Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Summary
Bibliography
Credits
Appendix
Chapter 2
I think a few quotes might be a good
way to start this section also. The first quote is the SCA 'presumed'
armor standard, as quoted from the "Marshal's Handbook", November,
2000 edition
'V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF BLOWS
A. When judging
the effect of blows, all fighters are presumed to be fully armored. Special
tournaments or combat may be held which may redefine what areas of the
body are armored, and to what extent, so long as all the participants
are made aware of the special conditions prior to the start of combat.
1. All
"fully armored" fighters are presumed to be wearing a hauberk over a padded
gambeson, with boiled leather arm and leg defenses and an open-faced iron
helm with a nasal. The helm may be presumed by Kingdom convention to include
a very light chain mail drape, permitting vision and resisting cuts by
the mere touch of a bladed weapon.
a. Under this standard, an acceptable cutting blow to the face would be
lighter than to other portions of the head or body. Areas deemed illegal
for attack (the wrists from 1inch or 25.4 mm above the hands, from 1inch
or 25.4 mm above the knees and below) shall be considered safe from all
attack.
b. An acceptable thrusting blow to the face shall be a directed touch
and shall be substantially lighter than to other parts of the body.'
It is on this 'presumed' armor
standard that all our examinations of weapons effects on armor must be
based, if it is to be applied to SCA combat. Accounts of armor that does
not meet this 'presumed' armor standard cannot generally be used to apply
here. Armor with better resistance to weapons can possibly be applied
in those instances that the armor fails to resist the weapon, but not
in those instances were it successfully resists. Armor with less resistance
to weapons can possibly be applied in those instances where it successfully
resists, but not in those instances where it fails to resist.
There are some who question the
reliability of period texts compared to 'research and examples' (tests
on re-creations of period artifacts) as they can be applied to combat
archery. To quote a statement from someone who believes that chain mail
armor would stop arrows, exactly as I received it, 'and the historical
accounts of most battles were written by men of low birth. as such it
is suggested that they exaggerated the tales of their brethren. it is
clear by research and example that reconstructed items (arrows, bows,
and maille) simply did not react the way some of these tales suggest.'
I disagree somewhat with this
'suggested' exaggeration. First, most men of 'low birth' could not read
or write. Those few who could read and did write, and especially those
who did write historical accounts of battles to satisfy the demands or
requests of their superiors, were obviously writing for it to be read.
Most of their potential readers were men of 'high' birth, and the writer
knew it. These men of high birth were also the ones who would judge and
decide if the writer's words were worth preserving for posterity, and
the writer knew it. These same men of high birth, in many instances, had
been involved in the battles, so knew basically what had been going on
there, and the writer knew it. The writer of 'low birth' would have known,
or at least should have known, that gross exaggerations in favor of 'low
birth' persons over 'high birth' persons would doom their works to the
trash bin. The fact that these persons of 'high birth' found the writings
of these men of 'low birth' worthy of preservation is evidenced by the
very existence centuries later of those very works I use here. So the
'suggestion' they exaggerated the tales, to make the persons of 'low birth'
look better is at best a very questionable 'suggestion', certainly not
proof of their being unreliable. But still, every source must be looked
at critically, and its reliability established as much as possible.
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook,
located at the Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies, has an
excellent article online entitled "Why Study History Through Primary Sources"
which was adapted from James Harvey Robinson, "The Historical point
of View", in Readings in European History, Vol I, (Boston: Ginn, 1904),
that I highly recommend. It can be found at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/robinson-sources.html
Before I get into
the texts, I'm going to address the statement 'research and example
that reconstructed items (arrows, bows, and maille) simply did not react
the way some of these tales suggest.' from the above quote. To make
re-constructed items needed for this 'research and example' requires
that, first, the original item must exist, and in a manner that it's original
properties can still be determined. Secondly, the person making the re-constructed
items must have access to that original item, and the capability of running
all the necessary tests on that item to determine fully all it's original
properties. Or the actual re-constructor must have access to the information
produced by someone with such access that has run those tests. Most artifacts
dating from the Medieval era are held under lock and key, in museums or
private collections, and while possibly accessible to 'view', it is a
scant handful of experts that have access to a scant handful of these
artifacts in such a way they can determine the exact properties of the
originals. It is extremely difficult to determine tensile strength, shear
strength, composition, hardness, brittleness, ductility, and a plethora
of other physical and chemical properties on the 'wire' used in a chain
mail shirt without causing some pretty severe damage to at least one link
of that shirt. And most museums and private collectors are not going to
allow their artifacts to be damaged in this way, except under some very
highly controlled circumstances, by recognized experts, and only for some
special reason, usually done to satisfy the owner's needs or desires,
not the expert's.
While some of this
data has been compiled and is available, on some very few of the existing
artifacts, there is simply not enough data on enough artifacts to allow
a complete and systematic study of the effects of arrows on chain mail
for our entire period of study. If an arrowhead, and a piece of chain
mail, both 'provenanced' to be from the Battle of Hastings actually existed,
and were to be re-constructed exactly, and the arrowhead placed on a shaft
of the exact type and material determined by the recognized experts to
have been used at Hastings, and the arrow were then shot at the chain
mail, from a bow of the exact type, material and strength of a bow determined
by the recognized experts to have been used at Hastings, the results of
that test may be valid, depending on the exact parameters of the test
shooting. They may be valid for Hastings. They would not be valid for
the Siege of Acre, the Battle of Bannockburn, or any other battle. Artifacts
from each of those battles would have to be checked in the same way to
determine what would have happened there. There simply aren't enough artifacts,
and there certainly isn't enough data on all the various factors and artifact
properties that would enter into such a test to be able to do this for
all the battles of our period and area of study. I rather doubt there
is enough such data to do this for any one specific battle, much less
the thousands of battles that took place in Western Europe before 1600
AD.
If we cannot do this systematic
testing on -reconstructed artifacts, and we generally cannot, the only
other way to find out what happened when arrows hit chain mail in the
Middle Ages is to look at textual accounts from the time to see what they
may tell us about what actually happened at that time. While it
is very difficult, if not downright impossible, to give hard and fast
rules about how to study, analyze, and use period texts for our purposes
in a study like this, I can show a few things about how NOT to do it.
I have the story of a single incident I have received four times, from
three different people, and I have the story of the same incident where
I found it in a translation of a period text also. I'll give these examples,
and quickly analyze them to show what I mean about how NOT to use texts.
First story: 'King
Louis on Crusade (mid 13th century) climbed up on hillside by making use
of a large tree root and cut with his sword in his other hand. Many archers
fired at him, but according to the chronicler who witnessed the sight,
he was kept safe by his hauberk.' This story was sent to the Missile
Combat Email list in response to a request by me for documentation on
armor stopping arrows. This story does not tell us any source for the
information given, and because of what I did discover from the historical
text I have, I know it contains some wrong data. The incident happened
in 1148, which is one hundred years before the time given. This makes
it a different King Louis, on a different crusade. In addition, the chronicler
who reported this incident did not witness it happen, by his own admission.
As such, while this 'story' is very roughly based on an incident that
actually did happen, it is not acceptable as documentation. It is not
even a very good attempt at documentation.
Second story, same
incident: 'Odo of Douil concerning the ill-fated second crusade (mid-12th
century):
"During this engagement the King
lost his small but renowned royal guard; keeping a stout heart, however,
he nimbly and bravely scaled a rock by making use of some tree roots which
God had provided for his safety. The enemy climbed after, in order to
capture him, and the more distant rabble shot arrows at him. But by the
will of God his armor protected him from the arrows, and to keep from
be captured he defended the crag with his bloody sword.." '
This story was sent to an Email list I'm not on. It was copied from that
Email list, and sent to me directly by someone who saw it on that other
Email list. This shows the flaw in the previous story, by placing the
incident in the right crusade and century here. The 'quote' given is possibly
a true quote from a translation of Odo's work, but we don't know which
translation. But the name of the author of this story is misspelled, and
there is a typo in the last line of the story. The word 'be' should
be 'being'. These can be small things, but should be avoided as much as
possible. One reason why it needs to be avoided as much as possible is
because in a story like this, to verify and validate it a person may have
to find the source text used, and that misspelling of Odo of Deuil as
Odo of Douil ('o' used instead of 'e') can cause difficulty in locating
the source text. As things worked out, the misspelling caused very little
problem, but had I searched in a different manner, it might have. What
did cause problems was that no text name is given. It took me several
weeks of work using Google on the internet to locate the correct text
name. Using the text name in English, which I found rather easily still
didn't get me to a copy of the text. To find that, I had to have the original
Latin name for the book. It was trying to find that original Latin text
name that took the time. Once I had that, it took only about an hour to
have a copy of the book on order, so I could check this reference.
Third story, same
incident: 'Odo of Douil concerning the ill-fated second crusade (mid-12th
century):
"During this engagement the King lost his small
but renowned royal guard; keeping a stout heart, however, he nimbly and
bravely scaled a rock by making use of some tree roots which God had provided
for his safety. The enemy climbed after, in order to capture him, and
the more distant rabble shot arrows at him. But his armor protected him
from the arrows, and to keep from be captured he defended the crag with
his bloody sword.." ' This was sent some time later to the Missile
Combat list by the person who had posted the earlier copy of this story
on the other list. He probably didn't know I had already received it from
that other list, or he wouldn't have tried to get away with what he did
here. Note that Deuil is still spelled with an 'o', and 'being' is still
shown as 'be'. Other similar items of typos and such are identical between
the two posts in other parts of the total Email. However, notice that
there are five words 'missing' from inside the quote itself. These did
not get left out inadvertently during the 'cut and paste' operation this
person did to get this ready to send this second time. Of course, by this
time, I had already sent to the Missile Combat list a short refutation
of this text. That refutation was based on the missing words 'by the
will of God'. I don't know if the person who posted this 'altered'
copy of this quote had read my refutation, or not, but I do know in the
same posting, he 'refuted' other documentation I had posted at the same
time. So it looks like he at least knew that those five words would blow
his case, so he simply 'removed' them from the quotation of Odo's words.
Regardless of his reasons, such 'alteration' of a direct quote from a
period text is not only not acceptable in documentation, it is intolerable
to attempt to mislead persons in this manner in any venue. It is falsification
of evidence. I did call him to task on this, and gave a fuller refutation
of the text indicated, on the Missile Combat list.
Fourth story, same incident: 'Odo
of Douil concerning the ill-fated second crusade (mid-12th century):
"During this engagement the King
lost his small but renowned royal guard; keeping a stout heart, however,
he nimbly and bravely scaled a rock by making use of some tree roots which
God had provided for his safety. The enemy climbed after, in order to
capture him, and the more distant rabble shot arrows at him. But by the
will of God his armor protected him from the arrows, and to keep from
be captured he defended the crag with his bloody sword..' This appears to be another 'cut and paste' from
the original post on the other list, as the same typos and other identifying
items are present in this, and in other portions of the whole Email. This
was forwarded to the Missile Combat list on the request of a different
person from before, after that person who had it forwarded had quit the
list. He was on the list when I gave my previous refutation, and when
I called the other provider of this same quote to task for his falsification.
At least, this person gave the original quote, not the modified one. But
he does not add anything new to defend this quote from the refutation
I gave, nor does he seek to correct the typos, or attempt to better identify
the text. He just repeats what others have already given, even though
he was in a position to know it had been refuted already.
Fifth story, same
incident: "De profectione Ludovico VII in orientem", by Odo of
Deuil, Translated by Virginia Gingerick Berry, copyright 1948, Columbia
University Press. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, New York. ISBN 0-393-09662-9
Also known as "The Journey of Louis VII to the East". This book may be
available 'used' through Amazon.com. This passage is near the end of 'Book
Six'. Quoting from the Berry translation:
'During this engagement, the King lost his small
but renowned royal guard; keeping a stout heart, however, he nimbly and
bravely scaled a rock by making use of some tree roots which God had provided
for his safety. The enemy climbed after, in order to capture him, and
the more distant rabble shot arrows at him. But by the will of God his
cuirass protected him from the arrows, and to keep from being captured
he defended the crag with his bloody sword...' In this story,
the original text is identified by name, the author of that original text
is identified, the translator is identified, the copyright date is given,
along with the copyright holder's name, the publisher is identified, the
ISBN number is given, and where the book might can be found is given.
Then the approximate location of the quote in the text is given. This
is about all the identification and location information that can be given.
With this information, just about anyone should be able to secure a copy
of the book to check the quote. In addition, I will now give the original
Latin wording for this incident. 'In hoc rex parvulum sed gloriosum
perdidit comitatum regalem; vero retinens animum, agilis et virilis, per
radices cuiusdam arboris quam saluti eius Deus providerat ascendit
scopulum. Post quem populus hostium ut eum caperet ascendebant, et turba
remotior eum ibidem sagittabat. Sed Deo volente sub lorica tutatus est
a sagittis, cruentatoque gladio ne capi posset defendit scopulum, ...'
Now, I cannot translate this Latin into English, but I know enough
Latin to know the major words, and can see how they would fit together
to come at least pretty close to what the translation I found renders
it. In hoc is 'in this', like in the saying "In hoc signo vinces"
(In this sign conquer), rex is 'king', sed is 'but', and
gloriosum would be the root word for 'glorious'. Agilis
(agile), and virilis (virile) are easy, arboris refers to
plants (arborium), Deus (Deity), providerat (provide), ascendit
(ascend), and scopulum (I would make this 'escarpment') and saggitabat
(something to do with arrows or archers, like in Sagittarius) are also
easily figured out, even with very little Latin knowledge. Just that bit
shows that at least this small section of the translation is fairly accurate.
Other easy words are populus (people), hostium (host), remotior
(remote), lorica (armor), and defendit (defend). Other slightly
harder words are comitatum (root for committee), regalem
(regal, referring to royal), retinens (retaining), and volente
(volition). The English translation has all the right elements to make
the translation seem accurate.
I believe the first
person may have seen the original post, and from memory wrote what he
remembered of it when he sent in that first story. The second time I saw
the story, I know that person had found the account posted on an Email
list, and had copied it verbatim from that list, and then reposted it
there again later. He admits as much, and credits the person who originally
provided the research. He probably didn't check it for validity, or he
probably would have caught the typos, but I can't prove he didn't check
it. The third time I saw this, I again know the person copied it verbatim
from his own earlier post, and then deliberately changed portions of the
quotes given to make his case 'stronger'. Again, I don't know if he actually
checked it for validity. After I had refuted it twice on the Missile Combat
list, the third person to bring it forward had been on the list at the
time of my second refutation, at least, so knew it was in question, and
contained typographical errors. He did not bother to correct the errors,
but sent it in verbatim, probably without checking it for validity either,
though I can't prove he didn't check it's validity. I seriously doubt
that any one of the three persons whose Emails I quote have actually seen
a copy of Odo of Deuil's book, in the original Latin, or in translation,
though they quote it as though they have. That is not research. That is
not the way to locate or present documentation.
Now that I have given a bit about
how to document, and a lot about how not to document, I'm going to address
how to refute a text, and how not to refute a text. I'll use the same
incident. To refute this text, the real one cited in the fifth story,
it can be done in several ways. One would be to show the text does not
exist. The next would be to show the translation does not exist. In either
of these instances, in this case, it will be impossible, as they do exist.
The next way would be to show the 'quote' does not exist in the text.
Again, in this instance, impossible, because it does exist. The next way
would be to show the translation used is not according to the original
text, or in other words, is mis-translated. To do this, it is required
of the person making this claim to show what the original text says, from
a locatable and accessible form, and to provide an alternate translation
to the original. I showed above that this might be hard. Another way would
be to show from other texts about this incident that it happened differently
than Odo has it. But again, it is required of the person making that claim
to show these 'other' texts, in an as verifiable and reliable a manner
as this one is shown. The next way is to show that, in the context in
which it is used, or in the context of the whole book, what it says may
have a different meaning than what the raw words of the text might seem
to mean. Or, as I chose, to show how the words used exactly describe what
happened, and why. Odo ascribes Louis's survival more to the will of God
than he does to any specific quality or ability of Louis's armor. The
fact may be that Louis's armor would normally stop arrows. Or the fact
may be that Louis's armor would not normally stop arrows and this time,
something aided it to perform this feat. That is the situation Odo describes.
Others of a less religious bent, or 'other' religious bent, than Odo might
have ascribed this to karma, luck, fate, or something else, but even replacing
Odo's 'by the will of God' with one of these other expressions
does not give the credit to the armor, but to some outside agent. Now,
it might still be possible to defend the text as an example of armor that
would normally stop arrows, but to do so, the person making that claim
would be required to show some evidence either from inside the text itself,
or from some other equally reliable account of Louis's armor stopping
arrows that this was in fact the case, or the refutation stands, at least
as making this reference 'questionable'. But remember, it is required
of THEM to provide this information, totally. It is not acceptable to
make a half-hearted quote of some unlocatable text that may hint at this
being the case. It must be shown as positively as this text and refutation
are shown, from equally reliable and verifiable sources. That is the same
with any refutation or defense of a refuted text. Another thing that is
not really acceptable is trying to discount a text solely because it is
the 'only' source that shows a particular point. Frequently, we only have
ONE text that covers a specific incident. To make this case will again
require the person making the case to provide the other sources that describe
the same incident, and show that they do not mention the point in question,
or that they mention it as happening differently.