"I've dug a fair number of holes and dug up some dead bodies and I've studied the bones of the dead." - This is probably my absolute favorite out of context Matt Easton quote.
I grew up in a small village in on of the poorest countries of Europe, and I can confirm what you say about the type of body you see in rural areas. People who work physically are wiry, thin, they have very functional bodies. They have curved backs, they're often lop shouldered, they have small biceps and pectorals, big forearms and neck muscles. It alwasy surprises me how strong they are, given their looks.
The idea that ancient people were supermen has, ironically enough, been around since ancient times. There are many examples, but here's one from Rome: In the final fight between Aeneas and Turnus in the Aeneid, Vergil describes Turnus casually lifting and tossing a boulder "that twenty men of the type the world *now* produces wouldn't be able to move". It's clearly hyperbole, to give a magical sense of badassery to the villain, but when hyperbole is repeated often enough it becomes culturally engrained.
@@ХристоМартунковграфЛозенски No, he was described as being so included in armor you could barely see any exposed skin. His helmet was so complete you couldn't see his face.
@@Altonahk Was he ? Oh ... Mycenaean armour suits were, indeed, such a complete protection only the feet and arms were exposed, yes, Mycenaean warriors were almost completely enclosed in metal. Heavy metal ! \m/ Still, in the 24th book of the Iliad, you can still see how strong Achilles was - there was some doorlock that had to be raised and for that you needed three men. But Achilles could lift it all by himself.
The Romans were a strange culture. We have neomania (the delusion that later eras are inherently better than earlier ones); our society believes progress to be a fact of nature, & the word for "old" has negative connotations of being tired & worn-out. The Romans had archæomania (the delusion that earlier eras are inherently better than later ones), & this manifested itself in endemic nostalgia & ancestor worship, with the word for "new" have having negative connotations of being suspicious & untrustworthy. The Romans thought of the past as being a filled with superheroes in the same way we today gaze in awe at the future as a time of world piece & flying cars everywhere. If history buffs eulogise the people of the past, it is probably a reaction to modern culture telling them that the past is a place characterised exclusively by misery & disease & servitude. Upon seeing how much more nuanced than that the past was, the argument starts to look stupid & inaccurate to the point of being perceived as dangerous & so the standard required of one's own counter-arguments to it is lower: it doesn't need to be better, it just needs to not be worse.
I think that when people talk about how knights and the such were stronger and more fit than us, by "us" they usually mean the average, out of shape, middle class city dweller from a western country, whose job doesn't include any significant physical activity, and whose idea of strenuous exercise amounts to occasional light jogging in the park, or a casual visit to the gym once every so often. Compared to him, an ancient warrior really might look superhuman, but then again, so would any athlete
When you compare ancient elite warriors to modern elite warriors, I'd bet on the modern elite warriors. We know so much more about nutrition and exercise than was known then. People that dedicate themselves to being the best can far exceed the limits that were set in the past. Also, martial arts have been developed and refined. Tactics and techniques from all over the world are combined in the most efficient and effective means. That's not even getting into superior weapons and armors. We may not have as many people who take a notion to become great swordsmen or archers, but those that do are still pretty amazing at it.
@@jameslightfoot1872 i would say this point would be more proven in athletes, modern athletes are better fed and also generally larger and hence have more muscle mass. i think if we took and extreme of someone like hussein bolt, a monster of a man 6,4ft, i doubt many men on an ancient battle field would be anywhere near his height or peack of condition.
@@jameslightfoot1872 The vast majority of martial arts today are re-learned. Civilian martial arts are just practice for the most part, repeating ancient forms, or basic elements of a particular style, like a living history book. If you go back 2000 years in any culture, those arts would have been not only refined, but honed for war and conflict. People didn't just fight people then either. Soldiers simply take these arts and rebuild them based on their experience in combat, and it takes years to turn them into truly effective fighting arts again. Years, and the experience of a lot of people over decades of service. I'm not saying they aren't tough; soldiers tend to live harder lives, and train harder than anyone else today.
@@FeriteKnight When you talk about "most people" that is probably true. But when you look at elite warriors: spetznaz, mossad, gurkhas, rangers, navy SEALs, these people have decades of science and research honing in on reaching the upper limits of what the human body can do and applying it to the most deadly combat form ever discovered. Ancient warriors had no scientific research. They learned whatever arts their culture knew and never really knew how it would work until the battle starts. With modern communications technology people from all over the world compare and contrast data and learn the best of all there is to be known. We might have fewer elite warriors, but those we have are remarkable.
@@jameslightfoot1872 You're making a lot of assumptions about ancient soldiers and warriors that are generally unsupported. If you state that they lacked the benefits of moderns technology, that would be a true statement. If you stated they needed those benefits, that would be a false statement. Human beings, like other animals, instinctively know what they need to do to survive, and when you talk about ancient Humans, they weren't worrying about dieting, or nutrition, they were just eating the food they needed, in the quantities they needed it, for the most part, (I always leave that exception in because there are always people who over consume, particularly in todays world). Speaking of which, with all our science, technology, nutrition and health information, I don't see a lot of benefit overall for most of the world. All that knowledge, and people are becoming less healthy, rather than more healthy; less fit, rather than more fit. The benefits of health and nutrition, and the science around that are only useful to people who use it, and the difference between a soldier who takes advantage of it and one that doesn't today is relatively small. Maybe you're not aware, but Soldiers have all the same bad habits everyone else does. Nutrition and fitness experts only help people build body mass faster and more effectively, and often enough, it's not sustainable. As soon as those experts disappear, most people just go back to whatever they were doing before. It's also more helpful for longevity, than peak performance in most cases. It will potentially help you live longer, naturally. Not much more than that to be honest. The gains of that, today, actually relatively small I think. And we're not talking about protein powder and shakes, because to be honest, that stuff is not only often full of toxins, but only helps you bulk up. The effectiveness of the muscle mass you gain from that stuff is actually kind of insignificant, and a lot of these guys end up weighing 30 pounds more than someone else who can outwork and out lift them in every way. And as soon as they stop, it's like a landslide to their waste. By contrast, it took me 15-20 years to start decreasing in fitness from where I was as a kid. I at one time could go 2 years on what I would consider relatively light duty, and not lose an ounce of muscle or fitness, or any strength or endurance. Until I hit 35 anyway, but I also massively changed my diet and some of my habits around 30 because my muscles were in some places so tight that it actually caused me pain when they would tense up, and they would lock at times, leaving me prying my right arm out to an extended position, or my legs straight. Got past all that anyway, though it took about 4-5 years. Point is, Science is great and all, but you don't need it to be tough as nails or strong as an Ox. That comes naturally for those that earn it, and people in ancient times most definitely earned it.
I live in a village in a developing country, my grandparents (just like most of my neighbours) are farmers and I can concur that the last point you made is absolutely true. My grandfather, for example, had a kinda weird shape - he was very skinny, but incredibly strong for his size. He died at the age of 70, but he spent the last years of his life struggling with multiple health issues which were a result of doing hard labour pretty much his entire life. It is also interesting that in my street alone, as far as old couples are concerned, there are some 15-20 houses in which men are dead and women still alive yet only one or two in which it is the other way around - I guess because it is men that do most of physically demanding work.
I was a construction worker for 14 years and I've now been a student for almost 2 years. Is it really a strange concept to some people when I say I am alot weaker today than I was two years ago? Or if I should reverse my decision, that I would again be alot stronger in mere months? We humans are eager to shape the world around us to our liking, but apparently we seem to forget that we are in turn shaped by the tools we use. If your king asks you to shoot an arrow to the moon, you get a heavier bow and practice until you grow stronger. The concept is quite simple, really. And rather timeless.
I totally agree with you. And the thing is not that they were supermen, but life required way more effort and resistance back then, without all the small yet relevant commodities we have, minus also all the harmful habits we created. thus making them stronger than us nowadays.
yes you are weaker than when you were a construction worker, go back and try it and when you wake up, ,you will feel it, it would take you months to get back in shape. So if not used you loose it. People feel, our ancestors are stronger because by relative standards they are, as they had to work and walk every where, now saying stronger is = being healthy that is a other matter and argument . The fact they lived till they had children, and their children lived through that period goes to show, how strong and "healthy" they were, in a harsh climate, in other words we have their dna in us, all of us
Mulberry2000 Besides, they knew what they were eating. No hidden fat or preservers like the food that pops out of the factory and just a nice package is enough to buy us. Their meat, grains and everything was seen with their own eyes and manually prepared.
When I was younger, I was member of the life guards and of a choir. After years of very little swimming and singing, I've definitely gotten a more shallow breath and less stamina. : /
Really like that you adressed those things, especially the part about training I think that most often misconception like that comes from the idea that in earlier times some people were "born to be warriors", to handle the sword from the day they take a first step (which you pointed out as a myth) The thing why I like you adressed it is that some people tend to ask themselves "should I do it?" "am I not too old for this?" when it comes to starting a new activity, because there is that mindset which says "if you didn't start doing it in you teens, then you can't master it". I had the same problem myself with thinking about doing first step into HEMA - aint I to old for that? (and Im only 26), I wont be able to catch up to those guys who started few years ago and etc. But as someone smart said "If the perfect time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next perfect time to do that is today" And your video, even tho it's about soething else also have encouragement in it (especialy that part about heavy longbows) :)
I'll never forget the time when I went on vacation to Lexington and Concord (first battle of the American Revolution) I walked into their restoration houses and all their ceilings were lower than normal. I asked why and of course they said it was because they were shorter in the 1700s. It blew my mind. lol
good show and I like your channel, I have been a soldier since I was 17 and have grown bored with mordern warfare. I have started studing medeivel warfare and other older types. bravo to you keep it up
I am guessing that the commenters who replied to you had their egos scratched and felt insecure? I also joined the Army at 17 and have over time lost interest in modern history and warfare to an extent and have begun to be more interested in historical or ancient warfare. Why it touches someone's insecurities so much to know that people join the military at 17 or that people with interest in warfare get bored of modern warfare and ww2 documentaries and start reaching further into the past I don't know But if you are interested in modern war isn't it logical you would study ww2? Isn't it logical that you would then be interested in ww1? ...ww1 is just a stone's throw from Napoleonic warfare and that is not really a far case from medieval. Honestly why did you insecure types get so offended by someone losing interest in modern politically charged mechanized warfare and getting more interested in historical war? ...isn't that how you got here to historical warfare? Haven't your interests changed over time? I assume it's because some of us joined the military at 17 and that makes you feel inadequate? Honestly the comments above me are truly a sad reminder of what the modern man has become, a petty crab in the bucket.
Thank you for the interesting information. I'm into in martial arts, history and anthropology: this channel is just what I was looking for. What I really enjoy are the considerations about the context, whose importance we tend to forget when looking back in the past or far away at very different cultures. Thank you again!
Dear Don Fanto, Yes, I second that which our intelligent host has said. I have lived in rural Africa and seen children who only eat organic food. It makes be cry but when there is not enough of this good food their beautiful black hair goes blonde, not enough protein to make hair pigment. This also stunts their growth in times of normal growth spurts. In PA, USA where I grew up we are over nourished (over weight) We get more than enough carbohydrates and more than enough protein and more than enough sugar. We can also eat fruit in the dead of winter and vitamin and mineral supplements. So While I would agree that having enough organic food is better our diet is much better than starving (in the bad times) on European watery gruel with no vegetables and no meat to provide protein or vitamins. Interesting enough members poor families in Southern Africa tend to be shorter than members of rich families. My Grandfather starved (several days with out food) even on a farm in the US during the 20s and 30s in bad years and hard times. Other than my time in Africa, I have never had to go without food for more than 12 hours. Also I am vaccinated against polio, mumps, measles, rabies, Hepatitis, an can get powerful anti-malarial drugs. Nobody tries to bleed me out if I get sick. My life expectancy while living in the US exceeds 80 years (Prudent use of DDT eliminated Malaria in my country). In Mozambique the life expectancy is on 37. (Mozambique is enjoying a long relative peace these are early deaths from tropical diseases and AIDS not conflict. On average our medicine and Agricultural technology is making life more robust. It is up to you to make good use of your time and strength.
Looking at military bunks is another good example the bunk the US Army bought to put in my room it is 80" long. The bunks in the 1840's to 1860's Fort Knox, Maine are about 70" long.
The way I see it the only major advantage that your average medieval person has over modern man is their mental toughness over us (speaking about the western world) Living was much tougher back then and you didn't complain and lose your shit for if you had to travel few miles on foot or your dinner wasn't perfectly cooked. Living has become much easier since the middle ages and we expect much more and therefore are more easily disappointed.
Put any modern person in such a harsh situation and they will adapt pretty quickly. Look at how modern people adapted to conditions in the trenches and in besieged cities in the world wars. The human brain is very flexible and we have the same brains.
@@squamish4244 Exactly. Modern humans adapt easily. Even in modern times if an area is war torn (like Africa) it's the same situation of people being accommodated to hardship.
@@LordVader1094 Yes, it's one reason why the whole "people (read: men) are weak now" theory you often find in the manosphere is bullshit. At first, yes, people would be overwhelmed by a crisis like those of the past, but after months or a year and probably a lot of breakdowns and suicides most would have adapted, especially the young. If the human brain wasn't designed to be extremely adaptable we wouldn't have survived very long during 60,000 years in the Ice Age.
Everything you said is true. I would like to clarify a point about people being tougher or hardier in the past. Doing hard physical labor does toughen you up - bones get stronger, your more conditioned to pain. Your fine when your young but as you get older it really takes its toll. Average joes back then compared to now there is a difference. But its nothing you can't get from training. Oh, and the only superman I know of in History is Conan the Barbarian. I know, because I saw the movie. ;) lol
Thanks for this video it's one of my pet peeves in HEMA how people think all these warriors from these time periods were completely infallible demigods or something.(especially since what interests me is not only historical revival of such styles of swordsmanship/polearmsmanship but also experimentation and expansion on what these styles could achieve, how they would do when matched up against certain other weapons, what advantages and disadvantages they have etc.)
I've never heard the claim that historical people had superhuman strength or toughess. They were far more rough hide than we are today on average for sure, but certainly nothing "unobtaineable" for us, if we had a mind to give up our comforts and put ourselves through the resulting hardships. I would assume that people who make claims of our ancestors being "superhuman" are probably looking at the ancient Spartans and the myth of their near invincibility on the battlefield.
Your information is so good. Could you reconsider the sound and light quality of your posts? A little lighting; a little sound direction? I'll keep watching anyway but if you want to "break out" of the purely geek and into the intellectually curios, better presentation will help
mang kanor i´m from uruguay and i´m just starting to work in one of those back breaking jobs, and i can tell you that my partners are not giants, but they are in fucking good shape, maybe because in our case we do have more food than we need or something.
not that surprising. I'm from the Visayas area in the Philippines. During fiestas we have games like sack races. You carry a large sack of rice on your back and race!
***** the difference lies in the type of diet you have. People in very poor parts of the world have to work hard and they don't have enough food so their bodies eat themselves, and that is why they look skinny. Others just look like water tanks due to beer excess.
I know how you feel. Someone watched testing on Aztec atlatl spear throwing at Conquistador breastplate armor to test and see if it could be pierced. A group of the best-known modern atlatl competition users were gathered to try (using flint and stone tips), and they tried even from as close as a few feet away. Some of these guys were huge men too. I think with your expertise you can figure out how that went. But some nutcase actually stated, "Well the tests are inconclusive because ancient people were many times stronger than modern humans so who is to say?"
if the ancient Aztecs really had the strength of 3-4 of these pros then how come they lost. answer they weren't and the Conquistadors had armour and guns.
When it comes to the medieval period, it seems to me like it's often either "people were constantly on the brink of starvation and you were considered old if you hit 30" or "people were a lot thougher back then when you had to toil hard and there were no tv/computers/video games" This video reminds me of a bit from an article by fantasy author K.J. Parker about testing if helmets could be cut through like in the Morgan bible. A prime example of the "supermen": subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2011/cutting_edge_technology_by_k._j_parker _Mr Loades is one of the most skilled swordsmen currently alive, but he’s a 21st century weakling. They were stronger back then. They could shoot bows that we can’t draw. They could till an acre a day with an ox-drawn plough-we know they could, because that’s the original definition of an acre, but you try it and see how far you get. They could fight all day in heavy armour, which exhausts us in a matter of minutes. Medieval noblemen trained intensively with weapons from childhood. The fact that we can’t do it is no proof that it can’t be done_
I'm not sure about people being stronger or healthier "back then" (whatever "back then" means to you), but I do believe that they were tougher. They lived in with death meaning more to them, sickness, starvation, etc. I've been to the Third world, and people are, at least mentally, tougher. They know how to do without. They complain less. They experience catastrophe, and even when they're literally and figuratively dying, they generally strive to persevere.
This was addressed in the video. What you're saying is true of historical people to exactly the same extent that it's true of modern people from rural Africa or Asia or South America today.
One of my biggest pet peeves is the misconception that strength and looking like a body builder is synonymous. The majority of body builder bulk is nonfunctional muscle. Which you covered in part there. Thanks, I will redirect people to this video when they have those misconceptions.
When I, and my wife, went to Italy we visited a museum in Venice. There were many suits of armor on display and my wife who is 5'4'' could probably have fit in most of them.
I love this Channel! I too have an Archaeology background and have just added HEMA to my Wing Chun skill set. Great Videos Matt. Please keep them coming Sir. Bravo! :)
Though the walls of Matts house are full of swords his cupboards are actually filled with bows. He keeps drawering them. Just teasing, love the videos :)
I'm not sure what draw weight it was, but a very tough and strong friend of mine has tried to draw a replica of the Mary Rose longbows ... and could barely draw it. I tend to agree that yes, of course, there are very strong and tough people alive today, easily as tough and strong as anyone who has ever lived. And of course no one is a 'super man'. However, you only have to read what Roman Leionaries were expected to do every day to think 'wow, those guys were bloody hard'.
But is it any difference to what a normal modern soldier needs to do during training? Also that's the ideal situation for a legion that survived the time. That it had to be written down and codified clearly indicates that legionnaires tend to trim down their training when possible.
Bart Hoving The thing is (leaving aside the specific example of Romans now), in the past warriors were potentially at war their entire lives. A Norman knight for example might being fighting years before 1066 and years after it - a constant regime of training was almost certainly desirable for anyone wanting to stay alive. A knight during the hundred years war is in generational spans of warfare - as were people in other eras (such as the Roman era, Viking era, etc etc). Modern soldiers (even special forces) face far less actual combat and shorter active service careers - generally speaking, I'm sure there are some extremely experienced soldiers today - much more so than would have been the case 15 years ago. I don't know if a top Norman knight could outrun a modern sprinter from the third world - almost certainly not - but I'd put money on the knight in his own spheres of expertise. Of course, there were always some people in any given era who could go that extra stretch (as there are today too), but even our very perception of pain is generally accepted to have changed culturally since we became more technologically coddled. People in the past (like some people in the 3rd world today for sure) could possibly endure pain most of us would think impossible. This isn;t an indication they were all supermen, merely that they lived in harder environments, survived things most of us thankfully no longer have to, and had more time to focus on the skills that would allow them to survive often lifetimes of struggle.
The modern soldier will actually see more combat situations and certainly sees more combat stress then most soldiers in history. Remember these knight had fixed battles and campaign seasons. But also a lot of garrison duties. It's not like they had a fight every week. That's why post traumatic stress first got noticed during WOI, although you can see evidence in older text. And to train intensely year in year out is mentally extremely hard and if you use the wrong training techniques even physical harmful. Going through your pain-limit can be trained now just as easily. Go read Karl Marlantes "Matterhorn' about Vietnam jungle Marines they endure just as good the pain as anybody else. Western people just complain more, but that does not mean they not endure it.
rockheimr most of the time in history, soldiers were not fighting, but marching, building camps, digging trenches, fooraging food and collecting firewood. Basically staying alive and movin from A to B took up most of their time
rockheimr The entirety of historical society was not warriors but farmers. Farmers who did not train for war but showed up for one month out of the year to do battle with their farming tools. The professional soldiers were rare and in between. Think of the thousands of years of history and the millions of cultures, cities, towns, and nations that have existed. Now think of the few dozen badass soldier cultures, towns, or nations that arose. You can't generalize thousands of years of history because of a few famous examples.
Arkantos117 Yes there is a fair amount of difference. You can look at it in four main stages of development (although there are more). There is muscular development, bone density, development of muscle attachment points, and cardiovascular efficiency. While the quickest to develop (taking into account genetics) is Cardiovascular (CV), which can be built up as quickly as a few weeks - the slowest to develop is bone density and attachment points. Muscle mass will also develop relatively quickly, depending on which muscle groups are being stimulated, genetics, nutrition and rest - probably a couple of months give or take. It is the bone density and muscle attachments which can take many months, but usually a number of years to adequately develop. Then it comes down to specifics, if you are a jogger, yes you will have a high cardiovascular efficiency, and good development of lower limb muscular endurance, density, and attachment points - but you would not be very well rounded in terms of overall development around the entire body and in all of the areas. Anyway, hope that helped.
Colour of the Gods You forgot about neuromuscular efficiency and development matey. All initial strength gains at the start of training are due to the body progressively activating more of the pre-existing muscle mass via neural recruitment. Only once this is achieved and performance plateaus will you see physiological changes to the muscle mate ;o) Ps, did I mention that after leaving the army, I retained as a physiotherapist? :oD
That's serious FUBAR matey, knowing your background, you'd have a clear line straight to trauma specialisation. Gutted for you mate, we should meet up for a beer sometime and put the world to rights lol.
Lewis Ford Colour of the Gods Ex Army Medics mate, we just offer a higher standard of youtube comments, it's in our training along side gun shot wounds and traumatic amputations ;o)
Also, Historical superman is like saying Usain Bolt can never surpass old standards. The difference is that nobody really gives a shit about sword fighting while people still give a crap about running and sports.
There are a hell of a lot more people today that can't handle gathering water, hunting food, and chopping wood as compared to back then. Sure there were people back then that also couldn't handle that, but most millennials highest exercise is clicking keys on a pc or using a smartphone(though exercise related to smart phones has exploded several hundred times now thanks to everyone walking around playing pokemon getting several miles/km worth of walking done) back then it was a bit more likely you'd die if you were lazy/week, or dumb. Our quality of life has gone up drastically.
A point also to consider with our just general better food sources and nutrition is that alot of people now regularly go to gyms and train, which coupled with the fact we know so much more about how the body works and how to get the most effective work out on certain areas means we can match or exceed those people who had hard working lives with a lot less of the health issue that you mentioned. I've probably worded this quite badly, but i think the gist of my point is easy to extrapolate
The comments on this video are interesting. They show our conflicted relationship with the past and how we have a tendency to romanticize it in light of our anxieties about the present - even in an area such as physical health, one of the most obvious and massive areas of improvement in our lives over the past.
Yeah, I would summarize the tone of the comments like "yes, you are right, but..." and then come desparate efforts to save at least some of the ideas about ancient superhumans.
@@albertdittel8898 What Matt doesn't even bother mentioning is that people displayed huge variation depending on _when_ in the Middle Ages they lived. Even in the 14th Century, if he had dialed it back to between 1300-1350, when the Little Ice Age struck and Europe struggled with overcrowding, malnutrition and famine (the Great Famine of 1315-17 in particular, but others besides) leading up to the Black Death, men (because all this comment section cares about is macho, macho men, apparently) grew an average of 5'4", malnourished with weak bones. That is the average height of European women today, so half of all women now would be taller and stronger than half of all men in 1350! And shorter women would probably still be stronger than a lot of men taller than them who had weak bones and were riddled with disease. That must really piss the dudes here off.
Hi Matt, all of the points that you have made in the video are valid. On average, people (in Europe) were not as big/physically developed (arguably - for me functional strength is still the primary metric). Rightly so, as you yourself mentioned for nobility and warrior class malnutrition was less of an issue. The top warriors of the melee combat period (I would combine bronze age, iron age, and medieval times) did not look as Arnold Schwarzenegger, did not take steroids, and they primarily focused on developing functional strength. The picture on the link below illustrates (subject to argument) the apex physical development of hoplite (heavy infantry warrior) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discobolus. As one might conclude from observing those historical sculptures, the focus of training for professional warriors was not simply to gain muscular mass, but rather to develop functional strength. Also, as can be learned from Cyropaedia, for pro warriors the major part of training was the daily hunt. Also, in that source as in many other literary sources the warriors started their training as early as age 7
Visited my mother who was living near Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. Stopped by a food stand by the road where a couple of Amish boys were selling their veggies. These were the fittest kids I've ever seen. Made the kids from the surrounding suburbs look like Pillsbury dough boys.
With respect to the question on bows, I recall reading somewhere that they found a load of skeletons with deformed backs and shoulders that were consistent both with mediaeval artwork of longbowmen and also with the sorts of strain someone would be put under if they were using a very high poundage bow from a young age
Great video! The biggest differences nowadays and medieval times (let alone older ages), is that nowadays we have much better understanding of physique, health, nutrition (*extremely important*), etc. So, once again it all comes down to food (bacon). ;) Thumbs up on this video!
3:16 talking about all that food reminded me that I almost missed lunch =D You brought up the Spartans, and I don't think their advantage was so much regarding physical health as much as it was sheer ferocity. With a culture obsessed with war, naturally that is going to be a strong point. In that case it would be almost all, because if you weren't obsessed with warfare you weren't going to get very far in that society. I suppose there may have been those that kept their loathing of war secret, which is why I say almost all. I think warrior to warrior, it would really depend a lot on the society. I could see, given similar weapons and appropriate training (Spartan to modern or modern to Spartan, for example) that some societies would do better than the average warrior today, others would do worse. I doubt an average Carthaginian would fare well against US infantry, both given either ancient or modern weapons and appropriate training, but I think that the Chinese would be particularly adept compared to even to their modern counterparts.
my father us army faught the chinese in korea and he said they were in very poor condition and very poorly trained, and equipped, he actually felt sorry for them, because they were slaughtered
@@garythornbury9793 They had come out of a famine brought about by PRC's version of a 5 year plan ("Great Leap Forward"). Not surprising. Ancient China is a different beast altogether from late 19th century China or early PRC (or to be fair even PRC today to some extent) or the warlords inbetween.
@@101jir my dad didnt talk much about it , but when he did i listened and was quiet-learned alot, he truely felt sorry for them but it was them or him, he said they were so tightly packed together in the wave charges that the 30-06 rounds would kill at least 2 per shot and lots of times 3 they were so thin , so what you said makes alot of sense.
@@101jir yes he is dead now and he never really got over this, when i turned 6 he gave me a rifle and trained me how to shot and maintain it because. th he said one day you may need to know how to use one. he talked about how they would start the waves by stampeding their pack mules hoping thatthey would shot the mules and be empty when the first human wave hit them, they would lay in the foxholees the mules would jump over them and they didnt waste ammo on the mules.
I grew up as the son of an old-fashioned master carpenter and worked as such after school from 11 later full time. I was very strong, as were the old journeymen. But... Around the age of 30, you start to hurt, and hurt a lot, as your body wears down. That is a factor too.
Really good enjoyable video,didn't think of it as a rant at all,very well constructed and thought out piece,no not supermen just hardy people,nice room to do your vids in liked the decor,sincerely well done,for me one of your best vid's so far,kindest regards.
I will say that I agree 99% with this video and with what it is trying to establish but the general strength of people who do agricultural and similar labor is still fucking absurd provided food is abundant. If you look at populations who eat very well (unlike in the third world) like American Amish lumber mill workers and farmers they are fucking freaks. 12 year old to 60 year olds have rippling 6 packs and arms as thick as my thighs. A very physical fit rock climber I know went to one and was laughed at by the children there because he couldn't move about their huge multi-hundred pound lumber bundles which they could do all day with ease. Farming work results in very high functional body strength with factors into combat much more heavily than specific athletic training does.
MsFlamingFlamer I did specify "provided food is abundant". Averages weren't what I was trying to highlight......I think of the Amish as a pretty decent representation of the lucky agricultural laborer's of yester year.....what they have that older generations did not is security......they get sick just as often and might have farming difficulty but they have modern society to bale them the fuck out of shit get's fubar.... thus they are not prone to extreme famine or disease. Perhaps they could be a representation of a middle age person who was lucky enough to be born in fat land away and was never afflicted with serious illness by luck.
mattm724 That really does depend on who and where you were. Plenty of agricultural workers eat INCREDIBLY well because food is what they make. While farming techniques weren't as great, if you had good farm land you could expect to be eating a nutrient rich whole diet while building lots of very high functioning strength and endurance. There were certainly MORE malnourished people, MORE sickly people, ect. but that doesn't mean most people didn't still eat pretty well.....they had to if they were doing hard labor for a living. You can find uncannily muscular and VERY uncannily strong people in relatively poor third world countries who do hard labor or even in hunter-gatherer societies....there is a huge gap between food abundance just being your main concern and not having enough food to be healthy. l7.alamy.com/zooms/b4d5fdcfdc2d4a1ba0afed74997af30c/small-farmers-producing-home-made-palm-oil-in-grand-bassam-ivory-coast-ek7f83.jpg
Hi there I really like and appreciate your videos as a history enthusiast i am.Since you are an archeologist and you mentioned Ancient Greece could you please make a video about the way hoplites phalanx fought because from my internet research I could not come to a solid conclusion
They were much stronger than most of us. They were putting hay on carts, lifting them into barns, putting crops into the ground by hand (dig a hole for a minute), moving lumber, moving stone, walking 10 miles to market, etc... they only lived till 40 for a reason: life was pig-f*ck*hard. A blacksmith (of the day) would beat the snot out of any city slicker currently in a nanosecond.
Something which should probably be taken into account is the all-important contemporary context. You mentioned near the start that in historical societies people exhibited a wider range (or perhaps a higher standard deviation from average) of physical characteristics. You also mentioned that social class had a bigger impact on things like nutrition (and consequently size and general health) than it does today. On the basis that a knight (or equivalent in other societies) was probably of a relatively high social class, it therefore seems likely that they would have a physical advantage over their lower-class contemporaries, and that the disparity on the whole would be more significant than we are likely to see today. So while a knight might not be bigger or stronger in absolute terms than people now can attain, in relative terms they might well have been "superhuman" relative to their contemporaries. This is something that probably should be factored in when looking at knightly feats: they will have been made to look better by the physical advantages they already enjoyed over non-knightly opponents. Filter through a few centuries of source interpretation and mythologising and you have your superhuman knight. I know that's not quite what the video was getting at, but I thought it worth bringing up.
there were no supermen but there were definitely crazy warriors in history that did some amazing shit. Viking at Stamford bridge comes to mind. and Sempronius Densus. even modern day warriors such as Audi Murphy or Simo Hayha. they may not literally by supermen, but they were definitely not your average men.
Yua Naitumeru Audie Murphy was somewhere between 5'5" and 5'8", and around 130 lb. Hardly the physical specimen of the type we're talking about. He would probably have fit in medieval community quite well. Of course, he was of the last generation before penicillin.
I am an internet guy, but I have friends who don't even live 20 miles away who live on farms, I would never want to get in a fight with them. they would beat the crap out of me. I only stand on equelle standing with them because I look intimidating.
Luggstern Well, he's talking about historical people who worked all day in the fields or at hard physical jobs. You can't compare them to modern people who do the same thing, because the comparison is not valid. His point was that all those hard jobs did not make those people healthy or strong physical specimens. Of course a modern person doing that sort of job is going to be physically superior to an 'Internet guy.'
You don't need to work from a very young age to be well fit. It only takes a couple of years to go from very unfit to being a super-trained monster if you really want to. And modern man have the luxury of having all the time and food they need for it without the risk of being crippled or dying from a random disease. We are also nowadays much less prone to get injured due to our lifestyles and knowledge about dangers. If someone train all their life at fighting then they are likely to have broken a bone more than once. With medieval medical care a broken bone seldom healed to perfection. If you were careful and lucky it would heal back to being almost as good as it was before. If you were unlucky a broken arm may make you unable effectively use a sword ever again.
All true, but keep in mind that there's a real big difference between real, practical muscle development and the giant bulges that bodybuilders develop.
Thomas Johansson "It only takes a couple of years to go from very unfit to being a super-trained monster if you really want to." Too bad it only takes a couple years to go the other direction as well, at least for me =D.
Thank you for your very interesting videos. I appreciate your knowledge of, and passion for arms, battle, and olden-days life that a mostly modern person like me is fairly oblivious to. Because there is great value to your videos, I’d like to offer a criticism. Your content is superb but absorbing it can be frustrating due to a lack of concision and a slightly hyper delivery with frequent ‘ums.’ I understand that your videos are off the cuff and it’s probably not worth your while to spend time on this issue but I humbly offer it on the chance it is worthwhile for you to design them so they can be consumed easier. I have a very casual beginner’s interest in your subject, by the way, and may not represent most of your viewers. Best of luck and thank you again.
I work in private security and am trained to fight with firearms in body armor. I started learning to shoot and started sports shooting at about 12. So it probably isn't that different to someone who would have been employed by a private army in the middle ages. Except that it's extremely unlikely that I will actually have to do any fighting and they sometimes had the possibility of getting knighted. I just get a 401K. Not quite as cool.
lol at vikings being 6'6" 260 pound nfl football players. I remember meeting someone who was or at least should have been an educated person, yet he honestly tried to convince me of that...
Excellent video! I'm sure you are right about everything here. I am not an expert and you are. I may be wrong but I think in Japan, with kendo, the traditional time to start training was on the 5th day of the 5th month at the age of five. Please let me know if this is wrong. (I like your videos and just want clarification, this is not intended to be disrespectful)
On the subject of bows, I would suggest that while high poundage bows were used as a common weapon of war, they were recognised as being military bows and of great power, draw weight. I would also suggest that these bows had quite specific draw techniques and if you're practising every weekend by law, well, no surprise they could handle it what seems to be a very heavy bow. A lot of exercise does not equal extreme fitness or health. I use to be a garbo, I was exceedingly fit, thankfully also healthy. Correlation does not equal causation. Not with vaccines and not here.
My sister started hard gymnastics when she was a preteen and she only grew to 4'1". She had to have two c-sections. Early gymnastics definitely stunted her growth. Otherwise, she probably would have grown to the height of my mother, who is 5'3". She married a 6'1" man (What is it with tall men and short women, and everyone in between getting together? Lol) and her young teen children are now like 5'6 and 5'7". So many young adolescents employed in hard labour would have definitely been stunted and a lot of women would have had pelvises too small for childbirth, and died as a result, back in the day.
You only read of the “winners”. They never wrote stories, biographies, or made movies of ordinary peasant warriors that died of malnutrition and start on the war campaign. Instead, they tell tall tales of mythic and impossiblely handsome and strong warriors.
You'd probably be surprised how inferior to a modern day soldier they'd be - our most powerful weapon as human beings is our knowledge, and modern day knowledge of nutrition and exercise is leaps and bounds ahead of what it was in the middle ages.
Hello Matt Easton .First thnx for this interesting video. In my opinion historical people were not stronger than us but i believe that warriors were ; for example the elite cavalryman of the medieval Mamluk sultanate of egypt trained daily with a variety of weapons including : lance , sword, javelin , bow , axe , mace and dagger both mounted and dismounted in addition to learning unarmed grappling or wrestling, obvioulsy a cavalryman from that era is stronger than modern human simply because of his training ,working people however were like modern civilians. Another example is the great Bruce Lee ,clearly he was far stronger and more physically fit than most of people and this was due to his training. Take care and have a good day :)
I think physical fitness is one thing but we need to be factual in regards to the kinds of people who lived in those times particular in medieval periods. There were all kinds of people as Matt mentioned and not all rich people were physically fit or strong as can perhaps be applied to the poorest as well, I agree with you most of the respondents to Matt's video that the fitter you are the better (though I wouldn't qualify LOL) though If you were born into a higher caste or into a family of Knights so to speak your life chances may have been better and more privillaged at least in order to have the opportunity to train daily or regularly!!
I don't think it's fair to compare a professional elite to the avg couch potato today. You would have to compare mamluks with modern elite troops. When to comes to avg person back then vs avg person today i'd say back then people had better cardio and strength because their lifestyle demanded it. When it comes to size however today's sendatary person is far taller and has much better nutrition. An active modern person would be stronger and fitter than the avg person back then because of superior nutrition (provided he/she doesn't eat too much processed junk).
Hearing this made me think how many societies have citizen-soldiers or people who are normally civilians until a war starts often fight cultures that are highly militarized, but the militarization doesn't always work in the favor of the warrior society. Any nation that trains or prepares well enough can defeat armies that have a warrior tradition.
The notorious pirate Edward Teach got 5 gunshots and over 20 lethal sword wounds before he finally fell dead to Robert Maynard.... an insane fact from history
I've seen in a few (probably non-scholarly) articles recently that prior to the medieval ages, around the turn of the first millennium, the average height was actually comparable to the current. I think the supposition is that height decreased into the middle of the 2nd millennium because of a combination of factors, primarily disease resulting from increased trade and urbanization, and lower agricultural production due to the mini-ice age. However, as I understand it there were quite a few different periods of both cooling and warming throughout the medieval ages, and local conditions varied far more in relation to other localities than they did to themselves over time. Also I don't really know what the trade situation was over those periods, though IIRC the silk trade increased during Mongol rule which would have brought more diseases into Europe, after which increased European trade would have been the primary vector.
I think we are just impress by the fact that they put their live on the line. Like we are about soldiers going in Afghanistan or Irak. Or the police fighting the mafia and cartels.
You don't even have to refer to developing world countries. A mason I knew in Canada's job was so gruelling that he had back surgery at 32 and retired at 51. He was able to retire because of smart real estate investments. He had arthritis and because of his 'typical working class lifestyle' (sorry to stereotype, but there is truth to it), smoked, drank and smoked pot for his pain and died of cancer at 64. Another man I knew, a roofer, was 55, nearing retirement (I hope), bitter af, resented the fact that I was going to university when the summer ended, swore constantly at me and everyone else under him, including people his own age, and walked hunched over from the damage. I did roofing occasionally at that job at age 20 and...ooff. I was SO glad to be done with it. Another man, about 45, more laid back, took his time on the job, told me without bitterness that he "wished I had an escape route" like I did. He had started working out at the gym and said that "five o'clock comes a lot easier to me now". People were not magically different and tougher back in the day, physically or psychologically. They had steeled themselves to lives of pain and that was that. But they weren't happy about it. Anything else is a b.s. modern 'culture war/wimpy modern people' myth. If life was so great back then, and they were so content with their lot, then *why did they change it?* Why the Industrial Revolution? Why this huge effort to improve their working conditions? Why did it happen? Because they didn't like their lives as they were! This is not rocket science, this is Psych 101!
in Else Roesdahl's book " the Vikings "...it is stated from factual measurement of skeletons was that the Vikings were only 2 to 3 inches taller than the English...
My question is this; yes this generality would be correct, most people and indeed most soldiers would be “wiry”. But what about the professional affluent warriors? Would Huscarls, Knights, Men at Arms etc be large from training/diet? Could the “lords table”/mead hall feasting be a form of ensuring your best soldiers ate enough to grow large? What do the skeletons of these sorts of individuals show us? Did these professional warriors intentionally fatten up before going on campaign to stave off starvation weakness? Thanks, love the show!
With the amount of hard work needed to survive, I can see historical people having better cardio then your average person now. As for the rest though its all training, and I'd like to think that we've gotten better at the whole training thing. Actually I'd also like to put out that I think that modern MMA fighters are probably the best analog for what ancient profession soldiers would have been like physically ((after all they do make their living off of fighting and have to spend a massive amount of time in training.))
What about a comparation of a militar man, to a modern militar man. I think modern militar man has more training, healthy food and healtcare than ancient militars.
Diego Lafuente La palabra "militar" en el sentido de "soldado" no se usa en ingles--diriamos "soldier" en vez de "hombre militar". :) Saludos desde EEUU.
We just like to romanticise the past. Make heights previously reached seem unattainable and often times seems to involve some amount of anxiety over how we don't think we can beat the past because they're such great figures with unmatched skills. When in reality these great figures likely faced problems we do now if not worse we're so busy with the hype we've forgotten they were people as are we.
I agree and disagree. I'm a tree surgeon and worked on a farm all my life. I'm over 16st of muscle and so are all my neighbours. In hill farms in Wales you live a very physical life. But I'm 41 and full of arthritis. My strength from working as I do makes me far stronger, less prone to illness and mor durable than any of my town dwelling friends.
The way I see it body building is a certain method of diet and training to make your muscles large and defined, not so much to be strong. That being said, walking everywhere and hard work is wonderful for becoming stronger. I would recommend knowing stretches and proper techniques so you don't get any injuries doing the work, but other than that I spend a couple months framing and chopping wood and I was in the best shape of my life.
Scholagladiatoria i think you should mention the mental aspect as well. People back in historic times were more accustomed to violence and death thus probably giving an advantage in combat lets say versus the modern people. although some modern people tend to be extremely violent :D
One of the situations where this discussion comes up is regarding the idea of whether or not historical archers in warfare could penetrate plate armor with arrows so as to be able to kill enemies wearing plate. Opinions vary. I've seen this tested in numerous videos and most people conclude that arrows could NOT penetrate quality plate armor except maybe to a very tiny degree, like half an inch or so. Others show arrows penetrating plate, but critics say the plate is too thin or not of good quality. Fans of plate mail would like to think that it makes the wearer invincible versus arrows and use these tests as proof. However I have some criticisms of these tests. 1st, as pointed out in this video, bows of up to 200 pounds of pull may have been used. Maybe it wasn't every single archer on the battlefield that could do this, but if I were a military leader and 10 of my 200 archers could do this, I might well tell those guys to concentrate on those of the enemy that were equipped with plate armor. In most armies, this was a very small percentage of the fighters who could afford plate armor, or at least full plate armor. Most of the time this testing flaw occurs because finding someone who can pull a 200 pound bow is difficult. However, if one could construct such a bow, it would not have to be pulled by a human being. It could be clamped in a vice and pulled by machine or with weights for testing purposes. 2nd, many tests for whatever reason attempt to penetrate armor with broad head points instead of bodkin points. That's just silly. 3rd, when they do use bodkin points, many testers don't put a needle sharp point on them, or they have a sharp point, but the bodkin tip is fat near the end instead of having a steep taper. I think this is because they don't want to have to sharpen their arrowhead or replace it every time the needle point is dulled or broken. However, when your goal is to kill the enemy, arrow heads become more disposable and the effort needed to maintain a needle point is worth your time. 4th, arrow heads, knives, swords, etc. back then were kept oiled because otherwise they would rust. I know that an oiled nail will penetrate wood very easily compared to a non-oiled nail. I suspect that an oiled bodkin point would penetrate plate more easily than a non-oiled point, but I think many people testing armor penetration use stainless points and it never occurs to them to oil the point. Or, because they do not carry their regular steel arrow heads around in battlefield conditions where rain, sweat, and blood might get on them, they just keep them dried and don't oil them. 5th, today we are fairly standardized in terms of arrow shaft length, diameter, weight, etc. A 200 pound bow might very well fire a heavier shaft. A heavier shaft should have more momentum with which to force an arrow head through armor. All the tests I've seen use fairly standard looking arrow shafts. This idea could be confirmed or debunked by archaeologists perhaps. 6th, if you could get the arrow to penetrate an inch into chest plate armor, that's not necessarily fatal. An inch of penetration through a helmet on the other hand could be quite deadly.
Its as though when we think of 'great' swordsman so to speak that they seem to possess some form of metaphysical qualities making them greater than they actually are!!
I went to a museum featuring the Huns and of the armor sets someone beside me said aloud, "This stuff looks like they were made for children!" She was right, the armor featured on display wouldn't have even fit me, and I am 5'5" (165 cm). Goliath was only 6'6" (or 200 cm about).
When they measure height, do they take into account that people shrink a bit in their old age? wouldn't there be more old people buried than young ones.
They shrink because of cartilage compression. Ancient and medieval skeletons don't have cartilage remaining because it rots away, so we estimate the amount of height added by the person's cartilage by comparing the size of their bones to those of modern people. For example, If the average modern man has a femur 16" long and is 5'10" tall, and the average medieval man has an average femur length of 15" we can estimate his height at 5'6".
