medieval times or modern times?

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AuthorTopic: medieval times or modern times?
M.
Too Sexy for my Title
Member # 5654
 written Friday, February 24 2006 08:38 Profile #25
quote:
Originally written by Drew:

in an effort to ride Kelandon.
Posts: 1035 | Registered: Friday, April 1 2005 08:00
Spring
Shaper
Member # 5450
 written Friday, February 24 2006 13:56 Profile Homepage #26
Modern. We have power and everything, for one, but on the other hand, we have all the side effects.

Medieval would be a good holiday time, because you could answer most of their questions.

That is, if you are an adult male.

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I'll put a Spring in your step.
:ph34r:
Posts: 2396 | Registered: Saturday, January 29 2005 08:00
Najosz Thjsza Kjras
Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
 written Friday, February 24 2006 14:31 Profile #27
quote:
Originally written by Student of Trinity:


I also got a look at some medieval Japanese swords in the National Museum in Tokyo. By that time I had seen a lot of medieval European swords, and they looked dull-edged, dull-surfaced, and kind of uneven. The Japanese blades from the same era looked as though they could have come out of a factory today: sharp corners, sharp points, sharp edges, everything perfectly straight or smoothly curved, and the whole surface mirror-polished.
To be fair, this is because iron was astoundingly scarce in Japan, so swordsmithing gravitated towards quality rather than quantity. The Japanese would be absolutely astounded to find iron and steel armor and weaponry on the hands of the lowliest soldier; it was the exclusive province of people who could afford them over there.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
dareva
Infiltrator
Member # 3220
 written Friday, February 24 2006 19:55 Profile #28
quote:
Originally written by Selima:

quote:
Originally written by Drew:

in an effort to ride Kelandon.
Well, one good thing is that we could still have made remarks like that in medieval times.

The reason people look back on the past with romanticism is often because it is the past, and you're not living in it, with all its attendant inconveniences.
Posts: 437 | Registered: Sunday, July 13 2003 07:00
Jumpin Salmon
? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
 written Saturday, February 25 2006 02:57 Profile #29
And when we talk about inconveniences, we mean toilet paper. Running water. Warmth in the winter.

At one point the nobles had to burn peasants just so they could keep warm. You ask how cold it really was? Well, the peasants weren't complaining.

That's cold.

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quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

Well, I'm at least pretty sure that Salmon is losing.
Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, February 25 2006 11:00 Profile Homepage #30
Salmon has just improved my day.

—Alorael, who also has been led to believe by somewhat unreliable sources that Japan's paradigm of war was much more oriented around rapid and efficient killing and light armor whereas Europe relied on heavier armor and prolongued bashing. Certainly by the time plate came into fashion it made more sense to have a heavy sword for bashing than a sharp sword to dull on armor.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
radix malorum est cupiditas
Lifecrafter
Member # 6403
 written Saturday, February 25 2006 11:14 Profile #31
Which makes one wonder, why swords at all? Why not just fall back to the age of maces?

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Posts: 883 | Registered: Wednesday, October 19 2005 07:00
Student of Trinity
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
 written Saturday, February 25 2006 11:33 Profile #32
quote:
Originally written by Belisarius:

quote:
Originally written by Student of Trinity:


I also got a look at some medieval Japanese swords in the National Museum in Tokyo. By that time I had seen a lot of medieval European swords, and they looked dull-edged, dull-surfaced, and kind of uneven. The Japanese blades from the same era looked as though they could have come out of a factory today: sharp corners, sharp points, sharp edges, everything perfectly straight or smoothly curved, and the whole surface mirror-polished.
To be fair, this is because iron was astoundingly scarce in Japan, so swordsmithing gravitated towards quality rather than quantity. The Japanese would be absolutely astounded to find iron and steel armor and weaponry on the hands of the lowliest soldier; it was the exclusive province of people who could afford them over there.
I dunno about this. Swords were rich man's accoutrements in Europe, too. Getting the iron is the easy part. Making a blade hard enough on the surface to hold an edge, but soft enough inside that it won't shatter on impact, is really tricky.

If better swords were possible in Europe, European kings and emperors would have commanded them, and eventually left them to museums for me to see. The weapons, the armor, the art, the jewelry, even the imperial regalia -- it's all pretty crudely made, in Europe, pretty much right up to the Renaissance. And I've never seen anything European that looked like those Japanese swords, that wasn't post-industrial.

Hey, here's something cool. I knew very little about the history of Japanese metallurgy before this exchange, but Google popped right up with this great set of pages on the Hitachi website. It states at one point that Japan's iron shortage didn't begin until the late 15th century CE, and that Japan had been exporting fine swords to China in large quantities for a century or so before that.

[ Saturday, February 25, 2006 11:56: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ]

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Thuryl
...b10010b...
Member # 869
 written Saturday, February 25 2006 16:47 Profile Homepage #33
quote:
Originally written by Infernal666hate:

Which makes one wonder, why swords at all? Why not just fall back to the age of maces?
Well, by the time everyone was walking around in plate armour, that's pretty much what happened -- using a sword didn't make a whole lot of sense except in duels. Of course, not too long after that, crossbows were developed and armour became obsolete again.

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00

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