I never use protection either. Just doesn't feel the same. What are we talking about again?

My girlfriend says I'm prone to accidents so protection is a must. You know how it is when you get to excited. In combat I mean. I think

some kind of fighter-darwinism i guess.

Andrew Martin He asks them to pay their club subscription before fighting.

"We only have one opening. Let's see who wants it the most."

He does it with fake knives first, to build confidence. After a few days of that, he'll slip in the real ones and grab a mop.

what if one brings a gun?

Jesus, thank you.

I'd say 15:40 is at least as important of a timestamp tho. :)

Seriously, the title says hand protection for maces hammers etc and he talks about swords for most of it.

The guard on a sword prevents the hand from sliding forward on a thrust into the enemy. Axes and maces aren't thrust into enemies.

@@heinzerbrew and?? what is your point, this video is supposed to be about other weapons not swords

I'd also like to mention that most of our combat is speculative as we have very little historical material regarding Viking era combat. I reckon this is perhaps a little more fun and interesting than learning from the actual fencing manuals from later centuries because there is more freedom when it comes to developing your own style. No two people in my branch fight the same way which means you constantly have to feel out every new opponent.

+Potato Synthesis: Something Matt didn't mention in this video (but he probably has in others, I forget) is that practically all moderate+ intensity HEMA sparring requires hand protection, so it's not just limited to Viking re-enactment. Also, anyone who isn't a dumbass would want hand protection too. :]

broke a finger a few weeks ago..was no fun :(

I disagree that it's more fun without the manuals, but that's just like my opinion, man ;) Either way, I like how you're representing your more speculative art (discovering and making the rules for yourselves by trying to figure out what works) and that you love doing what you do.

And you know to much swords, to little spears in reenactment.

Whip. sword.

Gun whip

They have a very gaudy culture, so I imagine that just rubbed off on weapon buyers and makers. "Hey, look at this weird spikey thing I made!" "Sweet! It will get hung up on my MC Hammer pants and clashes perfectly with all 30 colors on my shirt and my shiny hat."

European aristocracy also has some obscure weapons. Gunswords, pocket-sized crossbows, lantern-shield-gauntlets. The warhammer with a huge crossguard was also European, and most likely also because some rich guy wanted a personalized weapon. Then there are also Chinese who also have all sorts of weird weapons.

The European ones were more of a show of wealth (I put gold plated rims on my car!) And the Chinese stuff seems to be more for performing arts rather than actual combat.

As an aside, what you described is basically what a bow does. Build up elastic potential energy in the bow limbs, transfer that into kinetic energy in the arrow, and use that energy to penetrate a target.

Came here to say this, but instead just +1'd your comment.

Right, I was like "wait no" when he said that

Why don't cross guards have cross guards ?

The whole shield is defensive, basically 100% super-"cross guard". Those with center hand grip have bosses of metal especially protecting the hand. Bucklers are essentially that alone. Also virtually all shields can be used offensively as well. Matt demonstrated the shield being used to protect & hide the hand.

2bingtim you must be fun at parties.

Why don't crossguards have pommels?

@@iopklmification isn't that what the lugs are for?

Good point.

rubbers3 It is likely, but if the edge alignment isn't quite right it'll still glance off and be a threat to the hand if used to parry.

Clips on the the side of the head

I mean, yeah. That's how you wear a civilian hatchet or work hammer. No need to reinvent the wheel

BrayOfTheDonkey real mvp

This right here is why I unsubscribed to this channel. Dude needs to get to the point.

Much more convincing than any other reasonings put forward. I like it.

If he had, it would be a Churchill MkIV t-shirt.

@@scholagladiatoria thicc life forever

Yes they were, and yes it is probably related.

That's what i'm thinking. Strapped shields have less "reach" and offer less protection to the weapon hand. So it would be logical that you'd use your weapon to parry more.

Also, with more armour, you may resort more on suing the crossguard and pommel offensively. Punching a helmet with a viking sword, will probably break your hand.

edi If you throw the pommel, you winst break your hand.

the thinking actually has to do with the width of these shields allow me to explain, round shields lik viking shields are centre grippedand are usually at least 40cm acorss, so, if you extend both hands out like I.33's longpoint, your hand is voered by at LEAST, if not more, 20cm of shield, and of course most are a lot bigger kite shields on the other hand are narrower, and your arm isnt in the centre but near the edge so suddenly, your hand can often extend past the edge of the shield , for a spatha type guard thats an issue when in that extended position, hence why it might be useful to have a longer guard to cover your hand.more.

if you think of rifle usage, even in the World War II they used gloves only in winter

we used ours year round, and im not disparaging any othe army, but it is a small piece of equipment that I think is often overlooked because of the idea: "my hand can grip". Now this may be apples to oranges but did swordsmen using the chinese dao use gloves and would a glove, even in summer be a common sense thing like wearing work gloves when digging a trench in the garden?

IMO, gloves are extremely important in modern warfare, not just because a black rifle gets hot lying in the Iraqi sun. If you are moving in and out of cover, going prone and getting back up, your palms are going to be hitting into gravel and concrete pretty often.

Soooo do ya' like warhammers?

They do, at least sometimes. Just like wood-chopping axes aren't completely smooth and straight. Modern reproductions aren't meant for actual combat so they forget some practical details sometimes.

We have almost no handles, at least for viking axes. They might as well have such constructions. Whether it was in the form of your regular wood chopping axe (almost S-shaped handle) or as a glued on strip of fabric/rope/leather (which is common in reenactment circles) or something else entirely, we don't know.

I don't think your hands would get all that bloody using a warhammer. If you manage to hit a guy on the head and somehow break the skin through the helmet, most if not all of the blood would be absorbed by his coif.

True but your hands can get bloody by other means be it your own or someone else's (your hand scrapes against someone's armour or shield and the skin tears, or you grapple with a bloody opponent and then get up to fight someone else). And that still doesn't prevent rain, snow, sweat, mud, or other lubricants from getting on your haft.

It's a more Case by case for that topic. Like all Arming Swords have Crossguards, but for blunt weapons, it's preference. So someone could put a rope/lanyard, but it isn't standardized

A lot of times you will want to change your hand position on the haft mid-fight. A lanyard or hand guard would prevent this. Look at tomahawk fighting and you'll see.

It's possible many of them did but organic material does not endure the ravages of time particularly well

diamened my question is why didn't warhammers and axes have pommels, so they could end people rightly:)))

If you can imagine a lanyard on a mace saving your life, then the people of whatever historical era (whose lives literally depended on this) probably also had the same thought. I absolutely believe they had lanyards. In some cultures they definitely did have them. Viking (short) axes could be carried hanging from the shield hand in a lanyard, basically invisible from your opponent. When the opportunity arises, cast aside the shield, grab the axe and SURPRISE INSTANT DUAL WIELD. Also useful if your shield breaks to the point of being useless. Or, if the opponent knocks the sword from your right hand or breaks it (which was also not unusual), take the shield in your right hand and use the axe in your left hand. This surprise moment is of course nullified in a duel scenario where you both have the same weapon. But it only makes sense to have a lanyard on a strictly one-handed weapon where you don't need to change your grip. It certainly would be useful on short, percussive weapons designed to pierce armour. Imagine getting your flanged mace or warhammer pick stuck halfway through someone's breastplate, he could disarm you by just taking a step back. Consider how a 20th century soldier can modify his weapon (or even create new weapons) to suit the battlefield, with various field-expedient measures. Trench knives, molotov cocktails, punji traps, trench clubs (which, btw, definitely had lanyards). If a soldier thinks something will give him an edge on the battlefield, he will absolutely do that thing.

The time periods do not match your theory - swords got longer guards in the 11th century. Armour didn't change at all in the 11th century - it was the same as in the 10th and 12th centuries. The only piece of equipment that notably changed in the 11th century were shields.

Since i'm kind of new to HEMA and medieval Europe as a whole i don't really know that much yet, so sorry about the minor annoyance that i present, but anyways, didn't the shape of sword blades gradually become more pointy in those periods as well? Meaning that armor was already beginning to become increasingly more troublesome to deal with ergo that thrusting was emerging as a better way to deal with armored opponents? I'm not that convinced that you couldn't say armor didn't relatively experience a change in those periods, i mean while certainly it did not in the constructional aspect as i think mail and gambeson were still used and that i don't think plate nor brigandine were commonplace yet, but surely there was an advancement in it's application during through those periods, starting from it being only used to protect the vitals up to the point that it encompased the whole body as i'm almost certain that that happened. I mean, with less and less surface area being able to be cut a primarily thrusting way of fighting must have been adopted to face that since nothing else would have worked. It doesn't need to be plate in order to stop slashes. With advancement of armor the crossguard sword must have took the role of stopping thrusts and opening ways to thrusts as well, not meaning that they weren't useful for slashes, but that they were essential for thrusting motions, if they were two handed then almost certainly so, but in the case of arming swords then only so in combination with a more static shield like a kite shield made as a replacement for more expensive armor contrasting something like viking swords and shields which were excellent for not that much armored combat.

Cut your belt off, obviously!!! Oh, wait...

cause katana is so op, there is no protection against it. kappa.

Althix yeah, a good old joke. But it was a serious question...

Simon W. metatron said that long ago there was but they made the decision weather to go 2 handed or singlehanded sword and shield

Metatron has a video on this.

Vodka Toxin But a Katana are as short as a cutlass, so it could easily be use one-handed....

The Roman Gladius had an oval disc guard, as did many spatha's.

The question is more, how long did viking era shields last.

I wonder if that multiple shield rule was actually a thing. It looks like this comes from Kormak's saga, so it's perfectly possible that the multiple shields were just a way to show the strenght of Thorgil and Thord. Especially since it depicts them fighting with swords. I found it really hard to believe that you could destroy even one shield with one sword during a duel, even one that is very good at chopping. The shield would have to be so fragile that it would be useless as a weapon.

The shields were probably very light, and therefore thin and fragile.

The rules for the Holmgang in several Sagas mention 3 shields per man. See Roland Warzecha's series of videos on Viking shields; they were very thin and easy to cut into with a sword, for the purpose of binding an opponent's weapon.

Remember that you really don't want to hit the shield with a sword. It might get stuck. Shields are super at denying your opponents line of attack and keeping missile weapons off you.

BRUCE Elliott the way they carry the weapon is more informed by the form of the weapon the vice versa id imagine

Some would have a clip for a belt on one side of the head