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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2016 20:11:07 GMT
Look, you're free to believe whatever you want, but this technique does not stand up to any scrutiny. I've said multiple times I'm willing to make time for someone who wants to prove me wrong. In the absence of actually demonstrating there is no reason to believe this is anything besides trolling at this point.
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 7, 2016 20:28:44 GMT
I'm speaking from the POV of the armored fellow in the text. But I should have been more clear on that.
Also I originally said "the longsword wielded as a longsword has very little if any value in harness fighting." You then explained how the longsword has use in harness fighting. Note that I didn't say you can't use a longsword in harness, but that its use is no longer as a sword so much as a spear, mace or leveraging device. That may play a role in how this technique functions. And certainly any test of this would need to be done in harness or at least in simulated harness. There's no surviving video of the latest test, so I don't know what attack methods were used to test it.
You seem strangely emotional about this topic. This isn't about proving you wrong. It's about reading and understanding what the text is trying to tell us. Either it was all just a joke done at considerable expense in ink and effort and at the risk of the author's reputation, or there's something we're missing here. I'm in the latter camp. Though at this point, it really doesn't look like it would work at all. There's something we're missing, I think. But I've got some dudes in harness running around this weekend, so maybe I can convince them to test this out
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2016 20:38:14 GMT
I am baffled that you seem to be so invested in believing in the validity of this technique, but it is your right to hold whatever belief you want. If you aren't willing to actually demonstrate it then it doesn't really matter anyway.
It isn't just my opinion, you seem to be the only person defending this as a valid technique. It is nonsense. It isn't a matter of misunderstanding text, it's text that is flat out useless. A lot of expense, effort, and ink was consumed in producing the Malleus Maleficarum almost 60 years before the Codex Wallerstein, but that doesn't mean it contains useful information for really ferreting out witches regardless of what that means for the reputation of Heinrich Kramer. Just because something is published doesn't mean all or some of its content is useful or valid.
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 7, 2016 22:14:06 GMT
This clearly isn't a book on demons. Nobody is arguing the text as a whole is useless that I'm aware of. It contains quite a few very useful harness fighting moves. Matt Easton has made this point, and I've used some of these techniques myself without problem. The question focuses on this one plate. It's either 1) A joke; 2) A technique arising from some peculiar aspect of the duel (ie throwing something); 3) An error or judgment lapse or 4) A technique we simply don't understand. As it stands now the whole thing appears to be just foolish. The armpit is exposed, as are the apparently unarmored hands. The position is exceptionally awkward to hold, with sword in left hand, spear in crook of elbow, and pommel being thrown. And there are certainly examples of humor in other texts. Getting your foe on the ground and playing backgammon on him while he struggles. Tossing an enemy in the bag. That's good old German humor. Violent and at someone else's expense. But this--this humor doesn't fit. If it's a joke it's an amazingly modern joke. A meta-joke commenting on the nature of these texts and playing with the expectations of the reader. I would be astonished if the authors and readers had that level of humor during the 15th century. Plus, these were serious texts for life-or-death duels and combat. It would be like a serious gun book in our time showing how your friend can go down range and you can shoot cans off his head. I would think the readers would get pretty angry about that.
So it's probably, as others have suggested long before the video became viral, some kind of duel-related trick. These guys didn't have much advanced humor, but they *did* love a good trick. And if there's some kind of rule/expectation that you are to throw a weapon at your opponent first, this may count while still leaving you with both sword and spear at your option. This would also explain why on Earth someone would have a smith make a peculiar quick-release pommel. It would be for a special dueling sword.
Or there's something we're not seeing.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2016 22:57:43 GMT
You are overthinking this. Sometimes they just plain screwed up and wrote about or drew stuff that doesn't work or make any sense.
Paulus Kal's anatomically impossible krump, and Fiore's secret three-armed wrestling comes to mind.
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Post by MOK on Jun 8, 2016 0:04:38 GMT
A lot of expense, effort, and ink was consumed in producing the Malleus Maleficarum almost 60 years before the Codex Wallerstein, but that doesn't mean it contains useful information for really ferreting out witches regardless of what that means for the reputation of Heinrich Kramer. Well, it does contain one line of good sense! (Also, good old reverend Montague Summers for one thought it contained ageless wisdom and sage advice supremely pertinent for the 20th Century. His forewords are easily the creepiest bits in the annotated edition...) So it's probably, as others have suggested long before the video became viral, some kind of duel-related trick. These guys didn't have much advanced humor, but they *did* love a good trick. And if there's some kind of rule/expectation that you are to throw a weapon at your opponent first, this may count while still leaving you with both sword and spear at your option. But, again, you have to drop your shield to do it so why not throw the shield? I really don't think that's it.
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Scott
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Post by Scott on Jun 8, 2016 0:43:12 GMT
The malleus maleficarum is not such a bad example, as when it was written it was believed to be true. It's not a book that was read for a bit of a giggle. Duels where you had to throw something at your opponent? Why not where one person gets to strike the first blow? If you can't attack until I've attacked first, then I can take as long as I want to remove my pommel, and I don't need to worry about leaving myself open while I prepare to throw. Personally I'm not prepared to rule this one out. Just because we don't understand how it was supposed to work doesn't mean it's nonsense.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2016 2:29:56 GMT
It's nonsense because there are a bunch of other things on the person that can be thrown that make more sense, including but not limited to: the entire sword, the spear, the buckler, the rondel, gauntlets, the helmet, the sabatons...
The sword isn't really at your disposal anymore, because at worst it is now structurally compromised and falling apart, or at best its handling is suddenly garbage because you just removed a substantial amount of weight at one end. Assuming you managed to get it off in the first place.
It is a dumb technique and completely broken by the defender sticking his buckler in front of his face. If there is some goofy rule that says A must attack first and B must stand like a stoic chump and take it, then nearly any other attack would be more effective than standing there twisting away and then lobbing the pommel. It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 10, 2016 18:59:49 GMT
The explanation I've gotten is that the buckler or shield wasn't considered a weapon but the pommel was a weapon or part of a weapon. And since the spear or sword are far preferable in the duel, this option of a pommel throw lets you keep both of those options. There was no official code for HRE duels as far as I know, so a lot of this was down to the custom of the particular Germanic principality.
There's no surviving example of such a blade, but we do know the smiths could design all kinds of interesting variations on longswords. So there's no reason they couldn't have made one with a fast release pommel and a counter-weighted and pinned handle. Possibly with some lead in it. Finding such a weapon would answer a lot of questions I think.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2016 21:48:31 GMT
If the sword was designed to handle properly when the pommel was removed, it would then necessarily be poorly balanced while the detachable pommel was attached.
If try to get around that by having the pommel with negligible weight to begin with, then what would be the point of throwing it in the first place? It would have no impact by necessity.
This is leaving aside the complete lack of any evidence of quick release designs to begin with, and the fact that a pommel that is very easily removed for a throw is also very easily removed on accident. You'd have the things working themselves loose after a long horse ride or from bouncing around in a cart.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2017 13:24:29 GMT
Just had to add this too:
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 8, 2017 16:49:51 GMT
Another point to add to this is that harness is a different world. You're closed off and can't feel things as you normally would. Some sensations are magnified, others are almost entirely gone. A surprise impact of a pommel (BANG!!!) to someone in a closed helmet might well make them wonder where the attack is coming from and disorient them enough to let you close measure and end rightly as the text states. Again I firmly believe this was NOT a joke. It may have been a poor idea for a technique, but there was a theory behind it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2017 18:35:25 GMT
Those are some helmets if you can see your opponent well enough to throw a pommel at him but so poorly you cant tell they are throwing one at you until it hits.
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Post by Sir Thorfinn on Jun 8, 2017 19:26:00 GMT
This thread makes me smile...lots of great idea and banter. Let me add to it. Assuming I understand the variables...
If you've got 2 guys in plate harness, intending to kill each other with swords...and one has the foresight to have a quick release pommel, or one in a handy pouch to throw...how in the heck can you throw it accurately in gauntlets? I have several sets of finger gauntlets and mittens, and I'd NEVER try that in a fight. Unarmored, maybe, but armored, no way...even if my instructors taught it as a 'good idea'.
Just my .02
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2017 19:31:15 GMT
This thread makes me smile...lots of great idea and banter. Let me add to it. Assuming I understand the variables... If you've got 2 guys in plate harness, intending to kill each other with swords...and one has the foresight to have a quick release pommel, or one in a handy pouch to throw...how in the heck can you throw it accurately in gauntlets? I have several sets of finger gauntlets and mittens, and I'd NEVER try that in a fight. Unarmored, maybe, but armored, no way...even if my instructors taught it as a 'good idea'. Just my .02 Hmmm... forgot the hand factor 😔 It's ok. I am free for a month and a week from 19th. Will do it again.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2017 19:53:46 GMT
Simple you just take off the gauntlet first since the dope you are throwing your snap-off pommel is too busy chewing his cud to notice anyway.
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 8, 2017 20:23:04 GMT
So here are our choices:
1--It was a joke never intended to be done. 2--It was impossible because nobody had detachable pommels 3--It was a theoretical concept by the author but had little practical use 4--It was a concept drawn from harness fighting by many fighters. 5--It was a trick observed by the author at least once, and recorded as something interesting.
No. 1 fails because that kind of meta-humor that uses the expectations of the reader of fight books as the basis for the joke is very advanced, and does not show up in other sources of the period.
No. 2 is an obvious fail, since the text itself is evidence that at least someone thought of detaching threaded pommels and obviously threading existed in period. If you can make god damned harness you can thread a shaft of steel. *I* can thread, drill and tap. It would have been apprentice level stuff. Fitted harness is exponentially more complex on the scale of metal working.
No. 3 is possible.
No. 4 is unlikely since we don't have other examples, and at least most swords of period appear to have had penned pommels.
No. 5 seems most likely to me. The author might have seen or heard of someone using a detached screw-on pommel as a weapon of distraction and added that to the text in order to show something new and interesting to the reader. This would also explain why it may not have much practical use in most circumstances. But in the broader context, using stones as weapons is as old as human history and this isn't markedly different. It may be that the pommel, as a piece of an approved dueling weapon, was permitted whereas stones and sand into the visor would have been forbidden.
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Post by legacyofthesword on Jun 8, 2017 23:34:59 GMT
Duels where you had to throw something at your opponent? Why not where one person gets to strike the first blow? If you can't attack until I've attacked first, then I can take as long as I want to remove my pommel, and I don't need to worry about leaving myself open while I prepare to throw. But in the broader context, using stones as weapons is as old as human history and this isn't markedly different. It may be that the pommel, as a piece of an approved dueling weapon, was permitted whereas stones and sand into the visor would have been forbidden. This makes the most sense to me. I don't know much about Medieval dueling rules, but I can easily imagine that certain strict parameters were followed. This seems like a sort of sneaky loop-hole tactic. Other cultures had rules for duels: I remember something about swords having to be the same length in rapier duels somewhere during the Renaissance, and in Norse duels there were rules to determine who got the first strike. Say there are at least these few rules: no using anything but certain selected weapons, and one guy gets to attack first - now this tactic actually starts to make sense. It reminds me of the sword throwing technique from Fiore: maybe not something you'd ever use, but just one of those odd techniques that might come in handy in a very specific situation.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2017 0:18:19 GMT
It doesn't really though. If you get to attack first, why risk missing with a goofy throw? If you get to make a first strike and the other guy has to grin and bear it, why not wind up and swing for the fences? The arguments against "baseball swing" style wide attacks is that they leave you open - if you get a free shot there is no disadvantage to it, and it's a lot more likely to have the desired effect than lobbing the pommel. If the opponent has to allow you to throw the first strike, then all the arguments about how open a given technique makes you go right out the window.
If they just have to stand there while you do whatever, why not simply settle the point of the sword against the eye slit or any opening / joint in the armor and then drive it through?
This really doesn't make any lick of sense.
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Post by Cosmoline on Jun 9, 2017 0:45:44 GMT
The text in question is contemplating a scenario where both parties are out of measure and in defensive positions while in harness. The attacker in this case could opt to throw his spear, but he's shown using it in a classic vertical defensive position. So if he throws it he gives that up. Also he'd have to drop the sword which can be tricky to pick up while wearing gauntlets. Neither side wants to move first and give up their own defensive position. So he covers his assault with a thrown pommel from the sword. This may not seriously injure the opponent, but it would give him a moment of noise and activity to distract his foe. Which is all that's needed to get a spear or longsword into a vulnerable area. It may be that there are no stones to use in the arena, or that stones would be forbidden as improper weapons. So the pommel substitutes. Put it this way, if one man on a battlefield threw a rock at another in armor before attacking, would you condemn this as silly? If it clangs the helm and discombobulates, it's served its purpose. This is, remember, coming from the Gladiatoria SPEAR group. So the pommel throw is a substitute for the spear throw. wiktenauer.com/wiki/Gladiatoria_group#Spear
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