Armour problems

[Stalins Organ]

so to summarise - medieval folk did a lot more work, ate to enable them to do it, and were probably quite fit by our standards.

and it killed them young.

Anything significant missing??

[Michael Emrys]

Anything significant missing??

Public health in the form of clean water and sanitization in general. Antibiotics to fight infectious diseases. Inoculations to promote immunity to communicable diseases.

Michael

[Magpie_Oz]

And the fact that it is the Noblemen who were the Knights

[JonS]

Horse riding, while tiring is not a really good fitness activity, well not for you, the horse maybe.

It beats the pants off sitting on the sofa flicking the remote, or even sitting in a car flicking the indicator.

[Magpie_Oz]

It beats the pants off sitting on the sofa flicking the remote, or even sitting in a car flicking the indicator.

There is not alot of difference really, maybe a bit more effort in riding a horse but not a hell of alot. Certainly not enough to make up for the bad food and appalling conditions.

[dieseltaylor]

Length of life figures are poor indicators given the huge number who died as children and in childbirth. Excluding women from the average age for fighting men would help.

: )

Accordinto Wikipedia if you made 21 you could live to 64. The deaths of the Royal family of Wales once adults averaged 40+ and that is dragged down by battle deaths and death in childbirth.

Also riding is actually quite a muscular activity:

Riding develops balance and coordination. The movements required to cue a horse require body awareness. Riding also uses many muscles; most importantly the leg, abdominal, shoulder and back muscles. Riding does not depend on strength alone, but strong flexible muscles aid in stability and coordination.

Most new riders will find that their inner thigh muscle becomes sore, but the muscle will quickly become stretched and strengthened.

Riding a horse at a walk stimulates the internal organs just as walking on foot does. When riding you will be burning calories - as many as 5 calories per minute for a 150 pound woman. Increase the speed and distance you ride and you’ll increase the intensity of your work out.

[Affentitten]

It also depends on when in the Middle ages you are talking about. Prior to about 1200, lifestyles were much healthier because the big towns hadn't really started to become that big and scarcity of food was not an issue. Limited travel and trade kept communicable disease epidemics at bay. Certianly we know that in Saxon England of around 1000A D people were much healthier than they were 300 years later, based on examination of skeletons. They were closer to our height as well compared to the slum dwellers of the Industrial Revolution too. Around 1315 you then get the Great Famine and some weird weather events plus extended warfare between the English and French and European demographics and health standards fall apart for centuries.

[Magpie_Oz]

Sure but riding a horse will never turn you into a triathlete you'll get very good muscles for riding a horse, just the same as you get good muscles for driving a car. Racing car drivers for example need a very high level of fitness to succeed.

As for the health I am not really meaning diseases but of course they are an important factor but more along the lines of the types of food people eat, amongst the nobility fresh vegetables were considered beneath them and the consumed mainly meat so they did not a very balanced diet. Water at the time was potentially lethal so rarely consumed. They also slept and lived in dank, cold conditions and little to no understanding of basic hygiene.

[dieseltaylor]

Sure but riding a horse will never turn you into a triathlete you'll get very good muscles for riding a horse, just the same as you get good muscles for driving a car. Racing car drivers for example need a very high level of fitness to succeed.

Oh dear me. Driving a car equals riding a horse for working the muscles Tsk someone must have given you a pedal car because without it I am pretty sure any daily horserider will be far fitter than a normal car driver.

Those thigh muscles and the need to control posture ....... oh hold on you are thinking slump in the saddle riding for Amerikens. Nope. But even that I suspect is still much more muscle tone inducing compared to larding around in a car.

: )

[Pandur]

"You look at these suits of armour, and they weigh between 30 and 50kg, so it is a huge fraction of the wearer's body weight."

i think that is the first mistake they did, if you wore such type of armor you did not plan to leave your horse and you have been straped into the saddle so you dont fall off the horse in tight turns or after a glancing blow by a lance or stuff. if you fell of the horse or the horse was wounded(cut legs) and fell you where as good as dead. some squire with dagger did finish you off.

when we look at popular belive medieval armor was at least 50kg and a medieval 2 handed swords at least 15 to 20 kg. thats like carrying a another person into battle. of course this is nonsense.

medieval armor was very well designed to be easy to wear, carry and lug around, especialy in late medieval times like 15th century. people then as now knew that the more you carry around the less long you stay in the fight as you get exhausted or killed. when i say very well desigend surely i mean for standards back then, still this are attributes that are extremely important and not simply ignored by armor smiths "just because" it was medieval times.

so a average set of armor that was meant to be worn on foot would have no more then 20 to 25kg. but it was worn over some padded leather or chainmail and cloth below, which adds to the weight. maybe 30 to 35 maximum when on foot.

the armorer used techniques like angles to defelect blows, different material thickness on different parts of the armor to cut weight and elaborate techniquest to make joints more "pierce proof" and functional. if we belive the test that where done with a set of "15th Century replica armour" armored warfare in these days would hardly have worked at all as everyone was exhausted just by strapping the armor on.

i suspect the "15th Century replica armour" was not made up to real world specs but some crude replica work, maybe thats why they got an average of 40kg out of it. thats what a joust plate armour would have had , but not a field plate armor.

since jousts where a very dangerous bussines conducted in peace time jousting armor was more thick and robust and also heavier. you did not need to carry it around the battlefield but only at the joust area.

anyways, i would not read to much into this so called tests. in this particular instance they may still be right to some extent. wadeing though mud while laden with weight is exhausting. today as 600 years ago.

but the usual downside of full plate was not the hinderance of movement and weight as this is greatly extragged in modern times but the "heat". imaging sun shining onto you in youre full plate. that was the No1 reason to pass out(not killed or wounded) on the battlefield. even with temperatures around 20 to 25°C it could get extremely hot in the armor and the human cooling mechanism(sweating) was no enough anymore. people simply passed out. now imagine a hot summer day with 30, 35 or more.

Length of life figures are poor indicators given the huge number who died as children and in childbirth.

same problem stil exists today in africa or other less developed areas. just because a large part of the new born dont get older then a few years maybe, it looks like as if everyone there is dead by 30 or 35 years of age. yet, as soon as you made it to 15 or 20 years you have a good chances to make to to 50+. same goes for medieval times.

[Stalins Organ]

Not nearly as good a chance as you have these days of making it to 50+ if you get to 15, or 21 or whatever. Sure some did......but child mortality aside, plenty did not make 50 back then.

The blog addresses teh issue by looking at how long members of the Welsh royal family and marcher nobility/royals - and only at the adult members - so completely excluding infant mortality. The "natural" deaths occured at ages 76, 67, 64, 53, 51,, 49, 48, 47, 45, 43, 42, 42, 38,26.

Deaths in childbirth at ages 30 and 25.

And "unnatural" deaths (war, accident, hung for sleeping with hte boss's wife!) at ages 57, 48, 40, 32

so of the 20, only 3 made it to their 60's or beyond - that would be considered a demographic disaster if it were happening today!

And this little bit from there:

http://www.wonderquest.com/LifeSpan.htm states: “Anglo-Saxons back in the Early Middle Ages (400 to 1000 A.D.) lived short lives and were buried in cemeteries, much like Englishmen today. Field workers unearthed 65 burials (400 to 1000 A.D.) from Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in England and found none who lived past 45.

Kings did better. The mean life expectancy of kings of Scotland and England, reigning from 1000 A.D. to 1600 A.D. were 51 and 48 years, respectively. Their monks did not fare as well. In the Carmelite Abbey, only five percent survived past 45."

This is not an "average" including infant mortality - (apart from any child monarchs & monks??) - this is how long people lived in those times, and it wasn't very long by modern standards.

This is also relvant:

Several sources on the internet argue that if a person could get through childhood and early adulthood, he could expect to live into the 60's or even 70's. That claim is not substantiated by the data I’ve found. It also seems like a specious argument to say that a person could live to be 64 IF he didn’t go to war, she didn’t have a baby, and nobody got sick.

And she also did a post comparing christian & moslem lifespans in the medieval world - and there might not have been much difference.

This is also important, I think, to discussions of the values of medians and means:]

Furthermore, here http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/?p=115 I discuss the mortality rates among King Edward I’s own family. Out of his 19 total children (3 by his second wife, Marguerite), 8 lived to grow up. However, only two lived what we would consider longish lives. Of those who actually grew up, the mean for the adult women is 41.8 with a median of 35; the mean for adult men is 36.6 with a median of 38. Combined, the mean is 39.8 and the median is 35/38. To include all children in the mortality rate brings the mean down to 18.4 and the median to a hideous 6.

[Magpie_Oz]

Well I'm of to work out, gunna drive to the shops and pick up 3kg of Ice Cream, yes hard core gym junkie I know but I like to stay in shape.

[Stalins Organ]

As the old saying goes - "Round" is a shape!

[dieseltaylor]

I was reading a piece yesterday saying a victorian postman would do a daily route of 16 miles.

!!!!!!

Anyway I looked for some evidence and:

Silas Davis delivered the post in Mid Somerset for nearly 40 years between 1869 and 1908, walking 17 miles a day, six days a week and every other Sunday. He became something of a local legend during his 33 years retirement.

http://www.somersethistory.co.uk/book-silas-a-victorian-rural-postman.html

That is quite fit methinks.

[Affentitten]

And imagine doing it in every type of weather as well.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Yep, Victorian weather can be very nasty, even on a 'good' day!

Regards

KR