Posted on 09/19/2005 3:32:59 PM PDT by blam
I drink colder beer 6'3.5". ;D
"Mostly fatter. I don't think modern Americans grasp just how sinewy and lean people were before all the modern advances that allow us to put on pounds with such ease."
Yes, mostly thinner.
But the real difference, primarily, is cigarettes.
Everyone smoked back then.
It's hell on long term health, but it does keep people a lot thinner.
This is the REAL reason for the French paradox. The French eat a lot of fat, every day. And starch. And they drink. But they are still quite slender on average. (The French in Louisiana and Canada are NOT, but have the same genes, maybe even more concentrated due to inbreeding).
HOW?
The answer lies in tobacco.
There were ads from the 1910s and 1920s specifically aimed at selling women's cigarettes as an alternative to eating bon-bons. The point of the advertisements was that cigarettes will keep you thin and attractive, but bon-bons will make you a cow.
Now, I'll warrant that the tradeoff is not, perhaps, the most healthful thing one can imagine.
And yet at the bottom it is true: tobacco IS one of the few known appetite suppressants, and smoking it does indeed seem to have the effect of keeping smokers more slender.
It explains the French paradox.
And it is the secret to all of those slender folks from the earlier generations.
Smoking might have killed them in their 60s, but it kept them thinner in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
Beyond that, the medieval swords were not really designed for cutting so much as puncturing. A knight's blade is no rapier, but is really shaped like a metal punch, which, of course, it is. It's purpose was to be driven straight forward, to puncture armor.
Once gunpowder made heavy armor an obsolescent nuisance, swords got lighter, longer, and more aimed at cutting or puncturing flesh.
Robust ?
I would argue with you but the first year after I quit smoking I gained a whopping 40 pounds. That was three years ago, and so far, I've only lost half of what I gained.
As I understand it, the knights, especially, had to be physically fit, and were usually taller than most men, because they had to pack all that armor around. In order to fight with 60-100 extra pounds or so, a man had to be healthy enough to move easily.
Draft horses were developed to carry the men in armor, and were often armored themselves. They are now used as work horses (Busweiser Clydesdales and such) or just for show. Before tractors became the method for taking care of the fields, the draft horses were used to pull the equipment.
Hey, TC! Fancy meeting you here!
I'm 5'9" (5'10" before spinal surgery) and I wear a size 8 shoe, and size 6 ring. My hands and feet suffered mild frostbite during several winters when I was a kid, or I'm sure I would be wearing at least size 9 shoes and rings. I always look like my feet are too small to carry my height.
I have some pretty tall ancestors, but my dad was 5'8" and my mother was 5'2". I had three brothers, and I'm taller than all of them. My sisters are all 5'3" and under. Go figger.
All wish to argue with this, because the world wants that which is bad for us to be purely bad, and that which is good for us to be terribly good. Moreover, Americans are Puritanical in nature, and those who oppose tobacco and demon rum want them to be pure evil. Sometimes they will even generate science that pretends they are.
But of course some alcohol is good for you.
Worse, the longest lived races in the world: Japanese and Armenians, smoke in moderation. And those among the very long-lived also have a tendency to smoke in moderation.
This is not an argument for smoking.
It's just one of those Janus-faced realities.
Smoking is bad for your lungs.
In some moderation, it keeps you thin.
In some moderation, it relaxes you, which is probably good for you.
Best not to smoke.
But since the whole society has decided not to smoke, do not let the scientists stampede you by telling you that America has become fat because of some radical difference in food habits. No. What happened was that Americans stopped using their native tobacco, but kept on eating. And they got fatter than they were because of the loss of tobacco. As French people give up smoking, they get fatter too.
It's a funny old world, and God obviously has a wicked sense of humor.
- Diet; Through most of the middle ages the Martial Classes had better food due to the feudal structure (they ate more red meat than any other class).
- Exercise; From the time they could walk the Martial Classes were pushed physically, they started riding at an early age, went on frequent hunts, and in general did martial activities that geared their bodies towards combat. This is not to say that the serf didn't do hard work, but rather that the lack of diet, coupled with continual labor didn't incline a serf for martial prowess.
- Throughout most of the middle ages armour weighed less than 40 lbs, usually because this was cuir bolli (boiled leather), or chain maille. In the 14th century the steel suit came into fashion (and yes it was a fashion statement rather than any practicality) partially because of water driven smithies, and partially because of better mining. This caused armour to become heavier, but even the heaviest armour was no more than 65 lbs. (Consequently the same amount of gear the average marine or soldier packs in the U.S. military today). - The myth that Knights were taller is just that. There has been medical research in this area and most men of the martial class would fit on the bell curve with the rest of the population. - The Clydesdale is a modern breed, as are most draft horses. The closest living breed to the war horse is assumed to be the Belgian draft horse (the line that is the purest descendant from the Great Horse). Even today, it is argued that the Belgian Draft Horse has been bred for size and is now too bastardized to fully qualify as a legitimate heir of the Great Horse. The larger draft horses would be impractical for a knight for several reasons (withers too high, consumes too much food, etc). Considering that these horses were used for war only and were not even ridden until battle, a larger bodied horse would be a liability for most of the year.
Tell that to the girls I see out and about that look me straight in the eye or down on me........
They exceed the average height of a man
Hi! I'm just under 5'4", but have larger than average hands and feet. Mysteries of genetics ...
my brother is five years older than me and he grew tall at a early age and he didn't stop until he was 6'5 when he was about 15 years old. I used to make fun of him and he said he felt sorry that I was the second born and he pointed out families that we knew where the second child was the tallest and he said it would be worse for me because I was a girl. It scared the heck out of me. I was 5'6&1/2" by the eighth grade and thankfully, I stopped at that height.
Indeed, and the "knight's vault" is not merely a matter of legend. One of the martial arts practiced by the well-trained medieval knight was the ability to vault from the ground, in full armor, without the use of stirrups.
We should properly think of the knights-errant, the tournament and king's champion types, as the professional athletes of the Middle Ages, for that is what they were. The average man cannot be trained to vault into a saddle with 80 pounds of gear (armor, plus helm, plus shield, plus sword and dagger), but the top football players (not linemen) soccer players, professional wrestlers or basketball players could do it.
One of the reasons that a ridiculously small number of armored knights could subdue a whole town could be described thus: take 5 professional heavyweight boxers. Wrap them in cloth and metal armor such that they cannot be harmed by a punch. Take all of the guns away from a hundred spectators, and have the spectators in their street clothes. Give the spectators nothing more than wooden clubs and maybe some kitchen knives. Give the boxers great big swords. Lock the doors and ring the bell. At the end of the match, 100 dead spectators, 5 living armored boxers, maybe with a few bruises.
I should add that the knight's vault was a vault from the ground, fully armed, INTO THE SADDLE of his horse.
Also, there's a reason warhorses were not kept around as breeds. They were man killers. Mean, bred to be mean. Trained to be killers, but already wild pit bulls of the equine race. And stallions. Knights rode stallions. Not geldings. Not mares. Stallions. So, you've got a breed of big aggressive stallions, equine pit bulls, bred for a violent disposition, trained to kill men.
Once armored knights ceased to be the panzer divisions of the middle ages thanks to weapons technology, what use was there for mankilling violent horses? Not the sort of breed you'd want to have out there pulling your plow, or a carriage. And they were not particularly fast, so not the sort of breed you would want for the speed of light cavalry.
In the Victorian/Edwardian eras, both in America and in England, the poor were, for the most part, very much thinner and shorter than those who were wealthy.
Unlike today's obsession with muscular bodies, in earlier times, muscles denoted the poor/working class and were NOT something that the upper middle and upper classes found attractive.
But you speak of the Renaissance, when war was conducted by paid armies.
In the Middle Ages, war was the sport of the nobility, and it was their raison d'etre. Effeminacy was not just a social matter, it was potentially lethal.
What you wrote is true in 1600.
What I wrote was true in 1200.
Times changed.
In 1600, being a slender male with foppy clothing, or a fat female with pale skin, certainly was a sign of beauty.
Also, individual combat, in the form of a duel, was a matter of agility with a rapier, armor having been rendered quite useless by gunpowder and arquebuses.
In 1200, being in power was the drive of the warrior class, and being in power meant war and combat. Lots of it. War and combat pre-gunpowder meant armor, and very heavy swords to puncture armor, and big, mean horses, not to mention the attitude that went with it. The light little man-waifs of Renaissance Italy and the French and English courts, with their fine silk stockings, were a different breed from the coarse, mean armored killers on ridiculously violent horses of 400 years before.
Diet was also different by then. In 1200, there were no potatoes, or rice, or sugar, or much in the way of spices (salt, garlic, some bitter herbs). There was no corn. There was meat and wheat and oats. Fruit was limited just about to wild plums, apples, pears in some places. Interestingly, the diet of the European got much, much worse in the 19th Century with industrialization, because starch, starch and more starch became the staple. By 1600, you had some real cities, places of disease, and you started to get a shrivelled class. In 1200, knights ate lots of meat, but farmers had quite a bit too, considering that they grew it. And there wasn't much in the way of cities to enervate the populations and reduce their strength.
It would be interesting, if we could go back in time and see it first-hand, to see how much different the world was 400 years ago, in 1600 from now, but also from 400 years before that, in 1200.
I think we should find both places pretty nasty, but if I had to choose between the two...I think I should prefer 1200 over 1600.
Climate differences, too. 1200 was nearing the end of a long warm trend, while 1600 was in the Little Ice Age. Iirc, the last time the Thames froze solid was ... 1815?
Of course, none of them had antibiotics, anesthesia, or air conditioning, but then, they didn't have fire ants, either.
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