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TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#5576: Oct 30th 2015 at 4:23:43 PM

The Swiss are not actually known for their metal working so much as they are known for their mercenaries. Swiss style is frankly meaningless outside of it is the types of heads they commonly preferred to use and the 'style' includes a fairly wide variety of heads. All of which have a good chance of being purchased from elsewhere especially to arm mercenaries. Just like the bulk of the quality armor in Europe came from Italy. Just about everyone from mercenary companies, national forces, and even royalty purchased a good chunk of their quality armor from the Italians. There was plenty of lower quality to go around as well and you had a good chance of getting it from Germany or even some from Italy.

Who watches the watchmen?
Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
#5577: Oct 30th 2015 at 4:30:49 PM

The Swiss are not actually known for their metal working so much as they are known for their mercenaries

True.

Swiss style is frankly meaningless outside of it is the types of heads they commonly preferred to use and the 'style' includes a fairly wide variety of heads.

I meant Swiss-style as more of a general aesthetic, rather than specific heads, but fair point.


I'm not disagreeing on Italy being the best place for halberd and metal-working. But I think the Swiss were no amateurs or incompetents in that department.

TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#5578: Oct 30th 2015 at 4:50:49 PM

The Swiss were not Amateurs no but at the same time they were relatively small presence in the big picture of the Medieval European arms and armor market. However as mercenaries they had a pretty big presence alongside the other famous mercenary groups of the era.

The Halberd gets kind of odd because it was so wide spread including the what you might call a Swiss Style. Mostly because records on origins of some of the arms are sketchy it is hard to tell where they came from originally. It could be the Swiss made a few easily mass produced styles and the design caught on and ended up produced in quantity in general but the Swiss wouldn't be the main suppliers. I think though it wasn't the Italians who turned out the most Halberds though they did a good bit of trade in the arms market as well. Spain had a surprisingly large chunk of the arms market my money is on the Spanish possibly turning out high quality steel arms in any quantity.

Ok did a bit more poking around. The Swiss took into the arms trade at tend of the 15th and early 16th century so right at the very end of the medieval era. A lot of the arms and armor trade appears to have shifted around that time period as well. Italy lost some prominence and other countries arms industries sprang up as major players in the arms market.

edited 30th Oct '15 6:20:57 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?
MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#5579: Oct 30th 2015 at 10:50:00 PM

What do people think of John Green's history videos?

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#5580: Oct 31st 2015 at 6:12:52 AM

[up]

Cancer.

Watched the episode on the Dark Ages, and it is absolute shit.

If you like cities and great poetry, then the Dark Ages were pretty dark in Europe.

Until this point, my opinion of the /lit/ meme that John Green is a pleb was that it was just their elitism. But no. John Green, supposed author, is a fucking pleb.

Chaucher

Song of Roland

Waltharius

Dante

Procopius

The Poetic Edda

The Orkneyinga Saga

Bede

The Brus

Thorsdrapa

The Exeter Book

And that's just off the top of my head.

His dismal performance here suggests to me that his other videos will be equally poor.

Went to find it on r/badhistory, and, whaddaya know, Tim O'Neill, the guy behind the terrific Armarium Magnum blog, has already had his say.

A walk on r/badhistory also found his video about Homer, which is again horrendous. He spends the whole thing complaining about Homer's gender politics, as though Homer should have had John Greens politics, thousands of years before those concepts were delineated. Congratulations John. You have discovered that people in the past did things that people in the modern era find objectionable. Truly you are an elite historian and literary critic. Upon reading the foundational text of an ancient civilization, your first impression was: 'Why don't they think like me? They should think like me'.

Brilliant.

Re: Metalworking

Milan was the centre of European armor technology for a fairly long time.

edited 31st Oct '15 10:29:58 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#5581: Oct 31st 2015 at 6:23:22 AM

Achae: Indeed it was. It made Milan rather wealthy and brought a ton of trade on top of everything else. They even managed to export some small quantities of their goods to the middle east.

Any particular reason for cancer comment or you just yanking chains?

Who watches the watchmen?
Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
#5582: Oct 31st 2015 at 8:18:43 AM

Ok did a bit more poking around. The Swiss took into the arms trade at tend of the 15th and early 16th century so right at the very end of the medieval era. A lot of the arms and armor trade appears to have shifted around that time period as well. Italy lost some prominence and other countries arms industries sprang up as major players in the arms market.

Yeah, I was referring to this. Still, I should've mentioned the specific period you mentioned here.


@Dark Ages: Why do people still use that term?

Krieger22 Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018 from Malaysia Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: I'm in love with my car
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
#5583: Oct 31st 2015 at 8:45:58 AM

[up]The phrase has been around for almost 700 years. Amending every textbook to state that it's called that today due to a comparative lack of written history on what happened then is going to be an uphill battle as well.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
#5584: Oct 31st 2015 at 9:00:38 AM

[up]Well, it's been, what, 50 or 60 years ever since the term began to be discredited? You'd think changes would have already happened in a few places.

At least, changes have happened here. In my history books, there's no mention of 'Dark Ages' or similar terms.

It's sad to see the term is still en vogue, especially around the internet.

edited 31st Oct '15 9:01:36 AM by Quag15

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#5585: Oct 31st 2015 at 9:55:31 AM

Also, "the Dark Ages" also had Boccaccio and Petrarch.

Yeah, that term is offensive AND misleading.

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
#5586: Oct 31st 2015 at 10:01:06 AM

[up]Not to mention Averroes or the whole scholasticism movement.

However, some Renaissance historical literature is also to blame for the spread of the term 'Dark Age Europe'. So, Petrarch also (sadly) played a role in this.

edited 31st Oct '15 10:04:42 AM by Quag15

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#5587: Oct 31st 2015 at 10:03:40 AM

[up][up]

Petrarch named the Dark Ages.

The phrase has been useful to a tremendous number of people. The theorists of the Renaissance used it to try and discredit that which had come before. Enlightenment anti-clericalists used it to try and discredit the Church. Eurocentric Whig historians used it to explain a period where Europe was not the political centre of the worldnote . 21st century New Atheists find the idea of a period where the Church 'repressed science' to be extremely congenial.

edited 31st Oct '15 10:04:29 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#5588: Oct 31st 2015 at 8:31:05 PM

[up] Oh yeah....

And wow, never thought about it like that until now. surprised

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
RatherRandomRachel "Just as planned." from Somewhere underground. Since: Sep, 2013
"Just as planned."
#5589: Oct 31st 2015 at 8:41:21 PM

A similar point is made on the behaviors of various Greek philosophers who may not have engaged in certain behaviors as much as suggested. One part sometimes offered is that while catamites did exist, what might otherwise have been just a mildly intimate relationship between two men became full on sexual.

Hell, it's thought that at least part of what the Greek gods did is in part painted over by the Byzantines so they could convert people to a new religion - make the old gods seem like dicks, and make them more willing to join somebody much more loving.

"Did you expect somebody else?"
SabresEdge Show an affirming flame from a defense-in-depth Since: Oct, 2010
Show an affirming flame
#5590: Nov 1st 2015 at 10:02:57 AM

Jesus Christ, how widely are these people defining "Dark Ages"? It's somewhat understandable to give the name to the post-Roman era through the Viking Age and the rise and partition of Charlemagne's empire, if you keep in mind that "Dark" means "somewhat under-documented" (and even then there were writers like Bede if you knew enough to look, not to mention lots of the great legends and epics).

Post-Charlemagne and into the Crusading Era, no way in hell. There was a genuine cultural flourishing that started around the turn of the millenium and went strong, and technological development advanced steadily. The Great Plague did put a damper on things and triggered some major social changes, and it's possible that Renaissance writers had that in mind when doing their contrast, but still, that's hundreds of years out of the Dark Ages.

edited 1st Nov '15 10:03:24 AM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#5591: Nov 1st 2015 at 10:46:17 AM

Friendly reminder that during the supposed Dark Ages, Greece was deploying armies of soldiers armed with flamethrowers.

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Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#5592: Nov 1st 2015 at 11:02:48 AM

[up] Wasn't it Byzantium, with so-called "Greek Fire"?

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FluffyMcChicken My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare from where the floating lights gleam Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: In another castle
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
#5594: Nov 1st 2015 at 2:44:33 PM

I always personally interpreted the Dark Ages as beginning with the collapse of Rome and ending with the decisive Battle of What-It's-called-Again, where Frankish forces successfully halted a possible Moorish expansion into northern Europe.

Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
#5595: Nov 1st 2015 at 2:48:12 PM

decisive Battle of What-It's-called-Again, where Frankish forces successfully halted a possible Moorish expansion into northern Europe.

I suppose you're referring to the battle of Tours.

FluffyMcChicken My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare from where the floating lights gleam Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: In another castle
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
#5596: Nov 1st 2015 at 3:04:55 PM

[up] Yeah that - Tours/Poitiers appears to me as for Western Europe what Tannenberg/Grunwald was for Eastern Europe; a medieval battle of such significance that it has only been in recent times in which it has been analyzed in a non-romanticized manner.

SantosLHalper Since: Aug, 2009
#5597: Nov 1st 2015 at 7:46:45 PM

I myself thought the Dark Ages ran from the Fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne.

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#5598: Nov 2nd 2015 at 10:04:16 AM

The periodizations are impossible to defend in any case.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
SabresEdge Show an affirming flame from a defense-in-depth Since: Oct, 2010
Show an affirming flame
#5599: Nov 2nd 2015 at 11:15:35 PM

Potentially a book to check out: James Holland focuses on what Nazi Germany did wrong logistically.

I can't vouch for it one way or another, but the conclusions sound similar to Tooze's in The Wages of Destruction, and the bit about the U-boats sounds very similar to Clay Blair's study of the U-boat war (wherein he concluded that even at the Germans' best and the Allies' worst, the U-boats were never close to shutting down the Atlantic convoys).

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#5600: Nov 2nd 2015 at 11:43:55 PM

I was gobsmacked, but this visit led me down an entirely new line of research, and one that was equally revelatory. I began to realize that almost everything the Germans made was over-engineered, from the tanks to gas-mask cases to the field jacket of the lowly landser.

That also included trucks and other unarmoured vehicles. Of course, the German's huge captured/confiscated vehicle fleet, which possibly contained most of the world's car and truck types at the time, didn't help either.

Britain, for example, decided to fight a highly mechanical and technological war. “Steel not flesh” was the mantra and that’s why the British had a small army, yet still ensured it was 100-percent mechanized. They also developed a vast air force and built a staggering 132,500 aircraft during the war — and that’s 50,000 more than the Germans. Until the start of 1944, the priority for manpower in Britain was not the army or navy or even air force, but the Ministry of Aircraft Production. Well-fed men and women were kept in the factories.

As mentioned in another book I'm readingnote  that was due to a manpower shortage, which was terminal by mid-1944.

edited 2nd Nov '15 11:44:16 PM by Greenmantle

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