Knights

Surviving examples of medieval arms and armour show that weapons were lightweight tools designed for efficient, agile combat, far removed from the massive lumps of iron of fantasy.

the sword, the most well-known of medieval weapons varied in weight depending on size and type, but the following are statisics referenced from originals in museums:

1-handed swords from the 12th Century to 15th C in the Wallace Collection, London, and the Royal Armouries, Leeds, range from 700 grammes in one case, up to 1,400 grammes. The average weight is about 1,200 grammes.

the longsword (sometimes called a "b*stard sword" by some people) was a larger sword designed to be able to be used either with one hand or two-handed. Usually 10 cm longer in the blade, and with about a 5 cm longer grip, the longsword is fundamentally similar in weight - 1,100 grammes to 1,500 grammes. A few later renaissance era examples have more complex hilts for greater hand protection, and reach close to 1,600 grammes.

the largest two handed swords of the late renaissance, in the Royal armouries of Leeds, and the Stibbert Museum, Florence, range from 1,500 grammes up to 2,500 grammes, but such weapons were very rarely used in the pre-renaissance medieval period.

(A side note: for the myth of the sword weighing 8, or even 15 kilogrammes, if you assume a length of 90 Cm (36 inches), and a blade 5cm (2 inches) wide, a sword blade would have to be nearly 10cm (4 inches) thick to have enough steel in it to reach that weight. Real sword blades are, by contrast, between 8mm and 2mm thick....)

Pole-axes and Halberds weigh an average of 1,500 grammes to 2,500 grammes, depending on the complexity of their heads and the length of the wooden haft. Weight was also affected by choice of material; Ash hafts are usually a little lighter than oak, and a haft soaked in linseed oil was heavier than untreated wood.

Maces and war-hammers, likewise, tend to weigh between 800 grammes and 1,600 grammes, with an average around 1,300 grammes. despite being quite light, these weapons focus their force onto a very small area, allowing them to punch though armour easily.

The knightly lance weighed between 3-4 kilogrammes, turned or carved from solid wood, with a steel tip called a cronel. Lances from the 15th century onwards were normally made with a distinct taper in the shaft, so most of the weight was centred in the user's hand and supported by the lance rest, a hook-like protusion on the knight's breastplate designed to support the weight. A rare intact surviving example of the jousting lance (a renaissance era lance from italy) is to be found in the Wallace Collection of london, under the catalogue number #A1022. despite a length of 3.48 metres, it weighs only 3.1 kilogrammes.

Later on, with the rise of feudalism, under Charlemagne, about the year 800 AD, the training became formalized. Usually, boy went into service for a knight as a page, then graduated to become a squire about the time of puberty, and finally went through rather intricate rituals involving fasting, praying, a vigil, and ceremonies, to become a knight at about 20 or 21. There was a lot of variation in this, and the time was sometimes severely shortened in times of war. This all became much more important when people learned to use stirrups (no, I am not kidding).

Later yet, the knighthood declined in importance, particularly in the Late Middle ages (1300 to 1453). The invention of gunpowder is said to be a cause, but a review of the battles of the Hundred Years' War shows that guns were not necessary; longbows were far cheaper to field and far more destructive than matchlocks ever could be. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, the time came when anything you did that pleased the king, even giving a particularly enthusiastic toast at a feast, could result in immediate knighthood.

They ate meat and bread most of the time they also ate potatoes .

• deer
• boar
• various birds
• door mice
• vegetables ( no potatoes, tomatoes or corn these are New World foods)
• eels
• fish
• beef
• mutton/lamb
• fruit mainly apples with honey
• cakes
• breads of all sorts

roasted chicken, roasted pig, fish, and fruits

The sports of medieval Europe were less-well-organized than those of classical antiquity. Fairs and seasonal festivals were occasions for men to lift stones or sacks of grain and for women to run smock races (for a smock, not in one). The favourite sport of the peasantry was folk football, a wild no-holds-barred unbounded game that pitted married men against bachelors or one village against another. The violence of the game survived in Britain and in France until the late 19th century.

The nascent bourgeoisie of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance amused itself with archery matches, some of which were arranged months in advance and staged with considerable fanfare. When town met town in a challenge of skill, the companies of crossbowmen and longbowmen marched behind the symbols of St. George, St. Sebastian, and other patrons of the sport. It was not unusual for contests in running, jumping, cudgeling, and wrestling to be offered for the lower classes who attended the match as spectators. Grand feasts were part of the program, and drunkenness commonly added to the revelry.

The burghers of medieval towns were welcome to watch the aristocracy at play, but they were not allowed to participate in tournaments or even, in most parts of Europe, to compete in imitative tournaments of their own. Tournaments were the jealously guarded prerogative of the medieval knight and were, along with hunting and hawking, his favourite pastime. At the tilt, in which mounted knights with lances tried to unhorse one another, the knight was practicing the art of war, his raison d'être. He displayed his prowess before lords, ladies, and commoners and profited not only from valuable prizes but also from ransoms exacted from the losers. Between the 12th and the 16th century, the dangerously wild free-for-all of the early tournament evolved into dramatic presentations of courtly life in which elaborate pageantry and allegorical display quite overshadowed the frequently inept jousting. Some danger remained even amid the display. At one of the last great tournaments, in 1559, Henry II of France was mortally wounded by a splintered lance.

Peasant women participated freely in the ball games and footraces of medieval times, and aristocratic ladies hunted and kept falcons, but middle-class women contented themselves with spectatorship.

There were a number of sports that were not martial.

Tennis was certainly one. Badminton had not yet been invented, but battledores and shuttlecocks, was commonly played; picture badminton played for two, played without a net, and with a goal of keeping the shuttlecock aloft as long as possible.

A number of different kinds of handball were played.

We know there were various forms of medieval football. They were played according to various rules, and the game took various forms, but it was never as organized and regulated as modern football. One form, called mob football, seems not even to have counted the numbers of people on each side. The game could be played on the street in a village or town, and seems to have consisted more of anarchy than anything else.

There is speculation that baseball was played in the Middle Ages. We know a game called rounders was widely played in Tudor times, and was at least sometimes called baseball at the time. Reading a description, most Americans would probably identify it as a type of baseball, in much the same way they identify stick ball as a type of baseball.

There were various forms of bowling done in the Middle Ages, skittles being one, and bowling greens were not uncommon.

Early forms of billiards were played, including forms called lawn billiards.

Scottish King James II banned golf in 1457 because his archers were spending time playing golf instead of practicing, so it clearly existed widely before that date. An earlier game rather like golf was pall-mall, whose name comes from Italian words meaning ball and club.

Fishing was done as a sport. We do not have a lot of records of this, but surely the Fisher King was not fishing for a living.

Birds were hunted with hawks and falcons. They were also hunted without.

Deer and wild pigs were hunted from horseback with lances or swords, and were also hunted with bows. Smaller animals were hunted with bows, sometimes with dogs.

See the links below.