A knight

[cegman]

I was reading a topic about knights getting knocked off their horses and laying there until someone killed of helped them. I was wondering what would you be thinking if you were in the middle of a battle fallen off you horse and laying there. (You would be stepped on and tripped over.)

I would probally be laying there for a few minutes trying to figure out who I am an where I am and then I would probally start thinking about whether I would die or live. If I still didn't get out of the predicament I would probally think so what weapon am I gunna die by. If that was done I would probally think of my fa... ow that hurts... mily.

What would you think

[Ikken Hisatsu]

ever been in a fight? heard of things like adrenalin? I seriously doubt you would be lying there pondering the mysteries of life, you would be trying like hell to get back on your feet unless you were knocked out. you wouldnt think anything.

oh and the bit about knights being knocked over and cant get up= pure BS. what actually happened was that a knights horse would be killed and fall over crushing one of the knights legs underneath it, rendering him unable to move (that is if he survived the fall)

[ichi]

I've fallen and I can't get up

More likely is that you are seriously wounded. A big gaping hole where your liver used to be, a bolt in your chest, or a stub that used to be an arm.

Many men did lay on the field, alive but badly injured. Given the state of medical techniques in the Middle Ages, these men probably did not hold out much hope. Some certainly had seen men injured in battle. They probably knew that they would die, or if rescued, live a pitiful existence as a cripple.

This is what makes the whole thing impressive - how is it possible to attract men to the field and then keep them from running? - when everybody knows how bad it gets

The Japanese sent servants through the battlefield finishing off the wounded. Imagine laying there, wounded badly, as you watch men methodically working their way across the field, killing others. They come to you . . .

I would be thinking I've soiled my armor

ichi

[Ikken Hisatsu]

they got people to fight the same way they always have- religion and propaganda.

[Voigtkampf]

Quote[/b] (Ikken Hisatsu @ Jan. 11 2004,01:37)]oh and the bit about knights being knocked over and cant get up= pure BS. what actually happened was that a knights horse would be killed and fall over crushing one of the knights legs underneath it, rendering him unable to move (that is if he survived the fall)
Just quite the opposite.

In certain periods, the knights plate armor for example weighed some 30 kg (60 lbs), and aside of being very heavy, they were almost completely inflexible, rendering the poor fellow inside nearly immobilized if he should fall down. Actually, it is historically quite accurate that the fallen knights couldn't get up from the ground without assistance. I sure couldn't believe my own eyes when I saw the pictures of a knight being lifted with ropes up and his horse being led underneath him, but it’s a historical fact, plain and simple.

[Gregoshi]

When knight falls, it gets dark and the stars come out. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Ludens]

I think I would be thinking something along the lines off:

WHAT happened? Battle? Yes, Battle I've fallen of my horse The killed my Horse I'm going to KILL him Argh, I cannot stand up The horse is lying on my leg ARGH

Then I manage to get the horse of my leg. In reality, this is in fact impossible, but off course this is fiction.

YAAH I'm loose I'm going to KILL the . Where is he? :grabs sword: There they are Take this you

As you notice, I've got a very lively imagination http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif .

[Voigtkampf]

Guess they serve more than orange juice in the mead hall, Lord Ludens?

Cheers

[altti]

Voigtkampf, Sie sind aus Deutschland, oder was?

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (voigtkampf @ Jan. 11 2004,13:46)]Guess they serve more than orange juice in the mead hall, Lord Ludens?

Cheers
You bet. Next round is on me
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[A.Saturnus]

Quote[/b] ]In certain periods, the knights plate armor for example weighed some 30 kg (60 lbs), and aside of being very heavy, they were almost completely inflexible, rendering the poor fellow inside nearly immobilized if he should fall down. Actually, it is historically quite accurate that the fallen knights couldn't get up from the ground without assistance. I sure couldn't believe my own eyes when I saw the pictures of a knight being lifted with ropes up and his horse being led underneath him, but it’s a historical fact, plain and simple.



Don´t know. I´ve read as often that it wasn´t so as I read that it was so. I would think that a weight of 30 kg over the whole body would be a hinderance but would not render a trained man immobile. Note that in the late middleage, most knights fought on foot anyway.

[Count Alfred von Schlieffen]

I've heard the knight-lifting-on-his-horse thing was a myth. In fact, 14th-15th century armor was heavy, but you could move quite well in it. some knights could even perform acrobatics in full plate armor.

[The_Emperor]

its true that Knights were able to move around remarkably well in plate armour, but it was difficult to get up after being knocked down and may take him a bit longer than a normal guy.

At any rate the knight doesn't have to be on his back very long before someone can knife him, and I think the guy who killed his horse who is already on his feet would probably be able to take advantage of the situation before the knight got up again.

[Cebei]

Before the appropriate modifications were made on armors, yes, once a knight fell off his horse, he couldnt get up. Early medieval plate armors were way too heavy and partially disabled the wearer's actions.

To give an example from the Turcoman history, during the first crusade, it was impossible for Turcomans to beat the knights in whole body plate armor, because they were mostly horse archers. After Kilicarslan I's repeated wars with the crusader armies, he discovered that knocking a knight off his horse would render him useless throughout the battle. Thus Turcomans employed dirtier tactics, either ambushing crusaders in forests, attacking them with rams which was held by 4 horsemen, installing rope traps all around etc.. Later on they invented a sword called Yatagan (looked like a thick whip) which could fell a knight off his horse.

Then onwards, Turcoman tactics against the crusasders were like this: Unarmored extra light horsemen with light and fast horses armed with yatagans would charge the knights from flanks or rear, dismounting all, then horse archers would pepper lesser unarmored crusaders with arrows, then waves of baltaci (which is translated into MTW as Ghazi infantry) would massacre the knights on the ground.

Later on better armors (thanks to the Italian Medici family) were invented and knights could stand up and fight again.

[katar]

knight falls off horse, along comes a peasant and shoves a small knife into his groin or through the slit in his visor and into his brain... end result... dead knight.

don`t forget the how weather would affect a fallen knight, he might manage ok with 30kg of armour, but it is a different matter when he falls onto muddy ground and suddently aquires a nice thick HEAVY layer of mud.

worst of all he could fall face down into it, get his visor stuck into a couple of inches of gooey mud and drown.

not so heroic, but that`s the way it works sometimes. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Dillinger]

I saw a show on the History Channel that showed fully armored men doing somersaults.

[cegman]

yes we know that but in earlier times I believe that is wasn't possible and imagine a 30 or so pound weight on your chest and a horse on your legs and then try and get up. Lay flat with something on your chest and your feet imobile and then tell me how easy it would be.

[The_678]

Man, that would suck so much being unable to get up in the middle of a battle.
One second you're the most potent force on the battlefield, the next you're as helpless as a babe.
Damn

[motorhead]

Found this on the metropolitan museum of art site:
/start
Most plate armor is not as heavy as is commonly believed. A fully armored knight was expected to be able to mount and dismount unaided. The image of a knight being hoisted into the saddle with a crane stems from Hollywood and is complete fiction.
/end

And from some people who still make medieval armor (http://www.mackenziesmith.com) :
/start
There are many popular misconceptions about plate armor. It is often portrayed in film and literature as so heavy and awkward that one has to wonder why anyone would wear it at all. We hear that if a knight fell down that he would be unable to rise and that he would have to be hoisted into his saddle by means of a crane. All this, of course, is nonsense.
/end


Also possible that some medieval pictures depicted knights in jousting armor which was considerably heavier and less flexible. Some jousting suits bolted the helmet and shield to the breastplate which would be rather impractical in combat, eh?

[Cebei]

I think the misconception arises from the evolution of the plate armor. Later plate armors are very succesful, but in the early usages of plate armor, knights mostly had a bad time.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

One thing is for sure, I've seen guys in full Gothic Plate rolling in the ground and training horse falls with little problem.

Hollywood making an colective a**hole of itself once again... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pissed.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

Oh, well http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/redface.gif

[johnnybrigante]

this is from www.aginc.net/battle (a very good site about the battle of agincourt - well at least it looks good to a south american not used to that kkk-nigt stuff) and it concerns two crucial aspects of the cumbersome knight? topic: armour and mud.



Misconceptions about Plate Armor
The helplessness of an unhorsed knight in plate armor has been vastly exaggerated. A typical suit of Agincourt- era combat plate armor weighs about 30 - 35 kg. This is roughly the same as a modern infantryman's field pack, and it is better balanced. There are descriptions of knights being lifted onto their horses with a block and tackle, but these are either:

Humourous, and usually modern.
Fairly late tourneys, where the armor was specially built for jousting, and had essentially no freedom of movement.
A very old and fat knight. The Duke of York at Agincourt was an example.
Falling off of a horse is nobody's idea of fun. Falling off a horse while wearing armor is probably even less fun (I haven't tried it, and don't intend to.) However, remember that the knight's favorite sport was the tourney, where many of the events (the joust in particular) involved falling off of horses. While there are records of fatalities from knights falling off of their horses in tourneys, the most common cause of death was a splintered lance going through a helm's eye slits.

Mud
The key word for describing the battle of Agincourt is mud. The battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. Soon after the battle started, it had thousands of English and French soldiers and horses running through it. Anywhere near the battlefield, the mud was at least ankle deep. Much of the time, it was up to the combatants' knees. Occasionally, it reached their waists. There are descriptions of horses floundering around in mud up to their bellies.

Falling off of a horse in the kind of mud that was at Agincourt was no joke, especially in armor. Indeed, many of the deaths (including that of the Duke of York) were caused by drowning.

The mud was undoubtedly a major factor in the lopsided English victory. The barefoot and in many cases bare legged English foot soldiers were vastly more mobile than the armored French.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

I saw a few shows on the history channel and all said they could get up no problem.60 lbs distributed over your body is not very heavy.I was in the marines and we had a 60lb pack an 8 lb helmet and a 14lb rifle.Those guys had it easy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Count Alfred von Schlieffen]

Quote[/b] (Cebei @ Jan. 11 2004,12:11)]To give an example from the Turcoman history, during the first crusade, it was impossible for Turcomans to beat the knights in whole body plate armor, because they were mostly horse archers.
I might be wrong, but I believe European crusaders didn't yet wear full plate armor in the 11th century. I think plate armour first appeared in the late 13th century, and then only for limited parts of the body.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/argue.gif

just nitpicking..... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flat.gif

[Cebei]

Quote[/b] ]I might be wrong, but I believe European crusaders didn't yet wear full plate armor in the 11th century. I think plate armour first appeared in the late 13th century, and then only for limited parts of the body....

Steven Runciman says in his History of the Crusades, that some (meaning bigboys who could afford it) crusaders were wearing heavy armor (he is not getting into detail whether it was plate or something else), which was extremely protective, but hindered movement. Even if it was not plate armor, it must have been a crappy armor anyway.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Quote[/b] ]Thus Turcomans employed dirtier tactics, either ambushing crusaders in forests, attacking them with rams which was held by 4 horsemen, installing rope traps all around etc.. Later on they invented a sword called Yatagan (looked like a thick whip) which could fell a knight off his horse.


Some history books speak about a similar procedure http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif applied to western knights during the Battle of Kosovo Polje, in 1389. A foolish Christian Knight charge was destroyed by the Turk infantrymen, that used blades (yatagan?) to cut the horse's ligaments. A masacre followed. Dunno if it's BS or true, but it adds to what Cebei says.

[Dhepee]

Perhaps the idea that a knight could not rise from the ground or mount a horse stems from parade and tournament armor which by the late middle ages was quite elaborate and often featured several inter-locking plates. This armour would never be worn in battle, it was merely for show or sport, because it made the wearer so immobile.

It was well suited to the joust because all you had to do was aim your lance and the armour often had a rest for the lance on it. While it is not easy to aim a lance it only requires a correction of the supporting arm, which would be aided by the rest built into the armour. It was also well suited to the parade because it was so elaborate looking and there was not much to a parade besides just riding your horse.

An entirely different suit or armour would be worn into battle. It is the rare fool who would intentionally wear someting into battle knowing that if their horse tripped or they were unseated that they could not get up again.

Confusion between the two probably comes from the medieval approach to history, and Hollywood. Medieval writers and artists tended to take whatever was contemporary to them and apply it to ages past. For example many renaissance and medieval artworks depict Christ in contemporary dress being led away by Roman soldiers in armour that is contemporary to the time of the painting. Medieval artists also tended to idealize their subject, the royal parade or tournament was the most ideal setting for a display of combat and arms. The most heavy and elaborate tournament/parade armour came at the end of the Middle Ages so it follows that medieval writers and artists in the late Middle Ages following their habit of contemporizing everything would talk about armour as the armour of the day, and following their habit of idealizing the world would talk about tournament/parade armour. As the wearing of full suits of armour and tournaments died out in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, and at the same time the printing press became more advanced, the pictures and descriptions from the Late Middle Ages became the most prevalent, without regard to earlier eras. Hollywood didn't help matters by picking up on this and ignoring Medieval historian's habits and took it as gospel truth and spread the fiction.

[bighairyman]

Quote[/b] (voigtkampf @ Jan. 11 2004,02:39)]
Quote[/b] (Ikken Hisatsu @ Jan. 11 2004,01:37)]oh and the bit about knights being knocked over and cant get up= pure BS. what actually happened was that a knights horse would be killed and fall over crushing one of the knights legs underneath it, rendering him unable to move (that is if he survived the fall)
Just quite the opposite.

In certain periods, the knights plate armor for example weighed some 30 kg (60 lbs), and aside of being very heavy, they were almost completely inflexible, rendering the poor fellow inside nearly immobilized if he should fall down. Actually, it is historically quite accurate that the fallen knights couldn't get up from the ground without assistance. I sure couldn't believe my own eyes when I saw the pictures of a knight being lifted with ropes up and his horse being led underneath him, but it’s a historical fact, plain and simple.
60lbs weren't alot.actually only the body armor weights 60 lbs. plus the helmet, the armor for arms and legs, i think it totals up to almost 100lbs. now even then it would had been nothing, u guys are forgetting, that these guys trained since 7, inmagine how much muscle they had. since like 13, they were training with like 20 lbs(i could be wrong, don't how how much medieval swords weight) swords. inmgaine big football players with 100lb armor, i'm sure they could get up. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-builder.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-juggle.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-grin2.gif

[CBR]

The late Medieval full plate armour (also called White Armour) although heavy, had a better weight distribution compared to the earlier full chain or plate mail.

But Knights/Men-At-Arms did fight dismounted and although fatigue and heat exhaustion could be a problem it is a myth that they couldnt move if they fell off their horse.

Jousting armour could be a lot heavier (to maximise protection) and that is where the misconception comes from as Dhepee describes.

Early crusaders did not use plate armour. Edit: iron plate/hardened leather defenses for elbows and knees first appeared around mid 13th century.

CBR

[Cebei]

Quote[/b] ]Some history books speak about a similar procedure applied to western knights during the Battle of Kosovo Polje, in 1389. A foolish Christian Knight charge was destroyed by the Turk infantrymen, that used blades (yatagan?) to cut the horse's ligaments. A masacre followed. Dunno if it's BS or true, but it adds to what Cebei says.

The process is true, however I cant say anything whether this took place in the Battle of Kosovo, as the historical sources concerning this battle are very rare. Also, I guess a proper armor should be invented by then, but previously, Seljuks and Turcomans enjoyed a considerable gore fest arising by the immobility of the knights.

I guess I mentioned it somewhere in this forum: Early Turks were using a terrible torture; skinning a head off, then covering the head with salted goat skin. Turcoman armies (after disabling knights off their horses) used this, and then put the knights on pikes with their armor on. Terrible, but armors' immobility is written. I think that the knights' armor were better in the Battle of Kosovo. In this battle, blades (I dont know whether they are yatagans too) should have been used to dismount the knights, but I guess they werent disabled like before.

On the other hand, there is historical data on the knights' massacre at the hands of Ottomans in the Battles of Nicopolis (1396), Varna (1444) and later Battle of Kosovo (1448). But during those battles ottoman infantries were far more advanced than those in the previous battles, so they did not rely on dirty tricks, but bashed the knights head on with gigantic polearms.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

[caspian]

But what about the knight's armor/shield bearer or his squire. I've read that wherever the knight is, behind him would be his small entourage. They would probably help him or be killed in the process thus giving the knight time to recover. A claymore on foot would be carve any nearby enemies. Still, anyone thrown off a horse, whether charging or just standing, would need sometime to reorient himself regardless of what he's wearing (and it would probably hurt like hell too).