8:40 I've had people argue that the Spartans actually dressed like this meanwhile in their own history a man was fined for not wearing armor in a battle. They were some of the most heavily armored Greeks
Yeah, not always. During the peloponesian war they're actually wear no body armor and prefer simple pilos helmet instead of older corinthian helmet. But 300 is set on late archaic and early classic period, so give king Leonidas a linothorax or bronze cuirass doesn't hurt.
@@assumjongkey1383 Go back to your history books , and Xenophon and Thucydides. The Spartiates did not constitute "every free man". They were the upper class and drew on the States resources. '
I can forgive the Raiders of the Lost Ark due to the era of the film. Seeing as it was during the 1940's there is a good chance that it would be possible to get a sword from a different time and place. Also, considering international forces were moving through the region it makes this more possible.
Maybe he got it from the Arsenal of Alexandria! The setting took place in the 30's when the arsenal was discovered by Americans. Also, Alexandria isn't too far from Cairo! 😁
Yeah, firearms are often wrong in Westerns. As well as post-Civil War firearms ('73 Colts and Winchesters) being shown during or just after the Civil War, we also see cap'n'ball revolvers of the Civil War often being represented by blank cartridge-firing versions - in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly they even change from cap'n'ball to cartridge within scenes.
Actually, Harry Turtledove has written a book which DOES feature AK47's being used during the Civil War. However, to be fair, his story begins with some South African White Supremacists using time travel to take the AK47s back to the American Civil War, but still.
Gladius, Egyptian/Middle-eastern "Sickle" sword, Damascus Steel Scimitar, Japanese Katana, and Claymore. I could go to 8 or 10 because historically true swords come to us through history because they were good. The rubbish swords didn't last. Fantasy swords we see being made today have little combat value as they are embellished with things that won't change the outcome of a fight like serrations up towards the hilt. Cool looking and useless except maybe in camp to saw that odd stick or tent peg.
1. Polish Szalba Sabers in _The Deluge_ (1974) 2. Napoleonic Hussar Sabers and Dueling small swords in _The Duelists_ 3. Roman Gladius in HBO's _Rome_ That's what I got for SPECIFIC swords in specific productions.
You should have added "The Thirteenth Warrior." The swords used by the Vikings in that movie look like crude, barely sharpened iron bars, like something made by people who might have learned how to smelt iron and forge blades out of it maybe last week. The swords look cruder than early Iron Age blades did. The swords weren't the only problem. One Viking, played by Clive Russell, is wearing helmet and armor that look vaguely 17th century, while another of the Vikings is wearing -- so help me -- a Roman gladiator's helmet!
You know, I never had any problem with the gladiator helmet. That could be just an eccentric warrior using an existing, if old style of helmet. Almost everything else was pretty bad though, no arguments there from me.
Yeah, '13th Warrior' was not big on historical accuracy, what redeemed the movie, ( at least for me ) was the score. Phenomenal work from late Jerry Goldsmith.
Re: the Spartans, as much as they're depicted as a gay art students dream come true, they clearly took note of scholagladiatoria's insistence that "If you're only going to wear one piece of armor, wear a helmet!" (at least, they take that advice for the most part)
If I remember rightly Harrison Ford suggested just shooting the swordsman because he was suffering with diarrhoea and was only managing a couple of minutes in front of the camera at a time between toilet breaks on that day.
Also in 300, I suppose the persian army are not composed off silver masked ninjas, and persian Kings don't go to battle in the buff. Celts maybe, but not Persians.
I doubt they used gigantic rhinos with gold chains to charge the Spartan lines either. Come to think of it, I doubt They had dancing sitar playing goat headed men and deformed courtesans in their Kings tent either lol.
At least in the case of "300" it was meant to be the fantastical retelling of the battle by Dilios, to inspire the other Greek nations, and not a true representation.
To me the robinhood sword seems to have a ridiculously thick, and completely round handle. @Osmosis Jones: If you're talking about the sword Conan pulled off a skeleton, supposedly the Atlantean king it belonged to was something crazy like eight and a half feet tall. It's all from some old comic books. Hard to call it era appropriate when Conan isn't part of any particular era and is more of an alternate-earth setting.
My Dad was a Special Effects man, and I brought this exact subject up in a move we were working that had U.S. Marines. I was on active duty at the time and the equipment, uniforms, actions, employment of tactics, and the spoken words were absolutely in accurate. My Dads response was “We’re making a move, not a documentary”.
El Cid is a great movie, very underrated, I always recommend it to people who like Game of Thrones. Ivanhoe from the same period is also a great movie.
An interesting case is the movie "The Vikings" with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. The Vikings were portrayed reasonably accurately, but the English costumes, weapons, armor (not to mention castles and ships) seem to be more or less early 13th century. My guess is that this was a deliberate choice, because otherwise it would have been difficult to tell the two cultures apart on the screen, especially during battle sequences.
I've been selling replica swords for around 30 years, many of them I designed based on real swords from the period. It always bugs me when movie makers get the armour and weapons wrong for the period they're filming.
15:45 I just watched Prince of Thieves again and the sword Morgan Freeman is carrying isn't for fighting, it is the sword they were using to cut off hands in the prison at the beginning. It seems well suited for that task.
Or face paint or fought on foot or sacked York or made grandiose speeches about freedom or porked Isabella of France (as if the She Wolf would choose some Scottish knight instead of the most powerful men in England) or had to be dragged from Falkirk instead of running for his life.
people always cite the historical inaccuracies as a reason to hate this film... and they are 100% correct... but the cinematography is also horrid... i can only assume that they found the slow motion button in the edit suite and got a bit carried away... 8.4 on imdb... 8.4... sigh...
Del-Tin made one of the swords used in the Highlander TV series too, Graham Ashe's Gothic Broadsword which MacLeod gives to Richie when his old Broad Rapier broke.
On Indiana Jones: Harrison Ford was suffering from dysentery at the time, so he could only be available for minutes at a time before having to go. His sidekick had already soiled his pants days before, so they substituted a lengthy swordfight for a quick gunshot. 😁
Almost every member of the crew on that film suffered from dysentery. The only person who didn't was Steven Spielberg, as he only ate canned food that he brought with him from the States.
I’ve often wondered why the forward curving recurve style of sword seems to have disappeared from Europe before the middle ages. Any theories on that Matt?
GOAT Straight swords fare better against armor, and thus became the most iconic of a knight's sidearms because the most iconic battles were against other equally armored knights. Sabers, messers, and other curved swords didn't completely disappear, but they didn't become more popular until swords were once again facing lots of unarmored opponents.
See, I've heard that theory put forth before, but I'm sort of skeptical, mainly because there are medieval European swords that are honestly even worse at thrusting than a falcata for example. The other thing is that as far as I've been able to work out, the height of early medieval armor was mail, which had been around for ages before that.
GOAT I'm embarrassed to say that I missed the detail about *forward* facing blades. My mistake. I'll sidestep and allow someone with more knowledge to help.
Sir, you told us about everything was wrong with William Wallace's sword as seen in "Braveheart." However- it would have been helpful to show us an actual sword or at least an historically accurate reproduction of that sword. Otherwise I enjoyed your presentation. Thank you.
As Robin Hoods go I rather liked what they did in the 1980s British TV version of Nasir; dual wielding reasonably proportioned scimitars. They might not have been particularly historically accurate but at least they were functional weapons, unlike what they put into Morgan Freeman's hands.
Good catch! The Muslim=saber myth is a relic of the Turkish empires in the last millennium AD. However, if you look at the Muslim warriors in Sudan fighting the British and Egyptians under the Mahdi, you'll see the Kaskara, a broadsword little changed from the days of the Prophet (who wore a Spatha)
But hey, they are wearing helmets AND shields. Stuff Matt's normally complaining about when it's missing. So they got that going for them (and bullet proof beards, duh)...
Because the cuirass they would normally be wearing are styled after a man's cut abs. So they went straight to the cut abs. It's simple. I know so many historians that do NOT get the point of The 300. It has nothing to do with history. It has to do with the power of myth, of story. It is a film length St. Cripin's day speech. Told from the point of view of Dilios from the very start, it is a story to rouse the morale of men facing death. It is a gorgeous movie, beautifully shot and conceived and is one of my favorites. But we in it shall be rememberèd- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
Because both movie and graphic novel pretty much bases its visuals on ancient greek concept of "kalos kagatos" (not sure if I spelled it right). It basically means that looks are expression of a person soul. If a person is good and noble than he looks beautifully (hence why spartans are this fabulous, godlike, perfect-bodied demigods) and if he is evil than he will loom ugly (hence why persians and ephialtes are so grotesque and twisted).
Marshall in the movie Ironclad uses a pretty out of place Greatsword, and interestingly I recall him using techniques from a Spanish Montante treatise from several centuries later. It's been awhile since I've watched that movie, but iirc he kicks the end of the blade to raise it up and set it in his hands, which I've only over seen in Spanish Montante.
Timmy Turner Ditto. I named my practice zweihander Gram (because Gramr was already claimed by my Carolingian spatha). It's my best friend. Also, that impact... mmmmmm...
Greatswords are my favorite as well. I'm working on a fantasy series, one of my protagonists is a Landsknecht-inspired greatswordsman. A giant sword just suits his personality.
The suits of armour used in El Cid would later go on to be used as part of Angela Lansbury's magic assault against a Nazi raiding group in Bedknobs And Broomsticks!
+scholagladiatoria the "Disney scimitars" seems to be of a piece with stuff like medieval European chroniclers depicting Classical Romans equipped with contemporary medieval equipment they were familiar with. So if they were told that Saracens used curved swords, they depicted that with the curved sword they were familiar with, the falchion, and it stuck.
Didn't Arabs of this period use straight swords much like the Europeans, though? I was under the impression that the curved swords of the Arab world were a later Turkic influence, and that the medieval artists gave Saracens falchions in their images because that way you could tell the Christians and Muslims apart by whether their swords were shaped like crosses or crescents.
Earlier Arab swords were certainly predominantly straight, but curved swords were popularised by Turkic troops from the 9th century or so, and by the time of the First Crusade at the end of the 11th, the Turkic Seljuks were the dominant force in the Middle East.
Very well done, but you have overlooked one small bit that was most well displayed in Highlander....Heroes forging their own specially designed swords. Movies being movies, this "poetic license" has to be taken into account, yes they do not "fit the standard mold" for the period, but in at least some cases (like Morgan Freeman's blade) it (sort of) makes sense, and the hand grip/pommel would need to be extra large for two distinct reasons...his HANDS are rather large and the need to offset the weight of the oversize blade. Keep in mind, for every day soldiers sword were pretty much one-size fits all, but royalty and the well to do often had swords made specifically to FIT them if they were larger or smaller than the norm. Great job on explanations BTW, don't think I have heard anyone else mention a falchion by name, almost like it has been lost to time. Would love to see you make a video on the development of some of these "off brand (lol)" swords...when and where made/used etc.
longswords and two handed swords are most historical misplaced swords in cinema there are dozens of films sets in the 10th 11th 12th canturies with them
One that got it right is the Hallmark Home Video production of Merlin, where the troops are wearing cast-off bits of Roman armor and Excalibur is a Celtic long sword.
One I would like to add: in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, they repeatedly refer to Godric Gryffindor as having existed, "a thousand years ago", so his sword would have been made somewhere around end-10th Century/beginning of the 11th Century. Yet, the Gryffindor Sword as it appears in the films, is an arming sword with a disc pommel, narrow blade, no fuller, and almost no edge. As far as I know, that is highly anachronistic.
Except it is an Urban Fantasy, taking place on Earth, in the 20th/21st Century. Maybe the wizards were ahead of their time, but it would be by quite an amount, and the point of the video is simply pointing out swords that historically don't make sense in the setting and context. Regardless of what technology 11th Century wizards had in Harry Potter, that sword would still be out of place in the 11th Century.
I'm just saying that, regardless of any in-story justifications, it would still be out of place in the 11th Century. 11th Century Europeans would look at his sword and say, "Wow; that's a... strange sword. Can it even cut?" Regardless of fantasy elements, it is still an anachronistic sword. That is the point. If Rowling decided to publish a novel about Godric Gryffindor, I would suggest to her that Godric have a bit of introspection upon receiving the sword, that's along the lines of this: "It was an... interesting design. The pommel was a disc, and the thick blade was narrow, and tapered to a point; a far cry from the blades of human muggles, which were primarily meant to cut. It would certainly stand out, even if it sat in its scabbard to the end of its days. But that didn't matter; what mattered was it would never rust, tarnish or lose its edge. It will only ever take in that which will make it stronger."
If you allow for a little diversity in craftmanship through the ages, Morgan Freeman's " moorish" sword is actually not too bad. It looks a lot like the widely used talwar, more specifically the zulfikar variant with it's twin points. In the movie those points are obviously somewhat stumped, though this is something easily explained by it's use as an executioners sword in the beginning of the movie. This still presents us with a problem though, since the talwar is from about 1300 at it's earliest - and hails from India :-)
I enjoyed this very much. Over many years I have collected replica swords (as well as non-firing guns & period costume pieces). I'm an actor in LA, so I do a lot of low/no-budget theater. My hobby has become a useful sideline. So I am extremely guilty of fudging periods. I once outfitted a production of HENRY V & tried to stick as close as possible to the 1415 period with what I had, but I have to admit that a couple Viking & Celtic swords made their way into the mix (it's a big cast). When the theater I'm a member of recently did THE LION IN WINTER (one of my favorites) they didn't consult me at all. When I saw the show I started grinding my teeth as soon as the lights went up. All the men were wearing that weird sparkly knitted stuff that's supposed to look like chainmail but just looks like weird sparkly knitted stuff. Then, in the final scene, when everyone starts pulling knives, & Richard Coeur de Lion came up with a stag handled Bowie knife, I nearly bit through my tongue. I was, of course, polite when I saw everyone after the show, but I was pissed. Oh, did mention I really wanted to play Henry. So there's that. What's my point? None. I just wanted to vent, & this seemed an appropriate place. But I still really loved the video
More likely he's circus performer and that's his stage prop, meant to imtimidate and slow down indy rather then efficient kill him. At the time (mid to late 1930s) arab thugs would probably use late 19th century single shot hunting rifles or (most likely british) WWI vintage weapons as those would probably commonly avaible in Egypt at the time.
Or an executioners sword. About the only time you see such large blades are ones designed for judicial beheading. Odd to have in Egypt since hanging had long since taken over under British influence but at least a real sword and not something cartoonish.
Most people haven't even heard about Colada, and they believe in Tizona's authenticity only inasmuch as they may have heard some factoid about it and taken it at face value.
tizona although it's hilt is modern the style is the same, el cid served both muslim and christian lord and Muslim swords at the time had the characteristic ''U' shape guard'
Some islamic swords of the period may have had a U shaped guard, but it was definitely not in the 15-16th century style of the iconic Tizona, although that style was definitely influenced by late nedieval islamic swords (jinetas).
Homo eructus yes that particular style the sword has its mozarabic and pretty popular in the 15th century, actually the tizona thats in display was given by ferdinand the king to a noble who helped him to get married with isabel, i forgot his name but apparently they kept the sword till recent times until it was bought and put on display in a castle
Literally every "buster sword" style thing. I think I'd rather see the BEST Final Fantasy swords, because so many of them are obviously (and admittedly) "style over practicality".
My sword is not the longest sword, but it is not a short sword. My sword is not an ancient blade, but it is not a new blade. My sword is not a famous blade, but it is not an infamous blade. It is my sword, and it is a good enough sword to take your freakin' block off...Kalevala, slightly paraphrased.
I've always understood the extremely curved swords supposedly from the ME weren't actually weapons but Executioners tools purpose built for decapitation. But MY personal candidate for most ridiculous movie sword(s) was from 1954's Prince Valiant. A movie so awful it's good. And OMG the swords and in particular Val's famous 'Singing Sword'.........
I was going to mention "Prince Valiant". Swords with huge blades, like four inches wide and only 30 inches long at MOST, that must've weighed a TON, with single-hand hilts! Another "what the...?" was the way the swords RANG during fight scenes. I'm a medieval re-enactor with a Viking persona; I own TRUE Viking style swords. The blades hardly weigh more than two pounds, and the widest one is, maybe, no more than 2 1/2 inches at the hilt. Anyone who's ever swung a REAL sword for more than five minutes knows why swords were made as light as possible!
The enormous and beautiful two handed scimitar used by Sean Connery in The Wind and the Lion as Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, and Last of the Barbary Pirates was pure fantasy!
How could you possibly ignore the most famous sword in movie history? The Tri-sword from "The Sword and the Sorcerer." The product of years (okay maybe days) of meticulous research in historical swords - that had three blades, and which could fire off two of them with gas-powered jets of air - that blade is a true masterpiece of both film history and an accurate historical representation of swords ... with three blades. Naughty scholagladitoria, naughty.
Spartans wearing no armor is actually historically accurate, any historical depictions of them wearing armor were pure propaganda by their enemies to make their soldiers think that Spartans were also just humans, which, thanks to fantastic historical documentaries like 300 we now know they were not.
Yes and no. Poor hoplites certainly wore little clothing if they couldn't afford armor. Wealthy men are heavily armored though. A general discarding of armor comes from the rise of peltasts and other light infantry in the wars against Athens and Thebes over the next century. Armor actually went from heavy to virtually nonexistent to medium between the Persian Wars and Alexander the Great. Hoplites start ditching everything except shields, grieves and helmet so they can chase peltasts, psiloi, etc after embarrassing incidents like the Battle of Sphacteria but armor comes back as combined arms warfare is developed and it was realized it was better to just have your own light troops and cavalry see off enemy light troops and cavalry rather than try to use unarmored hoplites against them.
As far as the swords mentioned that may or may not have been owned/used by William Wallace and El Cid, I am reminded of the story about an old farmer who lived in Illinois. He said that he had Abe Lincoln's axe. It had been used so much that the farmer had swapped out the handle three times and the head twice, but it was Abe Lincoln's axe. :-)
About Leonidas Sword, my opinion is they just tried to reshape in a fancy way the Makhaira sword type, that was the spartans sword of choice, similar to but distinguished from the Kopis by the the curve of the blade (forward for the kopis, backward for makhaira). Plus, the makhaira used by Lacedaemonians were much shorter than those shown in the movie, but not too distant in shape I think.
Why is it impossible for swords, of important historical, to exist before the time they got popular? It takes time for something to spread and become standard.
In regards to the "Robin's Father"s sword's pommel being unbelievable, it's true that I've never seen an open suncross-shaped pommel, but there are Gallowglas swords that have an open wheel pommel, just not with a crossbeam to make it seem more suncross like. Even still then the open wheel pommel is probably late 15th/16th century, so your point about it being a complete anachronism still stands.
I think Frank Miller said that 300 is stylized from the perspective of the Spartans, which is why when Leonidas looks at Sparta it's glowing and heavenly, and the persians look like inhuman monsters. So them not wearing armor was their own perception that they could run into battle naked and still be unbeatable. Points to them for wearing helmets though! Too many movies don't feature helmets.
I don't remember which director or producer said it but I think it relevant when he stated "I'm making a movie not a documentary" or words to that effect.
I saw a replica of William Wallace sword at a Highland games for sale. I have no idea how anyone could swing something so huge. They must have made a switch in the movie so the actors weren't over exhausted trying to use such a monstrous concoction. The fighting probably looks better than the obvious one punch knock out the real sword was probably going for.
This was interesting, but I feel like I'd like to have seen some more suggestions or examples of the kind of swords that would have been in keeping for the time and place, rather than just "this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong". For example, I feel like I'd have a better grasp on why the Wallace sword was wrong if you'd told me what pommels _did_ look like on 13th century Scottish greatswords, rather than just saying "it's wrong". You did that pretty well in discussing the kopis for the 300 segment, I'd have loved to see more of that.
Sabers were used in conjunction with lances and a loaded pair of flintlock pistols by the cavalry patrols that guarded Spanish-ruled California where all the Zorro stories are set. You would see people like Sgt. Garza a.k.a "Gordo" and the evil bodyguards of the corrupt governor with those weapons. Nobility like Don Diego himself and the governor would carry the older and more refined rapiers, a symbol of pride and class in Spanish lands way into the 19th century when the revolver became more common. Even poor men carried a dagger or hunting knife to show they were an adult man, just as they still do in many Spanish-speaking countries today and a number of other cultures such as the Saami and the Finns, the Arabs (big time), and the Japanese samurai were known for swords and knives as a symbol of class and/or manhood. The blade is still respected in Spanish-speaking lands and good little boys as young as six and seven as a present and a step into maturity get pocketknives. Not tiny penknives, but good ones for carving and hunting at least four or five inches in blade length. They learn not to cut themselves and how to use blades and as they get older, graduate to the stuff you see in fiction like the Zorro stories and so on.
Also in Robin Hood, Azeem's sword is a continuity error. It's taken from the executioner, then he throws it at the enemy on the street during their escape in the beginning... how did he get it back to have for the rest of the movie?
Wasn't one of the characters in the Clive Owen King Arthur movie a samurai? It's been a very long time since I saw it, but I think a lot of it was not accurate for late Roman Empire at all. I'm sure Troy got a lot wrong about Bronze Age weapons (I only remember Brad Pitt decapitating a statue with his sword)
It wan’t a samurai, but the swords in King Arthut are indeed bad. The guy you’re thinking of is Tristan and he fights with a strange two handed chinese dao.
it looked to me like a kilij, which has roots in the Xiongu era (3rd century BC to 1st century AD invaders of China, often thought to be the same guys that were called "Huns" in Europe). Since they are Sarmatians (Central Asian Steppes people) in the 4th century AD both region and time check out, so Tristan's sword may actually be the most accurate in the movie. Then again most cavalry auxilia were outfitted by the Romans, so they'd use Spatha swords and chainmail.
No, it's clearly a dao. It has an oval disc guard and both the shape of the handle/pommel and that of the blade look like on a typical dao. And that's pretty anachronistic for 4th century Sarmatians. Tristan's sword: images.propstore.com/34966.jpg images.propstore.com/34964.jpg images.propstore.com/34965.jpg and a (18th century) dao for comparison: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Saber_with_Scabbard_and_Belt_Hook_%28%E6%B8%85_%E8%85%B0%E5%88%80%29_MET_DP-834-001.jpg
One thing you've never, to my knowledge, covered on this Channel are executioners Swords, which were a thing in Europe. I always thought that Haseems Sword was the Executioner/ Be-Handers Sword from the start of the film when there in prison. Were extras wide curvy Executioners Swords a thing in the middle east at that Period?
Have you ever watched the movie 'LadyHawke'? It's hard to find a copy since the producing company went out of business and all the rights have been tied up for years but I managed to find a copy on DVD on Amazon. I'm curious about your opinion regarding Nevarre's family sword. It seems too fantasy but I could be wrong. I love the movie anyways
Nice vid. I also would have mentioned that the proportions of Robin's father's sword are off, even for a 14th century piece. I'm also curious, Matt, when and where is the illustration at 11:32 from?
It is interesting, isn't it? The East Asians and the Europeans only used them in the late medieval period, then never again. Now, classical period Khandas and early Celtic longswords MAY have had 2-handed versions, but all existing examples are one-handers. I suspect that the shield is just too valuable to lose, and two-handed swords only appear when the armor is heavier and Polearms are likewise two-handed.
Actually, as I understand it, two handed swords only appeared when knights started wearing full plate armor, and the protection afforded by the armor allowed the wearer to drop the shield and start using a two handed sword for better offensive capability against armor.
And of course that period didn't last too long as firearms followed shortly thereafter, which lead to the eventual decline of melee warfare and heavily armoured knights.
Missed the opportunity to show us what actual swords of the periods in question looked like. Plus, in fact, the Spartans in 300 were quite overdressed for battle. Their warriors stripped themselves, oiled their bodies and their hair, which they then arranged elaborately, and went into the fray wearing only their scarlet cloaks, sandals and leather shoulder straps that supported the sword. They carried short spears (2), and a long shield, which was used as a stretcher if they fell in battle. Spartan mothers and/wives would make the ritual farewell "Come back with your shield, or on it", as the men left for the war.
Small correction, if someone else hasn't already said it, ALL of the Spartans in 300 use the same sword as Leonidas. The more xiphos-style swords appear in the SEQUEL to 300, used by Athenians.
Matt, I hate to say that but you may be wrong about Leonidas sword. Its clearly a machaira (somewhat over-elaborate machaira) with a strait back. We see sword like this on contemporary vase painting: www.getty.edu/museum/media/images/web/enlarge/035468F1V1.jpg upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Neck-amphora_swordsman_Louvre_G216.jpg
I would’ve really appreciated period correct alternatives showing what we characters actually should’ve been using. Always love your videos, keep them coming.
This isn't what I thought it was going to be. I assumed this was going to be about why sword designs from movies would be ineffective in combat. But I learned something anyway and this was still cool.
Hi Matt, with the braveheart sword in the movie i remember a thread from myarmoury.com years ago about Fulvio Del Tin getting inspired by a 16th century German two hander. Someone found a picture from some collection and it looked nearly identical to the movie sword. I couldn't tell you if its the original inspiration but it fits the bill perfectly. think I still even have a jpeg of it on one of my hard drives.
correct me if im wrong but the reason why the soldiers in 300 don't wear armor is because the novel was a recreation of how the greeks saw the battle of leonidas. And the greeks saw that all 300 of the soldiers were heroes, and since they were heroes they needn't hide their physical flaws with clothing which is why in the graphic novel Leonidas and his men are naked except for their "cape".
Off topic, however, your brief statement about briefs in the 300 was shown to be correct when compared to the image of the attacking dogs at 9:20. Dude is completely nude ..he doesn't even get the Speedos or the red riding hood. So, looks to be inaccurate from all directions. Who needs armor when you can be completely nekid? I can only imagine part of that conversation... "Shall we wear armor, commander? Nah, should be fine. What is the worst that could happen? Oh, wait, best to err on the side of caution, just in case... to be on the safe side we'd better wear these crimson underpants and capes." Mkay.
Just wanted to add: the second sword you mention in El Cid, is actually based in la Colada; another legendary sword the Cid allegadly used prior to adquiring the Tizona. If you go to Toledo (historically, best swordmakers in all Spain; so the most iconic souvenir there is a replica sword) the two most popular sword replicas are the Tizona and the Colada...and their looks is exactly the same as the ones seen in the movie, El Cid. Of course, the historical Cid never used those types of swords, but being an historical and national figure in Spain as king Arthur is to England or Rolland is to France; his weapons, horse and other belongings have become part of the legend. So, the movie actually portrayed Tizona and Colada accurate to the legendary Cid; but at the same time being innacurate to the real-life Cid. I haven't seen the movie, but I have heard that is historically so incorrect that cannot be related nor to the historicall Cid nor to the fictional Cid of the legends.
A small note about EL Cid, and placing him next to the warriors from the Bayeux tapestry: I'm not entirely certain if placing those two in the same context is entirely correct. The Iberian Peninsula would have been under control of the Ummayads and the Taifas, which means that the entire society, including the style of weapons and armor (as well as most things including cabinets, pots and just about everything) would be (perhaps heavily) influenced by those cultures. Of course, the christian (re)conquerors of the peninsula would have maintained some of their Visigothic culture, but there was a few hundred years of cultural exchange between these two (assuming only El Cid and not the other kingdoms) cultures, and much much less infuence from France and Great Britain, or the Scandinavian influence that was also very apparent in the Norman armies. Of course, the arms and armament used in the movie are ridiculous, no doubt about it, but I don't know if the comparison to the Norman and Anglo-Saxon warriors depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry is the best comparison to make.
Buuuut the Arabs (not sure about the Bebers) had the standard mail and longswords that were common across Europe and Northern Africa. The stereotypical scimitar did not enter Africa until the Mamelukes.
Partially true, but not the point I am making. The manner of warfare in the Islamic world of the 9th-10th century is quite a bit different from the warfare in Western Europe in the same period. Aside from that, the visual style would be completely different.
I do agree that North African skirmishing tactics for infantry and cavalry, relying on javelins, hide shields, etc, but wouldn't the swords, lances, and armor be pretty much the same? It's just that the Moors used less of them (those were more Arab than Berber in terms of culture)
"...don't know if.....the Bayeux Tapestry is the best comparison to make..." Particularly when you consider that the Tapestry probably wasn't made by anyone that was anywhere near a battle - ever. Seriously, all that documents is what a tapestry-maker _thought_ was going on...
The Indiana Jones movies might be considered fantasy more then historical as is is a homage to the series matiné films of the 1930's. So the sword might be incorrect just to make it fit the feel of the the cliffhanger filled film era that is is inspirerad by.
