Good info for Medieval Romances

[nevada]

I found this on Miss Snark and it's fascinating. Totally throws away the cliche of the woman grabbing the man's sword and not being able to lift it. Funny how misinformation sneaks into usage and people just repeat it and repeat it without ever checking back to the original source, i.e. going to a museum and actually holding a sword.

http://www.thearma.org/essays/weights.htm

[Medievalist]

Actually, no it's not that good.

It very much depends on the person, the sword, and when and why the sword was made.

The swords you see in most museums are late; they are not medieval, and they are not the working swords used by people in fighting. Those get ruined by said fighting.

And being able to lift it . . .lift it how? I used to have hellacious upper body strength from tossing around hay bales. I was very much able to lift a twelfth and a fifteenth century sword over my head and wave it.

I couldn't now.

[Rizzo]

This is still very interesting, but I'm going to keep Medievalist's warning close to mind when I do read it. Thanks for posting this :)

[Medievalist]

Talk to someone in the SCA who really really knows medieval weaponry; there are some top notch sword makers and teachers.

[Rizzo]

Hi, Medievalist. I feel kind of stupid for asking, but what's the SCA?

[Medievalist]

The Society for Creative Anachronism (http://www.sca.org/sca-intro.html)

Some of the members, are, well, daft, but a fair number of exceedingly solid practical scholars, and traditional academics, are members.

[Gillhoughly]

Google and Wikipedia are your very good friends.

Amazon and the public library's Inter-Library-Loan program are also your very good research pals.

If your local branch doesn't have a title you'd rather just read than buy, they can get it for you from any library in the country that carries it.


http://www.historicalweapons.com/swordstypology.html

http://www.the-exiles.org/shop.htm

http://www.theduellist.co.uk/BookA&Apage.htm