They took it! At the tip of a sword!
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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I'm so happy the first comment is someone getting the reference
"I'll do it with a lance."
The irony is that the Normans were far more likely to be using spears instead of swords, which are more like the lances that William was using to become a noble. Nobles would have carried swords, but they were status symbols and treated with religious reverence. They would only be used in battle if the spear was thrown or broken.
Swords were always a secondary weapon, like handguns are today. I think it's novels that created the meme.
Novels, mythology, folk tales, swords have always been romanticized. Nobles that carried them would have holy relics (bits of dead saints) encased in the pommels. A well-made sword was a strong weapon, and its owner probably trained in its use.
Like imagine you're a pikeman, probably a farmer by trade, hungry and cold, wearing padded leather and salvaged cowhorn scalemail, probably injured or sick, and you are in the fracas of a battle. You see a mounted knight wearing proper chainmail armor, healthy and strong, rested because he didn't have to walk to the battle or dig a latrine to shit into, and he's got this shiny, sharp, holy weapon engraved with magic words you can't read. He's already broken his spear off in your friend, and now he's waving his blessed +2 Steel Longsword in your direction.
In nordic sagas (which haven't been altered much) , heroes often wielded long weapons. They are always there when you look a bit.
Weren't Pikes developed only in the high middle ages? The swiss were find of them.
Prior to that you are looking at shorter spears and various other polararms like a billhook. Halberds and Pikes were later developments.
In ancient times, the Greek hoplite was used (similar to a pike), but it was actually made obsolete by the Roman sword, the gladius, and shield wall.
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By being the most violent, sociopathic, greedy underhanded, incestuous back stabbers of all the people who lived anywhere near them.
🎵One of these things is not like the others 🎵
By dying?
“There’s nothing more respectable than an ancient evil” — Voltaire
By convincing the dumber sections of society they were worth it. Same deal as today
Throughout most of history, it's had nothing to do with manipulating stupid people and everything to do with specialization in violence.
More ignorant likely, not dumber.
Dumb is a trait, ignorance is a state.
Just sell it to someone and the entire system becomes legitimate
More like the monarch fought for it then gave it to their friends.
“How did the [monarchs] become [monarch] in the first place!?”
Depends on the ruler actually.
Japan's nobility kinda just happened to be the most successful rice farmers and rolled that into becoming their community leaders.
England's were mostly William the Conqueror's friends.
Rome's claimed descent from deities, and might have kinda been telling the truth if you follow the theory that polytheism starts as ancestor worship.
Germanic tribes had military leaders in tandem with religious/legal leaders.
Pre-bronze age societies were ruled by priest kings who mostly held power by controlling the distribution of grain from temples.
A lot of Eastern Europe's leaders were Vikings that happened to find really good places to start settlements.
In societies like the Haudenosaunee "nobility" was more just that you were the head of your extended family or the long house you called home.
The Roman Empire was inaugurated by Augustus "just happening" to hold several very powerful titles of office simultaneously, and never giving any of them up and passing them all on to his chosen successor. It's actually pretty funny just how bureaucratic his takeover was considering how many stoic statues of him in military attire there are. Guy became the king of the Mediterranean through paperworking his way into it.
Rome’s claimed descent from deities, and might have kinda been telling the truth if you follow the theory that polytheism starts as ancestor worship.
Claiming descent from deities was common in Rome. The justification for the inheritance of autocracy was, theoretically, the grant of power by the Senate in the name of the people of Rome (in practice, the support of the elite or the military), and the dual fact that actual hereditary inheritance was fairly rare and that ruling families changed as often as fashion means that descent was not the primary justification.
The Roman Empire was inaugurated by Augustus “just happening” to hold several very powerful titles of office simultaneously, and never giving any of them up and passing them all on to his chosen successor. It’s actually pretty funny just how bureaucratic his takeover was considering how many stoic statues of him in military attire there are. Guy became the king of the Mediterranean through paperworking his way into it.
Paperwork wins empires, it would seem. And propaganda. Lots of propaganda work from Augustus.
Paperwork wins empires,
Ooh! I just thought of something:
- Paperwork enables logistics
- Logistics wins battles
- Battles win empires
- Therefore, paperwork wins empires. QED.
Peasant uprisings have happened throughout history. Some succeeded but then the whole country collapsed, others were put down violently. Then you have the french cycle of rebellion, democracy, external invasion, monarchy reinstated. They did that like four times before it stuck.
I read Sarum (historical fiction that takes some liberties) recently and the way land and passive income and title are inextricably linked is pretty enlightening
power doesn't automatically equal selfishness. you can take it away from them and do something that is good for all of humanity with it.
Town Chaos is better than TK.
The more likely scenario after the takeover is animal farm, not utopia.
"I'm fighting back. Guess who can effort more weapons."
Guess who just armed the rebels. We were taught in the military that if we are armed, and run into local unarmed resistance, try to deescalate the situation. Unless we are outnumbered 5 to 1. At that point we were to withdraw to a more defendable position, because if they got violent, we were all dead and we just armed the civilians.
We were taught in the military that if we are armed, and run into local unarmed resistance, try to deescalate the situation.
I know because I've discussed and seen it innumerable times, but it always gives me a feeling of absurdity being reminded that the RoE for modern militaries in most combat zones is stricter than it is for US police.
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Unless we are outnumbered 5 to 1
So as few as five unarmed people can take a trained, armed soldier? I would’ve thought that ratio should be higher. Good to know.
The great advantage of guns is the ability to kill at a distance. If you're close enough to talk without screaming at the top of your lungs, guns lose a lot (though not all) of their utility. And even specialized martial artists will tell you that being outnumbered, even just by a small amount, is an incredible disadvantage in a close-up fight.
Maybe I’m overestimating how much a gunshot wound incapacitates a person. My thinking was that one hit per person anywhere would take that person out of a fight. That means that it would take at least (magazine size) + 1 people to overwhelm an armed shooter (who is good at aiming). Aiming should be easy, since they’re running toward you and probably not good at evasive maneuvers.
But all of my theory stems from shooter games, so it’s probably not worth much :D
Depends on where a person is shot. If it doesn't hit anything important, a shooting victim can go without noticing the wound even a day after or so. If it hits something important, the person shot will drop on the spot.
A gunshot wound can vary wildly in terms of incapacitation. Depends on how determined the person is. A single bullet can kill a person, but usually not instantly. There's something call the 'Mozambique drill' or 'Failure to stop drill' in which, to ensure someone goes down, you fire two shots to center mass, and then one to the head. That's a pistol drill though.
More importantly, though, at a certain closeness it actually gets harder to keep your aim on a person with a full-sized rifle. And once someone is close enough to take a few long, quick, desperate lunges and grab at the barrel of your rifle (ie the kind of range you'd be in to talk to someone), you're on very bad ground.
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"The king gave it to him"
A lot of the medieval nobility were just Roman landowners at the time of the of the Western Empire. Sure their government collapsed, but they still owned the land amd had theeans to enforce that ownership. Which is why France had the right idea to liberate all those heads of state from their holdings 230 years ago
Only to a degree. The Franks and the Vikings(Norman/Rus/Danelaw) were largely the companions of conquering rulers.
One of their ancestors was a violent capable killer.
As cgp Grey said, bigger army diplomacy.
Rabble Rabble intensifies...
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