The Most Violent Medieval Inventions You Won't Believe Existed Fight Book

Transcript
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0:29 in 1459 a book was written that contained images so bizarre
0:34 that even 500 years later their meaning is still shrouded in mystery
0:40 it depicts improbable medieval siege engines and machines of war figures and extraordinary apparatus and
0:47 bloodthirsty jewels but key information is missing from the manuscript
0:53 and the author is displayed cryptically holding a broken chain why was this manuscript ever written
1:00 and who could have unlocked its full potential this book will reveal the secrets of a
1:05 medieval age far more advanced than future generations would ever imagine
1:13 [Music]
1:25 deep in the vaults of the royal library in denmark is a book over 500 years old
1:32 its time-worn leather cover bears one simple inscription talhoffer
1:38 the mysterious fightmaster of the middle ages this enigmatic book is written in
1:44 swabian an ancient german dialect and contains 300 colour pages of images and
1:49 text offering an astounding account of life in the middle ages
1:54 [Music] this is talhoffer's actual 1459
2:00 manuscript beautifully executed with colors as fresh as if it were painted yesterday and there's talhoffer himself
2:06 in the center dictating to his scribe the coded imagery and text within this
2:12 manuscript has the potential to dispel the very beliefs the modern world has about the medieval age
2:19 was combat and warfare technology really as primitive as we imagined did knights act as chivalrously as depicted in
2:26 victorian times and was the population as unsophisticated as history suggests
2:32 this is an incredibly important document because it tells us so much about this mysterious world it's really a kind of
2:39 box of secrets that we can open for the first time the royal library in
2:45 denmark have allowed the manuscript to be filmed and a team of experts from around the world will investigate the
2:52 mysterious images and text within by using cutting-edge computer graphics and attempting unorthodox fighting
2:58 techniques it's actually making me sick to my stomach decoding the book's puzzling designs
3:04 and constructing its enigmatic machines underwater now the team will test the
3:10 methods and technologies in the manuscript and attempt to establish just how authentic talhoffer's depiction
3:18 of the medieval age really was
3:24 talhoff's fight book has laid dormant in copenhagen's royal library for over 200
3:29 years but 500 years after it was written the manuscript has reemerged in the
3:35 public eye with martial arts students worldwide seeking its medieval fighting
3:40 techniques one fight master who has dedicated his life to learning the fighting stars of
3:46 the middle ages is john clements clements is one of the world's leading
3:51 experts in the field of medieval martial arts we know very little about talhoffer as a
3:56 man about his life so he's a mystery in that regard but we do know he's a master
4:01 of the art of arms that he's a knight that he is a teacher and instructor of
4:07 nightly fighting arts talhafer has dedicated nearly half the
4:13 manuscript to medieval combat and within these pages are numerous plates
4:19 focusing on the violent and mysterious world of judicial jewels
4:26 they are clearly identifiable by the marked area the combatants were forced to fight in
4:32 many of the images in this manuscript are concerned with fighting in the judicial duel now the
4:38 judicial duel was a curious institution when somebody had accused somebody of
4:44 something and there were no witnesses there was no evidence then trial by combat was the way you found out who was
4:52 telling the truth on the eighth plate of his fight book talhoffer describes why a person will be
4:59 called forth for judicial battle murder treason heresy disloyalty
5:07 betrayal falsehood or using a maiden or lady
5:13 those that broke these laws would often be forced to face each other in judicial combat
5:20 [Music]
5:31 illustrated in talhoffer's manuscript is a bloody portrayal of the medieval population locked in these lawful
5:38 battles violently dispatching their opponents with a deadly array of weaponry
5:43 including one traditionally designed for defense that had been modified to kill
5:50 aaron pineberg knows all too well the advantages of a shield against an enemy
5:56 i'm a swat officer in appleton wisconsin i carry a ballistic shield in front of me as my primary duties
6:03 that shield and this shield share a lot of common traits in that it can interfere with your vision with your
6:09 ability to see your enemy if you can't see your enemy you can't kill him so it's important that when you use a
6:15 shield you understand that there are times when you give up that protection or that defensive capability to see your
6:21 opponent [ __ ] this huge spiked shield or pavus from
6:27 talhoffer's manuscript is believed to have its origins in the 12th century where shields were regarded as an
6:34 acceptable weapon in dueling for the common non-noble classes its cruel spikes and sight-like hooks
6:41 are used to devastating effect in talhoffer's manuscript and john and aaron will test whether the shields
6:47 could really be used as the fightmasters claimed we're going to try these weapons out
6:53 we're going to see how they move how they perform how the plates from tauhoffer hold up to
6:59 physically reconstructing it and applying what we know of the fighting arts that he displays
7:10 to ensure any chance of victory in a judicial shield battle two techniques outlined in talhoffer's
7:16 manuscript hooking with the shield to expose the opponent and planting the base firmly in
7:21 the ground to create a more effective barrier would have to be utilized i can see how
7:28 that's what you'd be doing and look at how quickly they lock up yeah i saw that i thought i can lock and pull
7:36 planting that shield and then working around it using it as a barrier between me and the enemy is incredibly fast you
7:43 see the holes because the holes are created between the two junction of the shields such was the shield's effectiveness as
7:50 an offensive weapon that a sword was not even required to dispatch an enemy and leave the judicial
7:57 ring victorious i can say we clearly could see that the
8:03 the techniques from talhoffer's manuscript absolutely apply under the over the displacing the warding the
8:11 hooking the thrusting all the footwork all the motions they're all there this is a vicious ugly type of fighting
8:17 and i have a lot more respect for it although unusual to see combatants
8:23 fighting merely with shields it's not the strangest image in talhoffer's manuscript
8:29 another set of plates involving judicial fighting redefines the battle of the sexes
8:36 contained within this section of the manuscript is a fight between a man and a woman it's a type of duel a
8:44 dispute that has to be settled by combat to the death it's the first appearance of man woman
8:50 dueling in a fight book this image of a woman battling a man is a far cry from
8:57 the image of the medieval woman uninvolved in the violent world of men
9:03 medieval women were much more powerful than they've been given credit for and especially through the 14th century they
9:10 gained more power and were able to run businesses and things like that and it was only the renaissance when things
9:18 started to go wrong and women were seen as more passive and
9:24 inactive the evidence in the manuscript suggests
9:29 that in some cases women were even able to fight a man in a judicial duel
9:35 this is a really really difficult image to decipher because certainly what you do have at this time are very strong
9:42 women i mean women are left to run castles while their men are fighting it's laid out as if this is something
9:47 that did happen but you wonder what the kind of legal reason for that would have been
9:52 a man and a woman might be forced to fight like this because of any number of disputes it might involve property it
9:58 might involve inheritance it might involve accusations this is a ritual combat it's a
10:04 semi-religious affair and they know that only one of them can emerge
10:09 alive even more disturbing than judicial battles often being fought to the death
10:15 is that some interpretations of the text imply that the combatants may have even been husband and wife
10:22 a recreation of the duel could provide valuable insight into why the couple was forced to fight in such a bizarre manner
10:30 it would be interesting to reconstruct one of these judicial combats as a living archaeological experiment to
10:37 understand something about the physical components of the fighting actions and the techniques and also something of the
10:43 mental and emotional component of the combatants [Music]
10:49 the hole and the weapon fulfilled multiple functions firstly they balanced out the fighting
10:54 inequality between the sexes and secondly just like the judicial shields
11:00 the weapons were deemed suitable for commoners they gave her a heavy rock
11:06 inside of her veil to use it like it's a flail it's not a manly weapon it's not a war weapon
11:13 it's not a self-defense tool but they're clearly saying here you can use this it's going to be lethal
11:19 bash is scaling bethany hughes will test the
11:24 effectiveness of a rock in a veil against the skull of a sheep when you're up close with all this gear
11:31 you realize this was certainly not play fighting i mean this thing is heavy in my hands
11:36 and i imagine just one of these is going to be a killing blow [Music]
11:53 that is actually sickening because if you can imagine that would have been a real man's head he would never have survived a blow like
12:00 that so if tauhoffer was depicting reality rather than just some theory then this would have caused a huge amount of
12:07 suffering in the medieval world this 1542 image of a judicial duel
12:14 between two nights suggests that such violent justice was part of the medieval world
12:20 and in 1228 there is even a case in switzerland of a woman defeating a man in the same
12:27 violent manner as depicted in talhoffer's manuscript
12:33 [Music] the garments worn by the combatants
12:38 which they were literally sewn into ensured that they could not conceal anything that could be used in the fight
12:50 it was also possible they were made of leather and treated with oil to be made slippery so non-fatal grappling moves
12:57 would be ineffective and only a decisive killing blow would end the ritualized combat
13:05 first off i'm sewn into this garment i'm buried it basically halfway up in a hole i i'm not going anywhere i'm literally
13:12 figuratively stuck here i feel absolutely demeaned
13:20 the reach advantage i thought would be to the woman or to the person outside the hole but in actuality i'm not having
13:26 a problem it's kind of like a strike for a strike almost i'm learning that it's hard to strike
13:32 the head at the same time as be aware of the club you have to be very fast on your feet to
13:39 do both but with a little practice i think it would be okay
13:45 and practice was exactly what combatants could get this is a type of combat that these
13:52 participants would have entered knowing when they're going to fight how they're going to fight and who
13:58 they're going to fight weeks in advance that has to affect their psyche and it has to affect their training
14:04 [Music] a closer examination of the manuscript reveals that talhoffer wasn't just
14:11 depicting a generic image of the jewels each plate contains specific moves
14:16 that with specialized training could be used to defeat their opponent
14:21 i'm dumping her on her head and i'm bringing this club down right after her and i'm gonna probably crush her or stab
14:28 her there's nothing she can do from here it is possible that talhoffer included
14:33 these specific images in his fight book to train the combatants and earn an income
14:41 it is recorded that he had the responsibility of being judge in judicial duels
14:46 a perfect vantage point to learn the most effective death dealing techniques
14:53 combatants could learn these methods from talhoffer most likely for a fee to ensure victory in the eyes of both
15:00 the law and god
15:06 the conclusions that we can reach tentatively about this kind of duel it's let us understand it's brutal it's
15:13 set up to cause a decisive outcome this is the world they lived in a violent age a violent world
15:21 but talhah's vision so beyond the restricting circle of the judicial duel
15:28 not satisfied with merely recounting in bloody detail his field of expertise
15:33 he turned his attention to the machines born of war
15:44 the 16th plate of talhoffer's manuscript depicts a siege engine used extensively
15:49 throughout the medieval period this is a great trebuchet where one may throw stones and break
15:56 cities and forts talhoffer was a fightmaster not an
16:03 engineer so why would he include siege engines in his manuscript
16:09 and where did he get the designs for these machines of war
16:14 challuva is not the only secret war book we have in the medieval period in europe
16:20 when you look at all the manuscripts you can see different machines copied in in all the manuscripts
16:28 these images in talhoffer's fight book have been taken from conrad kaiser's 1405 belly fortis
16:35 and peter vemming thinks he knows why talhoffer included them within his manuscript
16:40 i see them more like a cv or something this writer engineer wants us to present his
16:48 work to a king or whatever to get a job simply as that
16:56 siege engines could tip the power balance and would be vital for warring factions attacking castles and fortified
17:03 towns that covered the medieval landscape the machine from talhoffer's manuscript
17:09 could provide the key to ensuring victory in this war-torn land
17:14 it was in effect a medieval arms catalogue [Music]
17:20 talhoffer lived in what was called the holy roman empire which makes it sound like it's one consolidated block but
17:26 actually these were warring tribes boring kingdoms where everybody was at each other's throats the whole time
17:33 unlike the original roman empire where you had one centralized military force everybody had to fight for themselves
17:40 and in these battle-scarred lands men who claimed knowledge of the mightiest of siege engines
17:46 would more likely be in demand from wealthy and powerful patrons this is a manuscript that's been very
17:52 deeply researched it must have been incredibly expensive to produce and talhoffer you imagine must have expected
17:59 some kind of financial kickback from all of his work talhoffer didn't stop with merely
18:05 claiming knowledge of common siege engines the fightmaster's ambitions saw him present even bolder designs in his arms
18:12 catalog and no machine was too radical for his visionary mind
18:19 so many exciting machines in this book and this one is one of the more
18:25 ambitious of the designs
18:30 the swabian text above the image when translated reads one shall make two wagons of this form
18:37 as viewed from below from there within the wagons folk combat those outside
18:44 they fight with the guns and the lances the lorrication is all around them
18:51 in two dimensions the machine is difficult to comprehend but once it is fully realized in three
18:57 dimensions its mystery is revealed
19:08 [Music] the design and telhoff's manuscript is almost unbelievably depicting an armored
19:15 tank the reference to lorrication in the text is a term describing plated armor
19:22 but how could such a heavy protected vehicle ever be moved it's a tank it's possibly the first tank
19:30 we have to interpret things you can see how this comes off the page here well the text tells us that there are two
19:36 carriages that it's pushed by horses so there are horses in here harnessed up so
19:42 it's going that way this is a machine designed to go into
19:48 the enemy but what's it do when it gets there well look it's got one two three four five cannon on each side this is
19:55 1459 but gunpowder has been around a while these cannon are drawn with such
20:00 detail you can see the touch hole on each of them
20:08 driven by a team of horses and mounted with cannons such a war machine seems improbable in
20:14 medieval times did this tank really exist and how vital was the heavy armor protecting it
20:27 a replica of a medieval cannon similar to the design in talhoffer's manual has been built by historical
20:34 experts in denmark by 1459 cast iron had been invented in
20:40 the west but it was only really used for cannonballs and they couldn't yet bore and drill through a solid block so they
20:48 made it in the same way they made buckets and barrels they made it with staves single slats of iron that are
20:56 held together by hoops just like they are on a barrel and that is why it's called the barrel of a gun
21:04 [Music] by 1459 cannon technology was available that
21:12 would allow multiple firing of the weapons from within the safety of the tank a technology that is the distant
21:18 ancestor seen on today's modern battlefield by around 1450 they had developed the
21:24 breach loading cannon that meant you could put the cannonball or the hail shot in at the breach end and the secret
21:31 to that technology was this the breech pot in here you pre-prepared you poured
21:38 your gun powder in there and that was sealed with a wooden tamper
21:49 the breech loading technology could allow a gun crew to fire two or three rounds a minute
21:55 but how much damage could these medieval cannons really deliver
22:01 that's good
22:08 look at this look at this it's just smashed through these boards it's made a great big hole
22:16 here we go look there it's gone right through that in a musky shape oh it's this could have been a
22:23 paper screen so one thing that tells me is our tank
22:28 would have to be an armored vehicle if you're going to take that vehicle into the enemy which the horse is behind and
22:34 the wedge in front look like you are then you must be armored because the enemy have got cannon just like that
22:50 [Music] it's hard to imagine such a sophisticated machine in the medieval
22:56 age an age perceived as containing only primitive technology
23:01 but other historical sources besides talhoffen depict medieval tanks
23:06 suggesting that they were more than just the fightmaster's imaginative fancy
23:15 but not all objects in talhoffer's manual have such evidence to support them
23:20 alongside the tank is an object even more difficult to comprehend
23:26 [Music] we always get very excited about inventions of greece and egypt and rome
23:33 but actually this book is packed with incredibly ingenious inventions um one
23:39 of my favorites is is a very weird thing that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie
23:45 and we think it's called the crayfish this rig is called a crayfish it
23:51 conducts itself upon four speeding wheels it shears front and behind if one
23:56 kindles munitions then it shoots stones before it steel buckshot is a hail where
24:01 with one smite's load the foes historical reproduction expert richard
24:07 windley will attempt to decode the image of the crayfish and bring it to life
24:13 talhoffer's crayfish is one of the most puzzling and enigmatic designs in his book
24:19 he tells us that it was made of iron so that's helpful and that it runs on four speeding wheels and there's some kind of
24:24 munitions inside it and frustratingly he says you make this rig as big or small as you want which really doesn't shed
24:31 too much light on it so really it's trying to work out what it could have been and more importantly how it could
24:36 have been deployed so bearing in mind all the various clues that we've got from the drawing i've
24:42 produced a design which incorporates as many of these elements as possible
24:49 from the designs and talhoffer's manuscript richard will build the model to get a true sense of the object's capabilities
24:58 [Music] here for possibly the first time in 500 years
25:04 talhoffer's crayfish is revealed
25:11 [Music]
25:18 it's got all the main features that we get in the telhofa illustration we've got the big spikes at the front
25:23 we've got the cutting scimitar blades here and also the extensions on the wheel which will cut and maim if
25:30 anyone gets in the way [Music]
25:36 richard has proved that the crayfish is a realistic design but its construction doesn't answer the
25:41 question as to why or where it might have been used [Music]
25:50 in a medieval castle or fortified town one of the most vulnerable points was the gates
25:56 and these would need to be protected from attacks at any cost
26:03 mike loads believes the crayfish could have been the perfect defensive system
26:09 how about if this the crayfish was in a castle gateway or a gateway to a
26:14 fortified town then you could see the ropes that made it go to and fro were
26:21 embedded in channels in the flagstone floor that would be very effective because you
26:27 could have a man inside the wall working a windlass to make it go to and fro if
26:32 there were four five six of these going like this who would ride a horse through that who would dare to run through that it would
26:39 take you off at the ankles and what is more the text tells us it has explosive
26:45 devices in it that would send out a hail of shots richard has incorporated this
26:52 devastating explosive weaponry in his design of the crayfish
26:57 there is a removable panel on here which means we can get at the fusing for the grenades now these are made to simulate
27:04 cast iron and it probably would have been full with metal fragments something that's going to cause debris to fly in
27:09 all sorts of directions we really want to do some damage with this and take out as many enemy personnel as we possibly
27:15 can
27:20 talhoffer saw enough in the design to include the crayfish in his manuscript by combining all the team's research we
27:28 can now visualize in computer graphics what such a device may have looked like in action defending a stronghold
27:36 [Music]
27:49 in theory the crayfish was capable of repelling an enemy at the very threshold of a
27:54 fortification but for an attacking force to get that close in the first place was never an
28:00 easy task talhoffer again appears to have the
28:06 right tool for the job but the question remains did it work
28:15 there are a number of ways you can take a castle or fortification you can dig tunnels underneath it undermine it you
28:22 can do an escalade which is taking ladders and siege towers up to the walls and piling over the top or you can
28:28 simply try and blow the gates off but how do you get your bomb to the gates
28:34 well one idea is to use jamie here in his armor and say well you're wearing armor just walk
28:40 up to it but up there are going to be archers
28:46 the power of a war bow at short distance against a knight's armor could penetrate
28:51 it at certain points and if an archer was skilled enough he could find the joint in the plate
28:57 mail and kill the man inside [Music]
29:04 risking nights like this would have been far too a costly method to storm a city's gates
29:10 but talhoffer's manual seems to offer a solution
29:19 terry jones one of the famed members of the monty python team is renowned for
29:24 more than just comedy he's an expert in medieval history but some of talhoffer's depictions of
29:30 siege warfare appear strange even to him
29:36 talhoffer's manuscript shows a lot of surprising images i mean there's one here and these people walking up to the
29:42 castle under these sort of metal bells i mean how did they get them off in the first place very python has
29:48 to be and here's this castle that's being protected by two huge cushions
29:54 outside the front door very odd
30:00 the description above this cryptic image gives little information away
30:07 see they are going towards the fortress with the basket they should lurch around
30:13 within the shelter of the basket they go we know that so much in talhoffer works
30:19 because things like trebuchets have been built and tested so we know that he's talking about workable things but when we come across something like this
30:26 that's so bizarre so weird you think well would it work
30:31 and of course the only way to find out is try and replicate it using the clues that are there so let's build it let's
30:37 shoot things against it and test it and this
30:43 is what the team thinks the medieval siege device may have looked like
30:48 we've had to guess at the materials some people say it would have been cast like a belt others say it would have been
30:54 plaid in plate armor i think that would have been far too heavy one material used in medieval times
31:01 could have provided the strength of iron without its excessive weight
31:06 hardened leather is tough it's what armor was made of
31:12 during the middle ages a lot of poorer nights were clad in creole boiled letter
31:17 hardened tough leather
31:23 so much importance is placed on what this device is made of because of what scholars believe the structure was used
31:29 for getting men to the very walls of a castle under siege and surviving
31:39 as the siege bell drew near to its target it would have to repel attack from very close range if the men inside
31:46 were to survive so i'm going to give this the ultimate test we're in extreme close range less
31:53 than 10 yards and ben here is shooting a very very powerful bow of 80 pounds draw
31:58 weight with a heavy war arrow do your worst ben
32:03 [Music]
32:11 i expected that to punch right through
32:16 and it hasn't it's penetrated but it hasn't really penetrated that much
32:23 certainly one of the guys inside is bleeding but he's not dead that is remarkable stopping power i think if we
32:31 were to double this thickness we really would have something of genuine defensive capability
32:38 [Music] a second layer of leather would reduce
32:44 arrow penetration significantly and still allow the siege belt to be carried by two men
32:53 it is feasible that such a device could make it to the walls of a castle with its occupants alive
32:59 perhaps for those looking through talhoffer's arms catalogue and desiring the siege bell it is possible they could
33:05 acquire the information about its construction from the fightmaster at a price
33:12 the satisfied warlord could then deploy it in any way he saw fit placing a bomb
33:18 delivering a letter of ultimatum or retrieving a fallen comrade in the field of battle
33:25 but a castle under siege would have more than just arrows at its disposal
33:30 when i look at that it's designed for one thing and that is to withstand an
33:36 aerial shot if you're coming up to my walls and i've got broken masonry then i am going to hole them on top of you
33:45 [Music]
33:52 that has got a good structural shape and even very big boulders i think with that central strut in the middle the guys
33:59 inside their heads are going to be okay but the correct military knowledge
34:08 these drawings and talhoffer's manuscript have been transformed into a two-man siege bell
34:17 but it was the armor on a medieval night that took this protection a step further by allowing the individual inside a far
34:25 greater freedom of movement the nights featured in talhoffer's 1459
34:30 fight book are primarily involved in violent and bloody activities talhoffer was trained as a knight and
34:37 would know their ways intimately [Music]
34:44 the knights of the middle ages are far removed from the honorable warriors that we perceive them to be today
34:51 [Music] they were more akin to brigands some even robbing and killing rich
34:57 merchants that crossed their lands or battling each other in violent and deadly duels
35:06 ah we think of the middle ages as the knights in shining armor fighting under
35:12 the laws of chivalry but of course the truth was actually different
35:17 [Music] chivalry was an idea but the whole
35:22 concept of knighthood it was a cult of violence it was violent young men killing each
35:28 other or preferably killing innocent citizens
35:35 honorable knights rescuing damsels in distress isn't the only dubious portrayal of these medieval warriors
35:42 it was laurence olivier who was responsible for the misconception that armor was terribly heavy
35:48 in his film henry v he showed knights being lifted onto the horses by cranes
35:54 but in fact of course you couldn't fight if that was the case
36:10 [Music]
36:16 with many of talhoffer's plates dedicated to knights it suggests he was targeting serious
36:21 fighters to sell his services too but more specifically those with money
36:28 for a night's armor was expensive the term for an armor in the middle is a
36:34 harness and you can see it's like a harness it's all different bits that go on and every single bit has to be
36:41 tailor-made for the body anything that's not quite right will pinch and rub this
36:47 is probably about 60 pounds of metal on him but it's evenly distributed
36:54 and it gets a lot of its strength from its shape these are glancing surfaces
37:00 a sword will glance off them so these curves give quite thin plates remarkable
37:06 tensile strength
37:12 for it to be truly effective a knight's armor had to allow the freedom of movement to match the swiftness of a
37:18 lesser armored opponent on the battlefield [Music]
37:27 and also let a knight climb or mount a steed quickly
37:34 but the design couldn't compromise on its protective capabilities and it had to be able to withstand what
37:40 is perhaps the pinnacle of medieval metallogy the long sword
37:49 in many of his depictions of fighting techniques talhoffer reveals the weapon's deadly
37:54 efficiency the craftsmanship that went into these
38:01 blades meant that they had the potential of being the most formidable weapons during the middle ages
38:08 what i've got here is a talhoffer long sword it's based on one of the illustrations in his 1459 manual
38:16 this sword has a balance point about two inches in front of the guard
38:22 which means that the blade can rotate easily about that point
38:29 the heat treatment on a medieval long saw blade would have been incredibly sophisticated they were
38:36 making a blade that would both hold an edge and would also flex during use is quite amazing very very
38:42 sophisticated workmanship the heat treating on a sword is a
38:47 two-part process which is the quenching which makes the blade hard but ever so slightly brittle and then there's
38:53 tempering which is a lower temperature process of about 200 centigrade which makes the blade flexible again
39:01 it's combining an awful lot of things it's got devastating cutting power and fine balance
39:08 [Music]
39:14 but despite a medieval sword blades technology they still weren't able to cleave
39:20 through the hardened plate steel of a knight's armor with a sharp historically accurate
39:25 robust blade designed for fighting armor you're simply not going to get through to wound him with an edge blow it
39:32 doesn't matter how hard i hit him or where i hit him i can't cut through the
39:38 armor with edge but a blows plate in the fight book reveals a long
39:44 sword technique against a knight almost forgotten by the modern world
39:49 an unarmored man might be forced to fight an armored opponent due to rules stated in a judicial duel or in the
39:56 field of battle or beyond the city walls trying to escape from the robber knights
40:04 tahoeffer gives us the way of fighting a knight and beating him and that is through the techniques of half sorting
40:10 where we're going to try and get that point in his visor underneath his helmet into his groin behind his knee under his
40:17 arm where he would normally have a chain male armor protecting him
40:22 but even then the point is going to penetrate this technique of half swording
40:28 used on unarmored opponents and relied on the fact that some medieval blades were not sharp their
40:34 entire length and could be gripped when using specific fighting techniques
40:40 and one such move would make an opponent's armor almost irrelevant
40:46 the interesting features about this sword are that not just the blade is able to be used offensively the guard
40:53 and the pommel are both pointed and if you wanted to you could use those
40:59 as an active part of the weapon
41:04 tahoe telhofer shows that besides the point you also can use the hilt effectively to knock him about the head
41:11 to bash him with the pommel or the pummel may even be where the phrase to pummel someone to death comes from
41:17 striking with a hilt like this is like smashing with a warhammer it doesn't look very lethal but the mass and the
41:24 weight on it is actually has a tremendous amount of force behind it and it will knock him senseless
41:34 john clements is going to try these half sword techniques against a knight in full armor to test their effectiveness
41:51 [Music]
41:57 [Music] [Applause] i'm so dangerous and potentially deadly
42:04 in this thing that there's really not much i can do to try and hold back at all i mean i'm committed and once i'm
42:09 committed the suit has a weight and deadliness all to its own
42:16 fighting unarmored against an armored knight such as tel officer shows in his plate i felt obviously more agile and
42:24 quicker but it didn't make that much of a difference he wasn't so slow that i could take advantage of it i saw
42:30 openings but i can't get to them because he's all over the place but what i was able to do is hit with that hilt
42:40 we know these techniques we train these techniques to go all out and fully do it and to see that pommel smash and put a
42:46 dent in his armor and see him pause because of that blow that was uh that was enlightening
43:01 you're good
43:13 well and honestly i'm still feeling the effects of that pommel strike from the
43:18 from earlier when he hit me with the rear of his sword that the pommel on the end of it had so much
43:24 momentum carrying right through the armor that's actually making me sick
43:29 to my stomach and i'm having a hard time catching my breath and staying in the fight because
43:34 i'm just sick i felt it through my whole body this is the helmet uh he was wearing
43:40 here it's a historically accurate reproduction it's the right thickness of metal the right kind of metal and uh the
43:47 dents that were put on it it's not easy to dent this kind of helmet this kind of metal and when i threw the blow i could
43:53 see him react
43:59 i was frankly pretty darn surprised that uh i could get it in there with that kind of force we train hard we train in
44:05 these moves from tauhoffer and telhofer specifically shows this technique in his image of an unarmored fighter against an
44:12 armored fighter it really does validate that technique [Applause]
44:20 despite its brutal imagery and title talhafer's fight book was not entirely focused with the martial arts and
44:26 warfare contained within its pages is material
44:32 from many facets of life in the middle ages including this bizarre image
44:39 its purpose like many in the book is shrouded in mystery
44:44 these illustrations are extraordinary here we've got frogmen people in diving
44:51 suits this is 1459. [Music]
44:58 the head is covered with a hard helm be it that the water runs strongly then
45:04 you should burden yourself with weights so that you may submerge and emerge again too
45:10 talhoffer tells us so much in this manuscript there is so much information
45:15 but there's also little key bits of information missing and this is a classic example we've got a diving suit
45:23 but he doesn't actually explain where the oxygen comes from perhaps he needs
45:28 us to go to him to pay him to tell us what that missing bit of information is
45:35 but could a diving suit actually exist over 500 years ago
45:44 at the medieval center in denmark historians have built a diving suit from images taken from another 15th century
45:51 source but does this technology really work
45:56 this helmet is slightly different to the one that we see in the tel hofer manuscript
46:02 what we see depicted there is what's actually known as a frogmouth helmet very appropriately for a frogman it's a
46:09 frogmouth helmet which is used for jousting
46:21 the point is you need a solid helmet to put the air in basically what's gonna
46:27 happen is this is gonna act like an air bell a very simple primary technology
46:33 the first of its kind and i'm very glad that he's doing it and not me
46:49 although the secret to supplying air to a man underwater is not revealed
46:55 the likely technology required is contained within the manuscript
47:00 a set of bellows attached to an air bladder
47:08 historical engineers found that getting this technology to work wasn't as easy as they initially perceived
47:15 when you have a big amount of air in a big bellow that you need to compress to get it down to the diver you don't have
47:22 enough force to press it into the hose and down to a diver so we had to go back
47:28 and make three small bellows with very long levers on so you have a lot of power to pump the air
47:35 it's a lot of hard work to work the bellows they need to be pumped really hard and fast
47:40 to to get enough air down to the diver but i think we are about ready are you
47:45 ready guys ready one two three one two three one two three one two three one
47:53 two three we've got to buckle that front and back because as the air goes in
48:01 then this would float off once it's in water but already the guys are pumping
48:07 away here he goes down we've got to keep this
48:12 pipe straight and there he is in the water
48:18 really get pumping he's underwater now you can see the bubbles it's working
48:29 this is fantastic you can see this technology technology that was thought about probably before 1400 and it's
48:36 working that man is under water and he's breathing and he's breathing through this pipe for those guys pumping on
48:42 those bellows it's quite extraordinary the test you see here is limited to 10
48:49 minutes but in medieval times a diver could stay underwater for as
48:54 long as there was a supply of men to pump the bellows this is the technology that put men on
49:01 the moon the idea that mechanical contraptions can override our biological
49:08 limitations good job
49:13 the hammock yeah how was that fine you're not you're not wet there you ready the water and it's
49:19 only wet to here no problem your whole face is dry it's extraordinary his whole face is dry
49:26 the diving suit is one of the medieval world's great achievements and the version depicted in talhoffer's
49:33 manuscript appears to be more advanced than the suit the team in denmark has just tested
49:40 it is closer in design to the closed air systems we have today and is more maneuverable and better
49:46 fitted with the air likely designed to escape from the sleeves and not around the face
49:54 talhoffer does not reveal why the diving suit was used and possibly this
50:00 and all the other information the fightmaster excludes from his manuscript is the answer to the image of him
50:06 holding a broken chain could it be that talhoffer was the missing link that made his 1459 fight
50:14 book complete for this manuscript offers us a glimpse
50:20 into the violent and complicated world that we're only just beginning to truly
50:26 understand

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