What You Need To Know About Medieval Fighting Techniques 

"We're volunteers. Warlords a conscript" that line had me roaring

This is like watching two blokes debate Ikea instructions, only with stabbing things. Thank you for this.

"Oh boy, my owner is doing that thing again where he pokes things with sticks." I love how as soon as the horse realises the lance in his peripheral vision is couched it's time to rock. What a good boy!

The info is fascinating, but Warlord steals the show, such an intelligent and well trained horse.

My 7 year old son is absolutely addicted to you and your horses and all of your videos and he loves the Middle Ages too. I am an archaeologist and I would like to thank you for being so realistic about the way life really was at the time. Greetings from Italy 🇮🇹 Cheers

Amazing! I swear that Warlord is studying just as hard as you guys are. He's constantly checking on his companion and considering how to protect him against the ground attack. He didn't show any signs of concern for his own well-being. He would have been a fine soldier, that horse.

"Warlord, this is not dangerous. Or edible." This is a pretty good summation of a horse. lol.

Im only 10 minutes into the video. I really like how your showing how you two are reading the book & figuring it out on camera. Thanks for sharing, very interesting stuff.

So I am a real-life martial artist, I even used to teach karate. Ive been in many classes with many instructors, with people of various experience ranging from complete novice to expert. How you guys approached this subject is exactly how all real martial artists approach fighting and likely how the knights and men at arms face it as well. It usually starts with something simple, in this case you guys looked at a parry-counter, a very easy concept that can be taught in about 5 minutes. From there questions get asked which leads to more questions. Ive been in classes and taught classes where only one technique was taught, then people started playing with it and asking questions and soon everyone had something completely different from the original lesson. I think this is one reason the old fight manuals were so vague at times. They werent a comprehensive guide to fighting, but rather an overview of concepts and strategies that fighters then took and played with and came up with their own things unique to them.

The most fascinating part is that the horse must now be trained deal with more things than just running in a strait line for a joust. It's like the horse effectively is learning martial arts as well, in its own way and participation.

-"Gentle contact" BONK goes the head -"... Perfect !"

This is great, just watching u guys work through all of this. No fancy camera edits, or crazy music, it's as if I'm literally sitting there next to u guys just watching all of this.

"It's a sword...mmmm." Has got to be the best line ever. I love this channel so much.

If I may, I think another thing that's 'saving' Guy is Warlord was starting to anticipate the clack of the lance. You can see after about the third or fourth time, he starts to move away a bit as you make your approach, which gives Guy more room to maneuver. I think that with practice and holding Warlord on a steady line, Guy will be forced to move away to perform his counter. As always, love watching your videos, and give Warlord an ear scritch or two for me! XD

Makes me realize how important horse training back in those days must have been. Not every horse would be cut out for this sort of stuff.

I imagine a group of ancient warriors all standing around having the exact same debate upon their first few battles with concentrates cavalry force. Quite the image to have.

Warlord is truly a steed befitting a knight - he shows his quality beyond measure!

Very impressed by Mr Windsor's handle of Medieval Italian, albeit with a very English pronunciation. Thank you for teaching us about Fiore dei Liberi on your great channel.

15:20 wow, that was some amazing calm on Warlord's part. He tossed his head a little, but that was as much response as he gave to a loud clack right by his head and a shaft passing right by his ear. That is an incredibly well-trained horse.

I really like seeing you working with spears here, especially on foot. I think a lot of the historical channels focus a lot on swords because swords are popular today. Yet spears and polearms were used a lot more on the battlefield than the sword, and when we see people looking at the original documents and using them competently we can see just how superior a good pole arm can be compared to an arming or even long sword.

This sort of content is severely lacking in other youtube channels. Seeing the process of working out the techniques from original source material and then the discussion that comes from actually performing it is amazing. Warlord and the other horses are fantastic and it is wonderful seeing them work. I hope to see more in depth discussion and demonstrations of combat in the future. Overall this channel is fantastic and I hope to see these videos continue for a very long time

Jason: "Right, we're going to invite this chap over to VERY GENTLY show him how we fought back in the day." Warlord: "Master COME ON, we could kill this clown ten times over with THIS VERY STICK if you'd just let me go a bit faster. Oh ALL RIGHT I'll behave, I'll behave."

I have to say I really love how well you treat Warlord and make his safety a priority. Really fascinating exploration, it turns out the manual is near me (at the Getty) and I can’t wait to check it out.

The French dismounted because the English set up their defense across a muddy field, with dense forest on either side. They also dug trenches and put up stakes on both flanks and stationed their longbows behind them. They left the center open, stationing their foot knights there most armed with poleaxes and cavalry destroying polearms. It was a horrible decision to charge the English in that position. The English were not playing by the "rules" of lining up on open fields and deciding the battle with a cavalry charge.

Agincourt would have been a line of horses charging. no where to "step" when that occurs. I always figured they dismounted because of the muddy terrain which is often mentioned? one things for sure, warhorse training must have been a very important career, much in demand.

Man, this was seriously super fascinating like modern reenactment and archeology. I'm glad that your 'scholar' in this case I believe was comfortable with your horse. I would have been terrified, but he knew the script and interpretation well. He saw how the horse reacted under very slow speeds. Obviously, the cacophony of noise wouldn't bother a warhorse in the thousands as it did singly for an off-shoot warhorse breed. Super cool!

Love the way Warlord is always part of the conversation

"we're volunteers, the horse is a conscript" lmao i love the rapport between them

Warlord is amazing! And this video is really informative. 👌

As a Fioreist this is great to watch. Equestrian HEMA is just too expensive for me to experiment with so it's great to watch someone else who can do it.

*It should be mandatory for Hollywood directors to watch this video!* I can see so many things that need to be changed in movies. REAL combat, I think, would look much more interesting than movie nonsense. There is a lot to learn here!

“I don’t want to run you over because you’d clog my horse’s feet.” Ouch 😣🤣

Gorgeous work. Just gorgeous. I would most definitely agree that standing against a charging steed, with armored knight, steel tipped lance, and murder in their eyes....would take balls of steel. Or at the VERY least, years of training and a huge dose of confidence IN one's training. Not to mention needing to be quite smart about your battlefield decisions - split second reactions would be absolutely necessary at full speed, wouldn't it? Warlord was indeed a very, very good boy in this endeavor. He did NOT like that noise right beside his head, certainly, but he also didn't react half as badly as he could have. I can't imagine poor Talos would have been able to deal with this experiment quite so handily. He's just not used to that kind of thing, yet! I was also impressed that Warlord did not - well, lose his temper I guess? That might not be the correct term. I've heard stories once or twice, about war horses getting upset in a different way - most horses flee, but there are those times when "flight" seems not an option for whatever reason to them, and then things go pretty badly for someone. Maybe the horse, but more often the humans; the specific stories I'm recalling involved a particular stallion who tended to bite when he was upset. Perhaps of use on a real battlefield, not very helpful in training or re-enactment! Though I will note, this animal was also not of "standard" stock, he was technically a Quarter Horse, with a lot of Mustang in there; and he had a temper to begin with. I believe his owner always said training with that horse was "lively." Knowing more about this than I used to - I no longer think he meant lively in an amusing way!! Wonderful video - thank you so much for continuing to share your experiments and experiences with us!

It was so cool to see you guys working it out. I appreciate that you left in so much of the discussion.

Fun fact: He's a CEO of a company that created the game Elite Sniper and also other things like movies.

I greatly appreciate this 'just sitting on the side' watching you figure out and learn. You share valuable insights, and a lot of it is in your dialog, the way you debate and theorize and then give things a try. For me as a writer this is great to from a picture of how training people and horses for defense and combat situations might work. I am very thankful!

I love this kind of video where you (especially with a friend) are just messing around figuring things out.

The secret to success " read the whole book".

Awesome video! I love how you both really break it down and brainstorm all the scenarios, angles, and possibilities. Not only is this extremely informative, but it's also great fun! Please keep videos like these coming! 👍🏼

This is absolutely GREAT! Best channel on youtube at the moment!!!

I never miss a video. The informality, but serious inquiry makes them all the more enjoyable. This is clearly one of the best you've done. Yea, yea...the horse did good too.

I wish I could “Like” this video more than once! I’ve long been a fan of Guy’s work, & it was great seeing you both work together on this.

This was mad! So cool to see two guys like "Wanna attack me on your horse now?" "Sure hang on I'll go get him!" Also Warlord might be the best trained horse I have ever seen. Such a cool video.

I just took a fall going full speed on a horse in my light armor kit and separated my shoulder joint. I look up to you as a knight so very much and hope one day to be as skilled as you through training one day!

Concerning the "horseman without armour": I think this might be relevant in case it is not an anticipated battle, but more a surprise skirmish. It would take too long to get into armour, but it only takes a few seconds to grab a lance/spear ... assuming one still wants to fights and not flee (or maybe retreat and regroup is not a viable option).

Aaaaaaand... Warlord steals the show! What a good boy! Oh, and you humans were good too. It was very interesting to see how the illustrations and instructions played out in practice. I think that you were both insightful, from the two perspectives of the situation (in my totally amateur point of view anyway). And it looks like you both had a lot of fun! Great video!

PLEASE hold lessons or experience days! I would love to come and live in the middle ages for a day, cooking, learning to fight, hopefully pet a lovely horse! I bet millions of people would love that

Warlord is the star of this piece, you guys are the stunt men.

Warlord was so motionless, with a sheen around his edges, I thought he was a cutout graphic. Then all of a sudden, woah!

This was absolutely fascinating. Guy made a good point when he said it's easy to parry while using sticks at slow speeds. Swap the sticks out for deadly weapons and a 30mph armored charge, and I think he'd have much more difficulty surviving.

What a beautiful calm horse,he seemed to be hanging on your every word when you was sat at the beginning.I can't imagine how long it took to get him to this stage,very well done.

My favorite part: "Get out of the way, you stupid man!" Good advice from the war masters of ages past :)

Dr. Guy Windsor has my utmost respect for his ability to break down/read that manual.

It feels like a lot of techniques being shown would be in the post-charge melee where the horse's momentum would be a lot slower. I saw that some assumptions were being made that the rider would be able to be struck even at a higher speed but it doesn't *seem* likely. While the manual is very dismounted combat orientated, it's almost certain that there are more mounted techniques to counter foot combatants. It's all very interesting! Great video.

Doesn't Warlord look particularly handsome today! Such a beautiful bit and bridle today.

Great to see Warlord again, I missed him. He is such a good boy ❤

"gentle contact" DOINK!!!!!!!

That is a very good boy! Wow. The level of trust Warlord has in you is something special.

Superb work and channel. Thank you

Really interesting to see you guys working through it all and getting the experience.

I own the Flower of Battle. A recommended read for anyone interested in Medieval combat, and those interested in HEMA.

Excellent video, War Lord is one in a million. Truly a fine horse.

The horsemanship in your videos is amazing!

Once a horse and rider, or in this case, knight. The horse will do what his master motions for him to do. A well trained horse will respond quickly and move out of the way of any danger, as Warlord demonstrated. He's been well trained and cared for. This has been very interesting and I have always been fascinated with Medieval history. Thank you. I love your videos.

Warlord is a very good horse. I hope you gave him his favorite treat to reward him for such good work!

Lovely guest appearance! I enjoyed watching you both bounce ideas off eachother and the trial and error approach of interpreting the fight book. What a treat!

Thank you very much for this interesting video, sir. Warlord is so brave and beautiful.

Fiore dei Liberi was one the most important Italian Magister Rex in the late medieval period. I'm very proud to live very near his birthcity and to have the opportunity to study from his Flos under the guidance of another Magister Rex.

Wow, that was an enthralling video! I'm so impressed with how focused Warlord is. I think all the horses I've ridden (dressage) would've thrown me off and galloped away if there was swords being swung near them.

Fabulous practical research! Thanks to all three of you.

16:36 "There are plenty horses who would've gone the other side of the county by now." Hehe yeah I know a couple of those.

You consistently provide enjoyable and informative content. This is easily one of my favorite channels. Thank you for your time and dedication.

This was a fantastic video and I’d love to see more about the techniques used. Keep up the great work!

Guy freaking Windsor?!?! Omg thats awesomee And its about mister Fiore :))) how can this be more awesome

This was amazing! I would love to see an experiment that took the speed of the horse into consideration. The length of the lance with the speed of the horse could make these techniques extremely difficult. The time someone has to parry a lance decreases significantly as lances get shorter and/or horses get faster as the horses head creates an impediment to the parry and one would have to potentially parry a charging lance in a hundredth of a second at full speed which could prove detrimental to the foot soldier.

One of the greatest channels on YT. I am so happy I found this

Beautiful horse, and great work at interpretation of this manual!

This was fascinating, thank you so much for recording this!

That was great! You guys should do more of them medieval military doctrines

Love how these guys are passionately discussing the topic

This is so fascinating, im so glad i found this channel

this is the absolute best medieval indoor riding arena I have ever seen!

that horse looks quite fun to keep around

I love this. It’s like learning a dead language with no course or dictionary. Experimental (or should it be described as experiential?) archaeology at its best and simplest!

Warlord is embodiment of patience.

This is the exact content and style of delivery that the world needs. Thank you.

This whole Infantry vs Cavalry is interesting. I had looked into some of this stuff briefly because of some games i played and this small test show a few things i had read and thought about. A big Cavarly charge is thought of as this kind of epitomy of medival war. The winning move for the side with the horses. But the strenght of the Charge isnt in its damage potential. It was probably more of a demoralizing attack. If the receivers arent diciplined enough and start to scatter and flee the Riders can take full advantage of their mobility and ride down most of the enemys forces. Somewhat ironically the best way for Infantry to receive a full-on charge was likely the balls-of-steel method.

Hi Jason, that was absolutely amazing! You guys should totally collaborate more often! It was fun watching you two have fun!

Love seeing the more historically accurate methods than what we see in movies, ect. Watching the conversation, love how Warlord @ 23:00 showing his sweet side...looks like he's grooming you.😁❤🐴

These longer videos are very insightful: show how much of a full-time job training with horses and weapons can be (and why there was a class dedicated to it in the middle ages). Also it seems like the "obvious solution" of wounding the horse may actually not be such a good idea: the animal bolting and kicking might actually be more dangerous than the knight!

absolutely fascinating! you can imagine knights back in the day working on technique exactly like this and comparing notes.

Warlord is a natural in front of the camera ❤️

You really need to do a collaboration with Matt Easton (Scholagladiatoria is his RU-vid channel), it would be incredible.

Amazing!! Looking forward to a part 2 of this! Well done! Warlord is just awesome!!

I used to feel like such a bumbling mess working out the techniques, but it's very reassuring to see you both using a similar method of read, interpret experiment, repeat

This was such an intriguing and thoughtful video. Dr Guy Windsor makes an excellent point about not trying to straitjacket the fighting terminology into a specific and very prescribed or formalised move. On the battleground, it's very much a case of doing what works. I wonder whether the speed of an actual encounter - the horse approaching at full gallop - would make much of a difference perhaps in the footed soldier's ability to strike after pushing aside the spear. Jason, thank you for this; it's only in nutting out the moves that we can really make sense of some parts of the fighting manuals. You always approach this sort of thing with a modest aspect, an enquiring spirt and a great degree of care for the spirited creatures that you ride. Warlord was superb in keeping his cool and restraining his ardour for a joust - and of course his handsome head and lineaments make him a joy to watch, even when he is taking things at an easy walk or gentle little canter.

i think the man on foot would just get blasted away if you were to ride that horse full speed like they did in a real war. all that weight and momentum would transfer into the strike toward the footman, and even if the footman parried the horse would be too fast for you to counter attack. I mean you could always gear up and try it out.

As a Fiore nerd, this is one of the coolest videos in existence. Kudos to all three parties involved!

Jason is displaying the enthusiasm of me testing out game strategy guide with friends.

This is such unexplored terrain it was a thrill to watch. Please do more. Also warlord is such a good boy.