Which Sword are You: One-handed or Two?

[The Zieg]

There are very few people today who work in hard physical labor all day.

Except for the more than three million migrant and seasonal workers who pick our food every year; the tens of thousands still working on family farms who rise before the sun and lie down after it sets; the thousands of meatpackers who shift carcasses all day; the thousands of construction workers, welders, stonemasons, bricklayers, concrete layers, sanitation workers and so on. More than five times as many men and women doing hard physical labor than currently serve in the US armed forces. And this is just in the US. It is a legitimate question whether all the serious physical laborers in North America today outnumber the combined forces of all the medieval armies of Europe from the fall of Rome to the seventeenth century. Add the physical laborers from Africa and Asia and there is no doubt of the answer.

Give me the combined agricultural labor force of the Pacific coast states today, enough pole arms, swords, bows, horses, and a year to train them and I could take over any medieval nation of any century.

Zieg

 

[DocJD]

It is a legitimate question whether all the serious physical laborers in North America today outnumber the combined forces of all the medieval armies of Europe from the fall of Rome to the seventeenth century. Add the physical laborers from Africa and Asia and there is no doubt of the answer.

Give me the combined agricultural labor force of the Pacific coast states today, enough pole arms, swords, bows, horses, and a year to train them and I could take over any medieval nation of any century.

Zieg

This sounds like a great Poul Anderson style sci-fi plot !

 

[GrReaper]

Except for the more than three million migrant and seasonal workers who pick our food every year; the tens of thousands still working on family farms who rise before the sun and lie down after it sets; the thousands of meatpackers who shift carcasses all day; the thousands of construction workers, welders, stonemasons, bricklayers, concrete layers, sanitation workers and so on.
Zieg

You're right about the blue collar workers, certainly. But I was thinking more of work that builds up the shoulders, arms. In other words, the muscles that are used in swinging heavy axes, pushing a yoke, digging, etc. I don't know if the millions of farm workers today who pick fruit develop muscles in the same way. I would think not. It's hard physical labor, no doubt, but I don't know if it's the same kind of labor that would translate to using medieval weapons. Maybe today's lumberjacks would be a more appropriate comparison.

 

[The Zieg]

You're right about the blue collar workers, certainly. But I was thinking more of work that builds up the shoulders, arms. In other words, the muscles that are used in swinging heavy axes, pushing a yoke, digging, etc. I don't know if the millions of farm workers today who pick fruit develop muscles in the same way. I would think not. It's hard physical labor, no doubt, but I don't know if it's the same kind of labor that would translate to using medieval weapons. Maybe today's lumberjacks would be a more appropriate comparison.

Good point. I'll still gladly go to war alongside the UFW!

Zieg

 

[jdm61]

The folks at the Tower of London said that the short stature myth comes in part from a couple of misconceptions. Many of the fanciest suits of later displayed armor were made smaller to show greater handiwork. Some was adolescent boy size. Also, a lot of normal period armor was measure without a man in it. It stretches an inch or two when you put iron. Otherwise it won't move right. They said that all of the gear, skeletons etc. indicated that the average reasonably fed commoner military man in Britain the late medieval and early modern period was in the 5'8" range, maybe a couple of inches shorter than today. Some guys were MUCH bigger. Going by his armor, John of Gaunt may have been 6'7" to 6'8" and Henry VIII was still well over 6 feet even when he was older, fat and crippled up. He did not gain all of that weigh until he injured himself in a jousting match when he was in his mid 40's. I read that he went from a 32 inch waist (at 6'2"!) to a 52 inch waist in 4 years. Most of the famous Holbein portraits were painted when he was in his 40's and early 50's. Holbein did not beaame the court painter until 1535 and most of the pictures were done for propaganda purposes when Henry was taking over the Church of England. The Tower has a very fancy set of Henry's "medium fat" armor on display.