5 ms·

Nor does he mention horse shoes, and eating knives in an age where nearly everyone carried their own personal knife for food. Then there's the other cutlery and

Nor does he mention horse shoes, and eating knives in an age where nearly everyone carried their own personal knife for food. Then there's the other cutlery and kitchen equipment, and the scythes and other tools to grow and harvest that food. The bands for barrels and wheels. The linchpins for those wheels. That's the reason blacksmiths were the linchpin (sorry) of their village. They were the toolmakers of their day. Even militarily it's strangely lacking. No mention of the million arrows an English expedition might take to France. That needs a million arrow heads. There's a surprising amount of work goes into a bodkin or broadhead, needing hundreds or thousands across the country to contribute. Yet the author is studying for a degree in Medieval Studies and I've just read a bunch of history books for fun.

AstralStorm 8y ago
Eh, most people used wooden or ceramic eating utensils. Except the rich of course. There is a reason why a metal utensils set was dowry... The other stuff, indeed. The article is a shallow editorial not a major work on medieval history.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  That's why the personal knife was so important as most of the rest wasn't metal. :)
  - GuB-42 8y ago
    About the personal knife, it is interesting that in the french country, you often see people eating with their own personal knife, even when they have all the cutlery they need in the kitchen. Lagiole or Opinel folding knives are typical. These knives are often prized possessions, and it is not uncommon to see old people using the same knife they had when they were young, the blade being shortened by successive sharpening.
wavefunction 8y ago
When did England invade France in the Medieval era?
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  The Hundred Years War, 1337 to 1453. Henry V and Agincourt etc. Edit: Dates :)
  - wavefunction 8y ago
    That's the answer I was expecting. It seems strange to me to use the end of the High Medieval era and extrapolate that back across the whole.
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      It's the most well known. It's not like the English longbow or archery was a recent innovation by the time of the Hundred Years Wars. by that point there had been centuries of extensive use. The Burhs defending against Viking raids in the time of Alfred needed arrowheads too, as did the Vikings themselves.
      - phillc73 8y ago
        Adding a response to the original question: The Battle of Gisors in 1198 was an English victory on French soil.[1] Regarding the English Longbow, there appears to be an ongoing debate regarding when the longbow was developed, as used in the Hundred Years War. There are some who argue that prior to the late thirteenth Century, English bows were either a shortbow or less powerful "ordinary bow."[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gisors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gisors [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Origins
        NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        You're right. There's a respectably wide span across which the longbow may have become dominant, and another period of using some amount of both. I think most certainty is their origination in Wales. The Welsh and Normans were constantly learning from each other's tactics from the earliest excursions by the Normans. There are some who document longbows being used during the war of succession between England and Normandy in the 1140s (The Anarchy), and in Wales a little later in the 12th. Others have argued much later. Unless we get an older find of Mary Rose quality, I think that debate will run on. :)
wallace_f 8y ago
>Yet the author is studying for a degree in Medieval Studies and I've just read a bunch of history books for fun. Often there does seem there must be a more meritocratic way to organize the merit of intellectual endeavors than what Feynman said could be "rotten clubs," academia. Surely academia is not the worst model, but with the tech we have today it seems quite medieval (sorry).
- jon-wood 8y ago
  This is a very real problem, even in academic circles. My wife has a PhD in medieval studies, but because she's pursuing a career outside of academia she has no affiliation with an educational establishment. That means that if she wants to do research she has to get friends still within the system to borrow books on her behalf from university libraries. She's also unlikely to get anything she writes published, and presenting papers at conferences is prohibitively expensive because they're all priced on the basis that everyone is just going to expense their tickets, travel, and accommodation. Academia is very much a club of people who think they're superior to the rest of us because they have a university ID badge, and getting anywhere in that world is essentially a case of waiting for professors to die off. There's a great many good reasons she decided to get out of that world professionally, but it seems a shame to stop talented and passionate people from contributing.
  - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    > She's also unlikely to get anything she writes published. I chose not to remain in academia, but I still publish from time to time and certainly I've never had anything turned down by an editorial board for not being presently employed in academia (and then the article goes on to anonymous peer review). One can put down one’s university alumnus e-mail address in one's contact information, and if institutional affiliation is asked "University of X (alumnus)" is enough – often in the humanities the affiliation is shown in the article to give readers an idea of what tradition the writer comes out of, not necessarily where he/she is presently employed. With regard to your wife not being able to borrow from uni libraries, that is unfortunate, but you shouldn’t disparage academia internationally as an elitist club for that, because there are myriad institutions where borrowing privileges are extended to alumni or even to the general public.
iguy 8y ago
And no mention of plows. IIRC almost the entire reason that northern europe could have a much larger society in medieval times (compared to roman) was that they had more metal, for making better plows, to turn over the heavy soil. That's why blacksmiths were so important.
- phillc73 8y ago
  First they had to make the swords before they could turn them into ploughshares.
mhd 8y ago
"Across the country"? I thought that a lot of the production of the English warbow and its associated equipment was pretty centralized. Hunting equipment (both bows and arrows) as something entirely different (I think there's some evidence in found arrowheads). But yeah, the article also equates "metalworker" and "blacksmith" in the first sentence, which is a bit weird, considering how highly specialized professions often were. No such thing as a "full stack smith", especially in late medieval cities.
- benj111 8y ago
  Lords had quite a lot of power at the time, supplying soldiers (equipped) was basically one of their taxes to the king. I would be surprised if lords didn't maintain their own capability to produce arrows. Plus in a siege situation you would also want to be able to repair weapons and such. I don't think a full stack smith would have been that unusual. Certainly at the low end. The friendly local blacksmith would probably be expected to do just about everything. If you wanted a top end sword, that would be much more specialised. I don't have any idea about the relative size of the groups though.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  My understanding is things like armour were highly specialised and centralised. Not sure about the basic armour for archers and men, which would have been needed in more quantity. Archery seems to have required a properly national effort, thanks to the escalation of military in the Hundred Years War. Levies on Lords and the peasantry in shires to provide men, wood, feathers, heads and what not. The assembly was, as I understand it, at least mostly centralised. There were levies to collect goose wing feathers from every goose to fill huge orders. I've no idea if Northern shires got off lightly thanks to distance. :) Ultimately there was a Keeper of the King's Arrows who was responsible for just managing it all and bringing in adequate stocks. Similar for bows. Earlier it wouldn't have needed that scale of effort, or management. I thought most came from the shires with the men going to the King, and was often quite variable as a result.
  - hef19898 8y ago
    I never dug too deep into medival history, so thanks for pointing the Keeper of King's Arrows out to me. Definetly worth a deeper look or two. Quite interesting to see the first signs of "industrialisation" of war already that early. Usually that is put into much later periods. (With the notable exception of naval warfare, navies always required more management attention than armies).
hef19898 8y ago
At the moment I am studying history at my local university (as a hobby to be honest). I am also an industrial engineer by training, a supply chain manager and currently a project manager for Integrated Logistics Support. And what I realized is that history is focusing a lot on the social side of things. And yes the military side as well (there is one professor who discouraged students to go after military what-ifs if they don't have the propper background). What they totally lack is technical, economic and trade / supply side of things. Nobody is really looking into stuff like resource allocation during modern war like WW 1 and WW 2 on the level of military gear developed. Lend-lease is an underrepresented topic imho. So I am not surprised that you with a technical background and an interest in history can provide insight into the importance bn of blacksmiths a pure historian can't. And if you look at the area where technology, production and military overlap it really gets tricky. Even current experts are struggling for today's challenges. So I can imagine that in a historical context it is even harder, especially without a strong background in one of the three domains and solid knowledge ib at least one of the others. I guess what I want to say is, let's go easy on zhe guy and provide some additional ideas. Maybe he's reading this discussion.
- benj111 8y ago
  I wouldn't say logistics is completely ignored, but yes it is under represented. I'm sure I've come across contemporary lists of what lords would have to supply for a mediaeval campaign, (something like each lord shall supply X archers, each with Y arrows, also Z men at arms) so you could work backwards from there. Sorry if I'm teaching my grandmother the suck eggs.
  - hinkley 8y ago
    As an observer, history teachers have taught me that Rome, Napoleon and maybe Alexander worried about logistics. I theory the message is that they were superlative in their logistical prowess, but in practice we only see a few examples.
    - hef19898 8y ago
      There are certainly exceptions. I remember one documentory that looked at the theory that the roman empire's strength was infrastructure. I simply feel it is underrepresented.

AstralStorm 8y ago

Eh, most people used wooden or ceramic eating utensils. Except the rich of course. There is a reason why a metal utensils set was dowry... The other stuff, indeed. The article is a shallow editorial not a major work on medieval history.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
That's why the personal knife was so important as most of the rest wasn't metal. :)
- GuB-42 8y ago
  About the personal knife, it is interesting that in the french country, you often see people eating with their own personal knife, even when they have all the cutlery they need in the kitchen. Lagiole or Opinel folding knives are typical. These knives are often prized possessions, and it is not uncommon to see old people using the same knife they had when they were young, the blade being shortened by successive sharpening.

wavefunction 8y ago

When did England invade France in the Medieval era?

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
The Hundred Years War, 1337 to 1453. Henry V and Agincourt etc. Edit: Dates :)
- wavefunction 8y ago
  That's the answer I was expecting. It seems strange to me to use the end of the High Medieval era and extrapolate that back across the whole.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    It's the most well known. It's not like the English longbow or archery was a recent innovation by the time of the Hundred Years Wars. by that point there had been centuries of extensive use. The Burhs defending against Viking raids in the time of Alfred needed arrowheads too, as did the Vikings themselves.
    - phillc73 8y ago
      Adding a response to the original question: The Battle of Gisors in 1198 was an English victory on French soil.[1] Regarding the English Longbow, there appears to be an ongoing debate regarding when the longbow was developed, as used in the Hundred Years War. There are some who argue that prior to the late thirteenth Century, English bows were either a shortbow or less powerful "ordinary bow."[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gisors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gisors [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Origins
      - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        You're right. There's a respectably wide span across which the longbow may have become dominant, and another period of using some amount of both. I think most certainty is their origination in Wales. The Welsh and Normans were constantly learning from each other's tactics from the earliest excursions by the Normans. There are some who document longbows being used during the war of succession between England and Normandy in the 1140s (The Anarchy), and in Wales a little later in the 12th. Others have argued much later. Unless we get an older find of Mary Rose quality, I think that debate will run on. :)

wallace_f 8y ago

>Yet the author is studying for a degree in Medieval Studies and I've just read a bunch of history books for fun. Often there does seem there must be a more meritocratic way to organize the merit of intellectual endeavors than what Feynman said could be "rotten clubs," academia. Surely academia is not the worst model, but with the tech we have today it seems quite medieval (sorry).

jon-wood 8y ago
This is a very real problem, even in academic circles. My wife has a PhD in medieval studies, but because she's pursuing a career outside of academia she has no affiliation with an educational establishment. That means that if she wants to do research she has to get friends still within the system to borrow books on her behalf from university libraries. She's also unlikely to get anything she writes published, and presenting papers at conferences is prohibitively expensive because they're all priced on the basis that everyone is just going to expense their tickets, travel, and accommodation. Academia is very much a club of people who think they're superior to the rest of us because they have a university ID badge, and getting anywhere in that world is essentially a case of waiting for professors to die off. There's a great many good reasons she decided to get out of that world professionally, but it seems a shame to stop talented and passionate people from contributing.
- Mediterraneo10 8y ago
  > She's also unlikely to get anything she writes published. I chose not to remain in academia, but I still publish from time to time and certainly I've never had anything turned down by an editorial board for not being presently employed in academia (and then the article goes on to anonymous peer review). One can put down one’s university alumnus e-mail address in one's contact information, and if institutional affiliation is asked "University of X (alumnus)" is enough – often in the humanities the affiliation is shown in the article to give readers an idea of what tradition the writer comes out of, not necessarily where he/she is presently employed. With regard to your wife not being able to borrow from uni libraries, that is unfortunate, but you shouldn’t disparage academia internationally as an elitist club for that, because there are myriad institutions where borrowing privileges are extended to alumni or even to the general public.

iguy 8y ago

And no mention of plows. IIRC almost the entire reason that northern europe could have a much larger society in medieval times (compared to roman) was that they had more metal, for making better plows, to turn over the heavy soil. That's why blacksmiths were so important.

phillc73 8y ago
First they had to make the swords before they could turn them into ploughshares.

mhd 8y ago

"Across the country"? I thought that a lot of the production of the English warbow and its associated equipment was pretty centralized. Hunting equipment (both bows and arrows) as something entirely different (I think there's some evidence in found arrowheads). But yeah, the article also equates "metalworker" and "blacksmith" in the first sentence, which is a bit weird, considering how highly specialized professions often were. No such thing as a "full stack smith", especially in late medieval cities.

benj111 8y ago
Lords had quite a lot of power at the time, supplying soldiers (equipped) was basically one of their taxes to the king. I would be surprised if lords didn't maintain their own capability to produce arrows. Plus in a siege situation you would also want to be able to repair weapons and such. I don't think a full stack smith would have been that unusual. Certainly at the low end. The friendly local blacksmith would probably be expected to do just about everything. If you wanted a top end sword, that would be much more specialised. I don't have any idea about the relative size of the groups though.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
My understanding is things like armour were highly specialised and centralised. Not sure about the basic armour for archers and men, which would have been needed in more quantity. Archery seems to have required a properly national effort, thanks to the escalation of military in the Hundred Years War. Levies on Lords and the peasantry in shires to provide men, wood, feathers, heads and what not. The assembly was, as I understand it, at least mostly centralised. There were levies to collect goose wing feathers from every goose to fill huge orders. I've no idea if Northern shires got off lightly thanks to distance. :) Ultimately there was a Keeper of the King's Arrows who was responsible for just managing it all and bringing in adequate stocks. Similar for bows. Earlier it wouldn't have needed that scale of effort, or management. I thought most came from the shires with the men going to the King, and was often quite variable as a result.
- hef19898 8y ago
  I never dug too deep into medival history, so thanks for pointing the Keeper of King's Arrows out to me. Definetly worth a deeper look or two. Quite interesting to see the first signs of "industrialisation" of war already that early. Usually that is put into much later periods. (With the notable exception of naval warfare, navies always required more management attention than armies).

hef19898 8y ago

At the moment I am studying history at my local university (as a hobby to be honest). I am also an industrial engineer by training, a supply chain manager and currently a project manager for Integrated Logistics Support. And what I realized is that history is focusing a lot on the social side of things. And yes the military side as well (there is one professor who discouraged students to go after military what-ifs if they don't have the propper background). What they totally lack is technical, economic and trade / supply side of things. Nobody is really looking into stuff like resource allocation during modern war like WW 1 and WW 2 on the level of military gear developed. Lend-lease is an underrepresented topic imho. So I am not surprised that you with a technical background and an interest in history can provide insight into the importance bn of blacksmiths a pure historian can't. And if you look at the area where technology, production and military overlap it really gets tricky. Even current experts are struggling for today's challenges. So I can imagine that in a historical context it is even harder, especially without a strong background in one of the three domains and solid knowledge ib at least one of the others. I guess what I want to say is, let's go easy on zhe guy and provide some additional ideas. Maybe he's reading this discussion.

benj111 8y ago
I wouldn't say logistics is completely ignored, but yes it is under represented. I'm sure I've come across contemporary lists of what lords would have to supply for a mediaeval campaign, (something like each lord shall supply X archers, each with Y arrows, also Z men at arms) so you could work backwards from there. Sorry if I'm teaching my grandmother the suck eggs.
- hinkley 8y ago
  As an observer, history teachers have taught me that Rome, Napoleon and maybe Alexander worried about logistics. I theory the message is that they were superlative in their logistical prowess, but in practice we only see a few examples.
  - hef19898 8y ago
    There are certainly exceptions. I remember one documentory that looked at the theory that the roman empire's strength was infrastructure. I simply feel it is underrepresented.