ. In such time, weapons are not only useful, but also very sought after by people who would otherwise not care for them (I am not saying that everyone would get a sword, but those who could afford one, probably would).
Let me use a contemporary example: most Czechs live in safe areas and donât care for weapons. But when large number of people with criminal behavior moves into region, then the situation becomes opposite and many law abiding citizens seek to arm themselves, as has happened in 2011 in the Ć luknov Hook. I understand that this is an alien concept for people from other European countries who have very limited rights to arm and defend themselves (in Germany, one canât have even a pepper spray), but in countries where people can, they certainly do so when needed.
Allright, so let me continue to share my opinion about the issue. In my former comments, I tried to come up reasons that - without falling into the trap of wide generalization - there was at least some places and some times on Earth, where a commoner could afford a mediocre, or lower quality sword financially, but I only implied that they bought these also lawfully, and I mentioned but did not brought data on having sources about actually using serious weapons by peasants. Let me cover some of this deficiency mainly from the area of the Hungarian Kingdom.
Probably my most important opinion is that a peasant could have weapons, they did use them, but they did not use them professionally.
At least in Hungary, the variety of conflicts that involved peasants were wide. Between two neighbouring villages and breaking in some skulls to even little private-wars of their overlords, killing 40-50 people and causing damage worth thousands of golden florins, all kind of nasty things. In these occassions, peasants looted everything they could, they also attacked each other coming from the market or the mill, but killing and looting routed and wounded soldiers from nearby battlefields or robbing the corpses were also on the menu. Sources often states about them that they ravaged âjust like the enemyâ: they murdered people, beaten up mortally (even pregnant women!), trampled with horses, pushed underwater or thrown people into burning buildings - and the judicial routine caught up on these cases often slowly and ineffectively. We also have to see that a reasonable amount of these attacks were ordered by the overlord! Cases committed with the lord in command, I would not write about right now, it is probably more important to see, what the law has to say all about this. And itâs quite simple in case of Hungary:
Up until 1514, virtually no law forbade the possession of weapons (LX. law article of the year 1514, "The priests, students, 'hajdĂșâs (originally cattle herders, who were often used as soldiers, at some point also granted with autonomy) and peasants who are not benefitted with permission, shall not possess weapons and rifles"), but even after that, it was technically impossible to enforce this. (There are reports of peasants shooting at everything in joy with rifles, coming home from the market, probably drunk, from village of Kapornak in 1524 - fortunately, noone were harmed) As an effect, as I mentioned, people held weapons:
- In 1383, saxons and romanians of Szeben agreed upon the romanians not
strolling around in the neighborhood with bow and arrow without
proper cause. (This means they routinely carried weapons around, and
the saxons were disturbed by it.
) - The three nation of Transylvania in their decree of 1463 states that
the peasants should be armed with a horse and weapon (so, actual
weapon!), coud they afford it - if not, then they should be armed
with peasantâs weapons, in times of need. - 1433, we have data about a lawsuit about a castellan from KapuvĂĄr
(Iâm not sure I translated his title right), who were in debt for a
peasant with a sword(!) and a pig. - 1441, a certification from Kolozsmonostor. Th officials of Hunyadi
JĂĄnos took back some stolen goods from a robber, and give them back
to their true owner, a wealthy peasant. Some of this goods are for
example: a sword, a dagger (gladium simulcum bicello), and also a
crossbow (balista). - In 1470, agressive peasants looted from the houses of 24 other
peasants in the shire (or country, I do not know english for sh*tâŠ)
Szabolcs for example 6 daggers, 6 axes, 3 spears (or javelins, it is
unclear for me, the word in hungarian is âdĂĄrdaâ which is the javelin
in todayâs language, but it is far more possible that in this case it
means spear), 1 sword and 1 shield(!) - Similar case from the shire Somogy, 1513, the attackers took 19 axes
and 3 swords from peasants. - In 1486 (article of LXV.), king MĂĄtyĂĄs (Mathias) forbade in law to
bring weapons into the courtrooms of the shires, both by noblemen,
his familiars or peasants. ("âŠto fight in the courtroom with the
truth of the law, and not with weapons." The fact that the law
mentions peasants separately indicates that it was pretty natural for
peasants to possess weapons.) If the peasant still went into the
courtroom armed, he was put in the stocks for two days, without food
and water. - Sadly, in 1492, we needed an another law, to ensure the safety of the
people going to these courts. (article of LXXIX.) - Aaand, the most, most wise law from the year 1486 (article of LXVI.),
king MĂĄtyĂĄs forbade anybody to go to markets or into taverns (hehehe)
with weapons. Again, what is important, is what was before this law:
you could go drinking with any weapon you please. )
Gentlemen (and potentially ladies), let me conlcude my opinion:
While we cannot call a sword in a peasantâs hand a common occurence, it is pretty far from unheard of! In areas of the german empire the slight restriction of carrying weapons by peasants were different in different regions. Sometimes knightly weapons (sword, lance) were indeed somewhat controlled (for example, only the paterfamilias could have sword, or basically everybody could have, but they werenât allowed to carry around on belt like a knight, only in hand or on the carriage), but only owning an armour was truly forbidden! âŠand, as we saw in on my earlier post, this wasnât even an issue, because they couldnât afford metal armor anyways.
Ironically, I find Henry owning a sword (especially with the fact that it is given to him by his master!) actually maybe more historically accurate, than the issue that Henry in a sense actually knows how to use the sword! Proving that a peasant with a weapon is still a peasant could be the theme of another post, but I guess every HEMA-associate has firsthand experience about fighting with independent fencers who never learned the âartâ, but they practiced themselves, maybe even years - yet they were ridiculously to defeat.
On another forum topic I read about fencing books and fencing guildes, and while I am in love with these, let us not forget that the cost of a course and the exams in these schools were horrible amounts of money (as far as I remember, we have especially good data from the London Masters of Defence fencing guild.), more so, even Fiore warns us about that the art of fencing is the âproperty of the nobilityâ, and never should one teach it to a peasant.
So, fighting in these levels probably looked more like a brawl than some martial arts. A brawl with swords, long knives and axes, without armor.
Damn, I would not participate in itâŠ
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Actually this issue was addressed before (in kickstarter stretch goals). During the game Henry is taught how to use a sword (as a form of tutorial and way to âunlockâ new moves). This makes doubly sense, as with the robust combat system they are building it wonât be entirely easy for the player to grasp all the nuances and possibilities from beginning and story driven tutorial makes for enjoyable game with easier learning curve (think Portal, half of the game is basically tutorial and you donât really notice).
@masozravapalma Oh, donât get me wrong, I myself would be pretty pissed off with a game in which I canât fight with a sword. Iâm perfectly fine with Henry being at least a novice fencer, no matter the story behind it. The only reason I mentioned this is to give more emphasis for my reasons.
Thank you very much Dushin (and Co.) for giving an decent answer to the original question, finding words which were burning cruelsome on my thongue when I just read the OP.
I will point out, that it is not the fault of Martin, beleeving in those typical medieval-myths. Spending the last weekend in armour und beeing surroundet by men in armour, even with jousting-armour on horses, I donât know how often I had to explain the visitors that armour isnât that heavy or clumpsy. Anyway, on Monday I had a sore throat. 
But going back to the game⊠everything all of you said is true and Iâll second that completely, but as a gamer I really like to have a suspense curve in finding/affording new and better weapons/armour and ending up as a nearly invictible hero in the end.
So I like the Idea of starting with a very bad weapon and therefore having enough room for progression.
Do keep in mind we have no attestation of the Brotherhood of St. Mark until 1474, and the Federfechter didnât receive their charter until almost a century later (giving the Marxbruder a monopoly on fencing masters in the Holy Roman Empire). The London Masters of Defense werenât established until 1540, and very little, if any, is known of the Italian or French fencing guilds. So the setting of this game is almost 70 years BEFORE the earliest guild of which we have a definitive record, while the art itself is much, MUCH older. MS3227a (Liechtenauerâs merkverse) dates to roughly 1389-1390 (so within 10-15 years of our setting) and this is the earliest known manuscript on the longsword (the I.33 manuscript is older, but this covers sword and buckler). However the art depicted is VERY advanced (in fact Iâve seen some speculation that Liechtenauerâs work was meant to be an advanced class, which is why it covers so little of the basics of fencing and focus so much on the meisterhau) which is a clear indication that itâs building on a combat system thatâs even older still.
The later fencing guilds effectively put a stranglehold on who was allowed to teach within their respective territories (IE, if you werenât a member of the Marxbruder, you would NOT be teaching within the borders of the HRE unless you wanted trouble from the guild) which would certainly have allowed the scholas to charge more and more exorbitant prices. However thereâs NO record of this practice during the gameâs time period (in fact, the I.33 manuscript clearly depicts a MONK in the role of the âmaster,â suggesting the church may have played a role in instruction in the martial arts. Interestingly enough, some folios depict a woman as well!).
@Ambaryerno Yes, while itâs all correct (I myself did not cover all this, because I started my sentence with On another forum topic⊠), I do not see why the essence of my point would make this false:
Notice the scythes donât have there curve so they arenât proper scythes that where used in field work only the drawings have some.