Medieval ages have always fascinated me. Though my fantasization had stemmed from reading childrens books back when I was a wee child, playing wooden swords and shields against your friends and cousins somewhere in the woods, building "castle forts" with your friends and movies that inspire medieval ages. When you actually start to learn the medieval ages and the history of it all as an adult, it paints a different picture in your mind that not only medieval folks (regardless of which time period of that age) were actually down right smart and sophisticated. Its politics, however, have not changed. I am talking about how politics now inherits how politicians were back then vs now. It was always about business and the people who mattered were the ones with money and influence.
That metallic shwing sound associated with drawing a sword is actually a Hollywood construct. A scabbard that made that sound would constantly dull your very expensive blade.
@@andypandy7769 Yeah labor was cheap, (actually it was free slave labor) but my point is is that it took a lot hard manual labor without the use of machines. Many people died building those castles and churches back then. I worked in construction building big structures and I know very well the value of machines. All of our parts were mass produced in mechanized factories.
How the castle was built was very important but also those who defended mattered a lot, their leader, supplies, what army they're facing, what weapons etc.
It must be a blast to live somewhere where you can get a job re-enacting the people from the distant past for these kinds of documentary-style programs lol I swear, I see the same group of people in multiple ones sometimes. 👍
Enact the slaughter of the people you are stealing land and hope from. Doesn't sound like fun or healthy amusement. Freakish. Have these victims ever received an apology or restitution? .
@@eijonassonhe's not joking and he's not wrong he's just a cynic. His world view is clouded by negativity this not allowing him to see the grandeur and majesty of the skilled work and artistry that went into these places. Yes it's true, for example, even today there are Welsh people that will not step inside any of the ring of iron castles and spit on the ground at their gates but mostly today Welsh people cherish the castles as a memory of times past. So don't let the negative people get you down man.
I genuinely enjoy the duality that is engineers, people who design and construct things(creators) are the very people you enlist to destroy things. I imagine men who were in charge of running trebuchets were actually well respected men. I feel like at my own job I was picked out of the bunch because my employer after a few weeks knew I was intelligent so he gave me a raise and a position that only someone with wit and general intelligence could actually do with nay success. I imagine that's exactly how you would have decided to put a guy on a trebuchet crew "Hey take this guy with you and show him the ropes" its not just a matter of constructing and deconstructing the device but also maintaining it and learning mathematics of matching your counterweight to the projectile weight and distances. Just things that you wouldnt put a common "grunt" doing which at the time was likely a peasent farmer who has no clue what hes doing or even who hes fighting or why.
Sieging or storming a fortified castle, you are always going to incur massive losses on your side as attackers. Castles are a extremely effective deterrent.
as a frequent player of long-range support classes in war games, I can tell you, when it comes to fighting fortifications, they were attacked with cunning and skill, and defended with guts and balls. I've been on both sides of the wall, and there's no wall that can help you when the attacker has mortars. .....or, rocket launchers.... whichever you fancy.
@@synvolatris8679 Combat Arms, TF2, World Of Tanks, AOE2, World In Conflict... World In Conflict was where I developed my support playstyle. Nobody had anticipated the use of support helicopters as a front line weapon!
The stone castle, it sounds like a perfect jail where the prisoners got to first build the jail, then willingly wall themselves in. It seems like the outsiders had all the advantages.
To an extent, you are correct, but, don't forget defender or attacker, a siege was a costly affair on both sides... and most of the losses, that were not caused by disease or desertion, on the attackers side were usually caused by a defenders' sallying out to try to break the siege, or create set backs for the attacker.
It is not accurate saying canons made castles obsolete because the stone walls cannot stand the impacts.The more accurate picture is only the attackers have canons a very one sided fight. Not until the Vauban forts (Starting 1660?) did they start putting canons inside forts for defense. If you make the situation equal, by having canons inside castles, with lots of ammo, that would take some moderate design changes , better still a few 82 mm mortars, I don't care how many canons or trebuchets you have, you will not be able to get near them, the castle will not fall.
6:58 What a public playground those lucky kids enjoyed! Puts my city park in Chicago to shame lol. I would very much like to know what specific castle that is if anyone knows
Compared to castles in east asia, Japan had some formidable castles like Odawara, Himeji and Osaka. They use stone as a main base and soil to fill the tiers of the castle layered defenses. Since Japan sits near the earthquake fault line, the structures had to be in wood with movable parts. The design of the Tenshu differs from european castles but still dangerous, many good stories come from the Japanese castles. Free doco could do some content on Japanese Castles.
You say "The word siege means seat" and you explain that's when the army waits. Then a few minutes later you go on to say the siege was the bloodiest in history. How do the two correlate?
@@watermelon2223 I'm guessing my point was if siege is the sitting and waiting part of a battle then how can "the siege" have been the bloodiest in history? I think he meant the battle that ensued after the siege part was the bloodiest but I could be wrong.
Simon de Montfort spent his time acquiring lands to build a dynasty in Southern France, not chasing Cathar heretics. He left that up to the Dominicans. He was fighting Catholics for land. The siege of Toulouse where Simon was killed was manned by Catholics, not heretics! The most perfect part of his death was that it was from a rock hurled by a Mangonel operated by women. 😄
Living in a castle was probably one of the worst experiences ever. Could you imagine the smell of fresh feces putrefying the very air you breath? No wonder the rich had homes in the country side.
*Amature battle re-creation scenes detract from this documentary series. Shots of grimacing models dressed up as kings and Lords also look amaturish, and serve no real purpose.*
Humans were so violent in those days. Nothing's changed, they still are. The human race doesn't impress when it comes to constant wars caused by overpopulation and the need for power and dominance. Humans are territorial, they will always fight.
Why make it shorter? If anything the could be longer. No ones fault but yours that you can't concentrate long enough to watch one that only goes for 48 minutes 🙄 Click over to the cartoon channel, might suit you better 😏
So I had to check and see if this was the same episode I watched before because MOST of this show is identical to episode one of the same series. This documentary sucks and I am not going to waste the time to watch any more of this or any other episodes. I wish I could block this uploader.
