• About
  • Armour in Texts
    • English Wills and Inventories
    • French and Burgundian Military Ordinances
    • Greek and Roman Inscriptions and Papyri
    • Lydgate’s Troy Book
    • Murḍa al-Tarṣuṣi
    • Nineteenth-Century Travellers and Researchers
    • Pedro de Aguado on Armour in New Spain
    • Records of the Armourers’ Company of London
    • Rule of the Pourpointiers of Amiens
    • Rules of the Paris Guilds
    • Rules of the Troyes Guilds
    • Rules of the Venetian Guilds
    • Statutes and Privileges of the Armourers and Scabbardmakers of the City of Angers
    • The Book of the Hirelings of the Republic of Florence
    • The Norwegian King’s Mirror
  • My Articles
  • Resources
    • Active Open-Access Venues in Ancient World Studies
    • Building a Website to Last
    • COVID-19
    • Fashion in the Age of Datini
      • Bocksten Cloaks
      • Crossbows
      • Extant Quilted Garments
      • How Heavy Were Doublets and Pourpoints?
      • Sheaths and Sword-Belts
      • The Baggage of a Student in 1347
    • Project TUPPU
    • Reenacting the Archaic and the Long Sixth Century
      • Cooking, Eating, and Drinking
      • Edgetools
      • Firestarting
      • Recipes
      • Replica Edgetools
      • Shoes and Sandals
    • Suppliers for Historical Crafts
  • Support
  • Why no Facebook/Google+/LinkedIn/Tumblr/… buttons?
    • My Social Media Policy

Book and Sword

~ Pontifex minimus

Book and Sword

Tag Archives: combat mechanics

The Myth of the Heavily Burdened Hoplite

15 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

ancient, Archaic Greek, classical Greek, combat mechanics, hoplite, material culture, Plataia 2021

How much weight did these warriors carry? Archaeological finds let us give a pretty good estimate. A Corinthian aryballos (oil flask)in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number: 41.162.157

Today, people with detailed direct knowledge of Iron Age arms and armour in the Aegean describe them as for athletes, as lightweight as the smiths could make them. Most hoplites had just one or two spears, a round shield, some kind of headpiece and some kind of sword, dagger, or cleaver. A hoplite was heavily burdened in comparison to man with a club and a selection of rocks in a fold of his tunic, not in comparison with modern ‘light’ (not motor-borne) infantry who often carry their own body weight in equipment. So where does the idea that hoplites wore 30 kilos of equipment come from? Back in 2010, Peter Krentz laid out the sad story.

Most scholars writing in English today estimate the weight of a hoplite’s equipment as 70 pounds (33 kilograms) or more, a figure that goes back to Delbrück, who took the figure 72 pounds from W. Rüstow and H. Köchly’s Geschichte des griechischen Kriegswesens von der ältesten Zeit bis auf Pyrrhos (1852). These are German pounds, each equal to 500 grams or 0.5 kilograms, as is clear from places where Rüstow and Köchly give weights in both pounds and kilograms. Their original estimate, therefore, was actually about 36 kilograms (79 avoirdupois pounds). Even this lofty figure has been exaggerated— in 1994 Richard A. Gabriel and Donald W. Boose gave the weight of a panoply (a full set of hoplite equipment) as 85–90 pounds (39–41 kilograms). But, as I say, most scholars writing in English today favor 70 avoirdupois pounds, which Victor Davis Hanson describes as “an incredible burden to endure for the ancient infantryman, who himself probably weighed no more than some 150 pounds.” Rüstow and Köchly’s figures do not deserve this veneration. They did not weigh museum pieces or attempt to reconstruct the equipment. As a result, a reviewer, Theodor Bergk, dismissed their figures as “purely hypothetical attempts,” while Hans Droysen justified his decision to ignore them by calling them “arbitrary estimates.” After all the archaeological discoveries of the past century and a half, especially in the German excavations at Olympia, we can do better today.

– Peter Krentz, “A Cup by Douris and the Battle of Marathon,” in Garrett G. Fagan and Matthew Trundle (eds.), New Perspectives on Ancient Warfare (Brill: Leiden, 2010) pp. 188-190

In short, this number persisted because it was the first one on the table, and because archaeologists refused to systematically measure and weigh finds until the 1990s (and when they did, they mostly did so in Greek and German, while the people becoming interested in hoplites only read English). Krentz estimates the weight of hoplite equipment as follows:

  • Helmet 1.2 kg {Extant Late Corinthian helmets}
  • Body Armour 3.6–6.8 kg {Extant bronze cuirasses and modern linen and leather armour}
  • Greaves (pair) 1.3 kg {Extant bronze greaves}
  • Shield 3.2–6.8 kg {Reconstructions based on two extant shields from Italy; for example, the poplar wood shield covered in 0.5 mm bronze sheet in the Museuo Gregoriano would have weighed 6.2 kg/13.5 lbs new}
  • Spear 1.5 kg {Reconstructions based on extant spearheads and buttspikes}
  • Sword, Scabbard, and Baldric 1-2 kg {Parallels with Roman gladii, weight of one damaged original}
  • Clothing 1 kg {Reconstructions}
  • Total (rounded) 13–21 kg

All of his figures are consistent with the weight of kit from other cultures. While modern infantry have to carry more than their body weight over the mountains of Afghanistan or the steppes of upper Mesopotamia, a Greek hoplite carried about as much weight into combat as I hauled to and from school five days a week.

Help my web hosts hold up their load with a donation on Patreon or paypal.me or even liberapay

Edit 2019-08-03: Corrected the names of the editors of the collection with Krentz’ article

An grave stele from near Athens c. 390 BCE in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, accession number 40.11.23

A Lombard Silver Bowl

05 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by Sean Manning in Medieval

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

combat mechanics, Late Antique, medieval, Migration Era, military manuals, source

A plate wrought with a horseman in a shirt of mail riding down a man on foot with a two-handed thrust of a lance.  Another infantryman has already fallen atop his large round shield.

Detail from a wrought silver plate in the Castelvecchio, Verona. Said to come from northern Italy and date to the sixth century CE. Photo by Sean Manning.

One of the treasures housed in the Castelvecchio of Verona is an extraordinary silver plate. It dates a bit later than the Sasanid silverwork which I have blogged about before, to the age which gave us Maurice’s Strategikon when East Romans, Goths, and Lombards were struggling for control in Italy and destroying what was left of the wealth and learning built up in the centuries when Rome ruled the world.
Continue reading →

An Outline of Toby Capwell’s “Armour of the English Knight”

24 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Medieval

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

armour, arms and armour, book review, combat mechanics, fifteenth century CE, medieval, Realien

A folding slip of corrugated cardboard with a printed label carrying the address, over a green nylon bag a metre long and 50 cm wide labeled Swiss Post

Courier firms work in mysterious ways: Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450 in its double packaging

Tobias Capwell, Armour of the English Knight, 1400-1450 (Thomas Del Mar: London, 2015)
308 pages, 24 x 30 cm
All glossy paper, most pages contain at least one line drawing or colour photo
ISBN 978-0-9933246-0-4
GBP 54 (UK, France, Germany, Italy), 64 (other countries) including shipping and handling; I don’t see any reason to believe that it will ever be available from other sellers or in softcover.
Link to publisher’s online store

After five years of anticipation, the first volume of the results of the inquiries of Toby Capwell into English armour began to arrive at customers’ doors in the middle of October. For reasons which seem good to them, the publisher and author have made very little information about the book available on their website. For quite a few buyers, “a book on English armour by Toby Capwell with drawings by Mac and Jeff Wasson” was all they needed to know. But for those who are on the fence, or waiting for their copy to arrive, I thought it would be helpful to sketch out the sort of things which this volume contains.

This book has a diverse audience. I will do my best to say things which I think armourers and armoured fighters would like to know, then give my own academic thoughts. But this is definitely not a review, and I refuse to find something to quibble about. Since I do not even dabble in fifteenth-century history, there would not be much point. I also refuse to give a summary since this book is newly published.

This is a study of full harnesses in a distinctive style worn by extremely rich men in England and Wales in the early fifteenth century. The main source is effigy sculptures, but documents, literature, funerary brasses, manuscript illuminations, and other kinds of medieval evidence are used to supplement them. The author’s experience as a jouster, and his helpers’ experience making plate armour, are also used to help interpret the sources.

The contents are divided into four parts. First is an introduction which sets the effigies in context in fifteenth-century England and discusses the problems of studying a style of armour which has all been destroyed (52 pages long). Then there are two sections on armour in the periods 1400-1430 (136 pages long) and 1430-1450 (75 pages long), each broken down by part of the body (helmets, cuirasses, shoulder defenses, vambraces, gauntlets, leg armour, sabatons). Last comes a miscellaneous section with a conclusion, the author’s experiences wearing armour in the English style, a bibliography, a list of effigies divided into six styles, a glossary, and two short indices (total 45 pages).

This miscellaneous section contains 25 pages on the famous blackened and gilt harness which he commissioned from Mac, and his experiences planning it, having it built, jousting in it, and having it modified.

A photo of an open book with a photo of a statue of a recumbent man in armour on the verso and a group of pencil sketches, four photos of details, and a paragraph of commentary on the recto opposite

Pages 204 and 205 of Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450. Full-page colour photos of important sources, closeup colour photos of details, pencil sketches, written commentary. As always, click to enlarge.

All pages are glossy, and some contain double-page spreads of important manuscripts, effigies, paintings, etc. Many of these images are not available online, and all the photos are printed in higher resolution than normal computer screens can display.

There are a series of line drawings by Mac of six typical harnesses representing six styles of English armour. Each is sketched from front, side, and rear for maximum clarity, and each of these views fills half a page.

There are a number of comments by Mac on specific technical problems which armourers in the fifteenth century faced, and how this might have affected the armour that they built.

There are pages of pencil sketches by Jeff Wasson with structural diagrams of different styles of armour and details of motifs, borders, etc. Individual sketches are scattered throughout the book alongside the closeup photos of details.

So for armourers, this is 300 pages on the development of armour in England with photos and sketches of details and suggestions of how to reconstruct it. For armoured fighters, this is 300 pages on the development of armour in England with suggestions of the advantages and disadvantages of different choices. And for academics, this is 300 pages of analysis of armour in England as a social tool and as a martial tool. While the publishers could make it easier and cheaper to buy and quicker and cheaper to deliver, and while this is a specialized book, I think it does what it tries to do very well. Although the shipping is a bit slow and expensive, the basic book is quite cheap for its size and complexity, especially considering that it will not sell thousands of copies. And everything about the physical book is professional.

Now I will put my academic hat back on and say why I think this book is important. Even though I can’t really afford it, and even though my dabblings in medieval history focus on late 14th century Italy rather than early 15th century England, I pre-ordered a copy. This was because I knew two things about this book.
Continue reading →

Sasanid Archery on Silver in the Hermitage

17 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient, Medieval

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

ancient, archery, Byzantine Empire, combat mechanics, Late Antique, medieval, Sasanid Empire

Wrought and gilt silver plate with relief of a crowned archer on horseback shooting panthers

Plate with the king hunting predators. Chased and gilt silver. Iran, 7th century CE. Found as part of a treasure in the Perm Region, 1878. Acquired by the Hermitage in 1925 from the Counts Stroganov Collection. Photo by Sean Manning, September 2015.

In the comments section of an earlier post I have been talking with ryddragyn about archery on the border between the Roman and Sasanid empires around the sixth and seventh centuries CE. Often we do not have sources to answer all the questions which people have today about how soldiers used their weapons, because ancient people preferred to pass that kind of knowledge on in person. But it happens that we have many kinds of evidence for archery in this period, including slightly later archery manuals, books on generalship, a wide variety of works of art, the remains of archery equipment, and odd references in histories and other kinds of literature. I would say that we have at least as good evidence for how Romans and Persians shot at each other in the age of Khosrow and Heraclius as for how Greek hoplites fought one another in Xenophon’s day.

One of the most important pieces of evidence for how the Sasanid Persians drew their bows is a group of gilt silver plates and vases hammered with images of the king hunting with the bow on horseback. It happens that I was recently in St. Petersburg, and I was able to photograph many of these bowls and vases in the State Hermitage Museum. This week I thought I would post some of my photos. Because I have not shot a bow for too many years, nor read up on this period of history, I won’t try to provide a commentary. The captions for each photo are based on the English labels in the Hermitage.
Continue reading →

Recent Posts

  • Essentialism, Identities, and History
  • Shameless Plug: The Chronicle of the Good Duke
  • And the Morning Road Leads to Stalingrad
  • The Battle for the Future of the Study of the Ancient World is Bigger than Classics
  • Identities Are Hard to Get At

Recent Comments

Sean Manning on Essentialism, Identities, and…
Andrew Hobley on Essentialism, Identities, and…
Sean Manning on The Poster Child for the Weste…
Sean Manning on The Poster Child for the Weste…
Michael Park on My First Book is Out

Archives

  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013

Categories

  • Ancient
  • Medieval
  • Modern
  • Not an expert
  • Uncategorized

Blogroll

  • .. clericus .. making art technological sources accessible
  • A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
  • A Durham Weaver
  • A Fencer's Ramblings
  • A Hot Cup of Joe
  • Aardvarchaeology
  • Active History
  • Ad Astra per Mundum
  • Albrechts Bösser
  • Alec Nevala-Lee
  • An Elegant Weapon
  • Ancient World Magazine
  • Andrew Holt: History, Religion, and Foreign Affairs
  • ANE: Just the Facts
  • Angry Staff Officer
  • Anthropologist in the Attic ~2017
  • Archäotechnik- textile Fläche
  • Archeothoughts
  • Artistic License or Why I Trust No One
  • Aryballos: Cdn Research Grp for Ancient Sport
  • Ask the Past
  • Backreaction
  • Bad Science † 2017
  • Balkan Celts
  • Bibliographia Iranica
  • Boke of the Wardrobe
  • Bow vs. Musket
  • Bread & Circuses ~2016
  • Carolyn Willikes
  • Celsus
  • Classics at the Intersections
  • Constantinus Africanus
  • Dan Cohen
  • Dr. Caitlyn R. Green
  • Dr. Conor Whately: Byzantine (OED) "Intricate, Complicate; Inflexible, Rigid, Unyielding"
  • Dr. Ellie Bennett
  • elamit.net
  • Encyclopaedia Iranica
  • Erik D. Schmidt
  • Erik Kwakkel
  • Ex Urbe
  • Executed Today
  • Forensic Fashion
  • Found in Antiquity ~2015
  • Gates of Nineveh
  • Geocurrents † 2016
  • Great Ming Military
  • Hammered Out Bits
  • Handling the Humanities
  • History From Below
  • Hollow Lakedaimon
  • Hook and Eye
  • Ian Milligan
  • Institute for the Study of War
  • International Armizare Society
  • Janice Liedl
  • jfleck at Inkstain
  • Karen Selk Textile Artist
  • Katafalk
  • Ken Mondschein
  • Kiwi Hellenist
  • Kristina Killgrove, PhD
  • Kung Fu Tea
  • La Cotte Simple
  • Language Hat
  • Languages of the World † 2016
  • Linguistrix
  • Loose Threads: Yet Another Costuming Blog
  • Macro-Typography
  • Magistra et Mater
  • Matthew Amt's Greek Hoplite Page
  • Medieval Manuscripts Blog
  • Milesian Tales
  • Mons Graupius
  • Moonspeaker
  • Muhlberger's World History
  • Neues aus der Gothik
  • Neurodojo
  • New At LacusCurtius and Livius † 2014
  • Paleopix
  • pallia: Katrin Kania
  • Paola Fabbri
  • Papyrus Stories
  • Pen, Book, Sword
  • Persian Things
  • Professeur … Ou Pas
  • Publishing Archaeology
  • Reportret
  • Robin Writes
  • Rogue Classicism
  • Royal Oak Armoury
  • Saewulf (Tumblr)
  • Sardinian Warrior
  • School of the Renaissance Soldier
  • Scott Manning: Historian on the Warpath
  • Shtetl-Optimized
  • Silk Road Gourmet ~2018
  • Sparta Reconsidered
  • Sphinx
  • Sprang Lady
  • St. Thomas Guild
  • Tales of Times Forgotten
  • Tetsuji No Llama
  • The Melammu Project
  • The Royal Road
  • Theoretical Structural Archaeology
  • Tracy's Middle East
  • Traditions of Conflict
  • Violent Metaphors
  • Vortigern Studies
  • Website of a Historical Polymath
  • West's Meditations † 2018
  • Wide Urban World
  • Zenobia: Empress of the East ~2017

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×