Maybe you spend to much time inside or you live in an Urban center but those straight scythes are used on the field.
i will refer you the lindybiege https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rzQwzg5_mo&list=UU9pgQfOXRsp4UKrI8q0zjXQ also see his other videoâs to
I watched lindybeige videos for like a year or two and I have seen the particular video.
Now read my comment again, heâs a stage actor who does larping not a historian or a martial arts guru. I enjoy many of his videos but on a few things heâs just plain wrong.
no because scythes are curved to allow easy sweeping through hay, you have to bare in mind you worked dawn to dusk and something sitting into you works far better
Well yes and a 435 HP diesel engine tractor will plough more than a horse drawn plough thus everyone would use a tractor and not a team of horses. That however doesnât mean they never used horses to draw a plough.
Those straight scythes were used on the field, those curved ones are a slightly newer model.
Guys, these straight scythes (like the ones shown by Dushin) are used in the fields even today. Iâve seen them used with my own eyes. By my grandpa. By our neighbors. By me. And no we donât keep them as a reserve weapon for a case of uprising.
Maybe the curved is a bit better but that doesnât render the straight one wrong for the same purpose.
I am no expert on evolution of scythe design but calling straight scythe a weapon unsuitable for work is just wrong. Itâs the other way no matter the curvature.
Dushin is also right about the flail. Peasants are the ones who know how to use them without special traning because they used them all their life.
2 Likes
I think a lot of people who donât know something about agricultural implements think of this when they hear the word flail.
and donât even know what this is for.
4 Likes
Yeah thatâs true and I have just now realized why this suprises me. We have different words for these two tools in Czech (Ćemdich for the weapon with a chain and cep for the agricultural tool and primitive weapons devised from it) while in English it is just a flail.
Hi Dushin,
this is called a Dreschflegel and itâs used to get the grains out of the wheat:
The word âdreschenâ is still in use, yet more likely as âverdreschenâ, which is a synonym to âverprĂŒgelnâ (to pummel).
And the word Flegel is simply the word flail in English. So flail has several meanings. Flegel could also mean a person, whoâs rude and doesnât know any manners or good behavior.
Are you trying to teach grandma how to suck eggs?
Thatâs why I posted it.
Ohh hey, sorry that first I misread one of the lines and then giving some information to the last pictures, which are not so self-explanatory and I just used the German words to describe it (and also because you used the picture with the name Dreschflegel), because of the different meanings of the word Flegel in German.
And I didnât know that youâre a GrandmaâŠ
Thatâs how the saying goes, I know; silly Brits.
in response to the original concerns, there is a portion of fioreâs book where he discusses something called a villains blow, which is used against untrained peasants (villagers and therefore villains). basically, when someone throws a heavy fendente strike, as most untrained swordsmen try to do with a two handed weapon, you throw a posta di fenestre and let it roll your sword, using their force against them. the manuever in itself isnt remarkable, as its similar to the german hanging guards, but the context is important, as it implies that peasants had longswords often enough for this manuever to be worth mentioning in a fightbook. another example of the peasant sword is the grosse messer, which came about as a peasants blade before becoming more common
I visited the Hussite Museum in TĂĄbor the past weekend. Let me just throw some of the weapons that were used 20 years after the game takes place. [They all have very long poles which I am not showing in the pics - making them suitable for use against oponent from the waggon fort, or to reach the opponent on horse, or to engage heavily armored knight on foot without getting to the reach of his sword.]
First, the countrymen weapons:
Now some of the townsmen weapons:
And then, of course, the famous Hussite firearms.
In any case, the weapons seem to have quite large parts made of metal. Price of metal could thus hardly be an obstacle to anyone looking to arm themselves - sources I read seem to indicate that training was. It was easier to get army of peasants fight effectively with the farm tools they used in everyday life rather than teaching them how to properly use a sword.
A blacksmith, however, would be presumably more around swords then farmers or townsfolk. Making swords would be probably more common for him in the time of peace then converting farming tools for weapons of war. And you canât make a weapon properly unless you know how to use it.
7 Likes
Your sir got my like!
I am a professional historian and Iâm glad that someone else posted this before me!
Every argument you make in your post is 100% valid and @warhorse should keep it in mind if they tend to bring the realism to another level.
Generally speaking, swords were the most expensive personal weapon to have in Medieval ages. Aside that, swords were a symbol of nobility and no peasant wouldâve been allowed to carry one, even if he somehow scavenge the weapon among the dead after a battle. Axes, maces and hammers were the usual weapons for commoners and it would be great if @warhorse breaks from regular gameplay clichĂ© to over-use swords.
As you mentioned above, together with their great price, swords were very difficult to forge back then (even today - ask your local blacksmith). Besides, to be an effective swordsman, one should be trained and possess special skills to wield the sword properly. Regular warfare training was another big difference between a peasant and a knight. For a commoner, an axe is easier to swing and harder to become damaged against shields or armor. A sword, no matter its quality, is a lot prone to damage in unskillful hands and a lot more deadly in skillful ones.
A crossbow could easily cost more than a sword. Anyways I will just commence a dump now with various sources. Itâs maces and hammers that were used by nobility a fair bit more than commoners. Commoners were even required to own arms and armor according to their personal wealth, Cities usually supplied the lord with decently equipped infantry *. It wasnât really until the levy (Heervaart, Heerban, ArriĂšre-ban) was not longer used that some sort of disarmament policy started.
[quote] Ph. Contamine, Guerre, Ă©tat et sociĂ©tĂ© Ă la fin du moyen Ăąge , M. Prou, âDe la nature du service militaire dĂ» par les roturiers aux Xle et XIIe
siĂšclesâ, Revue Historique, M. Powicke, Military Obligalion in Medieval England, J. F. Verbruggen, Het leger en de vloot van de graven van Vlaanderen [/quote]
Here is a price list from the hundred Years war which roughly coincides with the period the game takes place.
[quote]Peter Reid in Medieval Warfare cites the pay scale in the Hundred Years War period as:
Foot soldier (billmen): 2d
Foot archer: 3d
Mounted archer: 6d
Man-at-arms: 12d (1s)
Knight: 24d (2s)
Banneret: 48d (4s)
Jeffrey Hull, in an article on the quality of swords, estimates the average price of a sword as 41d (2s 5d) and the average price of full harness as 276d (1L 3d).
Middle class professionals from cities seem to be earning around 4d a day, granted that they did not have right to pillage 
[/quote]
(article here: http://www.thearma.org/essays/Quality&Build.pdf)
Jlyga_âu_âonacâHa, what area and time are you specialized in? I hate to repeat my argument, but to use the contemporary situation: a citizen can relatively easily get firearms in the Czech Republic. He may carry and use one for self defense. In most other European countries, that is unheard of. It is quite clear that you canât use the example of the other countries to draw conclusions about the Czech Republic. The same applies to the 15th century.
1 Like
I would just like to add some info to the initial discussion:
-
The quest from the vertical slice (the first part of livestreamed gameplay) isnât a quest as it will be in the game. For the presentation purposes we had come up with a pseudoquest that entails all key features and general mood of the game. As such this quest is in fact a combination of several planned quests from at least three different parts of the planned story. Thatâs why it feels so hurried - you have just waken up from a long recovery after nearly getting killed, you visit your lord and get accepted to his services, you get money to buy equipment, you go to investigate a major crime, you find the outlaws and swordfight them, all in 30 minutes. Thatâs not how itâs gonna happen in the final game.
-
Getting a sword, even getting one, makes sense for Henry (the protagonist). You just donât know all the key details of the story and again the livestreamed quest isnât a quest that will be in the game. Notice I am not even saying heâs getting a sword in the final game anytime soon. You might start with an axe. Who knows? Well, we know, but weâre not telling you
7 Likes
Just thinking out loud - an armory is usually the high point of any castle tour. Correct me if I am wrong, but the lords usually had large stockpiles of weapons that they would distribute to any one able to defend the castle once the need has arisen, probably getting them back to the armory after the fight. It seems more plausible to be given the equipment directly (maybe + pay) then being given money to purchase it elsewhere.
Iâve seen the inventory of an old castle nearby, they easily had enough weapons to equip three times the full strength garrison.
The Hussites actually obtained armor and weapons from a few weapon depots quite early on in the war.