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Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

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Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#211

Post by m_mueller »

defen wrote: post #136
m_mueller wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at what's called the 'infantry revolution' started by the Swiss and later the German Landsknechts. Starting in the 1300s, the role of knights in battles got lessened by this, until they were basically only a flanking tool in most armies. It was basically a reinvention of the Greek phalanx. Edit: This YouTube series shows it best I think: https://youtu.be/6KbroTkaey0

I'm not talking about pitched battles though; more the logistics of even engaging horsemen in battle if you don't have your own horses.

There are enough examples of victories of pure infantry armies against knights from that time period. I think your points apply more in the period between 1000 and 1300.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#212

Post by mdiesel »

questionfor wrote: post #178
Sander_Marechal wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being the target of a cavalry charge is absolutely terrifying even for hardened soldiers. There is very little chance of fighting effectively when everyone around you is fleeing or being pressed together. And you're being charged by a 2-ton armored war machine. Or dozens of them. I'm a reenactor. It's even terrifying when you know it's fake and you know you're safe. Knights did loose horses though. They all took mult…

> When they lost their horse, they fought their way back to their own side and got on the next horse. Oh interesting, so it was basically expected? Not a force majeure? I always thought losing a horse back then was a really big event for the knight, borderline tragic - a big financial loss, a highly increased likelihood of dying (getting stuck under the horse etc etc)

"My kingdom for a horse" being the famous cry of Richard III, though he carried on fighting on foot in the play before being killed by Richmond. When they found his body a few years ago he'd died of head wounds implying that he'd ended the battle on foot.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#213

Post by hodgesrm »

jimmyhachahacha wrote: post #118
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #17

In the Annals of St Bertin there's mention of an attack by the Danes (Vikings) on a region of Francia in 859 AD, where the peasants formed an association to defend themselves and fought off the Vikings, and drove them off without the assistance of the Carolingian rulers. This is reported by the Carolingians as brave but immoral, because Charlemagne had banned any such associations or militias, and military service wa…

I don't think these two events, the Danes raid and the rebellion crush are linked outside of one making the author remind itself about the second. The French translation from Latin http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/anonyme/annales.htm [859] says: > Les Danois dévastent les pays au-delà de l'Escaut. Le commun peuple des pays entre Seine et Loire, conjuré entre soi, résiste courageusement aux Danois établis sur l…

Thanks for your citation. I was able to get through to the original Latin text [1]. It is ambiguous.

Dani loca ultra Scaldem populantur. Vulgus promiscuum inter Sequanam et Ligerum inter se coniurans adversus Danos in Sequana consistentes, fortiter resistit; sed quia incaute suscepta est eorum coniuratio, a potentioribus nostris facile interficiuntur.

Which translates roughly as follows. (I'm not a medieval Latin scholar so some meanings may be off.)

The Danes plunder the areas beyond the Scheldt River. The common people between the Seine and Loire, allying themselves [or: conspiring] against the Danes residing on the Seine, fight strongly; but because their alliance [or: conspiracy] was undertaken without care, they are easily killed by our more powerful [troops].

It does not say explicitly whom the commoners were fighting. The word used for their alliance also means conspiracy and can be quite negative. It's the same word used in the phrase "Conspiracy of Cataline."

p.s. It's mind-blowing what you can find on the Internet.

[1] https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_ss_1/index.htm#page/452/mode/1up

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#214

Post by scottlocklin »

questionfor wrote: post #159

People who suggest that knights could be defeated by peasants in one-on-one or even one-on-many combat often overlook that many (or most?) knights spent their time practicing how to kill people in combat. Peasants on the other hand were busy tending to their land or cattle or doing whatever they had to survive. The modern analogy for adult peasant fighting an adult knight would be a bar fight between a random bystand…

It's not clear that knightly training was as useful as UFC training. Ineffective martial arts were a big deal for literal decades before the Gracie family came along, I guess because people didn't want to put in a mouth guard and see what happens. How often did the knights actually see combat, as opposed to train for combat, and do non-lethal sparring? The one form of training which is of undoubted utility is group tactics, but it's unclear what the non-mounted training was for this sort of thing for most times/places.

You're also probably discounting what peasant style manual labor (and hobbies, which include beating the shit out of each other with fists, clubs, etc) does for your combat ability. Hand and wrist strength is a huge deal in pre-firearms days, and peasants were at least 3-4 standard deviations stronger in these ways than average people now (really: that much -I've fooled around with building hand strength and it's bonkers how strong people can get in this domain). People basically exerted their strength through simple hafted tools all day; makes them good at exerting their strength through simple hafted tools all day. Regarding group tactics; peasants had lots of games which could have helped them with this. For example, Hurling[0], and I'm sure there was lots of stuff like Calcio Storico[1].

The real advantage the knights had (beyond equipment, like horses and the morale of feeling superior to the peasant) was probably nutrition. They spent most of their downtime hunting, feasting and eating meat, and between wearing heavy armor and their strength oriented workouts, the knights were probably pretty jacked. 50 or 100lbs of muscle and fat and 6-8" of height helps a lot. I don't have references in front of me for this, but David Willoughby talks about some of this in his book, and I'm sure you can see it in skeletons of Nobles versus peasants (aka Nobles will have larger skeletons with 'deformities' at the muscle attachment points).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVJEvtkFKBc

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#215

Post by C1sc0cat »

Beached wrote: post #56
ynac wrote: post #42

It makes one wonder how the modern equals would do? Yes, we have street fights / protests between "soldiers" and pedestrians. Each equipped with their standard tools - lopsided as they may be. The question becomes more of a matter of context for a modern battle. What is a modern knight and what is a modern peasant in 2020 and also, what locale? (We could also use a booklist for this discussion - I keep bringing back…

modern night would be a standard equiped military soldier from a first world country. modern peasant would be an average civilian from a third world country?

Il just leave this from Kipling

"A scrimmage in a Border Station- A canter down some dark defile Two thousand pounds of education Drops to a ten-rupee jezail. The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride, Shot like a rabbit in a ride! "

You'd just change "ten-rupee jezail" to a second hand AK

And plenty of "third" world civilians have guns

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#216

Post by romanoderoma »

romanoderoma wrote: post #171
jxramos wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeesh, sort of the exact opposite of a 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

It's so ourageous isn't it? a thousand years before the 2nd amendment was conceived, peasant had other preoccupations than bearing expensive, heavy, difficult to handle arms. What were they thinking? Did they not love freedom? It's so incredible that they did not copy the US Constitution, even though the first Constitution in the human history /, the Magna Charts, was written 4 centuries later than the Annales Bertin…

Seriously guys, 2nd amendment was written in 1791, the Annales Bertiniani are from 840.

The idea that the 2nd amendment protects the peasants is also wrong and it's one of the reasons people laugh at USA, when the 2nd amendment was approved, Grand Duchy of Tuscany had already abolished death penalty.

2nd amendment was introduced to permit people to shoot tax collectors (i.e. the British)

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#217

Post by hamilyon2 »

tshaddox wrote: post #126
taneq wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a civilian can't kill an armoured vehicle, because if they can kill an armoured vehicle they aren't a civilian?

That’s not so crazy, is it? “Civilian” is used in the thought experiment to refer to an expected level of training, experience, and equipment. You wouldn’t reasonably expect a “civilian” in this context to have an RPG or an attack aircraft. The clear point of the thought experiment is “would a civilian be able to kill an armored vehicle with the level of training, experience, and equipment that would reasonably be ex…

In some countries, most civilians are former soldiers.

Knowing how to destroy an armored vehicle is not a common knowledge around where I live.

It is given for granted however that around the world people are creative, can learn new things, and generally could figure out how to make explosives.

And I guess they still qualify as civilians.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#218

Post by romanoderoma »

kebman wrote: post #208
jxramos wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeesh, sort of the exact opposite of a 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

It's one of the reasons the 2nd Amendment was written; to avoid tyrannical rule, and to allow the "peasants" (regular people) to revolt if a tyrant ever took power.

You don't need the right to bear arms to revolt to tyrants.

There is no similar right in any other part of the World, in every other part of the World there have been revolts, sometimes much larger than US has ever witnessed.

Many countries have also revolted against USA, that more often than not has been the tryrant.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#219

Post by prepend »

romanoderoma wrote: post #218
kebman wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the reasons the 2nd Amendment was written; to avoid tyrannical rule, and to allow the "peasants" (regular people) to revolt if a tyrant ever took power.

You don't need the right to bear arms to revolt to tyrants. There is no similar right in any other part of the World, in every other part of the World there have been revolts, sometimes much larger than US has ever witnessed. Many countries have also revolted against USA, that more often than not has been the tryrant.

It’s not a requirement, but it certainly helps.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#220

Post by WJW »

kebman wrote: post #208
jxramos wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeesh, sort of the exact opposite of a 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

It's one of the reasons the 2nd Amendment was written; to avoid tyrannical rule, and to allow the "peasants" (regular people) to revolt if a tyrant ever took power.

As a European I've always thought that this bit of US law has not aged all that well. Imagine a tyrant takes hold of the US armed forces and uses that to overthrow the rest of government so they can rule alone. The US armed forces have equipment going up to tanks, fighter jets, bombers, drones and nuclear weapons. A militia is going to struggle to field even heavy machine guns, let alone an air force. I doubt they'd have the logistics either.

In short, 2nd amendment militias don't seem a very realistic deterrent to a modern army.

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