There was a video, I don't remember who the host was but it was a STEM educator, who picked up a medieval sword at a museum (with permission) and remarked at how light it was. Since then I've internally thought about how unrealistic so much of everything is. Of course it needs to be light, just like everything in modern day. They lug it around the countryside, swing it, etc. Heavy swords just don't make sense.
I recommend to go to a medieval fair, there you can touch and handle melee weapons freely to get an idea how they feel. I remember that I once handled a parade sword which had a very thick and ornate blade, my arms were hurting immediately. Then the guy handed me his own short sword which was used in the fighting demonstrations and it was literally like picking up a can of beans: much lighter weight than expected and I couldn't feel at all the "length" of the blade when I swung it around - it was perfectly balanced in the hand.
Medieval fair weapons still tend to be heavier than historical weapons because they (at least most of the ones that are handed to the public) are blunt.
And because they use crap alloys and their forging technique is crap. Customer demand drives the quality of the product. A thousand years ago, the customer demanded lightweight, durable, sharp tools, in order to survive their profession. Today, they just want something that looks and feels cool. (For comparison: a Renn Faire sword sells for $200, and a traditionally-made Japanese sword costs as much as a car)
Surely taking a sharp sword and blunting its edge yields a safe weapon of similar weight, right? Are they purposely making them more massive?
Depends on how blunt. With momentum behind it you can overcome a lot of bluntness so you want it even more blunt...
They not only have a blunt edge but also a blunt tip. To appreciably blunt the tip while keeping the same length you have to add more metal to the tip.
In fairness, that misconception doesn’t just spring from imagination. Prop weapons generally are heavy, because they need to be thick to have blunt edges.
It depends what your prop is aiming to simulate.
$10 halloween costume prop? Hollow plastic, super light.
Training weapon for self defence against knife attacks? Solid plastic, several times the thickness of a real knife, probably bright blue.
Olympic fencing weapons, which simulate duelling? Pretty light, you only need a light touch to score a point and bending is desirable.
Live Action Role Play where they want to whack each other, but not hard? Anime cosplay? They mostly go for foam-covered plastic which is kinda light, but they're often thick and also they often simulate unrealistically large weapons, so they can end up kinda heavy.
Ornamental/replica things that are just for show? Could go either way. You could make an extra-light sword out of aluminium, or an extra-heavy ornate dagger out of pewter. Less steel means a lower material and shipping cost - but a bit more heft that feels realistic to buyers might get you better product reviews.
Apparently some HEMA/renaissance fair folk wear full suits of metal armour, metal longswords that are blunt-but-authentically-weighted, then try to whack each other pretty hard? Looks like concussion city to me.
Just to add, some martial arts groups use Aluminum training blades to train with They are used to get users mentally prepared to be hit with a blade....being hit with a blunt metal blade hurts, but its ultimately better than being hit by a sharp steel one and gets you used to the mentality that you will be hit so how do you make it so it is less painful (or life threatening when you do get hit for real)
https://takknife.com/collections/keen-edge-aluminum-training...
I got a suit of chainmail at one point to possibly wear for Halloween/Renn fairs etc. It was heavy! I could not stand it for longer than about an hour, it was a real workout. Certainly made me gain new respect for all the stereotypical medieval knights wearing full metal armor suits.
Huh, wonder if you could turn that into a fitness fad for runners. Improve safety against attackers, get a better cardio workout.
Forget Under Armour. Let’s go for Over Armor.
Some SCA groups do use real weapons. They're completely nuts. And great fun to drink with...
I don't think something needs to be thick and heavy to be blunt, I've used (and I think many people have) blunt kitchen knives and sharp kitchen knives and without inspecting the blade edge I think it's very hard to tell. Sharpening a knife or sword also doesn't really change much in its weight from my layman knowledge.
"Blunt" in a stage fighting or practice sparring context is completely different from blunt in a kitchen context. You are still swinging these swords are very near full speed at another human being. In a stage context, they might be wearing very minimal protective gear. You blunt kitchen knife will cut through meat just fine if you overhand swing it down.
For example, here's a practice sword that has 1/16th in (1.6mm!) thick edges: https://www.reliks.com/functional-european-swords/practical-...
With the degree of difference in edge thickness, you can probably see how the cross section of a sword (and therefore its weight) will vary substantially, especially if you keep the maximum thickness about the same.
It's absolutely possible to craft these types of swords that are both safe and well approximate the real shapes and weights and handling of a "real" sword. But it's also easy to just... go for look and safety to try to save money.
Thanks for the insider knowledge!
Blunt kitchen knife is pretty sharp sword tho. I know as I got cut with a training sword - it was significantly more blunt then what you would call blunt kitchen knife.
You imagine you’ve held prop weapons
Prop weapons can be made of plastic.
they can be, but they were not as being recanted above. Prop weapons can be made of aerogel too but im not making a lame point about it.
I think some of these misconceptions appear in popular media predating the reenactment scene. Mark Twain in particular is guilty of it. Connecticut Yankee has a bunch of stuff like knights needing cranes to get on their horses and whatnot. The whole book is about how crude and simple minded medieval people were.
But the part where my character can carry 300 pounds of inventory while fighting is legit, right?
True, but your weapons still need to be light to be able to carry the 20 wheels of cheese you'll be eating mid-fight to heal up because you can't be bothered to learn alchemy.
The myth of the heavy sword is a stupid one, and I was convinced that it had died out a long time ago. I'm not sure who still believes otherwise? DnD's weights are hardly a reference, as those weights are important for the mechanics of the game, not for historical accuracy.
The comments regarding Game of Thrones blurb don't make much sense either. At no point in that quote does Syrio claim that Westerosi swords are unreasonably heavy or that knights are clumsy. But a knight in full plate with a longsword is certainly much less agile than someone with a rapier and no armour.
Syrio literally says that knight's swordsmanship is "hacking and hammering":
“Just so. Now we will begin the dance. Remember, child, this is not the iron dance of Westeros we are learning, the knight’s dance, hacking and hammering, no. This is the bravo’s dance, the water dance, swift and sudden. All men are made of water, do you know this? When you pierce them, the water leaks out and they die.” He took a step backward, raised his own wooden blade. “Now you will try to strike me.”
Which is a direct reference to the myth of heavy and unweildy longsword.
Whether George Martin himself believes the myth or merely made Syrio misinformed, is anybody's guess.
Also, no, knight in full plate with a longsword is not certainly much less agile than someone with a rapier and no armor. He will be somewhat less agile... if the level of training is equal... but neither longsword nor armor are so heavy that they will significantly limit agility.
Main issue with full suit of plate is actually overheating and tiring out sooner due to added weight and insulation (and possibly restricted breathing depending on the helmet).
> But a knight in full plate with a longsword is certainly much less agile than someone with a rapier and no armour.
No, that's not really true either.
IIRC a full set of plate armour weighs about 60lbs. How is that not going to make you less agile (no matter how well made)? And yes, I understand the old trope about knights lumbering around, not being able to get up if they fell over and not being about to mount a horse is all garbage. And that 60lbs is roughly what a modern combat soldier carries. But it is still 60lbs!
> How is that not going to make you less agile (no matter how well made)?
Because the weight is distributed and carefully balanced and the parts are fitted to the wearer's body. It does in fact matter how it's made, it's not a backpack.
I admit I could have put more effort into my response, but at this point you're not going to spend 30 seconds to even look it up?
Here is a video of people doing cartwheels in full plate armor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzTwBQniLSc
The difference in agility seems marginal if it exists at all. I would certainly advise anyone, if they ever had to bet their life on it, to assume a fully armored foe is not inhibited in their agility. Maybe crawl into a very tight space if you must.
A huge number of people are 60lbs or more overweight and they still get around fairly well.
'get around fairly well' != 'agile'
;0)
A huge number of people are 60lbs or more overweight and are still very agile, too. It's silly to keep picking this fight this way.
Perhaps we don't agree on what 'agile' means.
Article has a minor misconception, D&D sword weights include the scabbard which mostly brings them in line with historical weapons.
The ‘large’ weapons are excessively heavy, but players can be a lot stronger than actual humans.
Have to remember that average human is 10 on usual scale in these games. And any character using any type of weapon getting bonus from strength has at minimum 12 or most likely 16 or above stat. Which means they are lot stronger that average.
If you are in the UK there are 2 incredible collections of ancient and medieval weapons and armour. The Royal Armoury (Leeds) and The Wallace Collection (London). Both are well worth a visit. Some of the armour is a work of art. I heard that NASA studied some of the late medieval armour to get ideas about how to articulate space suits (citation required).
The interesting modern flipside to this is that people very consistently underestimate the weight of firearms.
And how does ammo add up. Cartridge weight of 7.62×39mm is about 16 grams, one magazine is 30 rounds. Meaning more than half a kilo per each. Or with 3-4 magazines 2 kilos.
Honestly, I doubt that a Strength 20 D&D barbarian cares about the wrong weight of his Greataxe, given that they can probably deadlift a horse. Their player probably does care that the chosen implement of murderous doom looks cooler than a plain Daneaxe…
One problem that D&D and videogames have, is that weight in lbs is a pretty poor simulation of the burden involved. The sheer bulk or lack of proper carrying opportunities seems factored in a bit into several RPGs, even those where you can carry 111 spears in your backpack.
The (vastly underrated) tabletop RPG RuneQuest once ditched "lbs" and went with a more abstracted "encumbrance" (ENC) statistic. And of course lots of videogames plus several tabletop games go with a slot- or grid-based inventory as a main or secondary source of being overburdened.
Weapon weights and similar issues (too short rapiers, non-existant back scabbards) seem to be the "not every weapon is a AR-15/mind your trigger discipline" of the HEMA crowd.
> even those where you can carry 111 spears in your backpack.
That's what magic items like the Efficient Quiver are for. :-)
Related, the new edition of Pathfinder ditched weight in lbs and picked up a system of encumberance called bulk, I think, better represents real objects a bit more than just plain weight
Ah, Runequest! Happy memories.
Now let's tackle the similar misconception about armor weight: this myth got so absurd that some still believe knights actually had to be hoisted up with cranes onto on their horses. Whereas in the real world, I've seen people doing backflips in full plate.
Absolutely, see for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-bnM5SuQkI
The horse isn't going to like that mounting method if the knight has spurs on.
A knight in plate was carrying a similar amount to a fully laden modern soldier (about 60lbs). On the plus side, the armour's weight is more evenly distributed (a modern soldier has most of it on their back). On the minus side, the knights legs are more encumbered, which makes walking harder and running a lot harder.
A knight actually beats a soldier (who is carrying a similar weight and 10 years his junior) across an obstacle course in this short film 'Obstacle Run in Armour': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzI1UvlQqw
Henry VIII (in his younger, athletic days) could leap into the saddle in full armour without using the stirrups, and was very proud of it.
In his later days though... he might have needed that crane ;)
Supreme leader played golf this weekend and got 17 hole-in-ones.
Remind me who history is written by.
The losers. The winners are too busy governing to give a shit. https://scholars-stage.org/history-is-written-by-the-losers/
from the article:
> We say that history is written by the winners. That is sometimes true.
I wonder if this misconception comes from jousting armour, which could be about twice as heavy as battle armour, combined with out-of-shape knights.
A lot of these historical inaccuracies can be traced back to the Victorians. Horns on viking helmets, highlanders wearing tartan etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they invented this one too.
Also wasn't it shown in a black and white film of one Shakespeare's plays (Henry V?).
My working weight for weighted pull-ups right now is more than a full set of plate weighed.
At the other end, I wonder what the minimum weight would be for an impact (as opposed to edged) weapon to be able to reliably damage an unarmored opponent.
The old prison favorite of a lock in a a sock can very easily be fatal & probably weights 1/4 to 1/2 of a pound. I once reforged a ball peen hammer into a 1 handed warhammer. It was either a 12 or 16 ounce head, so quite light, really too light to get full power. It was shocking how much adding 6 inches to the handle increased the power. The spike end would easily do 1.5 to 2 inches through plate steel(maybe 3/16 or 1/8 inch) & even the sharp(90 degree) corners of the hammer head would pierce that plate if the strike wasn't flush and peel it back can opener style a half inch. It really takes very little mass to break bone provided you can get good speed, a relatively hard small impact point, and no armor/padding in the way. Skulls, hands, forearms, and shins are very vulnerable.
Well, a sling can whip a small stone hard enough to do serious damage. Otherwise, look into the cosh / blackjack / billy club style clubs. Light enough to swing at a high speed, small enough to hide under loose clothing, with just enough weight at the end to cause deep impact trauma.
Anything too light means that the force is dispersed in soft tissue, leaving surface bruises. That added inertia of some extra weight at the end causes the energy of the swing to transfer deeper to bone.
I doubt you'll get a scientifically derived number of any certainty, but I'd hazard a guess at two pounds or so at a minimum, and that would need some careful aim to be debilitating.
BIg swords weren't made to cut down an enemy in half. They were made to bring down a knight riding a horse.
You didn't club it, but bashed it down with a swing.
Also, the Middle Ages weren't as dirty as you think, the British wrote a Black Legend about them. The 20th century movies didn't help neither. I'm not talking about Monty Python, but the supossedly serious dramas set on that era.
For instance, I'm pretty sure the 13-14th centuries were completely different to the 8th or 9th ones in technology, development and culture.
This thinking school was almost in the Enlightenment era, but we can perfectly place it at the end of the Middle Ages as the kickstart of the modern rights born in the Enlightenment:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Salamanca
And, of course, before these there were the Italians and the Humanist movement.
Early Middle Ages were probably a point in history where Europeans were at their highest level in terms of overall health and quality of life.
Antiquity and Renaissance were both overcrowded, urbanized, with bad living conditions and worse food.
I suspect that the huge 2 handed swords favoured by the Landsknecht, were intended to intimidate people into not laughing at their clothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsknecht