What were the MOST DEADLY Sword Wounds in Shakespeare's Time? 

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As a doctor, I'm intrigued by the cut "above the knee" resulting in quick death. There are some arteries immediately above the knee on the front of the thigh but generally I wouldn't think they are big enough to result in rapid exsanguination if severed. The popliteal artery at the back of the knee carries a lot of blood and might bleed fast enough to cause rapid death but that seems like a somewhat unusual place to be stabbed or cut in a fight. Perhaps they were using "above the knee" in a broad sense and the wound actually was in what we would more commonly call the thigh. There's no way to know for sure, but my money would be on terminology rather than anatomy.

I'm not sure that 'instantly' would have had quite the same meaning as we understand it today- it's older dictionary definition was 'urgently' or 'quickly'. In this context, it might have just meant that the person died at the scene, rather than being moved someplace else first and dying some time later, like a lot of the other victims described.

I can only speak for myself, but I enjoy the long videos. Lot of interesting points discussed and thoughts made. Thank you for doing these!

I used to be an Army Medic and one of the injuries we looked at was for the Popliteal artery which runs just above and behind the knee's , if it gets cut you can bleed out fairly quickly so we were trained to treat like a Femoral artery injury , though the attack would mostly have to be from the side or back of the knee.

That story around the 18 minute mark, accidental death by sword scabbard to the eye, reminds me of a case I had in a military ER. It was an aircraft antenna to the eye. Poor illumination at night on the tarmac. Reportedly went into the orbit of the eye. Miraculously, he was not severely injured.

Related to 26:00, at the martial arts school I attend, we spent a great deal of time lobbying to _add_ legs as a valid target to our soft weapons practice on the grounds that, if it were a battlefield situation, someone would absolutely cut your legs off, and you had better learn to defend against losing those legs.

Very interesting. Especially your comments about leg wounds. A few years back while working overseas I witnessed a man die from a deliberate spear wound to his upper thigh, causing him to bleed out and die in less than 10 minutes even with him immediately receiving the full range of advanced first aid techniques, tourniquet, haemostatic agents etc. The point here is that bleeding from a severed femoral artery can prove almost impossible to staunch.

I absolutely love your primary source videos. Combine that with extended run time, and you have the perfect documentary to have playing while cooking, not to mention quality and accuracy that leaves major cable TV channels in the dust.

Still just holding out until "of which he then and there died instantly" becomes a meme on this channel.

19:00 My mommy always said "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye!" On another point, I think they specify often "fore" and "front" to indicate that the guy was facing his foe and not running away and getting stabbed in the back which would perhaps be perfidious and not self defense (or something Elizabethan like that).

The number of fatal wounds to the left leg are interesting. Perhaps it is the stance leaving the inner part of the left thigh more open to a thrust, whereas the artery on the right leg is shielded to some extent by the muscle.

More videos like this please! I love it when you actually bring in 1st hand accounts and other historical accounts into your videos.

A factor to remember in leg wounds is that a major fracture to a long bone will cause profuse bleeding. People tend to forget that bones are well supplied with blood (it's where your blood gets made, ya know?) and a complete fracture (as opposed to a 'crack') will cause serious issues with bleeding. Bleeding into the muscle dompartment (your muscles are all sheathed in a special tissue that keeps the muscles in place and is necessary for function) can cause 'compartment syndrome' where the pressure builds up inside this sheathing, the pressure cuts off blood supply and in a few hours your nickname become 'Stumpy'. Not an 'instant' fatal wound, but let's face it, you don't want to get stabbed .

First off, thanks for your videos, really interesting as always. Just to relate a personal experience that is related to your video. Back in the early 2000's in Perth Western Australia I was sending off my friend Jeff for his bucks night. The party had just left one establishment and saw an altercation between two gents. One guy stabbed the other in the upper inner thigh near the groin and he dropped instantly to the ground. In the time it took us to run across the road there was a stream of blood that had travelled about two metres to a drain. I applied pressure to the wound and shortly after the gent regained consciousness. I spent the next 15 minutes until the ambulance and paramedics arrived keeping up the pressure and talking to him as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Thank god or the people who created it for modern medicine. Trauma to an artery can cause someone to fall instantly.

I think something that might be interesting is test cutting and thrusting through various common historical clothing materials (and thicknesses of materials) like wool cotton gambison etc.

Wow, this is really starting to make me think that swords are pretty dangerous!

As an aside, its suprizingly easy to pierce the front of the face into the skull. I sadly saw this happen when a man tripped and ended up spiked with a piece of rebar (maybe not rebar but something like that) and the poor man was basically dead on the spot. I could easily imagine a sword going right through. :(

Hi Matt! great videos as always. From a legal point of view, I think it would be interesting to know what was the meaning of "died then and there instantly", because it either may not mean what it literally means (welcome to legal language) or it may be a result from the legal practice back then. I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, but it seems hard to believe that some of those injuries resulted in instant death.

Love these somewhat deeper dives into historical sources 🤩

I really like hearing the stories, not long-winded at all, imo.

I appreciate that you mentioned how common of a target the face and head were in earlier times! Many people today don't realize this.

I have noticed from your reading of official court records that they claim to the person died instantly. It seems that unless the deceased person was able to keep moving and talking, they died instantly. It is likely equivalent to reports claiming that they were pronounced dead after arriving at the hospital. It is not that they didn't die until they got to the hospital. It is just that they can't be legally pronounced dead until they are examined by a doctor at the hospital.

I really dig these videos... interesting to know if they would actually account for grappling while fighting? Or do they just kind of wrap it all up into just "fighting?"

The blows to the left side of the chest are may be plain and simply the result of "finishing off" an opponent who is already subdued by previous blows.

These sources are just amazing, telling us so much about these altercations. I love the idea of some of these fights being between a bloke with a spear and the other with sword and buckler! Amazing stuff.

I absolutely love these and am glad you're still doing them. As long as you continue to I will always watch them they're among my favorite content on here I think it's absolutely fascinating to hear the period accounts. And your long videos are your best content in general anyway I love the feature length ones. I know it's a lot of work but keep it up we all appreciate it

As regards instantly fatal leg wounds I wonder if shock could be a contributory factor?

Never apologize for these longer videos being "long winded" I found this video very interesting and I thank you for it Also I think a lot of these "died Instantly" accounts were rapid drops in blood pressure resulting in unconsciousness, they in my opinion likely died minutes later, but with the knowledge of the time were considered "dead" when they fell unconscious

Clear lesson here: if you have a reach advantage, go for the leg. Also, with the pike stab 2 hour death, the stab may have mostly crushed the artery, delaying bleed out. My god why would you fight someone with a longer weapon voluntarily.

I think another reason that an arm wound is less likely to be fatal is that is less likely to prevent disengagement. A head or chest wound is likely to be immediately fatal, a leg wound is likely to be immediately fatal or just disabling ones' mobility, allowing a fatal blow to be delivered, but an arm wound, the person can still escape to seek medical treatment.

On the cases where leg wound above the knee caused 'immediate death then and there', it's probable that the receivers went into a shock due to pain and fainted (syncope), never to rise again due to serious blood loss and for no one to render first aid to them immediately.

The real question is, is there a sword wound that makes me immortal?

I used to do HEMA with the NFPS back in the 1980s. I'm a short bloke, not particularly strong, but wiry and fast (well, i used to be, I'm 68 now). Fighting with a relatively short sword and small shield, I took on a much bigger opponent armed with heavy sword and a big shield. I struck repeatedly at his arms and legs and only lost because he ignored the blows and knocked me down with sheer strength. A friend took a video (rare in those days), and many agreed that my opponent would have died from blood loss. Watching the video, I couldn't believe how fast I was. It was watching a terrier fighting a bear. No wonder I was knackered afterwards!

Randall Holmes " Academies of Armouries ' (c.1680) probably our first 'encyclopaedia' , is a great source for all things armoury . He explains the each item , its history and provides a picture for heraldic purposes . The cutlass was also known as a 'Cuttoo' . Great name , everyone should call it a cutoo from now on ! The copy I used during the 90s is at the British Library but may now be available on line now . Interesting the number of duels in Middlesex . Hounslow ( sp. 'Hounsloe' or 'Houndsloe' in that period ) had a well established sword industry .

I suspect another reason for belly wounds rarely being named as a cause of death is that even a lethal belly wound might not end the fight. If the one with the lethal belly wound killed the other, it was unlikely to make it to a trial, and, if the one with the belly wound received a more quickly lethal wound, that other wound would be named as the cause of death. Might "above the knee" simply mean 'thigh', with the leg being seen as two parts, "below the knee and above the foot" and "above the knee and below the hip", the second specifier being unnecessary once it's clear that the wound is in the leg? If so, that would explain how wounds "above the knee" could be "instantly lethal". The large femoral artery is a huge blood vessel, with high pressure. There's a smaller femoral artery on the outside of the thigh, btw, which will also bleed profusely, explaining why it would be hard to staunch, and, if not staunched, lethal in a matter of minutes rather than hours.

To comment on the "died instantly" statements; I wouldn't be surprised if "instantly" might be a slight exaggeration compared to what many of us assume when we hear that (as you went on to say), and probably encompass people bleeding out from arterial wounds. I imagine the only truly instantaneous deaths are ones involving significant trauma to specific areas of the brain which can cause instantaneous death and collapse. I'm not even sure if piercing the heart can lead to truly instantaneous deaths. This obviously isn't directly equivalent to people, but when animals like deer get shot through the heart with modern hunting rifles, they can still stay alive for some time. Does anyone know if damage to the heart can lead to truly instantaneous death? I'm wondering if there's some kind of shock reaction

Note that King Lear makes reference to his "Quick-biting falchion".

What I learned today. Trying to murder people is dangerous

For an arm wound to be guaranteed fatal. The brachial artery on the inside of the arm needs to be severed between the armpit and the elbow. If the brachial artery is severed on someone's left arm, they will lose a fatal amount of blood within 15-35 seconds. If severed on the right arm, it could take up to 90 seconds for someone to lose the same fatal volume of blood. A fatal arm wound might be less common due to the inside of the someone's arm naturally being protected by their body. As well as it not being very exposed in the common fighting styles.

Extremely good and interesting video, as usual, Matt! Could you please return to quoting what the session rolls say about the occupation of the combatants, which is super awesome: i.e., '... on the aforementioned Sunday, near St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Matt Easton (GENTLEMAN) was awaiting Sidney Barber (TAILOR'S APPRENTICE) WITH LADDISH AFORETHOUGHT...' &c. Also: Being now an old geezer, I recall the old "Inspector Morse" series of the '80s and '90s, wherein Inspector Morse (played by John Thaw) once chides his sergeant, Lewis (played by Kevin Whately), for saying that '... death must have been instant...' with a retort that only 'coffee' (he gives some other examples, which I can't remember) could be 'instant', whereas as death could only be described as 'instantaneous'. Apparently, in Shakespearean times, death could be described as being 'instant'.

It could be that the term “above the knee” was used to indicate the upper leg rather than lower in general. If that is the case them the femoral arteries are still the possible wound site.

Very interesting to hear. Unfortunate that there was no information on minor injuries. It sounded a bit like every encounter ended in just one hit but that is probably just the way the documents are written. I always thought that it would have been quite dangerous to get cut to the hands as well because of infections for example but there seemed to be only fairly few cases where the effects take a long time. I wonder how effective the treatments for wounds were and how it was done.

I never considered that the poofy sleeves would be a sort of armour even though textile armour was so common in earlier parts of history. It makes me wonder if that was the reason for all the neck doileys and frills on the upper chest. The upper chest would be a lot easier to stick into because of increased resistance compared to an arm that would easily get pushed along with the blade (or across the blade meaning your edge just slides along more and more material).

Not long-winded at all! These are great videos, love the source material, so please keep them coming!

Great video, love these types of content that are interesting and educational.

21:35 -- RE: Form, and Function; excellent analysis in my amateur and audience opinion! I was anticipating the Thigh Wound, but the Belly thing is wickedly instructive. *If* most of the mortal wounds come from blows or thrusts to the head and chest, *of course* most people will keep a high guard.

It’s interesting that in the melee the guy with the rapier was the one who was killed by presumably the more cut centric sword. In some ways indicates why cutting was often defaulted to in the chaos of close in multi-combat battles.

Very interesting data. I use what I learn in my heroic fantasy stories

I'm with some of the others, Shakespearean English was not quite modern English & the words "instantly" & "immediately" (more-so the former) were used to mean "quickly", "soon" or "shortly thereafter", which I would suggest is the context in which they were used in these reports. So, when someone "died instantly" he probably died within a few minutes of receiving the injury, rather than dropped dead on the spot. So, the "thrust beneath the ribs of the left side" which killed the victim "instantly" may have ruptured the abdomen, pierced the diaphragm & entered the lungs of the victim causing a severe haemopneumothorax which may have rendered the victim unconscious in a couple of minutes & killed him within ten, or it may have nicked the aorta, the inferior vena cava, or the left pulmonary vein/artery, all of which could kill quickly but, in most cases, not immediately (in the modern sense). Of course coming up from below the left ribs it may have pierced his heart & that would be, pretty much, instantaneous death.

" 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man"

In these times I imagine it was basically impossible to treat a wound that went through or past the ribs since the ribcage prevents easy access. They could maybe get to a wound close to the top or bottom of the ribcage, by lifting the ribs away, but I don’t want to imagine the pain of the patient. We can see such a wound in the movie „master and commander“. Here the doctor was hit by a muscet by accident and he operates on himself and his assistant has to raise a rib so he could reach underneath. We also have to consider that the blades and firearms sometimes carried fabrics of the penetrated clothing into the wound, where it would further increase the risk of inflammation and infection. Something the movie also shows when they compare the fabric taken from the wound with the hole in the shirt to confirm if there is fabric left in the wound.

I think that last point where multiple injuries could have occurred, though only the mortal injuries were recorded is very valuable to consider. Look at some medieval battles and see that skeletal records show a lot of extremity damage in concurrence with head and torso damage. Then think in the heat of the moment, won't you hit the arm out of the way and then thrust the chest/ head

From my ancient surgical experience ( 50 yrs ago) the death after almost a day from a chest wound suggests a punctured lung and accompanying pneumothorax. " Sucking Wound" ...ultimately fatal...mentioned in a lot of Naval Battle accounts in Napoleonic Wars ( from balls, splinters, edges weapons.) Ambrose Pare', French Surgery great in 1600s, advised his students if they wanted to properly learn the surgical arts, to " go to war" ( at a time when Surgery was classed as a "Trade" rather than a Profession.)

loved the vid. Could it be that the clothes of the period had more impact on target areas than thought. Particularly the belly and thigh? The padding on trunk hose and a peascod belly could be quite extensive.

I love the videos when you read primary source accounts like this for us! It's one of the most difficult things, as an amateur enthusiast, to find primary sources, so it's a great service you are doing for the community by compiling these accounts and curating them. I would seriously love it if you published a book that was just this kind of thing with your observations, something like "Scholagladiatoria: A Reader." I would buy several of these for various time periods from before the Norman Invasion up to the Victorian era.

I've heard "in the common way," within other old writings about swordplay before. I believe it means "as untrained" or "skilless/amateur" styles. Like how street fights with opponents often devolves to wild sluging

This just reminds me of the sword and buckler video versus rapier and dagger video you did a while back. Be cool to see sword and dagger v rapier and dagger. The video Stocatta has on the development of the buckler during the period of basket hilted swords is kinda flipping insane. Some peoplewent through allot to perserve something going out of fashion as viable .

@~30:00 I had the same reaction to leg wounds lateral of the femur or distal to mid thigh "how did those kill in minutes?" Without modern surgical treatments or antibiotics they could certainly be fatal in hours or days, or leave one vulnerable to a coup de grace, but "instantly" feels off. I'm thinking it means the fight ended immediately at that point, or consciousness was lost perhaps?

Something I don't think you emphasize enough is the possibility (probability) that significant cuts to arms and hands would end a fight - without fatality. Cue Monty Python 'But I've cut your arm off!' I doubt anyone would say 'Tis but a scratch.' unless it happened on a battlefield. Second thing I must point out, especially in light of the combat with two Dane Lances, is that in the 15th century every type of sword (or weapon) common PRIOR to that time would be more common than weapons that were new and expensive at that time. Which would suggest that, unless specified, most of the swords mentioned were probably NOT rapiers. Which would explain the dramatic injuries done with a clearly chopping or slashing blow.

I love these historical accounts t So much. The juxtaposition between topic and delivery by old-time vebage kinda brings a humorous tone

This is amazing. Please more of these. You should write a book on this topic

I like this historic info. Don't stop doing your other types of videos though!

This is a very interesting analysis of the subject matter

As far as I recall from Silver-reading "longsword" at this time meant rapier (as did "rapier").

I love these long episodes. Please do more.

Remember, on the victims right side there are large organs such as the liver (and to the rear kidneys) with huge blood supply and on the left side in similar position is the spleen of huge blood volume (and to the rear again kidneys)… then centrally in front of the spine there are also huge arteries and veins running vertically, descending aorta, inferior vena cava… if you want to see how quickly one can die from that being punctured look up dissecting aortic aneurysm. Generally a gut wounding is a painfully, protracted death from sepsis or slow exsanguination… but a rapier capable of piercing straight through from front to back has lots of opportunities to deliver rapid death by hitting any of the aforementioned targets.

I think old single stick allowed leg attacks but later period was head only. Silver wentions "Woodknives" along with Hangers, Falchions, Skaines and Daggers along with the imperfect short weapons section of Paradoxes.

Love these videos, I especially liked the one on rapiers used in crimes they are always interesting

Oh one other thing Matt, as you mention a cut across the chest, the record said it caused instant death and you surmise it might be perhaps a heart puncture… it could be as you say… but bear in mind the thoracic cavity and the positive pressure therein has the effect of reducing left ventricular afterload and also aids left ventricular ejection. A large slash opening up the lungs, dropping pressure could cause loss of cardiac output, blood pressure crash, loss of consciousness and perhaps death. Never tested it myself 😂 but trauma clinicians might cast light on this as they see more chest injuries than I ever did mostly from car crashes.

Can you imagine if Oklahoma existed in medieval times? "he stepped a quarter inch onto his property, and one John Smith drew his hand and a half sword, giving him 38 cuts to the head, neck, hands, arms, knees, thighs, feet, lowrr back, and chest in self defense, of which he then and there died instantly."

For the leg cuts, I think, shock, both in his clinical meaning and as pain+fear+surprise, is a reasonable explanation of "instant" death. For the arms wound, or lack thereof, I find it very expected in a recollection of fatal wounds; outside of the big blood vessels under the armpit or a complete "chop of" they are not so vitals.

Regarding the issue of what qualifies as a fight stopper, I suspect a lot of the modern discussion is to some extent shaped by gun based thinking. A person needs fairly little capacity to aim and shoot with potentially deadly effect. You're certainly not going to be pulling off a sniper shot with a belly wound, but shooting someone with a pistol who's 2 meters away, you don't need much more than enough strength left to lift the pistol and point it vaguely in the right direction. This kind of thing is what leads to the idea of "stopping power" - the ability to deliver injury so horrific that the victim is *stopped* - ie: dead or very close to it. However, with almost any other kind of weapon, a person needs quite a lot more to actually be a threat. If I've just had a bad cut to my leg, I'm probably not standing in anywhere approaching proper footwork and thus I'm not really going to be able to deliver a competent cut with my sword. I might still be upright if I'm worried about the person giving the coup de grace, but that's not the same as being a real threat. (A thrust might be more of a threat - yes it's clumsy with bad footwork, but if it connects it's still doing about as much damage, whereas if you're flailing about desperately with a sword you're probably not maintaining edge alignment and thus are likely to give a pretty glancing blow unless you get lucky and swing for a spot like the neck where the shoulder and side of the head would kinda steer the edge into alignment.) I could be wrong, of course. The folks who do HEMA and other martial arts are far, far more used to thinking in terms of their fields than I am. But the threat of the gun is all but omnipresent in the world - even in countries that have reasonable gun laws, there's always the possibility that the person attacking you has a gun. (After all the fact that they are, y'know, attacking you probably means that the law doesn't necessarily mean that much to them.) My point is that this seems like it would be a hard bias to set aside.

I remember my old fencing trainer who told me about a fencing master who won all his fights by attacking his enemies legs (and feets), which are still valid targets in olympic epee fencing.

the other thing with arm hits, if you're thrusting, it's the smallest target (except maybe the neck) and arms are the easiest part of your body to move out of the way. I also wonder if all the bucklers and parry daggers were doing their job of guarding the arms too.

Another interesting video thank you

9:38 Thanks to _Pirates of the Caribbean_ , everyone knows now what *parley* means 😁

It would be interesting to know about pants and boots of people hit in lower legs. My impression is that unless it is very (un)lucky cut, cutting on lower legs with rapier wouldn't do much damage because such cuts are weaker (experience from sparing), rapier is not great cutter and lather and fabric would diminish damage to body even further. Stab into lower legs would most likely be pure luck.

39:32 I'd say, that the arm is idealy behind the sword, and at least always near it, when you hold it on your hand, at the end of your arm. Quite close to the blade I'd say. Oh, and arms move more quickly.

For the one at 11 minutes, I'd say a spinal injury is also likely to result in immediate paralysis and loss of consciousness from overdilation of blood vessels below the point of the injury could be more or less immediate and while that would be temporary if they survived (the unconsciousness, the paralysis is very permanent) they did just take a sword through the chest so odds aren't great they'd ever wake up.

Well I mean it kind of makes sense that it would be the thorax and head. Limb cuts rely on severing a major vessel and even then, blood loss from an amputated limb isn't guaranteed to be fatal. Hits to the gut or pelvis do cause important damage and might cause infection, but probably aren't fast enough for instant incapacitation. By comparison, there are many directly important mechanism of injury in the head, neck, and thorax that can swiftly lead to death. Damage to the pleural cavity or lung can cause it fill with air or blood making breathing ineffective. Damage to the heart can cause heart failure or enormous blood loss. Damage to the brain can cause organ malfunction, as well as incapacitate by sensory, processing, or motor control problems or fainting, and secondary swelling of the brain or serious blood loss can be fatal as well, and any penetrating injury by a no sterile implement would be very dangerous in the long run due to brain infection being almost guaranteed and almost invariably fatal. Damage to the neck can affect organ function, motor control, airway function, sensory abilities, blood volume, blood pressure in the brain (causing blackout due to oxygen starvation well before lethal blood loss occurs), and of course decapitation, combining all of the above and more for instant death. The relative density of immediately vital organs in these areas is extremely high. Vastly more than in other areas of the body.

When evaluating wounds as a martial artist, it needs to be kept in mind that you can only rely on the mechanical/physiological effects. To give an example, most rule-sets assume a stab wound to the lung will cause near-instant incapacitation, but in truth, it takes several seconds for lung damage to notably reduce a combatant's physical capabilities and possibly several minutes to render them incapable of posing a threat. If you're facing an opponent determined/intoxicated enough, they'll fight through the pain and shock for a good long time. Thus, a more realistic approach to simulating combat wounds would be to add an element of chance to afterblow periods (eg, judges secretly rolling dice before each round to determine how long the afterblow period will last), with wound-related handicaps during those periods (eg, injury to the leg requires the fencer to keep both feet on the floor at all times). More irritating, too, I'm sure, although maybe not for the spectators. 😉

It does surprise me that the belly wasn't targeted more often. Especially when it comes to knife fighting, the belly is a far better target than the chest. With a rapier, you cannot count on splitting a skull or cleaving the chest wide open, but it can still slice a throat, or make entrails fall out (if the cloth above it can be cut). Obviously, with a rapier, you should primarily thrust, but cuts to the arm and other more situational cuts are still likely. If you want to kill someone with a cutlass, the head and neck will be prime targets and then it's probably the weapon arm, followed by the belly and other limbs. The belly is still an easier target than the legs for the most part and when the opponent defends his head, the belly becomes available.

It seems that in these reports, "Instantly" might well denote any situation where the person perished at the spot of the duel before anything could really be done (which, depending on conditions might well have taken half an hour or more). So, approximately during the duel or immediately after it, probably with the sentiment that the blow decisively ended their life from the immediate damage or exsanguination, rather than a protracted complication (infection etc). It was likely much easier for the officials involved to mark any situation where a fight resulted in someone breathing their last at the location to simply denote their death as "instant" following the blow. For all actual purposes, the relevancy was that the death happened immediately following the fight, and not days later. Not like forensic science in the 1500s is going to exactly pinpoint whether they died then and there or in fifteen minutes following shock and gross bleeding.

Another great video. I completely agree about the leg attack thing; it seems ludicrous to me that modern HEMA (a bit of a contradiction in terms there) should discount any attack really, certainly those against the leg. All martial arts are subject to this, even in the - sadly defunct in the UK - Practical Pistol shooting, where there was a divergence between the purely competition orientated and those such as bodyguards and Sky Marshalls who did it for a living. Anyway, thanks for the videos and keep up the good work!

Speaking of death in the early 1600s (and Late 1500s), have you come across any using wheel locks or (once you get far enough) flintlocks yet?

Enjoying your dive into primary accounts.

11:59 'in the common way': This doesn't mean 'in the usual manner' but 'in the public street' (the 'common' thoroughfare, or the square, or anywhere else that the public was allowed to pass through). So it's about location, not the manner of fighting. It's explicitly legal terminology here, because specific laws apply to behaviour in private vs public land; but it was also used in common parlance for England (and countries subject to her laws) right up frmo the middle ages through the 19th century. - cf 'in the common street' in some of the other accounts. (And just having listened through to the rest of the vid, it's fascinating how careful all these accounts are to specify location: not just 'near this landmark' but also making clear issues of land ownership and legal status.) I'd also suggest that 'of which he died immediately' doesn't necessarily mean what we'd call immediately today, or even swooned immediately: it might just be 'died within an hour or so as a direct result of this injury' and was therefore legally considered to be an immediate result of the wound, rather than a death from later complications.

At 3:43 is that a square buckler? For some reason I only ever think of them as round. Have you discussed the pros and cons of various shapes for bucklers, their history and geographic usage?

Go back to the Odyssey and Iliad wounds to the left breast, and especially the nipple were lethal. The old greeks did great work with rocks also.

Just a small nit-pick, dead from trauma, not infection without antibiotics a lot of belly wounds ( perforated bowel) result in sepsis and death in about three days, something ignored in battle casualties also

I'd imagine adrenaline and shock can be contributing factors here. I do wonder if you see more thoracic cavity hits in France given the triangular blade types. Probably around 1650 or so for the Smallsword. As for the thigh, you do have the femoral artery. Which is one extremely important artery.

Kind of reminds me of the people who say "shoot them in the leg so you don't kill them!"....thing is getting it in the leg seems to be pretty damn fatal if it hits the right bits. The one that confused you Matt about the guy getting hit in the leg and taking a couple hours to croak,maybe a stab that hit the main artery but because of the small hole took longer to bleed out while people tried to stem the flow? Some of the others "above the knee" would help to know the sword,a large cutter and a wack to the inside of the leg above the knee could get that artery.

Maybe sometimes the neck is included in "head"? Maybe head can mean face, forehead, skull, neck or throat?

I think instant death is a term that varies with use. If someone falls over and proceeds to bleed to death within five minites it maybe considered instant.

Shock is something else worth considering. Being stabbed or shot is VERY painful, and your brain could be fooled into thinking you've just been killed. There are records of people dying even though they were shot in the foot, because the shock of being injured can be that extreme.

Battle of Visby, between a Danish army against Gotland commoners, there were a lot of leg wounds on the remains of the losing commoners.

I enjoy most of what you do, but this type of video is my favorite.

Interesting stuff!

I personally love the longer videos.