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Putting as many of these as I can find here so I can find them more easily later.
BSG VIII Lecture 2012 “Butcher’s Bakers and Candlestick Makers”
IGX Higgins Armoury Lecture 2013 :” The Sword in Daily Life”
IGX 2014 “Small Unit Combat”
IGX 2016 Hunting, Warlike Festivals and Martial Sports
PHO Houston Lecture 2019: “Robber Knights and Staghounds”
Cable Access Shows
“Disruptive History”
“Citizens without Nations”
“Into the HEMAverse” June 2020
Podcast with Anders Linnard and Axel Petterson from GHFS Sweden
Really enjoyed the “Citizens Without Nations” presentation. More and more I am convinced the United States was supposed to be something like a peaceful Holy Roman Empire, but that vision keeps getting pushed further and further away. Great stuff, Jean.
Well thank you that is very nice of you to say. I really enjoyed doing those, the guy doing the interview is a friend of mine who was doing that gig as a favor to somebody and no longer has it (I think in fact Cable Access is going away, sadly, along with the notion that corporations have to contribute anything back when they have been given a monopoly).
I hope I get to do some more interviews or discussions with that guy Jeff he makes a very good counterpart in my opinion.
Actually, I think ep. 131 of the Ask Historians podcast might be Hans’ cup of tea? It is by Adam Franti on the US militia in the War of 1812 https://askhistorians.libsyn.com/askhistorians-podcast-133-we-have-met-the-enemy-and-they-are-us-the-militia-and-the-war-of-181
I had time to listen to the first half of the IGX Higgins Armoury Lecture 2013 ”The Sword in Daily Life.” Lots of interesting details, I never got around to reading “The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany.”
The thing I always wished I understood was how we got from the situation in the 14th century, where people rarely carry much more than a dagger or a ballstaff except when they are hunting and town laws are focused on limiting the bearing of arms in town, to the situation in the 16th century that people like William Harrison describe where anyone with any standing wearing at least a dagger and often a sword and buckler, sword and rotella, or a rapier when they are in public. I don’t see much sign of it arising in the 15th c., but it must come from somewhere.
I have been out of the loop for a long time, but apparently Ariella Elema is leaning towards the idea that as book-educated lawyers in Italy France and England turned against duels and trial by battle, men started to appeal to the right of soldiers to settle their disagreements for themselves or under the supervision of a senior soldier. One reason fencing training in northern Italy had to be versatile was that the person who chose the weapons could chose any weapons customary amongst soldiers. So if there was a tradition in the HRE north of the Alps of claiming the right to commit violence in defense of the honour of a citizen / landowner, that would be a different world.
Actually, I think ep. 131 of the Ask Historians podcast might be Hans’ cup of tea? It is by Adam Franti on the US militia in the War of 1812 https://askhistorians.libsyn.com/askhistorians-podcast-133-we-have-met-the-enemy-and-they-are-us-the-militia-and-the-war-of-181
Sounds very interesting. I did a podcast with Adam Franti and Jurg and Jack Gassmann during the summer about similar subjects, but for some reason they haven’t released it yet. I need to bug them about that. Jack is working on a Viking film up in Belfast right now so he’s kind of busy.
I had time to listen to the first half of the IGX Higgins Armoury Lecture 2013 ”The Sword in Daily Life.” Lots of interesting details, I never got around to reading “The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany.”
The thing I always wished I understood was how we got from the situation in the 14th century, where people rarely carry much more than a dagger or a ballstaff except when they are hunting and town laws are focused on limiting the bearing of arms in town, to the situation in the 16th century that people like William Harrison describe where anyone with any standing wearing at least a dagger and often a sword and buckler, sword and rotella, or a rapier when they are in public. I don’t see much sign of it arising in the 15th c., but it must come from somewhere.
Well… maybe listen to the rest of that lecture ;). Tlusty doesn’t get into that because her interest decidedly starts in the Early Modern period and she is “NOT a medievalist!” as if the latter was some kinda weird bug.
I think the problem lies in assuming what is true in one region is not true in another. Anyone of citizen rank (including partial citizens such as journeyman artisans) in all of the communes in Central Europe and I believe all above a certain size in Italy, and in Flanders and in a lot of Northern Europe (Scandinavia, the Baltic region) were not only allowed to carry arms they were required by the town charter to own and under certain circumstances carry a sidearm, usually specifically a sword, and also to have a primary militia weapon such as a crossbow or (by the 15th Century) a firearm. In Italy it might be a pavise or a spear too.
I think things were a bit different in France where there was a lot of emphasis on at least attempting the keep the peasants and serfs disarmed, and the towns had far fewer rights. My understanding is that in England and most of the Iberian Kingdoms burghers still had the right to carry arms until around the 1390s, though this was not fully completed until late in the 15th century. In Spain this ended decisively with the revolt of the Brotherhoods and the Revolt of the Communeros
Charles V tried to orchestrate something similar in Germany but was only partially successful at best. German citizens in the major towns and all of the Free Cities continued to walk around armed until the 17th or 18th Centuries, a few well into the 19th Century and a couple right up to WW2. Some of them did limit what artisans could carry after power struggles put the patricians on top, but that was by no means all of them.
I have been out of the loop for a long time, but apparently Ariella Elema is leaning towards the idea that as book-educated lawyers in Italy France and England turned against duels and trial by battle, men started to appeal to the right of soldiers to settle their disagreements for themselves or under the supervision of a senior soldier. One reason fencing training in northern Italy had to be versatile was that the person who chose the weapons could chose any weapons customary amongst soldiers. So if there was a tradition in the HRE north of the Alps of claiming the right to commit violence in defense of the honour of a citizen / landowner, that would be a different world.
In England and France I think that is possible, in Italy it would very much depend on the specific city and the specific time, but generally speaking you would be incorrect as they did also have the feud down there. Formal duels were going on uninterrupted in Italy for centuries after they were banned on pain of death in France (partly because formal duels in Italy were rarely lethal – when an Italian wanted to kill someone they tended to do it by ambush or some other means). Partly that is also because many French nobles didn’t know how to fence.
I did another lecture (one of the above, the one in Houston) on the Feud in Central Europe.
These are both quite complex subjects, so I’ll open a couple of new threads.
If I wanted to fit the policy of a typical pre-1917 Eurasian state on weapons into a tweet, I would say “all free full citizens have to keep as many weapons as the state can make them in their homes, and carry as few weapons as the state can make them in public.” (That is a massive oversimplification, but its close enough often enough to get people thinking).
So there was a big difference between having arms and carrying arms. From the Roman Republic to 19th century North America, we tend to see laws requiring citizens to own arms, and banning anyone from carrying weapons, especially swords and knives, within city limits.
Actually, Thucydides (1.5ff) has a really nice digression on how there are some places where men have to carry their weapons everywhere they go like Athenians did in the olden days and non-Greeks do in his day. Athenian aristocrats were very strong believers in their right to self-help by force and to keep arms and serve in the army, but this one thought that carrying arms in everyday life was a sign of primitive life and a world where everyone robbed their neighbours on land or on sea.
“Typical” might be a bit strong but this thinking – arms strengthen the community against external threats, but lead to woundings and killings within the community, so create laws to encourage the civic bearing of arms and discourage the private – comes up again and again and again from Britain to Iran. So its at least one very common way of thinking about the problem from antiquity into the present, and one that many English-speaking people today are not familiar with. (just discovered the edit button- ed.)
Ok lets move this discussion to this new thread where it will fit better:
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