ok cool. So you are aware that the chivalric literature of the high middle ages make absolutely no mentioning of overly heavy amour, that the romantic medievalist revival of the 19th century with novels like Invahoe or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court very clearly depicted medieval arms and amour as extremely heavy for the first time even though the types of arnour described didn't even exist during the time of Arthur or the 12th century?
Here's a sample from Mark Twain:
First you wrap a layer or two of blanket around your body, for a sort of cushion and to keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain mail—these are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss your shirt onto the floor, it slumps into a pile like a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night shirt, yet plenty used it for that—tax collectors, and reformers, and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of people; then you put on your shoes—flat-boats roofed over with interleaving bands of steel—and screw your clumsy spurs into the heels. Next you buckle your greaves on your legs, and your cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate, and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch onto the breastplate the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down in front but is scalloped out behind so you can sit down, and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal scuttle, either for looks or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints onto your arms, your iron gauntlets onto your hands, your iron rat-trap onto your head, with a rag of steel web hitched onto it to hang over the back of your neck—and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mould. This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little of the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell.
Completely nonsensical but Mark Twain was one of the most read authors of his time, his works were incredibly popular, so his description of arms and armour reached literally millions who until then had learned little to nothing about medieval arms and armor. .
Cool. I expected you espouse being a HEMA practitioner.
I loved Ivanhoe, and while it mentions armor in any specificity, the most interesting point is how the arrows of the men of the Sherwood Forest bounced off the plates of the opposing knights, as Richard the II leads them in a siege against a castle. Ivanhoe goes much against the myth of the longbow. It doesn't depict armor as cumbersome per se, as much as protective, and the physical ferocity of Richard is well noted.
As for CT Yankee, well, I saw the movie years ago. I will leave your quote as it is, but I can only surmise that you've not read much Mark Twain, because he uses comedic hyperbole in both that quote and as one of his comic tropes.
As for my assertion that the "enlightenment" portrayed all those who came before them as, well, "unenlightened," the primary evidence alone is in the name they gave their age.
Such an exhaustive review of the literature, I'm totally convinced. lol
It's "enlightenment" era writers and philosophers who are most at fault for this really.
I happen to be very knowledgeable about European armour and its history.
How about yourself?
I'm sure you are, and so am I.
ok cool. So you are aware that the chivalric literature of the high middle ages make absolutely no mentioning of overly heavy amour, that the romantic medievalist revival of the 19th century with novels like Invahoe or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court very clearly depicted medieval arms and amour as extremely heavy for the first time even though the types of arnour described didn't even exist during the time of Arthur or the 12th century?
Here's a sample from Mark Twain:
Completely nonsensical but Mark Twain was one of the most read authors of his time, his works were incredibly popular, so his description of arms and armour reached literally millions who until then had learned little to nothing about medieval arms and armor. .
Cool. I expected you espouse being a HEMA practitioner.
I loved Ivanhoe, and while it mentions armor in any specificity, the most interesting point is how the arrows of the men of the Sherwood Forest bounced off the plates of the opposing knights, as Richard the II leads them in a siege against a castle. Ivanhoe goes much against the myth of the longbow. It doesn't depict armor as cumbersome per se, as much as protective, and the physical ferocity of Richard is well noted.
As for CT Yankee, well, I saw the movie years ago. I will leave your quote as it is, but I can only surmise that you've not read much Mark Twain, because he uses comedic hyperbole in both that quote and as one of his comic tropes.
As for my assertion that the "enlightenment" portrayed all those who came before them as, well, "unenlightened," the primary evidence alone is in the name they gave their age.