Possible Book Reviews Forthcoming

I just recently discovered the military science section in my campus library. The catalogue only showed me two possible sources that I could use for research for this blog. But when I found the admittedly small section on medieval weaponry, I had to step back for a moment to keep my hands from adding to the all ready large stack of books I wanted to take home with me.

I knew from experience that if I let myself, I would stuff my bag full of whatever I could carry, and then some. I also knew there was no way I could get read everything there during the semester. So I took a few deep breaths, I might have started to hyperventilate, and chose only four books.

Keep in mind these are hefty scholarly works, and just those four stretched my bag to its limits. After skimming through a few of the books I realized there was some fine research in here. But unfortunately nobody is ever going to read it, because the books are too busy being stuck in the basement of the library.

So I bring you a new proposal for a section on this blog. Since there is so much information out there, but it rarely comes to anyone's attention, I will write reviews of each book, and point people in the right direction for further study. I will also use the information I find, and add it to my own knowledge, to improve my future blog posts.

The book format of blog posts will probably be a long time coming, since I'm not so arrogant as to try and write an entire research book before I've delved deeper into the field. But I will share interesting tidbits about the history and function of medieval weaponry and armor.

Let me know if there are any weapons, or armor, that you are interested in knowing more about, and I'll see what I can find in my research.

The Weight of a Sword

I once got into an argument about how much swords weighed. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have gotten vocal on the topic in a Red Robin. But honor had been stained, and I could not back down. Unfortunately the only weapons available were knives and forks, and those do not make for epic duels. But had it come to a duel, I would have easily won because my opponent would have picked a weapon that corresponded to what he thought swords weighed.

Meaning he would have tried to fight me with the equivalent of a fifty pound dumbbell.

He might have been under the impression that he was Cloud.

The fight would have been short, and it would have been painful. And at the time I would have gladly gone all the way, because I was furious.

Please keep in mind I do not endorse murder, not even when it is done with an awesome sword. I fully admit that I was in the wrong just by arguing, or at least getting vocal to the point that our argument disturbed the other guests. There's a time and place for everything, and a restaurant is neither a dueling field, nor is it the internet.

So please keep in mind that I know I was wrong to react the way I did. If given the chance I would have approached the situation in a completely different fashion.

Though really I probably wouldn't have. The guy was a jackass, plain and simple. Pardon the language. But he was the kind of smug prick that thought he knew everything, or at least acted that way. I didn't mind it when he talked about topics I either knew nothing about, or just didn't care about. But the moment he started talking about something I was not only very familiar with, but also quite passionate about (as you will see), I could not let his fallacy go uncorrected.

It began, innocently enough, with a discussion about how to make easy money. He, we shall call him Igor, put forward the idea of selling replica swords just by cutting them out of a sheet of metal. I told Igor that nobody would pay for that kind of crap. Among other things the balance and weight would be completely off. It would be obvious even to the uninitiated that the swords were fake and worth no one's time or money. Obviously anyone willing to spend money on a sword would know enough to recognize utter garbage when they saw it. Especially when the suggested crap would make the Uruk-Hai swords look like crafted masterpieces (at least those went through a proper forging process).

"Lurtz use tears of children for quenching."

Igor countered with, "Nobody would be able to tell the difference. And swords are so heavy anyway, it wouldn't make a difference."

I replied that, "They really weren't that heavy. The heaviest ones were five pounds at worst."

"What? That's ridiculous, they weighed at least fifty pounds."

"Fifty pounds? There's no way anyone would be able to use that. Medieval Europeans weren't so stupid that they'd build weapons they couldn't possibly wield effectively."

"They could use them," Igor said. "They were all buff, like Samoa here."

At this point Igor turned to our Tongan friend, who shall be named Samoa, to protect the innocent.

"Could you use a fifty pound sword," Igor asked.

"I don't know, maybe," Samoa said, clearly uninterested in our dispute.

I tried to point out the fallacy of assuming that Europeans could match Tongans for pure brawn, but my logic was of course ignored. I was also certain that Samoa didn't want to be involved in the discussion, and since he could, and had, attempted to stab me with a knife for fun before, I didn't press the issue.

Of course the only reasonable thing to do was point Igor in the direction of accurate reading material, to allow him the chance to atone for his crime of ignorance if he so desired. But my generous offer was met with a scathing reply.

"You're just like the people who try and give use stuff to read from their church, trying to prove us wrong."

Did I mention that I was on a mission for my church, sitting in Red Robin with all the other missionaries from our district, having an argument about how much swords weighed? Because I totally was.

The discussion pretty much ended there. What else could I say in the face of such extreme douchery? Pure, focused logic, and academic effort was no match. I could point him towards legitimate research. I could have given him a sword, literally thrust it into his hands, and once he cleaned up the blood he still would have found an excuse as to why he was right. There was just no arguing with that, and there lies my only true regret. Well, one of my regrets.

I regret acting like a putz and letting my emotions get the better of me in a discussion that should have been academic. I regret getting into the argument with someone that didn't want to listen in the first place.

But in the end, what I regret most was not carrying a sword with me. Even if he would have ignored the evidence, it would have made my argument just that much more...pointed.

For anyone interested in the specifics of how much swords weighed, check this out. I'm not sure what exactly he's saying, but he uses math to do it. That means he's smart.

Plans For The Blog

Since I am in the beginning stages of planning this blog, I've been toying around with different ideas for how I want to run this. After talking to my professor I decided to play around with the format a little. I will still do the book format, but the posts will be short, since this is a blog, and not a book.

While I do want this to be a reference source for writers, I also want to keep it as fun as possible for everyone else. So any suggestions are welcome.

A History of Weaponry: Introduction

My ultimate goal is to write about the individual specifics of every known kind of medieval weaponry. But before I can do that, I must first get a little history out of the way. Namely, the history of weaponry in general. One cannot discuss weapons properly without considering how those weapons came to be. The very history of armaments dictate the circumstances in which they took form, as weapons adapted to advancements in forging technologies and armory.

This project is partially inspired by my love of medieval weaponry, swords in particular. I have always wanted to keep a blog about weapons, but never felt like I knew enough about them. So with this I take it upon myself to learn everything I can find about weapons, and share my findings here.

My main purpose is to keep this blog as an ongoing reference for writers, who intend to write medieval fantasy, or in any setting that has pre-firearm weaponry. Since this is a history of weaponry meant to be used for reference in the writing of fantasy novels, I will not be going into detail about the development of firearms. This is a pre-firearms work only.

I will be dividing this work as if it were a series of books, into individual volumes. The first volume will cover the basics, from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The second volume will focus on the development of European weaponry, all the way from Greece to the Renaissance. The following volumes will focus on other parts of the world, such as Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Hopefully I will be able to complete this, and provide it to you in a way that is interesting to read. I do have to provide a small caveat that I will be trying to be as scholarly as possible, so chances are I will not be making this interesting for anyone that does not already have an interest in medieval weapons.

Welcome to the Ironforge

The sound of iron hitting molten steel rings through the scorching heat of the workshop. It is late in the evening, and the only light comes from the massive forge, fires flaring up as the apprentice pumps the bellows. A crude bar of metal is taken from the flames, placed on the the anvil, to become elegant death.

Say what you want about human dignity, the sanctity of life, there is just something beautiful about a well forged weapon. Medieval weaponry, swords in particular, transcend crude butchery into true art. In our modern world there are a lot of misconceptions about the weapons from our past. For those that love weapons, there are few things more painful than reading a book that betrays the author's lack of knowledge on the subject.

As an aspiring author of epic fantasy novels, I take this aspect of the medieval setting very important. There has been a shift in recent years away from the traditional medieval European setting. But for those that still want to write that kind of fiction, and even those that want to write a medieval setting in a different part of the world, weapons will have to feature heavily in any non-modernized setting.

And if you're going to include weapons in your book, you might as well know what you're writing about. This means research. And while there are a lot of sources out there, research can take a lot of time when you have to hunt down all the different sources. Which is where this blog comes in. From now until I finish, if that ever happens, I will write about the general development of weapons, focusing on specific weapons from specific eras. All for your convenience. This will eventually provide all the necessary information for writing realistic weapons.

Since this project will be as scholarly as possible, every post will include the sources I got my information from. Any claims I make can, and should, be followed up on. Eventually I hope that this blog will become a premier source of information for enthusiasts of medieval weaponry and armor.

The main way I will organize my research is in the form of books. Each book will have a specific purpose, and will be published chapter by chapter. The first one I will write will be a general history of the development of weapons, currently titled A History of Weaponry. Since there is the possibility that I might post a chapter from a different book I want to write, each post will begin with the title of the book, followed by the chapter number and title after a colon. So a post could look like this:

A History of Weaponry: Chapter 1 - The Stone Age.

 After each book is done I will figure out some way to give them their own pages, to make reading them easier, and so you don't have to read the individual posts backwards. If I manage to figure out how to get blogger to do that.