Weapons that Made Britain: The Sword (Part 7)

Historian Mike Loades shows the history behind the weapons that helped to forge Britain, as well as demonstrating their use.

Category:

Education

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• Kisk79
• Mike
• Loades
• Weapons
• that
• made
• Britain
• Sword
• History

[aaudi6365]

What did he say at 0:42?

[Kisk79]

@aaudi6365 He said "Maciejowski Bible".

[suzerain01]

sorry to break the "japan is greatest" illusion you have, but I'm afraid the reality is very different.

Japanese metallurgy was primitive, the folding of steel a process used in europe 1000+ years earlier, and long-abandoned by the 15th C.

Where japan did excel was in truly superb finish of metalwork.

Japanese steel was not "as good as modern" or anything of the sort. I'm afraid almost everything you've said is utter nonsense.

they're beautiful, but were technologically outclassed.

[Zajuts149]

Mike Loades is to Ancient weapon documentaries as Steve Irwin were to Nature docus.

[50TNCSA]

i prefer my kopis or my grossemesser or even the gldius but thats just me :)

[lordrah]

@Roflelf That's actually a myth.

[Roflelf]

I was so sure that the groove in the middle of the sword was called a blood trench which is a whole that lets the blood out when the point pierces the guy, but his explanation makes sense too.

[Roflelf]

@suzerain01 Japanese swords great for cutting, But If i were in a fight, I'd take an Euro sword because I like to be able to parry, and when you do that with a japanese sword, things starts to go wrong. Starting with your sword snapping.

[marichard888]

@suzerain01 Totally agree, it's interesting to note that one of the reasons why the Japanese sword smiths originally settled on the now famous "Katana" everybody knows, was the inability to forge and smith double-edged blades

[suzerain01]

@Oracurax here's an analogy to compare the japanese and european techniques: Imagine the steel is a lump of clay. In japanese tamahagane steel, that clay consists of a lot of small blocks of black clay, and lots of blocks of white clay. All the folding is done to knead the peices together into a pretty even grey block, before shaping into a blade. The european medieval steel is a bigger block of even(ish) grey to begin with, but still needs all the work to shape the block into a blade still.

[suzerain01]

@suzerain01 - With another year and a half of study behind me, and I would alter my wording if I could. "primitive" is a loaded term, inappropriate to describe japanese *or* dark age metallurgy - there is nothing crude, simple or ignorant about the process of folding, or the processs of pattern-welding.

And of course, folding of steel in blademaking was an integral part of forgework until the 17th C in europe and the Bessmer process. So, in hindsight, I used a misleading phrase. My apologies.

[Arelak]

@suzerain01 Very true. Japanese metalworking is an example of how things never advance and become stagnant very quickly.