The Middle Ages were not a happy time. The men in power required castles for protection, somebody was continually waging war with somebody else, and all able-bodied men were expected to be able to fight. During this brutal time, skill with medieval weapons could keep you from getting killed when there was always someone out there gunning for you.
Everybody loves a good sword, and they especially loved them in the Middle Ages. There were many different classifications of swords, but they could primarily be broken down into two kinds.
Single-handed blades were light and would often be used in conjunction with a shield. You could cut somebody easily but these small swords would not be as effective against an armored opponent. These swords saw heavy usage against the unarmored tribesmen of the time and were also popular among noblemen for dueling.
Two-handed swords were the big workhorses of medieval combat. They were heavy and you had to be pretty strong to fight with one properly. If you wielded one of these monsters, then you were probably wearing armor too. No shield was used since you needed both hands for the blade. And while your armor might have given you some measure of comfort, there were techniques for driving the big blades through gaps in your protection, and the broadswords were known to have occasionally cut a man wearing armor right in half.
As the use of armor spread, combatants figured out that it was possible to knock an armored man to the ground with a good hammer, and then pound away at his armor while he was on the ground. The war hammer developed until it had a hammer on one side and a mean pick on the other. Through the use of this vicious tool, when a man had knocked another man to the ground, he then rotated the weapon and finished his enemy off with the pick.
For those who preferred their combat at a distance, the bow and arrow saw some action from the rear. Over time, battlefields were introduced to the crossbow, which was extremely effective at punching through plate armor. This resulted in even heavier armor, which got many knights killed as they keeled over from the exhaustion brought on from walking around in hundreds of pounds of metal.
The Middle Ages were not for sissies. They were characterized by their brutality and short life expectancy for the men who went off to war. These men often trained extensively in the use of medieval weapons, because the only way to stay alive when somebody else was trying to kill you was to kill him first.
medieval weapons
Everybody loves a good sword, and they especially loved them in the Middle Ages. There were many different classifications of swords, but they could primarily be broken down into two kinds.
Single-handed blades were light and would often be used in conjunction with a shield. You could cut somebody easily but these small swords would not be as effective against an armored opponent. These swords saw heavy usage against the unarmored tribesmen of the time and were also popular among noblemen for dueling.
Two-handed swords were the big workhorses of medieval combat. They were heavy and you had to be pretty strong to fight with one properly. If you wielded one of these monsters, then you were probably wearing armor too. No shield was used since you needed both hands for the blade. And while your armor might have given you some measure of comfort, there were techniques for driving the big blades through gaps in your protection, and the broadswords were known to have occasionally cut a man wearing armor right in half.
As the use of armor spread, combatants figured out that it was possible to knock an armored man to the ground with a good hammer, and then pound away at his armor while he was on the ground. The war hammer developed until it had a hammer on one side and a mean pick on the other. Through the use of this vicious tool, when a man had knocked another man to the ground, he then rotated the weapon and finished his enemy off with the pick.
For those who preferred their combat at a distance, the bow and arrow saw some action from the rear. Over time, battlefields were introduced to the crossbow, which was extremely effective at punching through plate armor. This resulted in even heavier armor, which got many knights killed as they keeled over from the exhaustion brought on from walking around in hundreds of pounds of metal.
The Middle Ages were not for sissies. They were characterized by their brutality and short life expectancy for the men who went off to war. These men often trained extensively in the use of medieval weapons, because the only way to stay alive when somebody else was trying to kill you was to kill him first.
medieval weapons
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